For the past few months, Canada's music critics, bloggers and broadcasters have been debating with themselves and each other to pick the past year's (June 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009) best album for the annual Polaris Music Prize.

Past winners of this $25,000 merit-based award have been Final Fantasy, Patrick Watson and Caribou.

The process includes two rounds of voting by the 181 jurists and then a smaller Grand Jury will make the final decision on the night of the invite-only Polaris gala.

Now that the initial votes are in, the Polaris organizers have revealed a top 40 we can all get behind. (Or not, since there were plenty of great records which didn't make the cut.)The short list comes out on July 7 and the winner will be revealed on September 21. In the meantime, we can revel in (and argue about) Canada's 40 finest records.

Arkells - 'Jackson Square'
Jill Barber - 'Chances'
Beast - 'Beast'
Bell Orchestre - 'As Seen Through Windows'
Bison B.C. - 'Quiet Earth'
Bruce Peninsula - 'A Mountain Is A Mouth'
Cœur De Pirate - 'Cœur De Pirate'
Leonard Cohen - 'Live In London'
D-Sisive - 'Let The Children Die'
Elephant Stone - 'The Seven Seas'
Elliott Brood - 'Mountain Meadows'
Fucked Up - 'The Chemistry Of Common Life'
Great Lake Swimmers - 'Lost Channels'
Handsome Furs - 'Face Control'
Tim Hecker - 'An Imaginary Country'
Hey Rosetta! - 'Into Your Lungs'
Japandroids - 'Post-Nothing'
Junior Boys - 'Begone Dull Care'
K'NAAN - 'Troubadour'
K-OS - 'YES!'
La patère rose - 'La patère rose'
Land Of Talk - 'Some Are Lakes'
Lhasa - 'Lhasa'
Malajube - 'Labyrinthes'
Metric - 'Fantasies'
One Hundred Dollars - 'Forest Of Tears'
Pink Mountaintops - 'Outside Love'
Joel Plaskett - 'Three'
Snailhouse - 'Lies On The Prize'
Charles Spearin - 'The Happiness Project'
Rae Spoon - 'superioryouareinferior'
The Stills - 'Oceans Will Rise'
Think About Life - 'Family'
Timber Timbre - 'Timber Timbre'
Chad VanGaalen - 'Soft Airplane'
Martha Wainwright - 'I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings, Too'
Patrick Watson - 'Wooden Arms'
Wolf Parade - 'At Mount Zoomer'
Women - 'Women'
Woodpigeon - 'Treasury Library Canada C/W Houndstooth Europa'