每周二，FADER编辑马修·施尼珀(Matthew Schnipper)都会强调一个他认为我们需要了解的未被重视的版本。本周是奥拉夫·阿纳尔德的Innundir Skinni他是北欧音乐奖的非官方亚军。听听专辑的开头在这里并阅读史尼珀在跳跃后对选择过程的想法。
上周，我受邀去奥斯陆担任首届北欧音乐奖的评委。这张专辑似乎是仿照英国的水星奖(Mercury Prize)颁发的年度最佳专辑，我和其他五位评委从斯堪的纳维亚半岛各地的十几张专辑中挑选出了2010年北欧世界的最佳专辑。虽然我们只有12张专辑要考虑，但缩减它们的过程有点庞大。每个国家(芬兰、瑞典、挪威、冰岛和丹麦)的音乐评论家提名了25张专辑。这些被削减，然后由一个较小的委员会投票。委员会还选出了另外7张唱片，从12张唱片中选出了冠军。这流程图应该有助于解释这个过程。
但是，尽管提名过程可能很科学，量化“最佳”显然很困难。在2006年,崩溃获得奥斯卡最佳影片奖。在那一年上映的所有电影中，它并不是最好的。不可能。这是一个人的观点，但那部电影烂透了。它是如何赢得最负盛名的电影制作奖的?戴贝尔是如何赢得2009年水星奖的?她的专辑和Florence and the Machine或the Horrors等其他提名者相比，肯定不是最好的。这么重要的事情怎么可能是随意的?就此而言，如此随意的事情怎么会如此重要?
与决定谁将得奖同样重要的是决定得奖的标准是什么。负责人告诉陪审员——瑞典记者安德烈斯·洛克，多米诺唱片公司老板劳伦斯·贝尔，英国A+R和Quando半边天智囊团迈克·皮克林，Rough Trade老板和封面女郎浪漫之花(天啊!)珍妮特·李，前线主编罗伯·杨和我，如何判断完全取决于我们。事实证明，什么是“最好的”比什么是“最好的”更难决定。这是一个关于艺术家整体的奖项，而不是一个特定的记录吗?关于一些听起来很流行的东西还是我们最喜欢的东西?有明显的北欧特色吗?这到底是什么意思?
至少在开始的时候，我们试着去掉那些没人关心的东西。罗宾是提名者之一，显然是一个大名字，尽管我个人不是一个超级粉丝。我预料到其他法官会这样，这可能是一场争论。事实并非如此，我们对罗宾都没有强烈的感情，她被放在一边。我们都对帕利法斯和克韦勒塔克不感兴趣。剩下九张专辑。从那时起，我们决定奖项应该是一些听起来很新鲜的东西，只能现在制作，理想情况下应该有一些关于北欧人意味着什么的感觉，不管这个感觉有多模糊。使用这些参数，我们几乎搁置了所有的版本。剩下的是奥拉夫·阿诺德和琼西。因为这是一个很小的列表，我们回去听了每一张cd来刷新。 Personally I, along with one other judge, most enjoyed the Radio Dept album of all the records. I did not come into the meeting thinking any artist needed to be the ultimate winner as I wanted it to be a discussion, but in pure blind taste test aesthetic choice, this was my favorite. Still, listening to it with these guidelines, they felt like too much of a throwback to Happy Mondays era pop. Their lyrics are heavily political about current Swedish life, but the overall feel was one we all agreed, for better or worse, was not Nordic-y or 2010-y enough. One by one, we went through and confirmed for various reasons why albums didn't fit. First Aid Kid? Beautiful album, but straight out of the American south 40 years ago. Dungen are great but heavy throwbacks to My Bloody Valentine or ’80s Sonic Youth. We'd set tight rules, appropriately I believe, and while finding the right fit was difficult, cutting those that did fit not was not. Ultimately we were left with the final two Icelandic entrants, Olaf Arnald's and Jonsi. This was the only real arguing that happened, even if only our own imaginary straw man to justify the pick. On a day to day listening scale, Jonsi is not my favorite of all the artists. But, again, that's not what we were considering, so I set aside that taste and thought about him and this album as a statement, something bold and unique and that felt like it came from Iceland, no other place. Arnald's record had a similar keen sense of place, but felt too lilting, not big. We wanted the first prize to be a distinct statement of arrival that ultimately her beautiful but very quiet record did not have. So, almost unanimously, we voted for Jonsi. The single holdout understood, too.
