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Artist News Awards
Popjustice and Drowned In Sound bestow alt-Mercury prizes
By Aly Barchi | Published on Friday 1 November 2013
James Bl-whatshisname having taken away this year’s Mercury Prize on Wednesday night, it has to be time – and lo, it is – for Drowned In Sound and Popjustice to give Mercury-alternative accolades to whomsoever they choose to give them to.
Well, they did choose, on Wednesday night as it happens, with readers and six DiS judges selecting Leeds psych band Hookworms’ excellent debut ‘Pearl Mystic’ to claim its Neptune Album Prize.
Reporting on the ceremony, DiS editor Sean Adams writes: “Regular readers of DiS will know that there’s a lot of love around these parts for ‘Pearl Mystic’, so perhaps it isn’t a huge surprise that it was the victor. Earlier this year DiS writer Dom Gourlay awarded the record 10/10 in his review and spoke of the perfection of this record that somehow marries post-hardcore heft with massive psychedelia and glorious shoegaze sprawls of guitars”.
And so to Popjustice’s illustrious Twenty Quid Music Prize, which is given to the person, or persons, Popjustice thinks ‘did’ the best single this year. Beating off finalists like The Saturdays, Duke Dumont and Little Mix, CMU approved Chvrches eventually won with ‘The Mother We Share’, taking the most votes in a round-table discussion.
“Woooo!”, they tweeted, adding: “Thanks to everyone who voted/argued! A new career high point”.