Unlike the Grammy’s or Juno’s, both of which are difficult to win no doubt and the winners display lots of talent, The Polaris Music Prize is the big award amongst the alternative music circles. To win one doesn’t take huge record sales or some fancy label brown nosing the band or artist all the way to the podium, but rather a genuine piece of art that might display a message or reflect a theme. And it also has to sound pretty bloody good.

Every year a longlist is announced for the coveted Prize that in the end earns the artist or band a cool $20,000 in cash. It also forever instills in every music bio or profile piece that they won the prize for this certain year and their album of said name proved more worthy than a ton of other great records.

In total, 40 albums were selected for this year’s longlist and included full-length debuts from musicians already starting to make waves like Hannah Georgas (This is Good), Zeus (Say Us) and also some veterans including Broken Social Scene (Forgiveness Rock Record), The New Pornographers (Together) and Tegan and Sara (Sainthood).

Last year’s Polaris Music Prize was awarded to Fucked Up for their sophomore album The Chemistry of Common Life, cementing them as one of the best hardcore acts to ever come out of the city of Toronto. Caribou’s Andorra took home the prize the previous year.

Without further ado, here’s the 2010 shortlist nominees for the Polaris Music Prize:

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