Pitchfork

Those who've followed the dull saga of the Shortlist Music Prize will be thrilled to learn the award-- which heaps even more accolades upon some record which has already been praised into the ground-- returns to pay homage to 2006's best after some turbulence among organizers almost led to the axing of the 2005 proceedings.

In brief, a short-lived New Pantheon Prize was established by one of the Shortlist founders. It went to Sufjan Stevens, but following some legal dealings we won't bore you by explaining here, the New Pantheon went kaput and Stevens is now considered the winner of the 2005 Shortlist Prize. Got all that?

Anyhow! The sixth annual Shortlist boasts a fairly impressive panel of "listmakers," including Stevens, Wayne Coyne, and Franz Ferdinand (the band, we suspect, and not the archduke's ghost), as well as KT Tunstall, Panic! at the Disco, Snow Patroller Gary Lightbody, and Killer Ronnie Vannucci, Jr. A couple journalists hold things down in the critical camp.

Each nominated a few favorites, chosen from all records released in the U.S. in 2006 which have not achieved gold status-- aka 500,000 or more in sales. These will be pared down to a ten-album, yes, shortlist in April, from which a shorter list-- consisting of precisely one winner-- will be determined later in spring. Among the past victors: TV on the Radio, Sigur Rós, N*E*R*D, and, yikes, Damien Rice.

The nomination process resulted in a 61-album longlist that includes, well, pretty much everything of note released somewhere in the last 18 months: Return to Cookie Mountain, Silent Shout, The Greatest, Ys, Everything All the Time, The Crane Wife, Gulag Orskestar, etc., along with records from Art Brut, Serena-Maneesh, Love Is All, and Field Music that feel like they came out six years ago. Proving the longlist means absolutely nothing, even the Hush Sound got a nod. Stop trying to hide, Sufjan, we know you're responsible.

Just kidding. According to the press release, Sufjan nominated Joanna Newsom's Ys, Serena-Maneesh's self-titled (conflict of interest alert! Doesn't he play flute on that record?), Dabrye's Two/Three, and OOIOO's Taiga. We wonder if he's listened beyond the first track on that last one.

Click MORE for the complete longlist.

2006 Shortlist Music Prize Longlist:

Against Me! - Americans Abroad Live in London
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
Beck - The Information
Beirut - Gulag Orskestar
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
The Blow - Paper Television
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go
The Bronx - The Bronx
Cat Power – The Greatest
Country Teasers - The Empire Strikes Back
CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
Cursive - Happy Hollow
Dabrye - Two/Three
Danielson - Ships
Kimya Dawson - Remember That I Love You
Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Hart Bloom
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Editors - The Back Room
Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
Field Music - Field Music
Forgive Durden - Wonderland
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
The Gossip - Standing In the Way of Control
Hot Chip - The Warning
Howling Bells - Howling Bells
The Hush Sound - Like Vines
Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker - Palm of Soul
The Knife - Silent Shout
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Mates of State - Bring It Back
Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Mew - And the Glass Hand Kites
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Mohair - Small Talk
Mute Math - Mutemath
Joanna Newsom - Ys
OOIOO - Taiga
Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
The Roots - Game Theory
Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
Serena-Maneesh - Serena-Maneesh
Skream - Skream
Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
The Stills - Without Feathers
The Strokes - First Impression of Earth
Teddybears - Soft Machine
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Vaux - Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
The Velvet Teen - Cum Laude
Tom Waits - Orphans
We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
The Weepies - Say I am You
Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Neil Young - Living With War