We believe music can move people, shift and reflect culture, and bring us together. This is where we share winner announcements, Long/Short Lists, festival news, artist interviews, and behind-the-scenes updates from the Polaris season.
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JOB POSTING – PRODUCER, POLARIS FESTIVAL Polaris Music Prize Contractor Full-Time ABOUT POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE The Polaris Music Prize is a registered charity that annually honours and rewards artists who produce Canadian music albums of distinction. A select panel of music critics judge and award the Prize without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity. […]
We usually calibrate the Release Roundup to highlight the newest albums, but we have the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize now and we need to talk about “Generation,” the first single from the late Gord Downie’s forthcoming live collab album with The Sadies. “Generation” is both a Fucked Up cover and might be the single most […]
Who else has got that Olympic fever right now? Like, whoa, that Poseidon can really swim, Ares has the wrestling competition locked and don’t get me started about Apollo’s archery game, and oh… right, go Canada go. Perhaps because they’re pursuing their own gold, or perhaps because it’s a Bandcamp Friday we have a juicy […]
It’s not often the case that a hit TV show’s original soundtrack has legions of fans around the world clamouring for an official album release – but that’s what happened with the signature sound of Peter Peter’s compositions for the queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry. Less than two months after the series premiered, the hotly […]
We wanted to use this week’s column to acknowledge the passing of DB Hawkes at age 76. A long-time radio show host for CIUT, Hawkes was also a devoted audio archivist who recorded innumerable live concerts from the Toronto reggae scene. Much respect to the recordists and writers and people who are out there making […]
It’s still a bit quiet on the new album release front with only two new records: * Ouri (2022 Short List) has released the Crusts (Original Soundtrack). * PETER PETER (3x Long List) has released the Heated Rivalry (Original Series Soundtrack) via Sony Canada. However, a number of champion-level #PolarisPeople are starting to make their […]
It’s still pretty cold for new music releases around here right now, so it’s a good thing that it’s getting really hot on the ice. Specifically, the Heated Rivalry ice. It has not gone unnoticed by the Polaris staff that the hottest gay hockey romance show in western world television also happens to have music […]
It’s one of our favourite times of the year — Best Album List season. If you’re stuck for new music to listen to we always recommend checking out the 40 albums on the #Polaris2025 Long List, but if that’s not enough for you we suggest mining the double-plus good Album Of The Year aggregator website […]
Happy conflicted capitalism day to those of you scoring Black Friday deals, those of you finding some rare slices for Record Store Day Canada Day, and for those of you smugly sitting it all out. For our part, Polaris is gonna be putting the “give” into Giving Tuesday next week so stay tuned for us […]
Happy grand opening (re-opening?) day to Hamilton’s TD Coliseum, formerly known as Copps Coliseum. We will be hiding out from socials tonight due to the strong FOMO from Super Furry Animals celery chewer, back-up vocalist on Eddie Murphy’s “Love’s Alright,” Wings/Beatles member Paul McCartney playing tonight’s grand opening. Speaking of The Beatles, their Anthology 4 […]
