Best Indie
‘HAPPY
PEOPLE’ VERSUS ‘MOTHERS’
Peace have had their biggest year in 2015. Although
releasing a majority of their pop-ified singles in 2014, ‘Happy People’ was
released in February of this year to a gleefully growing loyal fan base. The
album was a series of pastiches to indie’s past, with musical references
varying from The Pet Shop Boys, Oasis and Nirvana. Its end result was a glitter
tipped suicide note, Harrison Koisser’s introspective and anxious lyrics
contrasted the soaring guitar fills and lavish overtures. Almost as good as the
first album.
Swim Deep’s ‘Mothers’ felt like a long time coming, but in
that space the band have gained a member in James Balmont and a whole new
sound. Recording in Brussels, Swim Deep swapped their indie dream-pop for heavy
psychedelia and acid house. Listening to the album is sometimes a heavy load,
songs such as Fueiho Boogie clock in at 8 minutes, but never is there a dull
moment. The huge change in style was welcoming, capturing the futuristic zeitgeist
of 2015 perfectly without sounding pretentious. Tunes such as ‘To My Brother’
and ‘Namaste’ sound fresh, weird and perfectly cool.
WINNER- PEACE
Best Rock
‘UNDERTOW’
VERSUS ‘ARE YOU SATISFIED?’
Drenge have yet to make a bad song, period. Their stunning
self-titled debut was shockingly good with sludge filled riffs and angsty
lyrics about love and murder. The Loveless brothers (and extra member Rob
Graham) released ‘Undertow’ in April 2015 to huge critical acclaim. The album
feels loosely like a car chase, lead single ‘We Can Do What We Want’ waxes
lyrical about Bonnie and Clyde and its front cover is a deserted getaway car.
‘Undertow’ is a beautifully constructed LP, gentler and more progressive but
still with a grunge edge. Fast and menacing, ‘Undertow’ doesn’t disappoint.
Slaves have been around for a while, but their debut album
‘Are You Satisfied?’ has launched them into the stratosphere. Isaac and
Laurie’s individual character, live performance and giddy punk revivalism have
set themselves as a standout band of 2015. The album itself isn’t always in
fifth gear, the comical title track is an acoustic ballad introducing the main
theme of the album- complacency. There have been little records in 2015 that
make you want to get up and do something more than ‘Are You Satisfied?’, the
snarling power of ‘The Hunter’ and dizzyingly deathly ‘Sockets’ are just some
of the screamers that have made Slaves’ a firm favourite of the UK youth.
Best Rap
‘INTEGRITY>’ VERUS ‘TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY’
Skepta may be the unarguable trailblazer of Grime across the
UK and the world but is definitely a singles man. The real Grime hero of 2015
is his younger brother Jamie Adenuga, better known as JME. Although JME has
been around for years, 2015 was when he took UK youth by storm with his album
‘Integrity>’. A fiery piece of work composed of bombastic beats and thought
out furious lyrics. The intensity is kept at 100 from the dominating ’96
F**Kries’ to troll themed ‘Don’t @ Me’, JME’s mind boggling speed and cultural
references never tire. ‘Integrity>’ placed JME as one of the most important
MCs in the UK, not to forget his tweets are hilarious and he popularised the
‘swegway’.
Kendrick Lamar won this year, big time. Rubbing shoulders
with his NWA heroes and Taylor Swift, bagging two Grammys and then eleven
nominations and slaying Reading Festival. However, Lamar’s biggest achievement
is probably his new album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’. The sprawling, funk influenced
epic has been celebrated as a modern masterpiece by fans and journalists. The
album is amazing and intense, a cathartic experience finishing off with a
metaphysical interview with the late Tupac Shakur. The significance of ‘To Pimp
A Butterfly’ transcended its streams and purchases, adventitiously Lamar became
the political poster boy for a new generation of socially conscience rappers.
To the point that members of The Million Man march chanted ‘Alright’, a Black
Power movement organised by the NOI.
WINNER-KENDRICK LAMAR
Best Song
‘LOVE ME’ VERSUS ‘HOTLINE BLING’
The 1975 are kinda cool but also kinda crap because their
fans are kinda crap. Drake is kinda cool but also kinda crap because everyone
loves Drake for the wrong reasons. The 1975 have reinvented themselves as trippy
80s pop stars that take too many drugs. Drake has reinvented himself as a
cutesy 80s RnB crooner that dances poorly. ‘Love Me’ is an absolute indie
banger reminding us of the good times. ‘Hotline Bling’ is an absolute pop
banger reminding us of that one ex who is better without us. ‘Love Me’ has a
music video that includes Matt Healy snogging a cardboard Haz Styles. ‘Hotline
Bling’ has the ultimate meme-able dad dancing music video. Drake has to win,
because that’s all Drake can do in 2015, just keep on winning.
WINNER-DRAKE
Best Dance
‘IN
COLOUR’ VERSUS NO ONE
It has been three years since The xx released their last
record and since then the world has changed. Miley Cyrus was a pop star has
been with really nice hair, in 2015 she is a pop culture surrealist with far
less hair and more strap ons. To bridge the gap between Coexist and the imminent
third album, quietest member Jamie Smith (also known as Jamie kiss kiss)
released the ultimate Summer album with ‘In Colour’. Although difficult to
stand out in a world obsessed with dance music, Jamie xx has managed to create
something fresh and full of transcendent floorfillers using the dirtiest bass
and the most leftfield samples. Songs such as the Death Star sized ‘Gosh’ and
the arty love song of ‘Girl’ are gems in the crown of ‘In Colour’. It’s good to
remember that ‘In Colour’ is the only song of 2015 that has Young Thug using a
simile to compare intercourse with a pram.
There are no dance records that compared in 2015, maybe
‘Mutant’ by Arca but that had no Young Thug so was disqualified.
WINNER-JAMIE XX
Biggest Twat
MARTIN SHRKELI VERUS DAVID CAMERON
This has nothing to do with music but sometimes one has to
be a bit political because that’s quite zeitgeist-y. Martin Shrkeli and David
Cameron have a lot in common. Both of them are disliked by swathes of the
country for their dodgy rhetoric and are consistently smug. Shrkeli was the
pharmaceutical giant who thought it would be alright and not satanic to
increase the price of an AIDS drug by 5000%, and then buy the only copy of a
Wu-Tang album. Cameron is an ex Bullingdon Club member who now runs the United
Kingdom. In 2015 he began a war with an ideology that could threaten the lives
of thousands of innocent Syrians, called those who thought that beginning the
war ‘terrorist sympathisers’, allowed his second in command to effectively make
poorer people poorer and was alleged to have had sex with a pig. Recently
Martin Shrkeli received karmic retribution for his money hungry methods, David
Cameron therefore wins by default. Nice one Dave x.
WINNER-DAVID CAMERON
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