For those who enjoy good music

Many people who know me, probably know that I espouse Canadian independent music any time I possibly can. While, here I go again...

For those who don't know, the Polaris Music Prize is the name of the prize given annually since 2006 to the best Canadian recording of the year based solely on creative, artistic merit (Junos = farce). Irrespective of sales or genre. Most importantly, no Nickleback.

Every album over 30 minutes/8 tracks in length released during the calender year between June 1 and May 31 is eligible. A jury of 180 members made up of all sorts of canadian folks who review and program music both profesionally and in their spare time vote for their top 5 albums. These are tallied and a long list of 40 albums is released. The same process happens again and a short list of 10 albums is named. Finally a subset of 11 jurors are selected and during the night of the Polaris gala, are sequestered in the back room and duke it out until they select the winner. Wicked.

Of course, it's not junt an honour, but there is a $20,000 prize that goes along with it. Not bad for independent musicians.

The short list was released on July 7. I'm ok with the nominated artists, although a couple of my favourites didn't make it from the long list. I'm still listening to albums, but I'd love to see Hey Rosetta! or the Great Lake Swimmers bring the prize home.

Below, courtesy of CBC Radio 3 (my link to all music Canadian while here in Zürich) is a track from each of the nominated albums from the short list (skip forward or backward or...gasp...stop the music with the miniplayer). Listen at your lesiure and I hope you find something you like (if you do, head over to Radio 3's website for even more content).

Enjoy.