LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts/ Shortlist Organization) - The Shortlist Organization announced the Long List of nominees for the sixth annual Shortlist
Music Prize, a peer-selected award that recognizes the most creative and adventurous albums of the year. The 61 nominees were selected by a panel of nine Listmakers: recording artists Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol), Ronnie Vannucci (the Killers), Franz Ferdinand, KT Tunstall, Panic! at the Disco, Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), Sufjan Stevens, and journalists Toure (BET, Rolling Stone) and Rev. Moose (Vice President of Content, CMJ Network; Editor-In-Chief, CMJ New
Music Report).
Nomination to the Long List is the first step towards the Shortlist Music Prize. Ten Finalists will be announced in April, and the winner will be announced later in the spring.
"This year's Listmakers have created a streetwise playlist of state-of-the art rock, dance and hip hop," says Shortlist Creative Director Greg Spotts. Any album released in the US in 2006 was eligible for nomination, so long as it had not been certified gold for domestic sales of 500,000 units.
Listmaker Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol calls this year's Long List "an incredible list that looks like my own iPod." Lightbody describes Regina Spektor's "Begin to Hope" as "a gorgeous record which is simple and devastating in equal measure." Also among Lightbody's favorites are the "sublime, blissed out elegance" of Band of Horses, the "sweeping swooning carnival" of Beirut, and the "twisted, warped pop" of Mates of State.
Nominees range from established rock bands like the Decemberists, Belle and Sebastian, the Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to innovative beatmeisters like The Knife, Hot Chip, Spank Rock and CSS. Beginning a new tradition, the Shortlist Organization invited last year's winner Sufjan Stevens to serve as a Listmaker. Stevens' picks include harpist Joanna Newsom, rapper Dabrye and two international artists, Norway's Serena Maneesh and Japan's OOIOO.
In all, artists from ten countries were nominated, including five Scandinavian and five English artists. The 61albums on the Long List were released by more than 45 different record labels. In chronological order, the five previous Shortlist winners are Sigur Ros, N*E*R*D, Damien Rice, TV on the Radio and Sufjan Stevens.
Long List of Nominations for Sixth Annual Shortlist Music Prize:
Against Me - Americans Abroad Live in London
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Band of Horses – Everything All the Time
Beck - The Information
Beirut – Gulag Orskestar
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
Cat Power – The Greatest
Country Teasers - The Empire Strikes Back
CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
Cursive - Happy Hollow
Dabrye - Two/Three
Danielson - Ships
Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Heart Bloom
Editors - The Back Room
Field Music – Field Music
Forgive Durden - Wonderland
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
Hot Chip - The Warning
Howling Bells - Howling Bells
Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker – Palm of Soul
Kimya Dawson - Remember that I Love You
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Love is All - Nine Times That Same Song
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Mates of State - Bring It Back
Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Mew - And the Glass Hand Kites
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Mohair - Small Talk
Mute Math - Mutemath
Neil Young – Living With War
OOIOO - Taiga
Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Roots - Game Theory
Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh
Skream - Skream
Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
Teddybears - Soft Machine
The Blow - Paper Television
The Bronx - The Bronx
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
The Gossip – Standing In the Way of Control
The Hush Sound – Like Vines
The Knife - Silent Shout
The Stills - Without Feathers
The Strokes – First Impression of Earth
The Velvet Teen – Cum Laude
The Weepies - Say I am You
Tom Waits - Orphans
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Vaux - Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
