KURATED NO. 253
THE POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE 2025 SHORT LIST
Contents
• PLAYLIST: 17-Songs on Spotify feat. Top Ten Polaris Shortlisted Artists + Albums
• POLARIS SONG PRIZE: The 5 Best
1. Dis-moi dis-moi dis-moi Lou-Adriane Cassidy
2. Shell (Of a Man) Saya Gray
3. Gold Filigree Yves Jarvis
4. Gaza Is Calling Mustafa
5. Wrong Planet Ribbon Skirt
Last year Jeremy Dutcher became the first two-time winner of the Polaris Music Prize for his album Motewolonuwok. His first win was in 2018 for the groundbreaking collection Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa.
THE 2025 POLARIS PRIZE SHORT LIST
Honouring Canadian greats, unknowns and what’s in between
The Polaris Music Prize is a quintessentially Canadian project. “We celebrate music as art—not product. And we’ve done it for 20 years, across every genre, platform, and province,” they say.
Its altruistic mission states: “We believe music can move people, shift and reflect culture, and bring us together. We bring together music lovers, artists and a dynamic jury to discover, discuss and award the best in Canadian music based on artistic merit.” (Don’t tell Trump. Such “woke” attitudes can only spark more tariffs …)
Genre, sales or popularity don’t matter. In awarding the most artistically significant album and song of the year, a 200-strong jury is focused on art for art’s sake. The solo song category, by the way, is thanks to the new Polaris SOCAN Song Prize.
This year’s Top 10 short list candidates are culled from a 40-song long list made by devoted music critics across the country. They include broadcasters, writers, programmers, bloggers and curators.
5 Nominees for the Polaris Song Prize
- Dis-moi dis-moi dis-moi, Lou-Adriane Cassidy (written by Lou-Adriane Cassidy and Alexandre Martel)
- Shell (Of a Man), Saya Gray (written by Saya Gray and John Mavro)
- Gold Filigree, Yves Jarvis (written by Yves Jarvis)
- Gaza Is Calling, Mustafa (written by Mustafa Ahmed, Emmanuel Hailemariam, Simon Hessman and Nicolas Jaar)
- Wrong Planet, Ribbon Skirt (written by Tashiina Buswa and Billy Riley)
The Short Listed 10 Albums
Toronto’s Saya Gray at NPRs Tiny Desk earlier this year. She’s one of 10 short listed 2025 Polaris Prize nominees
Bibi Club – Feu de garde
Montreal duo Bibi Club musicians Adèle Trottier-Rivard and guitarist Nicolas Basque are creative and romantic partners. On their sophomore album of dreamy pop songs they roam around in post-punk sounds as well as shoegaze and indie rock.
Lou-Adriane Cassidy – Journal d’un Loup-Garou
The third album from Quebec City’s Lou-Adriane Cassidy opens with the upbeat, piano-driven Europop lead single Dis-moi dis-moi dis-moi which is up for best song. Featuring contemporary pop, in her press notes she “bemoans the state of show business, sings from the point of view of a monster trapped in a downward spiral, and asks for absolution for herself and her father, who left home when she was 16.”
Marie Davidson – City of Clowns
Industrial beats dominate Montrealer Marie Davidson‘s third disc and first solo album in eight years. Wary of capitalism, she sites “tackling Big Tech as her new antagonist”. In her Spotify blurb she says her albums blend introspective storytelling with diverse sounds, from techno to Italo disco.
Mustafa – Dunya
The Sudanese-Canadian artist is one of the better known in this Polaris list. As a Toronto-born teenager he became known as Mustafa the poet in his Regent Park housing project. He’s been writing and co-writing music for about 10 years for musicians like The Weeknd, Camila Cabello, Jonas Brothers, Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber.
Dunya is his first full album. Last year he helped organize a benefit concert with proceeds going towards aid for Gaza and Sudan. He has since left Toronto pointing to gun violence that took the lives of 20 of his friends.
His composition Gaza Is Calling is nominated for best song.
Nemahsis – Verbathim
It’s been a good two years for Palestinian-Canadian Nemah Hasan. Shortly after the Hamas attack on Israel in October, 2023 she posted on social media that,”My label just dropped me, a Palestinian artist, for being pro-Palestine.” She didn’t miss a beat recording and releasing debut album Verbathim independently a year later. She won broad acclaim in the music press from Exclaim! to Rolling Stone. At this year’s JUNO Awards she took home the prizes for Breakthrough Artist of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year. In May she sang on Stephen Colbert‘s talk show.
The OBGMs – Sorry It’s Over
Raw and brimming with punk energy, Toronto-based band The OBGMs incorporate rock and hip-hop on their brash third album. Their Polaris write-up says, “Balancing rage with rhythm on songs that are both confrontational and tender, frontman Densil McFarlane sings and screams lyrics that are deeply personal, covering things like heartbreak, depression, melancholy and, ultimately, acceptance. “I went to therapy and wanted to make something that feels like therapy for anyone who listens,” he says.
Population II – Maintenant Jamais
Montreal’s Population II take pride in their broad influences on their third album. With Maintenant Jamais (“now never” en anglais) the trio write on their Spotify post they are “masters at both improvised madness and sophisticated composition, delivering heavy psychedelic rock infused with feverish funk rhythms, a hint of jazz philosophy, a burst of energy reminiscent of punk’s early days, and a love of minor scales that harkens back to the roots of heavy metal.”
Ribbon Skirt – Bite Down
Anishinaabe writer and journalist Waub Rice describes Bite Down as a gift from his friends in Ribbon Skirt – a gift in their mutual ongoing recovery from the damage of settler colonialism.
He writes: “It’s a vibrant tapestry of sound and emotion that touches the heart and lifts the spirit of the Anishinaabe experience. With this outstanding collection of songs, Ribbon Skirt, led by Tashiina Buswa, profoundly conveys the essence of putting life and identity back together.”
The Montreal-based Anishinaabe post-punk duo, which includes multi-instrumentalist Billy Riley, released their raw debut album in April in the spirit of ’90s rock/grunge/and riot grrrl.
Their song Wrong Planet is nominated in the best song category.
Saya Gray – SAYA
“‘Saya’ means ‘clarity,’ and that’s kind of how I felt about this album,” singer-songwriter Saya Gray told Exclaim! magazine earlier this year. The Japanese-Canadian, Toronto-based artist flirts with sweet mainstream tunes while teasing the line between pop and alternative. Her indie and musical style blends jazz, folk, rock, pop, and experimental electronica. She explores untraditional song structures while sharing emotional songs about heartbreak and life.
Her tune Shell (Of a Man) is up for best song.
Yves Jarvis – All Cylinders
Jean-Sébastien Yves Audet, professionally known as Yves Jarvis, calls himself an experimental musician, singer, and producer. Calgary-born and living in Montreal he’s been recording since 2013 and earned his first Polaris nomination in 2016. On All Cylinders he issues a collection of tight and upbeat, radio-friendly songs featuring crisp vocals. And he made them by himself from start to finish. All Cylinders, he says, is “no pretense, no self-indulgence, music for the sake of music.”
His tasteful Golden Filagree is in the running for best song.
The Long List
The following 40 songs made the first cut from the Polaris jury’s 200 judges.
Art d’Ecco, Serene Demon
Backxwash, Only Dust Remains
Quinton Barnes, Code Noir
Bibi Club, Feu de garde
Basia Bulat, Basia’s Palace
Caribou, Honey
Lou-Adriane Cassidy, Journal d’un Loup-Garou
Choses Sauvages, Choses Sauvages III
Cold Specks, Light For the Midnight
Antoine Corriveau, Oiseau de Nuit
Marie Davidson, City of Clowns
Destroyer, Dan’s Boogie
Myriam Gendron, Mayday
Gloin, All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
Saya Gray, Saya
Hildegard, Jour 1596
Yves Jarvis, All Cylinders
Kaia Kater, Strange Medicine
Bells Larsen, Blurring Time
Richard Laviolette, All Wild Things Are Shy
Wyatt C. Louis, Chandler
Kelly McMichael, After the Sting of It
Men I Trust, Equus Asinus
Mustafa, Dunya
N NAO, Nouveau langage
Nemahsis, Verbathim
Eliza Niemi, Progress Bakery
The OBGMs, Sorry, It’s Over
Dorothea Paas, Think of Mist
Klô Pelgag, Abracadabra
Population II, Maintenant Jamais
Ribbon Skirt, Bite Down
Ariane Roy, Dogue
Mike Shabb, Sewaside III
Sister Ray, Believer
Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Red Future
The Weather Station, Humanhood
Rick White and the Sadies, Rick White and the Sadies
Donovan Woods, Things Were Never Good if They’re Not Good Now
Yoo Doo Right, From the Heights of Our Pastureland
03 August 2025
