Idolator

Last night, the PLUG Independent Music Awards—the only awards show in town where having categories honoring "Album Of The Year" and "Indie Rock Album Of The Year" seems both indulgent and redundant—were presented at Terminal 5, in a ceremony that was hosted by Patton Oswalt, apparently ditched last year's dumb skits, and culminated in a Nick Cave show. While there weren't many surprises in the list of honorees (apparently, many people who vote in Internet music polls like the Arcade Fire and live in New York City), I'd like to give a special shout-out to Online Record Store Of The Year iTunes, who proved that the right combination of canny song placement and driving the labels crazy with your success can give you bucketloads of cred among the indie cognoscenti. Full list of winners after the jump. More »

Nominees for the annual PLUG Independent Music Awards (a.k.a. Dudes! With! Beards!) were announced today, with few surprises and an excess of categorical minutiae. Let's all work together to figure out why they've got separate categories for Best Album of the Year and Best Indie Rock Album of the Year. More »

We may have come away empty-handed from Saturday night's PLUG Awards, but we weren't the only ones who lost: Anyone who made it all the way through the four-hour* fiasco was treated to a series of disastrously executed stunts (a "live" iPod battle), way-too-long nominee-list recitals, and way-too-short sets from the likes of Deerhoof and El-P. Thankfully, host David Cross was just as frustrated as we were, and he served as our own Herbert Morrison, narrating the increasingly horrific turn of events with some first-rate zingers. Photographer Nikola Tamindzic was on hand, earning his hazard pay. More »

As you might have heard, the annual Plug Awards—a not-at-all-unnecessary event in which indie types celebrate other, indier types—will be held tomorrow night in New York City. We're going, mostly because we have to, and because we've always wondered what it would be like to lose an award in public. But how will the night shake out for everyone else? After the click-through, our predictions. More »

What do you get when you combine the self-congratulatory smugness of an awards show with the insular cabbala of the music blogosphere? Why, you get the PLUG Awards, an annual kudos ceremony for people who need reassurance that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was, indeed, the best new band of 2006. More »