Congratulations to Elbow

Sean will be pleased:) His favourite band have won this years Mercury Music Prize with their album, "The Seldom Seen Kid".

Up against artists like Estelle, Burial and The Last Shadown Puppets who opened the ceremony, Elbow were unexpected winners. We at PopJunkie love the album and have been championing it for months - especially wee Sean!

And, we are not alone Guardian critic Alex Petridis agrees with us:

"It's a really interesting mainstream rock record that absolutely deserves wider audience recognition - the songs are fantastic, the lyrics are beautifully turned, it works a lot of slightly abstruse and disparate influences into its sound and there's something incredibly charming and human and warm about it."

Singer Guy Garvey dedicated the prize to Brian Glancey, a close friend and pivotal figure in the Manchester music scene, who died two years ago.

"The album is dedicated to him, because you don't get more seldom seen than someone who's dead, and I think he'd appreciate the gallows humour in that," he said. "I miss him every day, he was a great man and he should be stood here in many ways. Some of his music will be coming out soon and everyone else will know how great he was as well."

Garvey said the prize would be given to Glancey's mother, Mandy, to put on her mantelpiece.

Watch PopJunkie Epsiode 1 where Sean reviews "The Seldom Seen Kid"

UK Festival Awards

Hooray I have secured myself an invite to this years UK Festival Awards which is taking place Tuesday November 6th at KOKO in Camden with the Cuban Brothers hosting the night.

Some of the year’s best breakthrough bands will be performing at the event including The Brighlights, Scouting for Girls plus a mysterious secret third act.

Ex-Beta Band genius Steve Mason, will be DJing at the after party along with Tall Paul, who is performing an exclusive alternative set. It looks set to be a great and besides, I love the UK festival Awards as they reward all those people who work so damn hard to put on wicked festivals for us lucky punters.

As we all know festival season is the jukebox's favourite time of year!

Wow! I was 4th!!!

BT Digital Music Awards - The Results

Alas the wee trixter did not win last night...the award went to David Gilmour's blog - big congrats.

Now I can tell my children (when they are born obviously) that their Mum was beaten by a member of Pink Floyd for an award...how cool is that?

It was all very intimidating and I had to rush out midway through for a cheeky spark up where I bumped into the lovely keyboardist (is that what they are called?) from The Rakes. Really nice guy, down to earth and let me witter on about sixtiesness and how nervous I was. Also I think they ended up winning an award so congrats to them!

I have a few pics and a video of the award nominations which I will post up.

Once again thank you all for voting whoever you all are!

OH.MY.GOD - I got shortlisted at the Digital Music Awards

Crikey...just as I was begining to get majorly depressed about the gloominess of Monday morning and I go and get shortlisted for best new music blog at the Digital Music Awards

Thanks so much for all of you who have voted for me I really, really appreciate and so nice to know that so many of you enjoy reading me wittering on.

Vic :)

Crusade for more openess at the Mercury's

Following on from my post regarding the Mercury's yesterday Jude Rogers from The Guardian has posted a great article here on her experiences as a judge at this years award.

It's a great read and dispels some of the myths shrouding the awards.

More openess around the Mercury's! Lets start a revolution.

Surprise win for Klaxons

Congratulations are in order to London based Klaxons for winning last nights prestigous Nationwide Mercury Music Prize. Definite outsiders most people’s money was on Winehouse (who just for the record did turn up and sang “Love is a Losing Game”) or Bat for Lashes. I was gunning for Maps but have to say I am pleasantly surprised with news of the Klaxon’s victory. Singer and bass player Jamie Reynolds made perfect sense when reflecting on the judges decision,

"I think [the Mercury judges] have rewarded forward thinking music," Asked about winning over Winehouse, the band grumbled about having to answer questions about her all day. "She is fantastic, but her record is a retro record, and we have made the most forward thinking record since I don't know how long," Reynolds said.

If its true the award is to honour forward thinking music then Klaxons had it in the bag all along…its just the criteria for winners seems to change every year. Previous winners Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand could hardly be described as forward thinking but their winning credentials could not be doubted.

Year after year the awards are marred with controversy - I think the board at Mercury need to clean up once and for all what the awards are supposed to reward…that way the awards might make a little bit more sense.

What do you think?

Digital Music Awards

Ok my people's Ive managed to get myself in this years Digital Music Award - People's Awards...

PLEASE vote for me here:


THANKS XXX

Maps for Mercury!

Autumn is creeping in and its time to accept that yup that’s it for summer but hey that’s ok as my favourite music award is just around the corner. Next Tuesday one band will have their album crowned as winner of the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize. So will it be another case of Anthony and the who or are we on the cusp of discovering the next Arctic Monkeys?

There are some great nominations in there – Klaxons, Jamie T etc. My two hot favourites are Maps and Bat for Lashes – suitably popular but individual enough to get Simon Frith (Chief Voter Man) hot under the collar.

Arctic Monkeys are back in there – the first band to have albums making the shortlist two years in a row. Also the now infamous Ms Winehouse has her number one album Back to Black nominated. I have to say my money is not on either of these – the judges will want to breathe life into something a little fresher methinks.

So good luck to you all and make sure you get a good night’s sleep before the award as we all know the winner inevitably shoots right into superstardom with endless rounds of press interviews and also oodles of money.

Pssst judges….vote Maps…the guys a genius!