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Polaris Music Prize Musings
This year, the Polaris Music Prize celebrates its 20th year, kicking off the celebrations by unveiling their 2025 Long List last week. While my initial reaction to the long list isn't one of overwhelming excitement, I suspect this has more to do with my own evolving tastes drifting away from what my fellow Polaris jurors are gooning over rather than any fault of the list itself. These are my initial musings on the long list, some early thoughts for the upcoming short list (and the 2026 edition), and a rapidly growing list of music I'm eager to delve into and write more about later this summer when time allows.
What’s Missing
Devours, Sports Car Era
It’s a crying shame more of my fellow jurors didn’t get behind Devours’ bold and bodacious Sports Car Era, especially after putting their last effort, Homecoming Queen, on the 2024 Long List. Sports Car Era is a next-gear level-up for Devours, and my personal fave of their canon. It’s also a crying shame that I haven’t given this record a deeper dive yet, which I promise is forthcoming (as soon as I have some more time on my hands). With the announcement of the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize, I’m hoping that our favourite gaylien gets some love and recognition on that prize’s forthcoming long list for one of the year’s best bangers, “Loudmouth.”
Kaytranada, Timeless
Speaking of the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize, I would love to see Kaytranada’s “Call U Up” on that list to make up for the irrational exclusion of his third album, 2024’s Timeless, from this year’s album long list. As with Devours, I feel that Timeless is superior to either 2016’s Polaris-winning 99.9% and 2020 short-lister, Bubba (and last year’s Kaytraminé, his collaboration with U.S.-based rapper Aminé, which also long-listed). Timeless is just that - a further refinement and distillation of Kaytranada’s signature style, a blend of genres, samples, live instrumentation, and spot-on features that make the perfect soundtrack for any summer.
Ghostkeeper, Cîpayak Joy
Another album that should have made the cut is Ghostkeeper’s Cîpayak Joy. Born from improvisational sessions between Ghostkeeper main members Shane Ghostkeeper and Sarah Houle and their longtime engineer, Brad Hawkins, Cîpayak Joy is a beguiling exploration of sound and creativity, blending trap, ambient experimentalism, R&B, and synth sounds into a deeply textured sonic palette.
Michael Cloud Duguay, Wobbly Yonder
I’ve made no secret of my love for Michael Cloud Duguay and his wonderfully woozy Wobbly Yonder, and though its April 25, 2025, release date made it a little too late for serious consideration for Polaris 2025, I’m hoping that Duguay finally gets his due and gets the long list recognition for 2026 (as the qualifying period for next year’s prize will be albums released between April 1, 2025 and May 1, 2026 that were not previously long listed).
Happy to See on the List
Backxwash, Only Dust Remains
I loved God Has Nothing to Do with This Leave Him Out of It, mainly for its cathartic chaos at the height of pandemic fever. Still, Ashanti Mutinta’s subsequent Backxwash albums didn’t click as immediately as her Polaris-winning sophomore release, until this year’s Only Dust Remains. Having concluded the trilogy started with God Has Nothing to Do with This…, Backxwash gives her music and her muse room to breathe, expanding her sonic palette and dynamics to stunning effect. A strong possibility for the short list, for sure.
Ribbon Skirt, Bite Down
I highly anticipate seeing Bite Down get a much-deserved spot on this year’s short list. Ribbon Skirt, the Montreal duo of Anishinaabe songwriter Tashiina Buswa and multi-insrumentalist Billy Riley (who were formerly known as Love Language), have emerged not as a dark horse in this year’s race, but a bright shining light. Ribbon Skirt are too in your face to be shoegaze, too slick to be grunge, and too political to be pure pop, but somehow the band finds a way to make something new out of these all-too-familiar guitar-based musical tropes. Bite Down is another album I need to delve into further in the coming weeks.
Quinton Barnes, CODE NOIR
CODE NOIR, Quinton Barnes’s fifth album (and first of two released in 2025), feels like the culmination of an era that began in 2020 with AARUPA, wherein Barnes breaks down and rebuilds hip-hop, R&B, punk, and pop into a creature of his own making. Barnes says CODE NOIR “reflects all the influence I've been soaking in from my time living in [his current home of] Montreal. I felt it was necessary to make something upbeat, warm, celebratory but reflective, euphoric and occasionally overwhelming.” CODE NOIR has landed Barnes on the long list for the first time, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t repeat next year for the recently released creative giant leap, Black Noise ( another album I’ll be going longer with very soon).