I just read that Montreal's Arcade Fire trail only Of Montreal and Battles in nominations for the 2008 PLUG Independent Music Awards, which recognize the best indie acts from around the world. Canadians Emily Haines, Sunset Rubdown, The New Pornographers, Caribou, Chromeo, A-Trak and the profanely named Toronto acts Fucked Up and Holy Fuck received one nomination each.
That's great, because I really like Neon Bible and Arcade Fire in general, but what does indie really mean these days? Neon Bible was released by Merge Records here in North America, and Merge Records is an independent record label. According to Wikipedia, "an independent record label (or indie record label) is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels". Maybe I'm a little dim, but I'm not sure I fully grasp the difference between an indie record label and a major record label, but maybe you can help me.
Here are the nominations for best album.
- Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
- Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin
- Battles - Mirrored
- Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
- El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
- Justice - †
- Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
- Panda Bear - Person Pitch
- Radiohead - In Rainbows
- Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
- Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- The National - Boxer
