The above promo video for the 2008 Plug Awards held at Terminal 5 in New York City on Friday night was produced by Dell Lounge, a website that broadcast the award ceremonies live.

While there is no official Dell Lounge video of the ceremonies out yet, you can view a segment of the live cast via a hypercam streaming recorder, along with a clip of St. Vincent performing at the awards show, below.

The winners of the 2008 PLUG Awards include the best indie rock album of the year Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective and the overall album of the year Neon Bible by Arcade Fire.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Animal Collective - Fireworks

Justice was named the best new artist, and the male and female artist of the year awards went to Andrew Bird and Annie Clark of St. Vincent, respectively.

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.
Andrew Bird - Heretics
St. Vincent - These Days (J. Brown)

Here are some of the other winners and nominees in various categories of the 2008 Plug Awards.

Americana Album of the Year - Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Metal Album of the Year - The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
Hip-Hop Album of the Year - Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
Punk Album of the Year - Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta!
Electronic/Dance Album of the Year - Justice - †
DJ Album of the Year - Hot Chip - DJ-Kicks
Avant Album of the Year - Liars - Liars

Listen to 30-second clips of all the nominees for all the categories.

The following YouTube clip features Annie Clarke and St. Vincent, plus Dizzee Rascal and Jose Gonzalez



Other 2008 nominees for Best Indie Rock Album of the Year:



Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)
Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (Sub Pop)
Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
Deerhunter - Cryptograms (Kranky)
Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends (Frenchkiss)
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
Okkervil River - The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover (Jagjaguar)
The National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet)
The New Pornographers - Challengers (Matador)

Not included but should have been: Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare, Editors' An End Has A Start, etc.

Winner and nominees for the Best Album (overall) of the 2008:

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Merge)
WinnerBand Of Horses - Cease To Begin (Sub Pop)
Battles - Mirrored (Warp)
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup (Ba Da Bing)
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead (Definitive Jux)
Justice - † (Downtown / Vice / Ed Banger)
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (self-released)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
The National - Boxer (Beggars Banquet)

Best New Artist of the Year winner and nominees:

Bat For Lashes
Battles
Dan Deacon
Deerhunter
Justice -Winner
Los Campesinos!
No Age
Sea Wolf
St. Vincent
Vampire Weekend
White Rabbits
Yeasayer

Music website winner and nominees for 2008:

Allmusic
CokemachineGlow
The Daily Swarm
Daytrotter
Elbo.ws
The Hype Machine
MySpace
NME.com
Paper Thin Walls
Pitchfork Media
Prefix
Stylus

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Labels: 2008 Music Awards, Music Awards, Plug Music Awards, Rock Music Awards

The Shortlist Organization will release their official "shortlist" of nominees for the sixth annual Shortlist Music Prize in a couple of weeks, narrowing the "longlist" of 61 albums of 2006 down to the Top Ten.

The Shortlist Music Prize is considered one of the highest honors in the independent and alternative rock music profession. Last year's winner, Sufjan Stevens, has taken the music world by storm, releasing one compilation of amazing music after another.


Stevens' 2005 album Illinoise is full of soft melodies, inspirational spurts of engery, lyrical intrigue and is easily one of the classic albums of the past decade.

Earlier this month, TSO released the long list of 61 nominees featuring a compendium of the best indie and alternative music of the past year, including artists such as like Snow Patrol, Arcade Fire, Mates of State, Band of Horses, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and many more. (See below for the complete list)

The 61 nominees were selected by a panel of nine indie rock artists and journalists, including Sufjan Stevens, Franz Ferdinand, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips, Ronnie Vannucci of The Killers, members of Panic at the Disco, Reverend Moose, editor-in-chief of CMJ New Music Report, and a Rolling Stone magazine rock critic.

To qualify for nomination artists' albums must be released in the U.S. in the past year and not have sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. Panelists are also looking for artists who embrace and push the envelope of the indie rock spirit of "creative and adventurous" music.

"This year's listmakers have created a streetwise playlist of state-of-the art rock, dance and hip hop," Shortlist creative director Greg Spotts said.

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody told Top40-Charts.com that this year's Long List "looks like my own iPod." He says the melancholy "Begin to Hope" by Regina Spektor is "a gorgeous record which is simple and devastating in equal measure."

Lightbody also elegantly describes two of his favorite artists - both IRC Featured Artists - praising North Carolina's Band of Horses' Everything All the Time as "sublime, blissed out elegance" and Beirut's Gulag Orskestar as "sweeping swooning carnival" of songs, and the couple duo Mates of States Bring It Back as "twisted, warped pop."

Subscribe to this feed and watch for the Top Ten, and ultimately a full profile of the winner. The winner will be announced sometime in May.

The 61 nominees include artists from 45 different record labels and ten countries as selected by Sufjan Stevens (and based on his taste in music, you might want to check out some of these albums if you haven't already):

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

Labels: Music Awards, Shortlist Music Prize

The Kooks were named best UK-Ireland rock band of the year and The Killers took away the prize at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Oh, and Madonna was "snubbed." Cool.

Fans of The Kooks might want to check out the following sites:

The Kooks Official Web Site
Kooks Fan Site - My Space (warning: embedded music)
The Kooks - Wikipedia
Kooks Similar to The Kinks - Variety
Kooks Discussions - forums.thekooks.co.uk

Killers Resources:


The Killers Music - thekillersmusic.com
The Killers Portal - Yahoo! Music
The Killers Fan Site - thekillersfansite.com

Labels: Music Awards, The Killers, The Kooks