2010 Polaris Prize to be Announced Tonight

The winner of the 2010 Polaris Prize, recognizing the best album of the year by a Canadian musician, will be announced at the gala ceremony in Toronto tonight. The nominees and winners are "selected solely on artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation."

The awards ceremony will be shown live online at Much Music at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and televised on the network on Saturday, Sept. 25th at 9 p.m. Eastern. You can also listen to the proceedings on the CBC Radio website, CBC.ca and on Sirius satellite radio channel 86.

Here are the nominees on the final "short list" (you can find profiles of the Polaris finalists at Much Music). The short list was winnowed down from a "long list" of 40 albums.

• The Besnard Lakes, "The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night"
  
  
• Broken Social Scene, "Forgiveness Rock Record"
  
  
• Caribou, "Swim"
  
  
• Karkwa, "Les Chemins De Verre"
  
  
• Dan Mangan, "Nice, Nice, Very Nice"
  
  
• Owen Pallett, "Heartland"
  
  
• Radio Radio, "Belmundo Regal"
  
  
• The Sadies, "Darker Circles"
  
  
• Shad, "TSOL"
  
  
• Tegan And Sara, "Sainthood"