It’s time once again for the annual Shortlist Music Project nominations. Well, annual is kind of speculative, since this is only the second go-round, but we’ll pretend. The Shortlist Project is modeled after the Technics Mercury Music prize in the UK, in that it is merit based and sales only factor in as a limit. Last year it was Sigur Ros’ Agaetis Byrjun taking home the inaugural award, which was $10,000 and an equal sum donated to the September 11 charity of the band’s choice. The judges, who count Beck, Lars Ulrich of Metallica, The Strokes’ Albert Hammond, Jr. and Nick Valensi, Kim Gordon and Spike Jonze in their number of 15, each nominate five albums sold less than 500,000 copies at the time and that were released between July 2001 and August 2002. Billboard tells us that the award ceremony will be held this year at the Knitting Factory, Los Angeles on October 29.
