Music >>

• Best Local Album of the Past 12 Months
  Sex Robots
  How could the Sex Robots' self-titled full-length be anything but fun? Just look at the album art: black-and-white photos of the trio exploding popcorn-kernel style on the cover; a color scheme that's a festive cotton-candy pink, orange and yellow; and the band's logo bursting forth with a... More >>
• Best Local Single of the Past 12 Months
  "Like a Pro"
  Ruka Puff's live show has always been outstanding: He tears the shirt off his flabby chest and crunks it up to eleven. The only rap against the mohawk-sporting, Hoo Bangin' Records MC is that the production on his debut, Escaped: Off the Chains, wasn't up to snuff. But that was forgotten with... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Artist (2 Comments)
  DJ Crucial
  With this year's release of Test Presses and Dub Plates—an album eight years in the making that features collaborations with everyone from MF Doom to MC Eiht—DJ Crucial went from being St. Louis' best hip-hop DJ to being our best hip-hop artist. The album's transitions, scratches and... More >>
• Best Rock Band
  Riddle of Steel
  With one member (drummer Rob Smith) living out of town, Riddle of Steel doesn't play St. Louis too often. But when the power trio does grace us with its presence, it's clear why Riddle of Steel is the best rock band in town, hands down: They're skilled purveyors of no-frills dude-rock inspired... More >>
• Best Punk Band
  That's My Daughter
  Idealistically speaking, nothing could be more punk than the miscreant, the misfit, the black sheep. Taking their name from an old porn movie and proclaiming "cuntcockdancerock" as their mantra, That's My Daughter ooze rebellious spunk. The trio of guitarist/vocalist Tim Dreste, bassist/vocalist... More >>
• Best Noise Band
  The Conformists
  The American Heritage Dictionary defines "noise" as: "Sound or a sound that is loud, unpleasant, unexpected or undesired." The term "noise band" (though nowhere to be found in the American Heritage Dictionary) carries some of those abrasive connotations, but connoisseurs of the genre posit that... More >>
• Third Best Band Name
  The Fu Fops
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• Best Songwriter
  Casey Reid
  It's said that the best songwriters capture the human spirit in a way that's unique yet universal, without resorting to clichés or pretentious gestures. That certainly goes for Casey Reid, whose patchwork blues and junkyard folk tunes hit the musical sweet spot. A wizened old soul fond of Beck... More >>
• Best Folk Artist
  Jeff Miller
  As founder of the Folk School, Jeff Miller is responsible for the most important resurgence of traditional American music in St. Louis in decades. But long before that institution came along, Miller was legendary as one of the purest and, not so paradoxically, fiercest claw-hammer banjo players... More >>
• Best R&B Artist
  DeAndrae Perryman
  Life got interesting for East St. Louis native DeAndrae Perryman after he competed on American Idol last year. He didn't advance as far as fellow St. Louisans Nikko Smith and Aloha Mischeaux, but his showing blew open doors of opportunity. He subsequently crooned on a Royal Caribbean cruise to... More >>
• Best Country Band (Traditional)
  The Linemen
  When it comes to distinguishing traditional from alternative country, it's the singer, not the song. Kevin Butterfield is a traditional country singer, but not because he's a stuffy purist or because he's mimicking the classic honky-tonkers he has devoured like bagsful of boiled peanuts. Lefty... More >>
• Best Country Band (Alternative)
  Bad Folk
  If Jay Farrar didn't exist, Tim Rakel would've had to invent him, and he'd be the first to recognize Farrar's influence on his bleak and oblique leftist songwriting and his dour, peripatetic moan. And if Rakel's band, Bad Folk, has clung to the raw country punk Farrar has largely abandoned, its... More >>
• Best Cover Band
  The Tiny Cows
  It's Friday night at the Tin Can Tavern (3157 Morganford Road; 314-865-3003). The Cards are trouncing the Rockies and you have an ice-cold PBR in hand. Suddenly the Tiny Cows—an acoustic band, not actual diminutive bovines—launch into a stripped-down rendition of Springsteen's "Thunder... More >>
• Best Garage Band
  Long John Thomas and the Duffs
  Hey, daddy-o, be cool: Long John Thomas and the Duffs are here to shake your garage-rock world. A little bit rockabilly, a whole lot surf, and chock-full of retro-cool influences, the Duffs can do the watusi without spilling a drop of their dirty martinis. The trio's been shimmying in dives like... More >>
• Best Metal Band
  Harkonin
  Harkonin earned "Best Metal Band" honors each of the past two years, but instead of resting on that skull-decorated throne, the quartet engineered a massive 2006. The group cleaned up its 2005 album Sermons of Anguish, ensuring that its bleak guitar tones ring with blatant menace and its vocals... More >>
• Best Jam Band
  Madahoochi
  The jam-band scene may have substantial amounts of hippie DNA, but it nevertheless rewards good old-fashioned hard work. While today's pop stars are born overnight in a manner akin to lottery winners, a successful jam band must evolve over time and prove its mettle onstage night after night,... More >>
• Best Bluegrass Band
  Chris Talley Trio
  Chris Talley Armstrong may look like a hippie librarian with a banjo, but she's got native Southern Illinois twang in her soul. Her trio, now a quartet including veteran guitarists Zane Prosser and Bill Barttelbort, features some of the St. Louis area's sharpest pickers assailing bluegrass... More >>
• Best Pop Band
  Tight Pants Syndrome
  The cult of power-pop geeks is small but fanatical. Picture a cadre of harmony aficionados who might name-drop obscure bands, or devoted vinyl crate-diggers who speak with hushed reverence about finding impossibly rare 45s at a flea market. It's fitting, then, that very few local bands... More >>
• Best Gospel Artist (2 Comments)
  Praiz'
  "Ain't nobody mad but the Devil/Everybody's glad but the Devil," Vance Watt sings on "Selah Selah," the thumpingest track on his debut CD, The Take Over. Watt didn't invent gospel hip-hop, but as a producer and MC he has reason to be happy. He's found himself performing with OutKast and... More >>
• Second Best Band Name (1 Comment)
  Holy Shit and the Buzz Beamers
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• Best Blues Artist
  Bennie Smith
  Joni Mitchell said you don't know what you've got till it's gone. William Bell said you don't miss your water till the well runs dry. William DeVaughn said be thankful for what you got. It's a good thing that Bennie Smith, the patriarch of St. Louis electric blues guitar, got to play one last... More >>
• Best Lounge Act
  Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum
  As cool and smooth as the perfect martini, Hugh "Peanuts" Whalum has provided sophisticated musical entertainment for several generations of St. Louisans, starting in Gaslight Square and continuing into the present day. A fine tenor saxophonist as well as a pianist and singer, Whalum somehow... More >>
• Best Jazz Artist
  Hamiet Bluiett
  There are giants among us. Well, one giant, anyway. See that man over there with the saxophone—the big horn with the funny-looking extra curve at the top? His name is Hamiet Bluiett, he resides in Brooklyn, Illinois, and he is one of the two or three baddest cats ever to pick up a baritone... More >>
• Best Live Act
  Femme Fatality
  Femme Fatality's energetic concert experience draws many comparisons; some attendees at a July Hi-Pointe show namechecked electro-geek Thomas Dolby and the space-age rap of the Beastie Boys' Hello Nasty as touchstones. But perhaps the greatest compliment the black-clad duo received was from an... More >>
• Best Electronic Band
  The Bureau
  Conga lines usually break out at musical events only if said happenings involve Jimmy Buffett, wedding receptions or lethal loads of tequila. Strangely enough, none of those (that we were aware of) were present at the Bureau show at the Pageant in May, during which the floor pit's giddy denizens... More >>
• Best Local Act Gone National
  7 Shot Screamers
  It's a classic interviewing trick, young bands giving props to their trailblazing elders; it's a sign of respect for these vets' musical talent and hard work. But it's not every day that icons such as Morrissey and punk queen Exene Cervenka dole out glowing compliments to whippersnappers half... More >>
• Best New Band
  Rats and People
  When the Whole Sick Crew disintegrated last year soon after playing a set at the June RFT Music Showcase, the local scene lost one of its most original acts, a band tagged with (and often burdened by) a "pirate rock" label. Thankfully, one-half of the Crew—drummer Robby Laptad, fiddler Beth... More >>
• Best Old Band
  The Schwag
  The "Best Old Band" is a bunch of "the oldest teenagers in the world," singing a bunch of old songs and paying tribute to one of the most worshiped old bands of all time. For St. Louis and dozens of cities across the Midwest, the Schwag is goin' down the road the Grateful Dead paved decades ago,... More >>
• Best Producer
  Hardley Davidson
  Three years ago, 26-year-old rapper Aeneas "Hollywood" Middleton was living in New York City. He was ready to leave but didn't know where to go. "At that time, Nelly was number ten on TRL. Somebody told me, 'Yeah, the Midwest is where it's at,'" he says. And so, just like that, he pulled up... More >>
• Best Local Label
  Undertow Records
  By now Undertow Records is the grandfather of St. Louis labels. But they certainly didn't rest on their laurels as they neared their tenth year in existence. In fact, the collective gave nationally known indie juggernauts like Merge and Matador a run for their money in 2006, judging from the... More >>
• Best Vocalist (Female)
  Casey Dean
  Perhaps the femputer from Futurama said it best: "Have you any idea what it feels like to be a fembot in a manbot manputer's world?" Casey Dean knows, and she's fighting back, ruthlessly firing sexy vocals in time with bullets from her chest. The female half of electric duo Polarized Mind... More >>
• Best Vocalist (Male) (2 Comments)
  Marcel Strong
  He learned to sing in the churches of East St. Louis and supplemented his musical education by studying Ike and Tina onstage at the north side's legendary D.J. Lounge. In 1959 Marcel Strong wrote a song called "Mumble in My Ear (with Clarence Carter in Mind)," which he recorded at Fame Studios... More >>
• Best Band Name (2 Comments)
  Spark Thugs
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• Best Hip-Hop DJ
  DJ Mahf
  Dan Mahfood, a.k.a. DJ Mahf, is the younger brother of famed LA comic-book artist Jim Mahfood, and the DJ for local groups Earthworms, Essence of Logic and the Frozen Food Section. Life's not a hip-hop paradise for the south-county boy who lives with his parents and works at Best Buy, but he... More >>
• Best Club DJ
  DJ Kid Delicious
  Kyo, Drunken Fish, Urban, the Crescent Room. No, this isn't a list of hot spots where Jessica Alba was spotted over the summer, but it is a partial record of where another patron-pleaser could be found: DJ Kid Delicious. This hard-working woman rocks the decks no matter where she... More >>
• Best Rock Radio DJ
  Mark Klose
  There are two types of DJ: the new version, front and center now, superstars to the beautiful people in clubs worldwide; and the old-school radio jock, an invisible presence playing music and selling stuff. If you're lucky you get a radio personality who functions like a buddy you can get... More >>
• Best Rock Radio Program
  Afternoon Delight
  Even if it was ill-advised for Loverboy's Mike Reno to wear those form-fitting red leather pants, he was right about at least one thing: Everybody's working for the weekend. In fact, by midday Wednesday we're dragging, weighed down by our cubicle walls, the too-close proximity of our co-workers... More >>
• Best Blues Radio Program (1 Comment)
  Blues in the Night
  As leader of the Soulard Blues Band, Art Dwyer is the organizing force behind one of St. Louis' most popular and enduring groups of the past 25 years. So it should come as no surprise that Dwyer's got a wide knowledge of blues, R&B, soul and jazz. His great taste in tunes carries over to his... More >>
• Best Jazz Radio Program
  Jazz Unlimited
  One part hipster, one part professor, Dennis Owsley brings a fan's enthusiasm and a lifetime of knowledge, study and contemplation to Jazz Unlimited, which airs Sunday from 9 p.m. till midnight on KWMU (90.7 FM). Owsley likes to organize his broadcasts around a theme, exploring the work of... More >>
• Best Radio Station Format Change (Alternative Division) (2 Comments)
  KPNT (105.7 FM) The Point
  In the 1990s the music gods created Pearl Jam's Ten, Nirvana's Nevermind and Alice in Chains' Dirt. And it was good. But the gods giveth and the gods shelveth away: St. Louis' main alternative-rock station, the Point (105.7 FM), forsook much of that decade's fantastic music in favor of new... More >>
• Best Radio Station Format Change (Satan Division) (1 Comment)
  KSHE (94.7 FM)
  Like the Osama bin Laden tapes that pop up on Aljazeera every now and then, KSHE (94.7 FM) decided to capitalize on the media-friendly side of bad dudes on the most devilish of days, 6/6/06. From 9 a.m. till midnight, the station cranked Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" (famously found in The... More >>
• Best Concert of the
  Past 12 Months
  Gogol Bordello, October 11, 2005
  "Think locally," a mustachioed Ukrainian man yells from the bandstand. "Fuck globally!" A crowd doused in a frothy sweat cheers in return. As the last syllable trails off, two young women in flowery dresses, knee pads and face paint race to the front of the stage. One crashes cymbals and the... More >>
• Best Concert Poster (1 Comment)
  Hipsterphonic
  If there's one thing that disrupts an enjoyable walk down Delmar Boulevard, it's the horde urging you to sign this petition, save your soul before it's too late, attend their concert, visit their store. But last fall Hipsterphonic handed out fliers for their upcoming—and final—concert... More >>
• Best Music Festival
  PolkaPalooza
  It's a sad but true music fact that most festivals are commercial orgies—from the time you buy your ticket (with service charges tacked on, of course) to the time you buy your last beer at the show. Not to mention that you usually have to sit through a dozen who-gives-a-crap bands before... More >>
• Best Local Music History Event
  Black Artists Group Retrospective
  Although the Black Artists Group (BAG) was active for only a relatively short time in the late 60s and early 70s, its influence still resonates. A multimedia collective whose performances combined music, drama, poetry, dance and visual art, BAG generated a lot of buzz during its time and helped... More >>
• Best Music Web Site
  MySpace.com
  New MySpace Message from: Best of St. Louis To: Local bands Subject: Best Music Web site Body: So, OK, you guys might think it's a little weird that we've decided to give "Best Music Web Site" to a global entity owned by Rupert Murdoch, an online networking destination that seems to have hit its... More >>
• Best Band to Die in the Past 12 Months
  Femme Fatality
  Although Femme Fatality's last show isn't until November 24, the electro-hop, dance-clash duo (bittersweetly also named this year's "Best Live Act") announced in late August that they were splitting up. In the three short years they were together, the pair—whose current lineup went by the... More >>