The US's Shortlist Music Prize is back. As you may remember, this was established back in 2001 as a kind of US version of the Mercury Music Prize. A split between the two founders of the prize meant that there was no award last year, but one of the founders, Tom Sarig, set up a short lived rival called the New Pantheon Prize. But the other founder, Greg Spotts, has reportedly now bought the rights to both the Shortlist and New Pantheon Prize and merged them back into one. So that's all good then.
As before, the first stage of the Shortlist is a Longlist, from which a Mercury style top ten will be selected by a panel of artists and music types. Only albums which have sold less than half a million copies in the US are eligible for this award, and among the 61 artists on the Longlist are The Roots, Wolfmother, Regina Spektor, Beck and former winners TV On The Radio.
The shortlist of ten will be announced in April.