AKA the parents’ guide to Canadian indie music.

In my previous post, I talked about the ages-old quagmire all parents face regarding new music; It’s out there, but I don’t have time to go looking. Well, both before and after I became a dad, I found the Polaris Music Prize to be one of the best delivery systems for discovering great new artists and their albums.

So seriously, WTF is the Polaris Prize?

So glad you asked. From Wikipedia:

The Polaris Music Prize is a music award annually given to the best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label. The award was established in 2006 with a $20,000 cash prize; the prize was increased to $30,000 for the 2011 award

Since then, it’s increased to $40,000 and this year – $50,000. Artists who’ve won this award include Feist, Fucked Up, Caribou, Patrick Watson and (my personal fave) Tanya Tagaq.

While Arcade Fire and Drake (both multiple nominees) have found worldwide success, the story isn’t as rosy for other Canadian artists. Making music for a living in Canada is often a bleak picture for artists. That’s why this award is so important. Politics aside (and oh my god are there a lot of politics), Polaris helps people like me (and hopefully you) discover artists they may never have been exposed to. I would never have started listening to Timber Timbre, Braids or Viet Cong (ugh that name tho) without them, and the list grows every year.

Thanks for the history lesson. Where’s the music, man?

I don’t know why I created a secondary voice for this, and then made that voice so impatient, but here we are.

In the spirit of the other reviews I’ve done for this blog, I’m going to spend the next 10 entries doing short reviews of each artist on the Polaris Prize shortlist. I myself am thrilled with the choices on the list, so it’ll be a pleasure. And it may have been a looong time since you gave some new music a listen, so I’m going to offer some similar artists, as well as a handful of tracks for each album that I think are standouts. Also true to the old reviews, I’ll be building a small Spotify playlist you can listen to. By the end there should be a good 60 or so tracks to enjoy.

The nominees:

I’m just going to throw the graphic from the Polaris Prize website right here. All rights etc.

On Monday I’ll start with Black Mountain, a band who just blew my mind live at the Wayhome Music & Arts festival. I’m also looking forward to reviewing a Carly Rae Jepsen album in earnest. This is going to be great.