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In this May 18, 2016, file photo, Neil Young poses for a portrait in Calabasas, Calif.Rich Fury/The Associated Press

There likely are some millennials who cannot imagine a world without the Polaris Music Prize. Apparently the people at Polaris feel the same disorientation.

So, to fill the dubious historical void, last year the Polaris Heritage Prize was created to honour albums released in four eras predating the age of Polaris, which began to honour and reward artists who produce new Canadian music albums of distinction "without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity" in 2006. Two winners for each era were chosen this year, as opposed to one per era in 2015.

When it came to Canadian LPs made between 1960 and 1975, the public chose Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, while a jury of music experts picked Leonard Cohen's Songs of Leonard Cohen. Moving on to the decade of 1976 to '85, the fist-pumping people voted in Moving Pictures by Rush, while the illuminati went way the other way with Kate and Anna McGarrigle's folky eponymous debut.

For 1986 to '95, the honoured discs were Blue Rodeo's Five Days in July (public) and Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America (jury). And when it came to the decade of 1996 to 2005, the public chose Arcade Fire's Funeral where the professionals went with La Llorona, from the late singer-songwriter Lhasa.

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