The Lex 20p Indie Prize 2008

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

It's that time of year again!

We want your nominations for the 4th Annual Lex 20p Indie Prize shortlist!

[Poll #1252320]

Nominations will close at lunchtime on Thursday, and the final poll will be posted soon after (remind me if I forget!), with the winner announced next week.

Last year's winner was Art Brut, beating the Arcade Fire and Mark Ronson. As ever, the definition of 'indie' is up to you but nominations should be vaguely kept to acts that have released something in the UK in the last 12 months (if you get stuck for ideas here is the Mercury Prize nominations thread).

Comments

Other possibles

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

- The Arctic Monkey and his mate who invaded Russia
- ALPHABEAT lest we forget
- Vampire Beak Hen
- Santogold (awesome AND indie)
- Hmmm I think I nominated The Feeling for the 2006 prize so I'm giving them a miss this year (plus: not indie!)

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Hehehe I was going to suggest the ting tings as well. S0dding ting tings. OH and Fanfarlo, bcs obviously there must always be a band who shares a drummer with Silver Springs in the running :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Who are Hamfatter again?

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

I have nominated Ballboy, for a fantastic comeback album including a ukulele song.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

Have I misunderstood? Is this supposed to be sh1t indie? Oh well, Interpol then for everybody getting excited by them at Latitude, and then them turning out to be just another dirgey act.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

The Dragons Den band.

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

They are the beardy ones who went on Dragons' Den to apply for funding from that man in the BT ads...

Re: Other possibles

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

fyi, Santogold = the (only) token indie act I actually like this year

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i think of it as the 'any good at all' indie/pop act that riles the lex the most. so eg santogold = fail

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The voting criteria are many!

- how good they are
- how awful they are but they still have to win somehow
- how ubiquitous they've been in the last year
- how much they wind up the Lex

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Aha, getcha.

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

Noah and the Whale, a fine nomination from friedslice. I withdraw my nomination to get behind the whale.

[koganbot]

Yes, criteria are contradictory and you can use or discard them as you will:

--Best act that you can rationalize as indie
--Best act that you can rationalize as indie and is likely to irritate Lex
--Act most likely to irritate Lex (whether good or not) subcategory A: they irritate Lex because he thinks they're irremediably awful
--Act most likely to irritate Lex (whether good or not) subcategory B: they irritate Lex because he likes some of what they do but they have characteristics that he can't stand
--Act that is most indie
--Indie act that you hate but that has something
--Worst indie act
--Act that you have never heard but from what you've heard about them they epitomize something indie and irritating

My answers would be:
--Santogold, unless we can rationalize Robyn or Annie as indie (which I can, but I'll pretend I can't for the sake of simplicity, unless someone else nominates them)(and my guess based on two or three tracks is that the new Annie isn't going to be good enough, unfortunately)
--Ting Tings, unless we factor in the 12-inch version of the Pete Hammond Remix of Alphabeat's "Boyfriend," which is quite good (except if Lex were to hear it and like it that might undercut this category, unless he both hates and likes it or hates that they have one thing under their name that he likes)(actually, I've been known to tick the Hoosiers, but they hardly arouse anybody one way or another, really, do they?)
--Subcategory A: Ting Tings, I'd wager
--Subcategory B: Robyn, if we decide she's eligible
--The View, if they've had recent enough product; if not, any number of other bands whose names I've forgotten; has to be a guitar band made up of boys, though
--Ting Tings or Alphabeat (unless I decide I don't hate them)
--Scouting For Girls or The View or [some band that's even worse]
--Fleet Foxes (and I wish there were greater America consciousness at poptimists so that we all could wrestle with the Hold Steady and New Pornographers and Neko Case and acts with "Bear" in their title)

So for me the choices would be Santogold, Alphabeat, or Ting Tings (I mean, does anyone really get riled up about the View?)

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

I begrudge the View winning anything, even the Lex 20p Indie Prize, but they haven't released anything in the last 12 months (eagerly-awaited second album due shortly) so I don't think they're eligible. They did OK in the noms last year.

I was thinking of nominating the Script but they're too insipid to be described as indie even if meant in a derogatory sense.

[redcommieapples.livejournal.com]

Using this criteria:

-- Bon Iver
-- MGMT
-- Black Kids /Ting Tings
-- Annie (i'm not sure if we really can count Robyn as 2008 as she keeps popping up the same stuff every year since 2005)
-- The Kooks
-- Lykke Li / Foals
-- Scouting For Girls cakewalk
-- Ladyhawke

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

If I didn't think that 20p was TOO GOOD FOR THEM, I would nominate Little Man Tate but they are simply too hateful. See also: The Enemy, The View, Scouting For Girls, One Night Only and ARGH SO MANY.

The Hoosiers are alright but their blatant rip of The Lovecats was a bit ...well, blatant. The Automatic already won this one year I think so I don't feel I can nominate them and well, I just hate all indie right now to be honest.

So I nominated This Will Destroy You. Fuck Buttons nearly had it but 'A Three-Legged Workhorse' does piss all over 'Sweet Love For Planet Earth.'

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

OOH. The Hold Steady! I had forgotten them temporarily.

They are one of my favourite bands, sadly I have not heard the new album yet though.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Although now I am torn because whalefish correctly identifies McFly as being Actually Indie now and 'Corrupted' is AMAZING.

[koganbot]

Xhuxk, who generally loves them, says it is their worst album. It also apparently is their most successful/beloved. Contender for Idolator/Pazz & Jop crown. I haven't heard it.

[koganbot]

Someone has to nominate Lykke Li!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Blimey when did McFly turn into the Foo Fighters?

[koganbot]

No, being merely actually indie doesn't make you indie (and are you sure they're not going to be distributed by a major? that's the criterion by which Billboard declares you independent, if you're not distributed by a major)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I like the Hoosiers! They have a charm about them that S4G/View/Enemy couldn't drum up if they'd been to finishing school for 100 years. I don't like them enough to buy their album though.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hence Steps and Britney being at the top of the indie charts AT ALL TIMES between 1998-2000 etc :)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Well someone else has nominated Alphabeat as well, so you can go back and change your vote Frank!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Good call on MGMT - that song they did, you know, that one, er, anyway - it was pretty good! If I could remember what it was called I would youtube it now!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

No major involvement whatsoever; they've set it up all by themselves as far as I can tell, bless'm.

Idk, they are quite indie in a way. Lex probably hates them, too. It is stretching the point a bit though probably.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Idk but the Foo Fighters would be 10,000x more amazing if they had a song as good as 'Corrupted.'

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

MGMT don't irritate me! I don't like them at all but they don't make me angry like the Ting Tings.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

IDA MARIA!

Do we really need a scandinavian Helen Love?

Do we really??

Really?

[koganbot]

But what if I do that and then they don't make the shortlist?

Most spot on nominations so far

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

1. Noah and the Whale: named in honour of none-more-indie (well, apart from being mates with Nicole Kidman) director Noah Baumbach. That's before you even get to the Wes Anderson-referencing, on a tuppence budget, video. And the drifting in and out of a regional accent.

2. Ida Maria: If they still have indie discos, I'm presuming this is the indie disco floorfiller of the year, because it's got the bob your head speeding up/slowing down thing – and the lyric you can sing at people you fancy only pretending you're just singing along to the music. (A bit like the double decker bus song back in the dark ages).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

but that field is, like, null.

[ijgrieve.livejournal.com]

I've nominated Urbnri. I think I'm the only one here who likes them, but they're the first name that came to mind on seeing the thread title.

At the very least, I'm nominating them for being the indie-est indie band to have reached the top 40 (with 'Young Free & Simple') in 2008.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

The new one is a grower. It is really good eventually.

It's probably the one I like least, but I am generally a "I preferred their earlier stuff" style indie bore anyway, so that was bound to happen.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

But half the stuff we're nominating isn't indie in any sense! So I figured I may as well chuck them in.

I'll probably end up changing my mind again.

[koganbot]

I think that almost everything nominated is indie in some sense, either stylistically and in loosely related sensibility; hard to put a finger on what that sensibility is, since the sensibilities are only loosely related - and bear in mind that I think that poptimists is indie, not in its taste (which of course varies from person to person, and there are definite aesthetic arguments and tensions among us, and in some ways what unites us is participating in similar arguments rather than all holding similar views, but there are a similarities and common touchstones, too), but basically by being a part-time boho niche of poorly paid or unpaid critics with a critical stance towards the mainstream of criticism and journalism (a lot of the mainstream being, paradoxically, pro-indie rock in its attitudes and predilections). Bands like the Arctic Monkeys (for instance) veer towards a different kind of institutionalized boho than we do, but there still are family resemblances here and there, at the minumum I'm guessing a similar social liberalism. And acts like Annie and Robyn and Alphabeat and the Knife and Teddybears STHLM are indie in that they resemble us socially, sort of the left bohemia of dance-pop, and though I think some of them create beautiful music sometimes, they tend to sound a lot less vital than Rihanna and Cassie and Britney and ilk, who usually do way better than mere beauty. (But it's not a given that acts who resemble "us" socially must be less vital than acts that don't.)

[koganbot]

either stylistically OR in loosely related sensibility

there are a similarities

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

we do. but IDA is not it.

best thing about ida? HER NAME OBV.