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Music

Polaris long list announced

The 2011 Polaris Music Prize long list was announced today, which you can peruse for yourself here.

Not a ton of surprises – pretty much all the big indie rock names are on there, with only a few big omissions.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much outside of the indie world that made the cut, which won’t do much for criticisms of how insular the music critic community can be.

Genre-wise, there’s pretty much no hard rock or metal, except for Black Mountain, and that was for their most pop album yet. Dance music is mostly absent as well, which is disappointing, given how well the Canadian scene has been doing internationally lately. Hip-hop and R&B are barely recognized, and the acts that did get the nod are all very indie-friendly. Not much jazz or blues either, but that’s not as surprising. Some people have been mentioning that it seems odd that Drake didn’t make the cut, but it does seem like international critics like him more than Canadian writers.

The NOW critics who voted this year did pretty well.

All of Carla Gillis’ picks made it on the long list (she voted for Louise Burns, PS I Love You, Miracle Fortress, Arcade Fire and Timber Timbre). Richard Trapunski scored a 3/5 with Arcade Fire, One Hundred Dollars and Timber Timbre making on the list. Unfortunately, his votes for Anagram and Chad Van Gaalen didn’t make the cut, with the latter being a particularly conspicuous absence. Jason Keller managed to get 4 of his 5 picks on the list (Austra, Destroyer, PS I Love You, Sloan), with DVAS being the only one missing.

From my own list, I was very disappointed that Jennifer Castle and Art Department didn’t make it. The former seemed like a shoe-in, but maybe the momentum hasn’t had a chance to build beyond Toronto. In the case of Art Department, they’re probably a little too much in the underground dance music world to be on the radar of many Polaris jurors, despite the massive international success of the Toronto house music duo. On the bright side, weirdo rockabilly one-man-band Dirty Beaches did make it, as did Austra and Timber Timbre (who’s doing pretty good so far, based on NOW votes).

Who do you guys think should have made it on to the short list?

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