The Polar Music Prize is not the Polaris Music Prize. We should establish this up front. Polaris is the one the Canadians give out to their country’s best album of the year. Polar was founded by ABBA manager Stig Anderson in 1989 in partnership with the Royal Swedish Academy Of Music. Every year the Polar Music Prize is handed out to one contemporary musician and one classical musician. Winners in recent years have ranged from Sting to Metallica.

This year’s Polar laureate on the contemporary side is Iggy Pop. An announcement on the Polar site reads as follows:

The Polar Music Prize 2022 is awarded to American rock icon James Newell Osterberg, better known as Iggy Pop. With his era-defining group The Stooges, Iggy Pop created furious rock music by blending together blues and free jazz influences with the roar of the Michigan automotive industry. With his courage, initiative and raw power, Iggy Pop paved the way for punk and post-punk. Groups like the Sex Pistols, Ramones, Blondie, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and Nick Cave all followed in his footsteps. As a solo artist, Iggy Pop has never slowed down, and has instead pushed this art form forwards for half a century. Iggy Pop is “the chairman of the bored” who portrays alienation in poetic language. A wholly unique artist who personifies and embodies what rock music is about.

If precedent holds, there will be an Iggy Pop tribute concert in June when he accepts the award in Stockholm. Polar has posted a five-minute video explaining Iggy’s win, as well as congratulations messages from John Waters and Jim Jarmusch. There’s also a video honoring Ensemble intercontemporain, this year’s winner on the classical side, who Stereogum readers might know from their work with Bryce Dessner. All of those videos are below.