Foreign Born plus several members of the audience rocked Union Hall.

The nominees for the Grammy Awards were announced today and, though it’s not nearly as much fun as the PLUG ballot, here are my picks for select categories.

Before we delve into the meager amount of picks I made, I’d like to take note of a few things:

• The sheer number of categories is astounding. I can’t even begin to go through the entire list of nominees.
• Related to the first note, I didn’t really need to go through all the awards and nominees because a lot of them were sheer crap – both the award and the nominees.
• I am completely out of touch with the vast majority of the Grammy voters who came up with these nominations.

On to the awards I gave a crap about!

• Record Of The Year: Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
  The best possible choice for the category but I’d be happy as long as it doesn’t go to James Blunt for You’re Beautiful.
• Album Of The Year: Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere
  I was also tempted to go for Justin Timberlake’s newest album but I’ve been listening to Gnarls’ album longer and it’s still a pleasure to listen to – there’s something to be said about longevity.
• Best New Artist: Corinne Bailey Rae
  She’s got one hell of a voice. Sadly, I believe she has no chance to win when up against James Blunt.
• Best Alternative Music Album : Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones
  Less screeching, more singing. Better album.

It’s time to cast your ballot in the annual PLUG Independent Music Awards – you can’t gripe about who won or lost if you weren’t even in the game to begin with.

Every year, the line separating indie music and mainstream music blur even more. It’s through no fault of indie music itself but a result of the sheer proliferation of the Internet – MySpace, MP3 blogs, musicblogs – and a growing number of film and television directors/writers/producers who are more aware of the vast amount of quality tunes outside of the mainstream. Until the the Grammys or the AMAs start sharing nominees with PLUG, I think the line will still exist, as blurry as it may get.

What follows below are the selections and some thoughts from the categories I voted in – some of these categories just don’t apply to my musical tastes or did not contain enough nominees I’d be able to choose from.

Music Categories (General)

• Album of the Year: The Hold Steady – Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant)
  Arguments could certainly be made for Band of Horses, Neko Case, Cat Power, and Beirut but, from start to finish, they have crafted one of the best albums in years.
• New Artist of the Year: Cold War Kids
  A toss-up between them and Beirut but on the strength of the three concerts of theirs I’ve attended, they get the nod.
• Female Artist of the Year: Chan Marshall
  This was one of the hardest choices for me – at one point I had Neko Case, then Chan, then Neko again. Ultimately, Chan’s selection was based not so much on her album – which was phenomenal – but rather her newly found comfort on stage.
• Male Artist of the Year: Beirut
  The man put out so much energy during his most recent tour that he had to cancel the backend of it.
• Indie Rock Album of the Year: Band of Horses – Everything All The Time (Sub Pop)
  Because The Hold Steady can’t win every award? Really though, this is a great debut and shows a lot of promise for things to come.
• Americana Album of the Year: Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood (Anti-)
  Three horse race between Neko, Jenny Lewis, and Band of Horses but Neko’s voice and lyrics put her on top.

Music Categories (Obsessive)

• Artist of the Year: The Hold Steady
  They put out the best album of the year and their live shows are among the best there are. No debate on this one for me.
• Live Act of the Year: The Hold Steady
  It’s starting to become a broken record so how about I give some props to CSS and Art Brut – they put on some good shows too! The Hold Steady still win this one.
• Song of the Year: Arctic Monkeys – “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” (Domino)
  Bloggers began annointing these guys as the big thing for 2006 as early as last December. It clocks in at less than three minutes but it packs a lot of punch into a short amount of time.
• Album Art/Packaging of the Year Asobi Seksu – Citrus (Friendly Fire)
  With three different album cover designs for The Greatest, it’s tempting to vote for Cat Power. Asobi Seksu’s general sense of aesthetics make them the winners in my eyes.
• Live Music Venue of the Year: Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY
  It’s no secret that I love this place – just the perfect combination of size, sound systems, and sightlines.

Asobi Seksu continued their circuit of New York City (area) venues by performing at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.