Anyway, who cares about the Brit awards, surely all the cool kids had their eyes on the Plug Awards in New York last night.
These are a new alternative music awards thing originally set up in 2001 by Gerry Hart, occasional CMJ contributor and employee of management firm World's Fair. Back then they were essentially an online poll, but this year they were repeated and stepped up a bit. A board known as the 'Plug Cartel' selects the nominations
- only artists on independent labels are considered.
The big winners on the night were TV On The Radio, who took the
Album Of The Year prize for their album 'Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty
Babes' - which also won them the Shortlist Music Prize last year. Interpol were named Artist Of The Year while Arcade Fire were named New Artist Of The Year, Jean Grae got Female Artist
Of The Year and Tom Waits got Male Artist Of The Year.
The awards were handed out at a special event at New York's Webster
Hall.