[SKOA Presents] The BBC 6 Music Blog Awards 2013: Results

So on Sunday evening, we took part in the BBC 6 Music Blog Awards which was rather fun yet again. Others included this year included The 405, Punktastic, The Quietus, One For The People, For Folk's Sake, The Blue Walrus, Fresh On The Net and some by the 6 Music team themselves. The show was a raging success and it's always a pleasure to take part in. There were a few technical mix ups but hey, it wouldn't be live radio and an awards ceremony without a  few of those now, would it?! To see the winners make the jump and to re-listen to the show in its enirety, head over here. Treat yourself to a few hours off from whatever it is you're meant to be doing today. We won't tell, honest.

Artist most likely to induce a state of vibe like euphori-coma (hosted by The 405)
Carnivals: We put Carnivals at the top of our 10-track shortlist for this award and many readers didn’t need to look any further. Kindness is exactly the blissed out ray of hazy sunshine we were thinking of when we came up with this category. Each gripping layer of sound provokes its own thought as it takes you over during the course of its four and half minutes, and as a cherry on top of all that, it's got beats as deep as the Mariana Trench.

Album you'd watch a ten-year anniversary tour of in 2022 (hosted by Punktastic)
The Menzingers - On The Impossible Past: Appearing on many "best of" lists in 2012 (taking second place in our staff poll), The Menzingers' On The Impossible Past saw them graduate from the gruff punk scene to the wider "rock audience", and it's likely going to be their career defining record. It's a particularly good choice for hearing in full live as it's got a very natural flow to it, and it's full to the brim of big choruses and memorable melodies!

Tomorrow’s Cult Artist Today (hosted by The Quietus)
Fat White Family: Fat White Family, are sick. I don't mean this like, they're well sick la, I mean they're seriously not well. I've never seen a more unhealthy looking band in my life. They're the sort of band you'd wish would move into the house next door to Bobby Gillespie to hold five day mephedrone jams. They sound like early Liars, smacky Butthole Surfers, slow and steamy Birthday Party. No good will come of it, mark my words but above and beyond all of this it should be said that they're also slightly brilliant.

Far More Than Just A UK Buzz Band (hosted by One For the People)
Crushed Beaks: Since they first unveiled a couple of early shed recorded demos in 2011, the Crushed Beaks duo of Alex Morris and Matthew Poile have been steadily increasing their worth. Continually building their flourishing aesthetic, they incorporate a romantic vulnerability into a sound that seems to merge effortlessly well with their noise-rock roots.

Best Venue for Upcoming Bands (Never Enough Notes)
Moles, Bath: We were looking for smaller, intimate venues and there are plenty of those around, but we didn't expect the volume of support and huge amount of loyal support we had! Moles in Bath took the top spot in a neck-and-neck race with The Fleece in Bristol. Moles is an institution with a 35-year history which has seen Radiohead,The Cure, Blur, Oasis and The Smiths, The Vaccines, Laura Marling and many others at the early stages of their career.

The EP or Single That Has (Had) You Most Excited About A Full Release (hosted us heare at SKoA, you must recognise this one)
Disclosure – White Noise:

Disclosure have shown so much promise over the past few months and were more popular than David Bowie, The 1975 and Nerve when we asked our followers. With them set to release a full-length album in the very near future we're more than a little excited to dance the nights away to their highly polished house anthems. 

Album That Justifies Buying Cripplingly Expensive Headphones Award (hosted by For Folk’s Sake)
The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth: John Darnielle is the musician who best expresses what it is to be alive, and 2012's Transcendental Youth is uplifting, exhilarating and tragic. Get your hands on some fancy headphones and sticl it on - it makes life better.

Band Most Likely to Start Their Own Cult (hosted by The Blue Walrus)
Shinies: Some bands in the running like the Chapman Family are perhaps too obvious a choice for starting a cult, that they have to regularly deny the claims. Shinies, however, have already made a cult-like a headline splash across the tabloids, by hunting down and sacrificing ex-Fun House presenter Pat Sharp in the video for Ennui. That sounds a lot like a cult to me.

Wise Words on the Web for Emerging Artists (hosted by Fresh on the Net)
Make it in Music: Make It In Music is a phenomenal resource for new bands, artists and labels alike – in fact anybody starting out in the music industry. And amazingly it is free.

MPFree of the Year (hosted by the 6 Music Morning Show)
VuVuVultures - I'll Cut You: Chosen on the 6 Music Facebook page.

Artist which would best double up as a Pest Control Company (hosted by The 6 Mix)
Massive Attack: Suggested by Jaime Paredes on the 6 Mix Facebook page.

BBC 6 Music Highlight 2013 (hosted by the 6 Music Facebook Page)
6 Music Live at Maida Vale 

[SKOA Presents] The BBC 6 Music Blog Awards 2013

Has it really been a year since we last did this? Oh how time flies when you're having fun, that's how the saying goes, isn't it?! Anyway, the good folk at the BBC and the amazing 6 Music have been kind enough to ask us back for another round of awards and we're having our own category again and need to get you guys involved once more. Last year we picked...The Album of the Year That You Never, Ever Skipped a Track On...Ever. And the winner was Bon Iver's beautiful self titled album. A tonne of awesome blogs are once again involved this year and the show will air later this week.

This year we threw some ideas together but the one that stuck was this: "The EP or Single That Has(Had) You Most Excited About A Full Release"

There's several that immediately have jumped to the front for us personally but hey, we wouldn't be awesome without you guys, so of course we want your opinions and your suggestions. We'll have a winner this weekend and the show will run from 6-8pm on Sunday Feb 24th on BBC 6 Music so get your votes and suggestions in ASAP!

To vote you can leave a comment below or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter but be sure to @ reply us and include the hashtag #Blog6Music so we don't miss any votes! The awards ceremony is set to take place this Friday on BBC 6 Music, from 7PM onwards and are presented by the wonderful Tom Robinson. START VOTING NOW and show your love for your favourite album. We'll add a shortlist later today of the front runners but for now, anything goes... 

Our shortlist:

The 1975 - Sex EP

David Bowie - "Where Are We Now"

Disclosure - "White Noise" Feat. AlunaGeorge

[SKOA Presents] BBC 6 Music Blog Awards

Well this is a little treat isn't it?! This month BBC 6 Music has approached some awesome websites to choose a category for their inaugural BBC 6 Music Blog Awards. We were over the moon to be asked to take part and alongside us we have the The Recommender, Drowned in Sound, The Quietus, One For the People, Never Enough Notes, For Folk’s Sake, The 405 and Data Transmission putting forward categories. To see what they all chose head over to the BBC website.

Onto our category; How many albums do you truly listen to and never want to skip a track on? Be honest! Now, this is different for everyone, obviously, but we wanted to try and scope peoples attitudes to listening to albums in general. For me, ever since I was a kid listening to music was a getaway from reality but there was always a track on an album I'd be likely to skip on my walkman, you know? So that led us all to come put forward our category...The Album of the Year That You Never, Ever Skipped a Track On... yeah, it's a bit long for the plaque but think about it for a few minutes. Last year was a top year for albums as you can see from our best of 2011 list and we want you to put forward your votes on which album you truly never get bored of and don't want to skip a track on. It could be on our list or it could be left field. The album needs to have been released within the last year and for inspiration go look at our top 10 albums from last year over here. Whatever gets the most votes will win our award this Friday.

To vote you can leave a comment below or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter but be sure to @ us and include the hashtag #Blog6Music so we don't miss any votes! The awards ceremony is set to take place this Friday on BBC 6 Music, from 7PM onwards and are presented by the wonderful Tom Robinson. START VOTING NOW and show your love for your favourite album. We'll add a shortlist later today of the front runners but for now, anything goes... 

See below for the other categories you can go and vote for:

Best Tease of the Last 12 Months – (The Recommender)
Tomorrow’s Cult Artist Today – (The Quietus)
Must See New Band for Summer 2012 – (Drowned in Sound)
Most Genre Defying Artist – (One For the People)
Unsung Hero – (Never Enough Notes)
The Writes Songs Joni Mitchell Would be Proud Of – (For Folk’s Sake)
Best Free Download Album – (The 405)
‘Superstar DJ’ in the Making – (Data Transmission)

[Recap] The 54th Annual Grammy Awards: Pleasantly Boring

Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles TimesLast night we witnessed a very safe ceremony for the 54th Annual Grammy Awards. The fact that I'm not as outraged about the performances and the results as I normally am has had me stewing on this all night and all morning. I'm always the one in my circle that cheers on The Recording Academy to make better decisions so they can be both relevant while not getting too caught up in The Long Tail looking for the year's very best, so why can't I feel better about last night's ceremony?  I want to say they're finally coming around, but why did the whole ordeal make me feel so "meh" afterwards?

The only two real "shockers" of the night in terms of awards were Skrillex and Bon Iver. Yes, Skrillex took home three awards for Best Dance/Electronic Album, Best Dance Recording and Best Remix during the pre-show so haters can put a Grammy in it for now. At least he didn't win Best New Artist so the rest of the world could start cracking Bonny Bear jokes after Bon Iver's second win of the night (the other was Best Alternative Music Album). Also, "Thanks for the sweet hookup", Justin Vernon? Really? Glad we know you didn't come with a prepared speech. Oh, and I don't understand how Bon Iver is a "New Artist" either. Supposedly if they've never won a Grammy before then technically they're still "new"? Okay....

The big winners of the night were Adele with six awards and Foo Fighters with five. Both also killed it during their perfromances. Anyone who wants to question how Adele managed to snatch up so many awards just needs to watch her as she destroyed "Rolling In The Deep" for the zillionth time. As for Foos, they rocked "Walk" most excellently. I could have done without the deadmau5 live remix thing they failed to pull off though. Probably one of my favorite quotes from the night was from Davie Grohl after Foos won Best Rock Album:

"To me this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of making music is what's most important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning your craft , that's the most important thing for people to do. It's not about being perfect, it's not about sounding absolutely correct, it's not about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here *points to heart* and it's about what goes on in here *points to head*".

Most of the other performances were pretty solid, minus maybe whatever the heck Nicki Minaj was trying to prove to everyone during her new single, "Roman Holiday". I think someone may be butthurt that she can't come off as cracked out as Lady Gaga. Either way, I wasn't a fan before last night and she certainly did not win me over after the short film and all the "Look at me! I'm so crazy!" The Beach Boys gave me "Good Vibrations". Paul McCartney gave The Recording Academy some Kisses On The Bottom so he got to perform twice, only to find out that America's youth doesn't know who the heck he is (yes, seriously). Jennifer Hudson's tribute to Whitney Houston made me hate her less for being in all those Weight Watchers commericals in addition to it finally sinking in that Whitney is really gone.

Also, can we talk for a second about Chris Brown? I can try to get over (and fail miserably) that even though he beat the snot out of Rihanna that he still got to perform and that he also won a Grammy last night. What I can't get over, is the outcry from #TeamBreezy that stupidly announced that they would let Brown "beat on them anytime". SERIOUSLY? Is this what we've become, the internet? Face. Palm.

At any rate, The Recording Academy must have done something right, considering last night's show ranked at #2 in all-time ratings with 39 million viewers. What did you think of last night's show?

In case you missed out, The Audio Perv has all the performances for you to check out. You can also check out a full listing of last night's winners over on The Grammy's website.

[News] 54th Annual Grammy Nomminations Announced

It's that time of year again where we all bicker and complain about how the Grammys are no longer relevant and that the music industry continues to be nothing but a big fat failure. That's right, kiddies: the 54th Annual Grammy nominations are in and the band bashing is already in full swing.

Leading the nominations this time around are Adele (shocker), Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. The Electronica and Dance categories were relatively well represented with nods for Cut/Copy, David Guetta, Robyn, Duck Sauce, Deadmau5, Skrillex, and Swedish House Mafia.

Skrillex and Bon Iver were included in the noms for Best New Artist along with The Band Perry, J. Cole and Nicki Minaj, which seemed to rattle the internet quite a bit. It's a little random that Bon Iver is in this category considering they released their first album in 2008, but we will be happy for them all the same. Skrillex seems to come out of left field in this category, but I guess if Ryan Seacrest is excited for Skrillex then we really shouldn't be all that shocked. Kudos to him for getting electronica/dance music into more categories other than their own, though. Bon Iver also received a nomination for Record of the Year with "Helocene" alongside Mumford & Sons, Katy Perry, Adele, and Bruno Mars.

Butch Vig, Danger Mouse, The Lonely Island, The Black Keys, Foster The People, Radiohead, The Decemberists, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon, Wilco and many more were among the nominees tonight. Make sure you have a onceover on this years list of nominees and get ready to fire your tweets off with us on February 12, 2012 during the awards ceremony.