Shortlist prize (aka "da shorty")

The Shortlist of Music has announced their...well, their shortlist of the best indie-flavored music of 2004. A panel of "experts," including Robert Smith, ?uestlove, and Nic Harcourt (but also including Chris Carrabba, Perry Farrell and John Fucking Mayer) sizes up the year's releases, and winnows down to a shortlist from a longer one of about 70 picks. Their finalists:

Air: Talkie Walkie
Dizzee Rascal: Boy in Da Corner
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Ghostface: The Pretty Toney Album
The Killers: Hot Fuss
Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose
Nellie McKay: Get Away from Me
The Streets: A Grand Don't Come for Free
TV on the Radio: Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
Wilco: A Ghost Is Born

I haven't heard the Ghostface or The Killers albums, but I have to say the rest are pretty solid, if unsurprising picks. Except TV on the Radio, which is bullshit. The longer list includes some very dubious picks, although I have to give them dap for upping Eagles Of Death Metal, if for no other reason than the name alone. It also includes the inarguably and astoundingly horrendous Peaches record, "Fatherfucker," so, y'know, judge the size of the grain of salt based on your opinion of some of these records. Good to see The Sleepy Jackson getting some recognition, but if you ask me (and, for the record, they didn't), if there's room for Macy Gray, there's room for the Jigga. I'm just sayin' is all.

BONUS: Josh Homme: "I'm not in the music police. 'Do you know why I stopped you? For excessive shittiness.' That's not my job. Now I just throw bad CDs really far away and say, "Where's Bjork's greatest hits? Where's the new Tomahawk? Where's the good stuff, man?"