Kathleen Edwards, Polaris Prize 2012: 'I Crashed the Cool Kids Party'

Posted on Sep 18th 2012 1:00PM by Aaron Brophy
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Tanja Tiziana

With the 2012 Polaris Music Prize set to be determined September 24 in Toronto, Ontario, music critics will be making a lot of noise speculating who amongst the 10 short-listed nominees will actually win the award.

Kathleen Edwards, who's on the Polaris short list thanks to her Justin Vernon-produced Voyageur album, has her own formula for figuring out who's going to win.

"My rule at the Polaris is pick the person that you least expect is going to win, and that's who's going to win," Edwards tells Spinner. "And then you're still going to be wrong."

Edwards knows from experience. This isn't her first go round at the Polaris -- an annual award that goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on "artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation," as chosen by the collected music writers and producers of the nation. She was also nominated in 2008 for her Asking For Flowers record. That year lysergic electronic act Caribou won for the album Andorra.

This year Edwards' competition includes Cadence Weapon, Cold Specks, Drake, Feist, Fucked Up, Grimes, Handsome Furs, Japandroids and YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN. Regardless of whoever wins the intensely debated music nerd prize, Edwards figures lots of people will be unsatisfied with the result.

"The best part about this that no one is going to categorically agree with who wins," she says. "No one's going to categorically agree with who's on the short list. And the good thing about that is it gets people talking about what kind of art gets made in this country. And that's the best part."

Edwards, who almost didn't make it to the Polaris Gala thanks to a life-threatening wasp sting, says she sometimes feels like a bit of an interloper in the Polaris community. Considering past Polaris winners have included the likes of Arcade Fire, Patrick Watson and Owen Pallett, in some quarters the Prize is perceived as being a very "indie rock" award.

"In all honesty sometimes I feel like I crashed the cool kids party," says Edwards. "Like, I don't know very many of these bands who've been nominated. And yeah, sometimes I feel like I have this persona 'Oh, I'm just this country songwriter...' but then when I get included in this it makes me feel like, 'Y'know what? I do good work, what I do.' And I'm hanging out with people who do good work in what they do, too.

"Music is taste, right? And everyone has a different idea of what they like."

And no matter what they like, there's a good chance they'll guess wrong about who's going to win this year's Polaris prize.