Written by Adam A. Donaldson
Wednesday, 08 July 2009 17:35
At the Drake Hotel in Toronto yesterday, Steve Jordan, Founder and Executive Director of the Polaris Music Prize, announced which Canadian bands had made the Short List as the 10 Canadian albums eligible for the annual Polaris Music Prize. This is the fourth year that the

prize has been given out, a $20,000 award for the band deemed to have the Canadian album of the year as voted upon by a jury of 182 music journalists, broadcasters, bloggers and programmers.
“If there’s a common thread to these records, it’s that each artist built on previous successes by pushing themselves into even riskier artistic dimensions,” said Jordan. “Listeners will find the jury picked quite an ambitious crop this year. This is exactly the kind of artistry that Polaris aims to support,”
Previous Polaris winners have included Toronto’s Final Fantasy with
He Poos Clouds in 2006, Montréal’s Patrick Watson with
Close To Paradise in 2007 and Caribou’s
Andorra in 2008. According to Polaris’ publicity, this is the first time in the award’s first four years there have been repeat nominees on the Short List. Retuning nominees include K’NAAN, Malajube and Metric, who also made the cut in 2006, while Joel Plaskett, Chad VanGaalen and Patrick Watson each made the 2007 short list. In another first, there are no debut albums featured in the Top 10 finalists.
“The Polaris Music Prize is a celebration of amazing Canadian music and that is exactly what MuchMusic has always been about,” said Brad Schwartz, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, The Much MTV Group, CTV Inc.. “We’re excited to bring this event to the famous
Concert Hall that has hosted performances by the biggest names in music, past and present. The history of this iconic venue makes it the perfect location to honour these incredible musicians and their records.”
Here are the Top 10 nominees in alphabetical order:

Elliott BROOD (Toronto, ON) –
Mountain Meadows F***ed Up (Toronto, ON) –
The Chemistry Of Common Life Great Lake Swimmers (Toronto, ON) –
Lost Channels Hey Rosetta! (St. John’s, NF) –
Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) K’NAAN (Toronto, ON) –
Troubadour Malajube (Montréal, QC) –
Labyrinthes Metric (Toronto, ON) –
Fantasies Joel Plaskett (Halifax, NS) –
Three Chad VanGaalen (Calgary, AB) –
Soft Airplane Patrick Watson (Montréal, QC) –
Wooden Arms The winner of the Polaris Music Prize will be announced on Monday September 21st at an invite only gala at the Concert Hall at Toronto’s Masonic Temple. The gala will be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio channel 86, and webcast live on muchmusic.com. MuchMusic will be producing the television broadcast, air dates to be announced.
For more information on the Polaris Music Award go to, http://www.polarismusicprize.ca/
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