Critic's Choice Awards: Radiohead Guitarist Wins Critics Choice Best Score, Vedder Leaves Empty-Handed (But Probably Got a Good Swag Bag)

If and when Radiohead plays Los Angeles, guitarist Jonny Greenwood should schedule in a visit to Snoop Dogg's mansion. At last night's picket-free Critics Choice Awards, after Greenwood's absentee Best Score win for his work on Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, Snoop Dogg (with co-presenter Feist at his side) alerted the audience that "Jonny Greenwood couldn't be here tonight, so we accept this award on his behalf." We can already see Snoop using the crystalline-monolithic award as a paperweight for his rolling papers. One noteworthy artist who managed to attend the ceremony was Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, who was nominated for Best Song for "Guaranteed," from Sean Penn's Into The Wild. Sadly, Vedder lost out to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's "Falling Slowly" (from Once). Either way, both Vedder and Greenwood can expect to be invited to many ceremonies during this year's awards season, with Vedder already having been nominated for Golden Globes for Best Original Score and Best Song for his Into The Wild contributions.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

More Song Stories entries »

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