Via stereogum.

Music videos should be original. Funny. Different. Challenging. Appealing. Interesting. Music videos with any of the above adjectives should therefore be praised and awarded, not nessacarily by MTV, but awarded and recognised for their brilliance nonetheless.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Christina Aguilera and Madonna. None of these artists or bands have created something innovative and truly ground-breaking in years, but regardless, scoop up the majority of the nominations this year. It's inevitible that a station that plays terrible artists will award terrible music-videos, but you know, is it too much to hope for something else? Like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

"SOS" by Rihanna is nominated in two categories- "Viewers Choice" and "Best New Artist". The video is terrible and far from original, but I say give her the awards, the video was mighty appealing no matter how bad the song was.

I mentioned a while ago some of the sites that i'd recently discovered and enjoyed, one of them being the appealing concept and idea of Last.fm. I've been registered on thie site for just over two weeks now, and i'd be lying if I said that so far, I wasn't enjoying the experience.

First and foremost, the site is an online library that tracks and monitors all of the tracks you've listened to, then allowing you the oppurtunity to view and observe what exactly you've been listening to, and just how often. From this alone comes the chance to listen to other bands and musicians similar to your tastes, steering you towards bands of whatever popularity status you wish. This recording also allows you to view other user's profiles, linking you up with people who are generally into the same stuff. The rest is ultimately up to you- favourite albums can be discussed and debated, reccomendations can be given for others, and thoughts and reviewes, as ever, can be posted as a journal on your page. On the whole, Last.fm is all about music, but provides an open playground for community discussion and talk, it's perhaps to music what Flickr is to photography, although some would disagree.

Comparisons to MySpace are almost inevitable and guaranteed, because, you know, MySpace has "music on it too". Whatever, either way, the site as you'd expect is far superior to anything Tom-produced, and can hopefully stay like this for some time before it gets run-down by emos and other Myspace-loving-fools.

Nominations for the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize were announced today.

The list on the whole is what you'd expect- parts guitar parts unknowns, as well as records that should be on the list missing, and records that are in there absolutely unworthy to be nominated in the first place.

Naturally i'm absolutely against the Arctic Monkeys winning, I'd like to see Editors win, but ultimately, I think it could be between Thom Yorke or Muse. Of course, i'd be more than happy if Muse won. At the same time i'm a little dissapointed there's no Snow Patrol, Corinne Baily Rae or The Kooks, but I guess you can't have all your favourite albums in there.

Mercury Music Prize 2006 Nominations

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That's What I''m Not
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
Editors - The Back Room
Richard Hawley - Coles Corner
Sway - This Is My Demo
Hot Chip - The Warning
Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
Scritti Politti - White Bread Black Beer
Zoe Rahman - Melting Pot
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas