The shortlist of nominees for Canada’s Polaris Prize was rolled out yesterday; the winner gets a $20,000 check (Canadian, which is like $2.5 million here now, right?), , while bloggers get something to write about during the dog days of July. The nominees–other than the Weakerthans’ Reunion Tour, which includes “Civil Twilight” (above)–and as many representative YouTube clips as I could find are below the cut.

Black Mountain – In The Future:

Kathleen Edwards – Asking For Flowers:

Stars – In Our Bedroom After The War:

Basia Bulat – Oh, My Darling:

Caribou – Andorra:

Holy Fuck – LP:

Plants & Animals – Parc Avenue:

Shad – The Old Prince:

Two Hours Traffic – Little Jabs:

Initial nominees that didn’t make the shortlist include albums by the New Pornographers and Crystal Castles. Even their throwaways are better than our bands these days.

Weakerthans up for this year’s Polaris Music Prize [Winnipeg Sun]

The Guardian points us to the Thurston Revival, a sleepy indiepop Canadian outfit that’s responding to the trend of free music by offering its debut single, “Somewhere There’s An Angel,” as a £100, limited-to-100-copies 12-inch record, complete with your choice of artwork by 10 different artists. (Pictures here; MySpace login required.) The single comes out Aug. 28, and Guardian writer Eamonn Forde is hailing the move as “a necessary antidote to an age when complete albums are being given away free with your Sunday newspaper.”

The argument in favor of making records collectible, tangible pieces is a compelling one–although I’d say that the 100-pound price point is a wee bit high, considering that I didn’t even pay that much for my German copy of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls–and it’s interesting to me that the Thurston Revival’s top friends include Stars, whose strategy for their new album, In Our Bedroom After The War, has tried to go against the “free music” trend in a different way. (They pre-released Bedroom on digital-music sites last month in an effort to combat piracy, and it’s already sold 10,000 copies in the five weeks since it’s been out.) I suspect that the low press run on this record will make the experiment a success almost by default, although it’s pretty obvious to me that there’s going to be some doofus who rips the vinyl and uploads the thing to OiNK as soon as he gets it in the mail. But if that doesn’t somehow happen, then one thing is clear: The time is right for Marissa Marchant to come out of hiding and try and sell her thousand-dollar CDs again.

Would you pay £100 for a single? [Guardian]

A contrarian take on Stars’ decision to digitally distribute its album In Our Bedroom After The War two months before its physical release date. Related: Bedroom scanned 2,700 copies in the U.S. and 1,500 copies in Canada during its first week of release. [Coolfer]

The Montreal indiepop outfit Stars’ forthcoming album, In Our Bedroom After The War, may have atrocious cover art, but that fact probably wouldn’t stop leak-happy downloaders from trying to snag the album from some enterprising member of the media who decided to share his pre-release copy with his friends. So the band and its label, Arts & Crafts, decided to pre-empt the OiNK faithful with a legit digital release yesterday–four days after the album’s completion, and almost two and a half months before physical copies of the album will go on sale. From the band’s official site:

Traditional music business practice says we are to begin sending out copies of this album now. We give advance copies to print publications in hopes of securing features that coincide with our September date. We meet with radio stations in hopes of securing airplay. etc, etc.

Inevitably someone will leak the album.

Throughout this process, the most important people in this value chain, the fans, are given only two options – wait until September 25th to legally purchase the new album or choose from a variety of sources and download the album for free, at any time.

We hope you’ll choose to support the band, and choose to pay for their album. However we don’t think it’s fair you should have to wait until September 25th to do so.

We believe that the line between the media and the public is now completely grey.
What is the difference between a writer for a big glossy music magazine and a student writing about their favourite bands on their blog? What differentiates a commercial radio station from someone adding a song to their lastfm channel? or their myspace page?

As such, we are making the new Stars album available for legal download today, four days after it’s completion. The CD and double vinyl versions of the album will still be released on our official release date, September 25th. We hope you will continue to support music retailers should a physical album in all it’s packaged glory be your choice of format.

It’s our hope that given a clear, legal alternative to downloading music for free, you will choose to support the creators.

This is a pretty savvy move on the part of the label and the band–and it’s not too much of a stretch to think that there will be a fair amount of people whose consciences will be pricked by this plea (especially the part where the fans are elevated to the same level as the media, because ego-strokes = cash, at least where we come from). The SoundScans on this album next week will definitely be of interest–as will the inevitable complaints of those die-hard BitTerrorists and Digg users who seem to think that free music is their God-given right, and who aren”t afraid to take to their keyboards and complain about it. (Brave souls, they are.)

Stars [arts-crafts.ca]

Time for another installment of the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files, where we raid our archives in search of a lost gem.

Artist: Stars
Song: “Elevator Love Letter,” 2002
What happened: Before finding indie-rock infamy with 2004′s Set Yourself On Fire, Canada’s Stars released the sparkling Heart. And while “Elevator Love Letter” was a mid-sized hit in the band’s homeland, the group’s stateside breakthrough was still a few years away.
Why it should have been a hit: From the ringing opening chords to the pleading finale, “Elevator” is a near-perfect look at love from a distance. Somebody clearly had their heart broken while recording this tune, and we’re all better off because of it:

Stars – Elevator Love Letter [MP3, link expired]