Damien Rice Wins Shortlist Music Prize

10/06/2003 2:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

(10/6/03, 2 a.m. ET) -- Last night (Sunday, October 5) at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, the third annual Shortlist Award was presented to Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice, who beat out such other critically acclaimed heavyweights as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and 2001 Shortlist winners Sigur Ros to claim the prestigious prize. Rice was on hand to accept his award and perform at the ceremony; other performers included fellow nominees Interpol, Floetry, the Streets, Cody Chesnutt, Bright Eyes, Cat Power, and the Black Keys.

Modeled on its U.K. predecessor, the Mercury Music Prize, the Shortlist Music Project was founded in 2001 to honor the year's most adventurous and creative albums across all genres of music, focusing on emerging and underground artists rather than established stars. Each year, the finalists for the prize are selected by a panel of musicians and music experts, which this year included the Chemical Brothers, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Dave Matthews, ?uestlove of the Roots, Erykah Badu, Tori Amos, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Musiq, Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme, Mos Def, Perry Farrell, Pete Yorn, Tom Waits, filmmakers Cameron Crowe and Spike Jonze, and the Neptunes, whose N.E.R.D. album In Search Of won the Shortlist Award in 2002.

Born in Dublin and raised in the Irish countryside of County Kildare, Damien Rice made his first professional foray into music in the late '90s as the frontman for the little-heard quintet Juniper, whose noisy rock hardly foreshadowed the Nick Drake/Jeff Buckley-esque sound of his future solo work. After leaving Juniper to pursue his own songwriting, Rice hooked up with David Arnold, the producer/arranger behind the James Bond film music, who was so impressed with Rice's talent that he offered Rice the use of his AIR Studios in London. Over the course of the next year and a half, Rice recorded in his bedroom and then mixed his songs at AIR with Arnold, and the result was his Shortlist-winning debut album O, released by Vector Recordings in June 2003.

For more information on the Shortlist Awards, go to www.shortlistofmusic.com.

-- Lyndsey Parker, Los Angeles

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