Here are the top albums this week:
A lot of classic dance acts seem to be very active at the moment, so it’s definitely time for new Underworld material. Their album, Drift Songs, comes out in a couple of weeks, and as a taster, here’s Listen to Their No.
Here’s the latest album chart:
Time now to look at the decidedly mundane list of nominees for this year’s Q Awards, which will take place on 17th October.
You can vote for your favourites here, until October 5th.
The final step we need to take with the NME Awards is to summarise all the winners in one single, easy-to-digest place. So, continuing with the part one of two-part NME Poll Winners 1952-1992, let’s do that!
Here are all the winners for specific singles, videos, albums, films, and books!
The group of media awards, for radio, TV, films, and venues.
Continuing the odd and eclectic categories from 1954-1992, the NME Awards still give slightly odd awards out to individuals.
Continuing some of the odder categories from the earlier NME Polls. For clarity, I’ve separated the “live” events from the other “musical” events, although I think the award category was sometimes the same.
Join us again next week, when we’ll finish this list off!
If Teatime Dub Encounters isn’t a good enough title for you, then you should probably know that it’s an album of collaborations between Underworld and Iggy Pop! How good could that be?
Here’s Get Your Shirt, to give you some kind of idea:
The 2000s was, of course, the decade when nothing could be achieved without a heavy dose of corporate sponsorship, so the NME Awards flitted from Carling to Shockwave and the awards all gained individual sponsors. Let’s take a look at the first half of that decade.
Hosted at the Mermaid Theatre in London on 1 February 2000, by Steve Lamacq and Mary Anne Hobbs.
Hosted at Planit Arches, London, on 6 February 2001, by Peter Kay.
Hosted at Planit Arches, London, on 25 February 2002, by Zane Lowe.
Hosted at Hammersmith Palais, London, 13 February 2003, by Bill Bailey.
In 1994, the NME Awards suddenly went public, relaunching for the first time in twenty years as an annual awards ceremony, The NME Brat Awards. I’d always thought as the NME of the 1990s as being rather closed-minded, but they do seem to have been remarkably aware of non-indie forms of music, presenting awards to the likes of Tricky and Goldie towards the end of the decade.
After taking a break in 1993, the NME Poll finally reinvented itself as an actual awards ceremony in early 1994. Presenters: Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
Presenters: Tip Top TV
Presenters: Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer
Took place on 28 January 1997.
Took place on 27 January 1998. Presenter: Eddie Vedder
Edited 12 Jun 2018 – clarified some formatting.
Around this time of year, I usually like to put together a quick post summarising the Grammy Awards. Honestly, it’s a total nightmare – there are way too many awards in a myriad different categories, and I don’t really care all that much, but let’s see what we can see anyway…
First up, skipping straight to category #10, Best Dance/Electronic Album, where Jean-Michel Jarre was definitely robbed for Electronica 1: The Time Machine, and not even Underworld could grab it with Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future. Instead, it was taken by someone called Flume, with Skin.
Another veteran who didn’t make it this year was Vangelis, whose latest album Rosetta lost in the Best New Age Album category to White Sun‘s White Sun II.
There were some vague highlights in the Best Remixed Recording category, where Timo Maas turned up as a nominee, reworking Wings, but failed to win. Among the competition was Joe Goddard of Hot Chip, with a version of The Chemical Brothers‘ Wide Open, but that also failed to win.
There were some well-deserved wins for David Bowie in the Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song and Best Alternative Music Album and Best Recording Package and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical (whatever the heck that means) categories, all for Blackstar.
An honourable mention is surely due to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, whose latest album Walking in the Footsteps of Our Fathers didn’t quite grab the Best World Music Album, and finally, hats off to Dolly Parton, who with the help of Pentatonix won the Best Country Duo/Group Performance award for Jolene.
There’s a painfully long list here, if you want to find some highlights for yourself.
It’s difficult to predict whether the long-awaited sequel to Trainspotting is actually going to be any good, and honestly I think I’m more interested in the soundtrack. From a quick look, it doesn’t look quite as good as its predecessor, but there you go. This seemed one of the more interesting tracks, from Blondie. Other highlights include Iggy Pop, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and, of course, Underworld.
Music for stowaways 