Damien Rice Wins Shortlist

Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice's debut album, O, won the third annual Shortlist Music Prize at a ceremony last night at the Wiltern Theater in in Los Angeles.

O was selected from a list of ten albums that also included Bright Eyes' Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, Cody Chesnutt's The Headphone Masterpiece, Cat Power's You Are Free and the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Fever to Tell.

Rice was on hand to receive the award and also performed. The evening's performers also included most of the nominees: Interpol, the Streets, Bright Eyes, Floetry, the Black Keys and Cat Power. Bright Eyes' frontman Conor Oberst took an on-stage moment to attack media conglomerate Clear Channel Entertainment. "There will be no more real music anymore if we keep letting people shove it down our fucking throats," he said.

The Shortlist contenders were albums with sales of fewer than 500,000 copies and selected by a panel of musicians, filmmakers and critics.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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