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Arcade Fire lead list of Polaris Music Prize contenders

The Canadian Press Published Wednesday, July 6, 2011 3:09PM EDT

Arcade Fire react after winning the award for International Group on stage at the Brit Awards 2011 at The O2 Arena in London, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011. (AP / Joel Ryan)

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TORONTO - Grammy-winning Montreal rockers Arcade Fire lead the list of contenders for this year's Polaris Music Prize.

The short list of 10 final nominees for the $30,000 prize was announced Wednesday.

Also nominated are Austra, Braids, Destroyer, Galaxie, Hey Rosetta, Ron Sexsmith, Colin Stetson, Timber Timbre and The Weeknd.

This is the sixth year of the Polaris, which seeks to honour the best Canadian album from the previous year.

The prize is judged solely on artist merit, without regard to genre or record sales, and is voted on by 227 music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers from across Canada.

The winner is to be crowned at a gala on Sept. 19.

Past winners include Karkwa, Patrick Watson and Caribou.

Among those that were on the long list of 40 contenders were Neil Young, Sloan, Stars, Buck 65 and Black Mountain.