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.
As of publishing this edition of Polaris People we are only 26 days away from the unveiling of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize Long List.
It's a time of great change. Soon we will have a pile of exciting new artists to follow just as doggedly as the select club members that we talk about each week. Who these new acts will be, we don't yet know, but we're looking forward to finding out.
It's also a time of great reflection. Many of our Polaris jurors are in deep thought, trying to find the inner peace that will only come when they achieve clarity on the five perfect records they intend to include on their Long List ballot. Some have even gone so far as to <a href = 'https://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/158569-polaris/'>ask the public</a> to help them on their vision quests.
While all this goes on, our Polaris People continue to soldier on in the name of all that is right and awesome.
It's a poorly kept secret that there's a special club that all the Polaris Music Prize jurors hang out in to hurl insults at each other, share fart jokes and contemplate <em>The Hunger Games</em> fan fiction.
They also talk about music. Passionately. As in, someone says “X album is awesome,†so Y person goes, “No, it's poo,†then Z person is like, “No, <em>you're</em> poo. It's double-awesome.†That kind of stuff.
Now we're going to start bringing some of this conversation to you, the public. We'll be skipping the poo-face talk, but the stuff about the records… yeah, there'll be lots of that.
Stay tuned. Polaris Picks will be debuting soon.
In the meantime, our favourite Polaris People have been up to many interesting things again this week.
This week's Polaris People column barely got written.
That's because we've been very distracted. And it's all <strong>Bon Iver</strong>'s fault.
That's because <a href = 'https://boniverotica.tumblr.com/'>Bon Iver took a break from making me a mosaic out of seaglass to kiss each one of my toes</a>.
Yes, Bon Iver literotica. <em>This</em> is what the internet is for. Even <em><a href = 'https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/01/bon-iver-erotic-stories-making-farmers-markets-sexy-since-last-thursday/?iid=nf-main-mostpop1'>Time</a></em> agrees. We will not be fully sated, however, until we discover some hot-blooded prose about Lawrence Gowan.
In the meantime, we'll at least have the Polaris People to keep our imaginations a-flutter.
Guys, we're getting close. The Polaris Music Prize jury pool is actually kinda, sorta getting a little bit near to submitting their Long List ballots. (Reminder: The Long List will get unveiled in Vancouver on June 14.)
What that means is behind-the-scenes there've been all sorts of raging debates and withering insults being hurled around about the relative merits of various records. One juror has been calling the new<strong> Gonzales </strong>album "nothing more than a modern Poppy Family rehash," another said the <strong>Fuck The Facts</strong> record "sounds like ‘The Mummer's Dance'" and someone else compared the emotional intensity of the new <strong>Cancer Bats</strong> album to vintage Gowan.
I may or may not be lying about this.
What isn't a lie, however, is that various Polaris People were doing interesting and exciting things again this week.
OMG, did you hear about Hologram Tupac at Coachella? That's craaaayyzzzeee. It's totally cool right? Like, think of all the possibilities? You could have Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison on the same stage at the same time!
We'll stick to real performers, thanks. Like the Polaris People. They're the best and they did all kinds of interesting stuff this week.
If last month was supposed to be <a href = 'https://polarismusicprize.ca/article/373/polaris-people-for-the-week-of-april-6-plants-and-animals-owen-pallett-great-lake-swimmers-and-more/'>Death March</a>, what’s this month? April-calypse? 'Cause it sure doesn’t feel any less busy.
Here at Polaris Central we’ve been up to all kinds of things. We’ve got Salons happening in <a href = 'https://polarismusicprize.ca/article/377/toronto-new-juror-initiation-night-salon-happening-april-17-2012-in-toronto/'>Toronto</a> and <a href = 'https://polarismusicprize.ca/article/375/the-shivers-by-slam-dunk-happening-april-17-2012-in-vancouver/'>Vancouver</a> on April 17, then one in Montreal on April 28. On top of that, two of the Salons we did in February in <a href = 'https://polarismusicprize.ca/article/376/vancouver-polaris-salon-podcast-for-feb-21-2012-online-at-aux-tv/'>Vancouver</a> and <a href = 'https://polarismusicprize.ca/article/378/montreal-polaris-salon-podcast-for-feb-25-2012-online-at-aux-tv/'>Montreal</a> are now podcasts courtesy of AUX TV.
We aren’t the only ones being busy, though. The actual musicians, the whole reason we exist, were full-on working, too.
Don't know what that is? It's a uniquely Canadian music experience where each year during the month of March bands, label people, writers and "miscellaneous" do SXSW in Austin, Texas one week, then Canadian Music Week in Toronto, Ontario the next, then the Juno Awards in some random Canadian city the week after.
Basically it leaves everyone who likes music hungover, flu-ridden and full of STDs.
We've got the cure for all of it, though: A nice cup of tea, some biscuits, and 15 minutes by yourself to click through what the best of the best, the Polaris People have been up to this week.
Right about now just about everyone in the Canadian music universe is heading to Ottawa, Ontario to hang with our cousin, the <strong>Juno Awards</strong>. Polaris jurors will be all over the event, as will many, many artists who've been nominated for the Polaris Short and Long List over the years.
While folks have been making <a href = 'https://www.canada.com/entertainment/will+Juno+this+weekend+critics+place+their+bets/6374460/story.html'>establishing betting lines</a>, telling us <a href = 'https://www.toronto.com/article/719631–juno-awards-2012-what-to-expect-on-sunday'>what to expect</a>, and <a href = 'https://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/28/our-bold-juno-predictions'>making bold predictions about</a> who the winners will be, we're more concerned with how the Juno results will affect Polaris voting in a couple months. After all, if, as <a href = 'https://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/26/these-nominees-deserve-juno-win'>has been suggested</a>, the likes of Dan Mangan and Cuff the Duke, win Junos, who's to say the big P Prize won't be theirs either? We'll find out in September.
The Polaris team is lucky to work with a multitude of awesome folks within the music industry — one such talent is our Gala photographer, Dustin Rabin. We asked the busy lensman to tell us a bit about shooting the ceremony over the years, his many career milestones, and going behind the scenes with a certain Beatle.
We're deep in Canadian Music Week over here in Polarisland. That hasn't stopped some of our juror-type friends from thinking ahead, however.
Never one to shy from a good debate, CBC Music personality and frequent Polaris host <strong>Grant Lawrence</strong> has already started <a href = 'https://music.cbc.ca/#/Radio3/blogs/2012/3/Polaris-Music-Prize-2012-If-The-Ballots-Were-Submitted-Today'>soliciting jurors</a> in the lead-up to the June 14 Polaris Long List announcement.
If that article's any indication, there's going to be a lot more Dan Mangan and Rich Aucoin in future Polaris People columns.
But not this week.
No, we've got other artists to talk about. Namely Arcade Fire, Cadence Weapon, The Sadies and Tegan And Sara. Find out why by clicking through.
