Polaris Music Prize

Jury and selection process

There is no submission process or entry fee for the Polaris Music Prize. Jurors select what they consider to be the five best Canadian albums released in the previous year. The ballots are tabulated with each number one pick awarded five points, a number two pick awarded four points and so on. A long list of 40 titles is tabulated, released in mid June and promoted to the public. The long list is then sent back to the jury. The jurors then re-submit five top picks from this long list.

These ballots are re-tabulated and the top ten titles form the Polaris short list. This list is released in early July and promoted to the public. The ultimate winner is decided by a smaller group of 11 jury members ("The Grand Jury") who convene in Toronto at the Polaris Music Prize gala in late September, and the decision is finalized during the gala as the nominated bands perform. Grand jurors are selected so that each of the shortlisted albums has one person in the jury room to advocate for it; ten are selected on the basis of having named one of the shortlisted albums as their top pick in the balloting, while the remaining jury position is given to a person who had voted for none of the shortlisted albums.

Jurors are selected by the Polaris Music Prize board of directors. The jury list includes more than 200 Canadian music journalists, bloggers and broadcasters. To ensure an impartial outcome, no one with direct financial relationships with artists is eligible to become a jury member. The organization itself is a registered, not-for-profit corporation. Another key benefit of enlisting music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers as judges is the increased media coverage and creates the conditions to draw attention to quality music in a cluttered commercial landscape and increasingly fractured music scene.

Notable jurors have included former MuchMusic VJs Hannah Sung and Hannah Simone, Toronto Star music columnists Ben Rayner and John Sakamoto, Darryl Sterdan (Winnipeg Sun), Mike Bell (Calgary Herald), Stuart Derdeyn (Vancouver Province), Stephen Cooke (The Chronicle Herald), T'Cha Dunlevy (Montreal Gazette), Sandra Sperounes (Edmonton Journal), Brad Wheeler (The Globe and Mail), Alan Ranta (Exclaim!), Explore Music broadcaster Alan Cross, CBC Radio personalities Jowi Taylor, Patti Schmidt, Jian Ghomeshi, Matt Galloway, Grant Lawrence, Lana Gay, Lisa Christiansen and Amanda Putz, Voir music journalists Stéphane Martel, Patrick Baillargeon and Olivier Robillard-Laveaux and The Hour host George Stroumboulopoulos.

On November 3, 2014 Jian Ghomeshi, the disgraced former CBC Q host and host of the very first Polaris Gala, was dropped from the Polaris juror pool. Polaris officials have made no official announcement on the subject.

Polaris Heritage Prize

In 2015, the Polaris jury also launched the Polaris Heritage Prize, an annual award program to honour classic Canadian albums released prior to the creation of the Polaris Prize. Each year, the Heritage Prize will present four awards to one album from each of four time periods.

In the first year, the Heritage Prizes were awarded in the categories 1960s-70s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000-2005, selected by public vote from a shortlist of five nominees. In the second year, the process and categories were revised with the initial shortlists increased to 10, the categories shifted to 1960-75, 1976-85, 1986-1995 and 1996-2005, and the addition of a second prize to be selected by a critical jury alongside the winner of the public vote. The purpose of the jury award is to ensure that albums which were artistically important, but not necessarily as commercially popular, still have a fair shot at being selected as winners; to ensure that two different albums are selected, however, the jury does not meet to vote on its choice until after the popular vote winner has been determined.

Non-winning nominees in a Heritage Prize category can be renominated again in a future year.

Controversies

The Polaris Music Prize can be the subject of intense scrutiny from fans, media and music industry insiders. A number of recurring debates have emerged throughout Polaris' history. Some of these include: perception the prize is either too "indie" or too "mainstream," concern about gender balance amongst nominees and jurors, concern about racial balance amongst nominees and jurors, concern about geographical representation amongst nominees and jurors, and concern about fair representation of specific musical genres. These topics are discussed at length during the open-to-the-public "Polaris Salons" which usually feature Polaris jurors as panelists in various cities across North America during the lead-up to each year's Polaris Gala.

Polaris Prize winners are often the centre of specific controversies as well.

Polaris Prize Music Releases

In 2006 compilation CD/souvenir program guides featuring one song each from every Short List artist were given out at the Polaris Gala. The same was done in 2007 with all Short List artists contributing to the compilation CD except Arcade Fire.

Between 2008–2011, the souvenir program guides instead included download cards for recipients to obtain one song from each of the nominated Short List artists.

Polaris began releasing promotional split seven-inch singles beginning in 2012 which were separate from the souvenir program guides. These singles were often given away through campaigns with independent record stores, via contests, at Polaris Salons, or at Polaris Galas.

2012

Feist and Drake did not participate.

2013

Godspeed You! Black Emperor did not participate.

2014

Drake did not participate.

Additionally, Polaris, the Banff Centre and Scion Sessions teamed up for a collaborative residency project featuring past Short List artists Shad and Holy Fuck. The result was the Scion Sessions-sponsored Holy Shad "Legend of Cy Borg Parts I and II" seven-inch single as well as a documentary video produced by AUX TV.

Presentation Venues