The shortlist for the Polaris prize, Canada's equivalent of the Mercury, Choice, etc, has just been announced. It's always a list that's worth checking out - they've been making fine music in Canada for the last few years.

Anyway, here's this year's shortlist: I only know Malajube, Metric and Patrick Watson - anyone have any tips on the others?

Elliott Brood, 'Mountain Meadows'
Fucked Up, 'The Chemistry of Common Life'
Great Lake Swimmers, 'Lost Channels'
Hey Rosetta!, 'Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood)'
K'naan, 'Troubadour'
Malajube, 'Labyrinthes'
Metric, 'Fantasies'
Joel Plaskett, 'Three'
Chad VanGaalen, 'Soft Airplane'
Patrick Watson, 'Wooden Arms'
 
Full details available on www.polarismusicprize.ca. The winner will be announced in September.

Great Lake Swimmers are worth a glance.

So is this Polaris prize just for the anglophone music scene in Canada? Or does it address what is coming out of the Fr3ench speaking community as well? I may be mistaken but I don't recongise any French speaking Canadian acts on the shortlist... I was mistaken, I forgot about Malajube.

So, rephrasing the question, is the list dominated by English speaking acts?

at least one french speaking act, thats at least one more french speaking act than an irish speaking act on the Choice list?

Talk of French-speaking and Irish-speaking acts is redundant - are the tunes good or not? Otherwise we're getting into tokenism. France's equivalent of this sort of album prize, the Prix Constantin, was won last year by someone who sings in English and Yoruba.

Posted By aidan on 21 Jul 2009 02:05 AM
Talk of French-speaking and Irish-speaking acts is redundant - are the tunes good or not? Otherwise we're getting into tokenism. France's equivalent of this sort of album prize, the Prix Constantin, was won last year by someone who sings in English and Yoruba.

I thought these sort of prizes were all about tokenism?  How else can the Mercury justify the token jazz and token hip-hop albums they include every year?

And so Fucked Up won it: a bit shouty for my tastes but there you are, makes a change from Arcade Fire and Patrick Watson: