The Polaris Music Prize, awarded annually to Canada’s best album of the year, has been controversial in recent years. Godspeed You! Black Emperor rejected and criticized the prize in 2013, and at last year’s ceremony, winner Tanya Tagaq proclaimed, “Fuck PETA.” This year’s longlist was announced today at the Carleton in Halifax; it includes 40 albums and was selected by 196 Canadian music journalists, broadcasters, and bloggers. Among the highlights: Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Tobias Jesso Jr.’s Goon, the New Pornographers’ Brill Bruisers, Alvvays’ Alvvays, Caribou’s Our Love, White Lung’s Deep Fantasy, Lydia Ainsworth’s Right From Real, the Weather Station’s Loyalty, Absolutely Free’s Absolutely Free., Death From Above 1979’s The Physical World, Metz’s II, and BADBADNOTGOOD and Ghostface Killah’s Sour Soul.

The candidates will be pared down to a more manageable shortlist 7/16 at the Carlu in Toronto, and the winner will be named 9/21 at the same venue. Everyone on the shortlist gets $3,000, while the winner takes home $50,000. Here’s the full longlist:

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