Arcade Fire have won the 2011 Polaris Music Prize, the Canadian equivalent of the UK’s Mercury Music Prize, for their third album 'The Suburbs'. The band, who have just completed a small run of UK dates, picked up the $30,000 (£19,300) prize at a ceremony in Toronto last night. The award was ...
Arcade Fire have won the 2011 Polaris Music Prize, the Canadian equivalent of the UK’s Mercury Music Prize, for their third album ‘The Suburbs’.
The band, who have just completed a small run of UK dates, picked up the $30,000 (£19,300) prize at a ceremony in Toronto last night.
The award was accepted on behalf of the band by drummer Jeremy Gara and multi-instrumentalist Richard Parry, who thanked the panel for the award and described it as “a great honour.”
Gara also used the acceptance speech to give a message to young musicians, he said: “Anyone who is under 18 and playing music and everyone who has ever been on stage and had the opportunity to play music and have someone hear it, just stick with it, because in 20 years you could be up here and have an album much better than this.”
Fucked Up, Caribou and Final Fantasy are all former winners of the Polaris Music Prize.
The full shortlist of nominated albums was:
‘The Suburbs’ – Arcade Fire
‘Feel It Break’ – Austra
‘Native Speaker’ – Braids
‘Kaputt’ – Destroyer
‘Tigre Et Diesel’ – Galaxie
‘Seeds’ – Hey Rosetta!
‘Long Player Late Bloomer’ – Ron Sexsmith
‘New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges’ – Colin Stetson
‘Creep On Creepin’ On’ – Timber Timbre
‘House Of Balloons’ – The Weeknd
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