FEIST'S album Metals won the 2011 Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album on Monday, Sept. 24 in a gala ceremony held at the Concert Hall Studios at Bell Media's Masonic Temple in Toronto.
The Polaris Music Prize is a juried award for creative artistic achievement in recorded music. This national critic's prize honours the full-length album as an art form and awards a cash prize to the artist or artists who create the best album of the year. To qualify, albums must have been released in full between June 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012. Feist takes home $30,000 while the other nine short list nominees this year were awarded $2,000 each by Slaight Music.
The 2012 Polaris Music Prize Short List included:
Cadence Weapon - Hope In Dirt City
Cold Specks - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
Drake - Take Care
Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur
Feist - Metals
F*d Up - David Comes To Life
Grimes - Visions
Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Yamantaka// Sonic Titan - YT//ST
The evening included performances from most of the nominees: Feist ("Caught A Long Wind," "The Bad In Each Other") and Short List nominees Cadence Weapon ("Cheval," "Conditioning," "Hope in Dirt City"), Cold Specks ("Elephant Head," "Send Your Youth"), Kathleen Edwards ("A Soft Place to Land"), F*d Up ("Queen of Hearts," "The Other Shoe"), Grimes ("Symphonia IX (my wait is u)," "Genesis") and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan ("Reverse Crystal," "Hoshi Neko"). Handsome Furs were also in attendance. Japandroids are on a European tour. Drake kept organizers guessing as to whether he would appear all night. He didn't. Highlights from the evening, hosted by CBC Radio 3's Grant Lawrence and MuchMusic's Lauren Toyota, will air in a onehour special on MuchMusic this weekend, on Saturday, Sept. 29 at 10 p.m. ET.
The Polaris winner was decided by the 2012 Grand Jury which included Gregory Adams (Georgia Straight), Michael Barclay (Maclean's, Radio Free Canuckistan), Chris Bilton (The Grid), Ryan Bresee (CKCU 93.1fm), Lisa Christiansen (CBC Radio 1), Shawn Conner (The Snipe News), Melissa Hetu (TFO), Kevin Laforest (Freelance, ex-Hour), Ryan B. Patrick (Freelance), Tabassum Siddiqui (Freelance) and Nicole Villeneuve (AUX TV).
