Polaris Music Prize Long List Announced

Stage two of the year-long journey towards naming the best album in Canada happened today with the winnowing of all the suggested albums–some 200-ish, all from many, many, many music writers and critics from across the country (stage one)–down to the forty semifinalists on the Long List. The announcement was made in Halifax today (June 16).

The Long List is as follows. NOTE: You can stream every one of these albums in their entirety here.

1. Absolutely Free – Absolutely Free
2. The Acorn – Vieux Loup
3. Lydia Ainsworth – Right From Real
4. Alvvays – Alvvays
5. Arkells – High Noon
6. Rich Aucoin – Ephemeral
7. BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah – Sour Soul
8. Bahamas – Bahamas Is Afie
9. The Barr Brothers – Sleeping Operator
10. Braids – Deep In The Iris
11. Steph Cameron – Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady
12. Caribou – Our Love
13. Jazz Cartier – Marauding In Paradise
14. Jennifer Castle – Pink City
15. Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity
16. Louis-Jean Cormier – Les grandes artères
17. Death From Above 1979 – The Physical World
18. Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
19. Frazey Ford – Indian Ocean
20. Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon
21. B.A. Johnston – Shit Sucks
22. Pierre Kwenders – Le dernier empereur Bantou
23. Lee Harvey Osmond – Beautiful Scars
24. Jean Leloup – À Paradis City
25. METZ – II
26. Milk & Bone – Little Mourning
27. Tre Mission – Stigmata
28. The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers
29. Joel Plaskett – The Park Avenue Sobriety Test
30. Buffy Sainte-Marie – Power In The Blood
31. Elizabeth Shepherd – The Signal
32. Siskiyou – Nervous
33. Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld – Never were the way she was
34. Various Artists – Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country, 1966-1985
35. Viet Cong – Viet Cong
36. Patrick Watson – Love Songs For Robots
37. The Weather Station – Loyalty
38. White Lung – Deep Fantasy
39. Whitehorse – Leave No Bridge Unburned
40. Young Guv – Ripe 4 Luv

The Long List will be reduced to the ten finalists of the Short List July 16 (that’s stage three) with the with winner being declared at the annual gala in Toronto on September 22 (stage four, natch).