News and Tributes

Hello folks,

As promised, here’s my blog on the Shortlist Music Prize, which, to my delight, was won by the brilliant Cat Power (and only a week and a half late, too!); admittedly, my delay has meant I was beaten to the subject by one of the hacks at the GU music desk, but I’m going to chip in now with my two penn’orth nonetheless.

First of all, a tribute to the award itself, which is commonly held up in this country (perhaps slightly misleadingly) as the North American answer to the Mercury prize; the main difference between the Shortlist and Mercury prizes is that the Shortlist award places no restriction on the nationality of any potential nominees (hence the fact that the winners of the inaugural prize in 2001 were Icelandic band Sigur Rós.) One of the more refreshing aspects of the Shortlist prize when compared to the Mercury award is that the winners of all the editions so far have been relatively unheralded (but no less deserving) acts; as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs on the subject, much as I quite like Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys, I’ve never understood the logic behind awarding a prize to a band that has already made a commercial breakthrough (and therefore probably doesn’t need a cheque for £10k, or however much is paid to the winners these days), and is already well known by most of the general public (don’t get me wrong, those albums may well have been the best made by British bands/artists that year, but there must surely have been some less heralded, but nonetheless worthy, nominees.) Perusing the Shortlist award website also makes for fascinating reading in terms of the initial (rather lengthy) list of nominees, which, while not exactly perfect, still isn’t a bad barometer of the year’s best alternative sounds (sorry, that did rather sound like a promotional blurb, didn’t it?) And OK, the judging panel may have committed a grave error in awarding the 2003 prize to the lamentable Damien Rice, but then the Mercury panel made a similar aberration in awarding the 1994 prize to M People.

Secondly, a tribute to the winner herself, who in the process becomes the first female winner of the prize; I’m ashamed to say that I’m a bit of a Johnny Come Lately when it comes to Cat Power, given that her first album release was in 1996 (admittedly I was 12 at the time, and had Radio 1 as my sole source of musical information at that age) and I’ve only found out about Cat Power during the past 12 months or so following the release of her most recent album, “The Greatest” (an apt choice of name for an award-winning album.) However, I would be amazed if someone was to listen to that album and come away completely unmoved; the album’s blues-rock inspired tones and melancholy lyrics never failed to tug at the heart strings for the entire duration (particularly on the outstanding “Willie”, “Living Proof” and “Lived in Bars”) The only shame is that the success of the album (as close as Cat Power has come, or, indeed, is likely to come, to a commercial breakthrough) has led to something of a cash-in (hence the appearance of the title track from “The Greatest” appearing in Garnier ads, or Cat Power becoming the new face of Chanel, apparently on the strength that she “looks good smoking”, and I must admit, I find her quite attractive myself), but I suppose that’s the way the wind is blowing these days (and the cries of “Sell-out” from fans, bloggers and critics are probably just as tiresome, to be honest.) In spite of this, though (and the gushing tribute from KT Tunstall, but don’t let that put you off), she’s still well worth a listen; she does have a MySpace page (albeit one maintained by her record label), but, in all honesty, you’ll probably find more music at the official website (the link for which is at the top of the page.)

OK, that’s enough sycophantic groupie writings for one afternoon. See you all later, everyone (and I hope you aren’t all driven to madness by all the cries of “Come on Tim!” over the next couple of weeks.)

Prof