The Weeknd’s Dawn FM, Arcade Fire’s WE and Orville Peck’s Bronco are on the preliminary long list of 40 contenders for the 2022 Polaris Music Prize. The award, which originated in 2006, is given to what a group of writers, programmers and broadcasters deems to be Canada’s best album of the year. According to a statement, a 197-member jury considered 223 albums before whittling the list down to these 40.
Arcade Fire won the award in 2011 with The Suburbs (which also won both a Grammy and a Juno Award for album of the year). The Suburbs is the only album to win both the Polaris Music Prize and the Juno for album of the year.
Three other past winners of the Polaris Music Prize are on this year’s long list with their latest albums – Tanya Tagaq (the 2014 winner for Animism), Haviah Mighty (the 2019 winner for 13th Floor) and Backxwash (the 2020 winner for the exquisitely titled God Has Nothing to Do with This, Leave Him Out of It). If any of these acts win, they’ll become the first repeat winners of the Polaris Music Prize.
Several acts that have won the Polaris Music Prize have gone on to make noise in the U.S., including Caribou, which won the 2008 award for Andorra; Kaytranada, the 2016 winner for 99.9%; and Lido Pimienta, the 2017 winner for La Papessa.
Other Polaris winners had already made their mark in the U.S., including Feist, the 2012 winner for Metals, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, the 2015 winner for Power in the Blood.
A short list will be published next month. The winner, to be announced in September, will receive a $50,000 prize.
Here are all the albums on the Polaris Music Prize 2022 long list:
Ada Lea – One Hand on the Steering Wheel the Other Sewing a Garden
Adria Kain – When Flowers Bloom
Ahi – Prospect
Arcade Fire – WE
Backxwash – I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses
BadBadNotGood – Talk Memory
Basia Bulat – The Garden
Cedric Noel – Hang Time
Charlotte Day Wilson – Alpha
Chiiild – Hope for Sale
Destroyer – Labyrinthitis
The Garrys – Get Thee to a Nunnery
The Halluci Nation – One More Saturday Night
Haviah Mighty – Stock Exchange
Hubert Lenoir – Pictura de Ipse : Musique Directe
Jean-Michel Blais – Aubades
Joyful Joyful – Joyful Joyful
Julie Doiron – I Thought of You
Kelly McMichael – Waves
Les Louanges – Crash
Lisa Leblanc – Chiac Disco
Loony – soft thing
Luna Li – Duality
Lydia Képinski – Depuis
Men I Trust – Untourable Album
Myst Milano – Shapeshyfter
Ombiigizi – Sewn Back Together
Orville Peck – Bronco
Ouri – Frame of a Fauna
Pierre Kwenders – José Louis and the Paradox of Love
P’tit Belliveau – Un homme et son piano
PUP – The Unraveling of PUPTheBand
Sate – The Fool
Shad – Tao
Sister Ray – Communion
Snotty Nose Rez Kids – Life After
Stars – From Capelton Hill
Tanika Charles – Papillon de Nuit: The Night Butterfly
Tanya Tagaq – Tongues
The Weeknd – Dawn FM
