Polaris Music Prize
| Polaris Music Prize | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Awarded for | Best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label. |
| Country | Canada |
| First awarded | 2006 |
| Official website | polarismusicprize |
The Polaris Music Prize is a music award annually given to the best full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label. The award was established in 2006 with a $20,000 cash prize; the prize was increased to $30,000 for the 2011 award. In May 2015, it was announced the Polaris Music Prize winner will now receive $50,000, an additional $20,000, thanks to the sponsorship of Slaight Music. Additionally, second place prizes which go to the nine other acts on the Short List will increase from $2,000 to $3,000. Polaris officials also announced they will be creating The Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize, a sort of hall of fame award that "will annually honour five albums from the five decades before Polaris launched in 2006." Details about the selection process for this prize are still to be revealed.
The Polaris Music Prize is modeled after United Kingdom/Ireland's Mercury Prize and in turn, inspired the Atlantis Music Prize for Newfoundland and Labrador.
The 2014 Polaris sponsors included Aux, FACTOR, Ontario Media Development Corporation, Slaight Communications, Radio Starmaker Fund, SiriusXM, Recording Artists' Collecting Society (RACS), Stingray Music/Galaxie, Long & McQuade, The Carlu and Ticketfly. Past sponsors have included Rogers Communications and Scion.
The Polaris Music Prize gala is video streamed live on CBC Music and AUX TV.
There is no submission process or entry fee for the Polaris Music Prize. Jurors select what they consider to be the five best Canadian albums released in the previous year. The ballots are tabulated with each number one pick awarded five points, a number two pick awarded four points and so on. A long list of 40 titles is tabulated, released in mid June and promoted to the public. The long list is then sent back to the jury. The jurors then re-submit five top picks from this long list.
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