The Artrocker Awards 2011

In the golden days of the “inkies”, as they were known, your reading material of choice said a lot about you. Whether you were a devotee of NME, Sounds or Melody Maker, your magazine was a badge of pride and you’d follow the bands championed by your favoured periodical.

Since the dawn of the 21st Century, sadly both Sounds and Melody Maker have gone to the great printing press in the sky, leaving NME to carry the torch alone. Or so you’d think. While No Ripcord clearly caters for all your online music needs, sometimes you need a physical magazine, something you can flick through the pages of wherever you are. So, hooray for Artrocker, now in its eighth year and a credible rival to the bandwagon-jumping, Emperor’s New Clothes shtick of the NME.

This year, for the first time, Artrocker are hosting an awards ceremony. These shindigs are often closed affairs full of media types, paying little attention to real music fans who actually buy the records. However, Artrocker have shunned such exclusivism, by putting on a gig with a star-studded line-up after the ceremony at London’s XOYO. The show features names such as Gruff Rhys, Gary Numan and The Jim Jones Revue – click here for details on how you can be there.

As for the awards themselves, having all released critically acclaimed albums in 2011, The Horrors, Bombay Bicycle Club, British Sea Power, Metronomy and Grinderman will battle it out for the coveted Band Of The Year gong. There are also awards for Electro Act Of The Year, Reissue Of The Year and Festival Of The Year, amongst others. For a full list of the awards and nominees, click here.

A well-run, independent website like ourselves applauds challenging the established names and preventing monopolies, so hats off to Artrocker. Whoever wins, a glass or two will be raised and a good time will be had by all.

You can follow Artrocker on Twitter here. No Ripcord will be tweeting the news and events from the awards ceremony from 2pm (GMT) on Friday 2nd December, so why not give us a follow too?