This year’s 40 long list candidates for Canada’s annual Polaris Music Prize were announced earlier today at The Carleton in Halifax, NS including albums such as Drake‘s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Caribou‘s Our Love, Badbadnotgood and Ghostface Killah‘s Sour Soul competing for the top spot.

The Polaris Music Prize, according to the official website, is a,

not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected music critics.

The monetary prize is awarded to an artist not based on genre or sales, but quality. This year’s long list was voted on by a panel of 196 Canadian music journalists, broadcasters, and bloggers.

Other top guns on this year’s list include The New Pornographer’s Brill Bruisers, released last August to high praise, including high energy singles like the album’s title track “Brill Bruisers” and “War on the East Coast.” Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Goon is also included, as well as Alvvays’ self titled Alvvays, released July 2014, and White Lung’s Deep Fantasy.

After the long list is released, a more manageable, short list is announced soon after. The short list will be announced July 16 at the Carlu in Toronto. Each artist included on the short list receives a prize of $3,000. The top album, selected from the short list, then wins the ultimate prize of $50,000. The grand prize winner will be announced September 21 at the Carlu as well.

The long list is posted below.

Polaris Music Prize 2015 Long List
Absolutely Free – Absolutely Free
The Acorn – Vieux Loup
Lydia Ainsworth – Right From Real
Alvvays – Alvvays
Arkells – High Noon
Rich Aucoin – Ephemeral
BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah – Sour Soul
Bahamas – Bahamas Is Afie
The Barr Brothers – Sleeping Operator
Braids – Deep In The Iris
Steph Cameron – Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady
Caribou – Our Love
Jazz Cartier – Marauding In Paradise
Jennifer Castle – Pink City
Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity
Louis-Jean Cormier – Les grandes artères
Death From Above 1979 – The Physical World
Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
Frazey Ford – Indian Ocean
Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon
B.A. Johnston – Shit Sucks
Pierre Kwenders – Le dernier empereur Bantou
Lee Harvey Osmond – Beautiful Scars
Jean Leloup – À Paradis City
METZ – II
Milk & Bone – Little Mourning
Tre Mission – Stigmata
The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers
Joel Plaskett – The Park Avenue Sobriety Test
Buffy Sainte-Marie – Power In The Blood
Elizabeth Shepherd – The Signal
Siskiyou – Nervous
Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld – Never were the way she was
Various Artists – Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock and Country, 1966-1985
Viet Cong – Viet Cong
Patrick Watson – Love Songs For Robots
The Weather Station – Loyalty
White Lung – Deep Fantasy
Whitehorse – Leave No Bridge Unburned
Young Guv – Ripe 4 Luv