The Polaris Poll So Far: Expanding the Discussion

I want to point out, right at the start that the goal of this is not to disparage the Polaris Prize - their jurors are smart people, and they do an amazing job of narrowing hundreds of albums down to 40, then 10 and then 1. (Wait until the shadow Juno awards - that's when we'll be disparaging). However, if the purpose of the Polaris Music Prize is, as they say, to stimulate conversation about great Canadian albums from the past year then this is a worthwhile exercise both as part of that conversation and to expand that conversation to some albums that were not selected by the Polaris Jury.

Voting in our Shadow Polaris poll has only been open for two days and there are almost 20 days left for people to vote in round one. At this point in the process 10-20 votes for an artist could dramatically shift their fortunes but looking at the list this morning I couldn't help but be very, very proud of NxEW's readers for their exceptional taste. This is just a snapshot of the voting - things are changing by the hour, but the list below contains what would be the top 40 if the voting were to close right now and 27 of the 40 are albums that did not make the Polaris Long List and so the conversation is expanded.

Again, when Polaris releases their short list we'll start a second round of voting with just the Top 20 from our poll. The second round will narrow it down to 10 and the third round to 1 and we'll announce our winner on the same day that Polaris announces theirs. Our winner won't get 20 thousand dollars but they'll at least get some love.

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The Top 40 Right Now
(alphabetical order - an artists place on this list has nothing to do with their actual place in the poll. Names in bold indicate that the artist is also on the Polaris Long List.)

AC Newman - Get Guilty
Andrew Vincent - Rotten Pear
the Arkells - Jackson Square
Attack in Black - Years (By One Thousand Fingertips)
Bend Sinister - Stories of Brothers - Tales of Lovers
Black Hat Brigade - Fathers
Brian Borcherdt - Coyotes
Bruce Peninsula - AMIAM
the Burning Hell - Baby
the CFL Sessions
Chad Van Gaalen - Soft Airplane
Charles Spearin - the Happiness Project
Cour de Pirate - Self Titled
The Dears - Missiles
Deep Dark Woods - Winter Hours
Elliot Brood - Mountain Meadows
Gentleman Reg - Jet Black
the Grass Mountain Hobos - Self Titled
Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels
Handsome Furs - Face Control
Hey Rosetta! - Into Your Lungs
Hot Panda - Volcano Bloody Volcano
Jenn Grant - Echoes
Jill Barber - Chances
Joel Plaskett - Three
Jon-Rae Fletcher - Oh Maria
Julie Doiron - I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day
Kyrie Kristmanson - Pagan Love
Laura Barrett -Victory Garden
Land Of Talk - Some Are Lakes
Metric - Fantasies
Mother Mother - O My
Olenka and the Autumn Lovers - self titled
One Hundred Dollars - Forest of Tears
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
Rock Plaza Central - At The Moment Of Our Most Needing ...
Said The Whale - Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia
Sunparlour Players - Wave North
Timbre Timbre - self titled
Woodpigeon - Treasury Library Canada