# Tragic Cat Power Wins Major Music Prize

- Link: https://indierockcafe.com/2007/06/tragic-cat-power-wins-major-music-prize/
- Published: 2007-06-13T18:16:00-04:00
- Author: Max Hammer

[[The melancholy voice and hauntingly beautiful lyrics of Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall)
have proved strong enough to earn her the title of this year’s **Shortlist Music
Prize** for her popular 2006 album _The Greatest_, a culmination featuring highlights
from her impressive body of sombre songs laden with heartache and expressed sincerely
and tragically through aching vocals and emotive piano playing.

No matter who is chosen for the prize, there will always be fans of the other nominees
that think their favorite artist’s album should take the honor.

According to the press release today by the Los Angeles-based Shortlist Organization,“
Cat Power’s album quickly got under my skin. She has one of the most beguiling voices
around. ‘The Greatest’ is an immediate classic that will never age.”

Despite her unquestionable talent and important contributions to indie music, it
may have some music fans scratching their heads, considering the line-up of intial
nominees picked by the Shortlist Organization panel of judges.

In addition, the winning album is not a release of new, original music – it’s a 
compilation of Marshall’s ‘greatest’. Is that fair to the other artists and their
fans?

The announcement of the Shortlist Music Prize was late this year by a couple of 
weeks at the least. The organization said in March that it would announced the winner
in May after shaving down the list of nominees to the top ten. Speculation that 
a deal with iTunes to feature the winning album on the store’s homepage is what 
caused the delay.
[](https://indierockcafe.com/abels)This year’s nine listmakers
including last year’s winner Sufjan Stevens, Franz Ferdinand, KT Tunstall, Panic
at the Disco, The Killers, Snow Patrol and Flaming Lips.

Related Post:  DIY Band to Watch - Evaline

Drummer Ronnie Vannucci of the Killers said “the finalists are the backbone of what
makes music special in the first place. They are each doing their own thing and 
it’s beautiful.”

Greg Spotts, the Shortlist co-founder, said: “this is the year of the storyteller.
More than half of our ten finalists are wordsmiths who create unique characters 
and narratives, interpreting our complex world in new ways.”

Many of these artists employ unusual instruments and sounds, from the harp of Joanna
Newsom to the accordion of Beirut to the secondhand percussion of Tom Waits.

Nine of the ten nominated albums were released by independent labels, marking the
indie sector’s largest share of the finalists in the award’s six-year history.

Check the entire list. Entries in bold are the top ten Shortlist nominees. Those
in italics are my own choices for the top ten.

**Background Information on the Shortlist Organization**

Anyone who wants a fast track introduction to indie and alternative rock should 
definitely take a browse of the nominated albums by the little-known Shortlist Organization.

Each year since 2001, the organization, comprised of rock musicians, producers and
others from the independent rock music scene, has gone about selecting their favorite
albums for the past year.

The only restrictions are that album nominated must have been for sale in the U.
S. and could not have sold more than 500,000 units.

Once all the “listmakers” have turned in their nominees, they are all collected 
and collated into a “long list” of the past year’s best album and artists, which
usually comprises about 55 to 70 nominees on average.

Related Post:  Meet One of the U.K.’s Hottest Bands - Editors

[[For example, this year there were a total of 60 albums nominated for the year 
of 2006.

The list itself reads like a rooster of the best indie artists and albums of the
past year – enough to make any rock fan want to check and double-check their music
collection again just to make sure they have everything.

After the long list is released, the committee goes to work to pair the list down,
ultimately giving birth to the name “Shortlist”.

Anyone who has been an indie fan since, let’s say roughly 1999, knows that it is
a daunting task to create a “short” list of the best albums in any one year because
there are so many great releases. Look at 2006 alone.

The long list is itself a microcosm of a much longer list of fantastic music released
by indie and alternative rock, pop, hip hop, trance and others in the past year,
but just as the iPod Nano teaches, you need to begin to limit your music collection
somewhere – there’s simply not enough time.

This is yet another purpose of the Shortlist Music Prize – that is, to basically
do all the work finding the best music out there for you, packaging it up really
nice, offering a streaming jukebox of songs from the list nominees (located on the
site’s homepage) and essentially writing up your list of CDs to go buy or request
for your birthday or other occasion.

Putting the “in” in to Indie. Stop by Indie Rock Cafe for the best
 bands, MP3s,
videos, news, concert listings, festival updates, playlists and more.