Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.01.2013, Side 16

16The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 1 — 2013
We at The Reykjavík Grapevine really like music despite what you
might have surmised from reading our magazine. It’s just that we
care so much about it that some of the things we keep writing might
be taken as being mean or antagonistic or whatever, but the fact of
the matter is that if you truly madly deeply care about things, you are
apt to scrutinize them every chance you get because you believe in
your heart that they can and should be perfect. You really do.
Nah, the reason most of our music writers are our music writ-
ers certainly isn’t the fat pay cheque they receive after every review
they turn in (with a fat bonus for every pointed insult contained
therein)—there barely is one. It isn’t the glory. It isn’t the pleasure of
being harassed by asshole friends of bands at bars (although that can
be kinda fun, in a masochistic sorta way).
Nope. The reason we write about music, whether it be attempting
to cover every single show of Iceland Airwaves, publishing full re-
ports of shindigs like Eistnaf lug and Extreme Chill, reviewing ran-
dom garage bands or reviewing every goddamn Iceland-pertinent
album we get sent (and even buying them, if people don’t dare send
them to us), is because we care. Our music writers as well as our
editorial staff and even our goddamn advertising department lives
and breathes music every hour of every day.
Yes. We have had a long standing love affair with Icelandic mu-
sic. In that spirit, we decided to make our own music awards. It’s
nothing big, and we are not claiming to be any authority or any-
thing. We just thought that we would honour some of those wonder-
ful people who make living on the edge of this desolate rock on the
edge of the Arctic Circle bearable, enjoyable even. We want to heap
them with praise and bestow prizes upon them (like a band retreat
to Hótel Búðir or a dinner party at Tapas Bar) and give them a bunch
of stickers proclaiming their status as awesome, which they can put
on their albums to sell to tourists in the summer (tourists, if you are
reading this, make sure to buy as much Icelandic music as you can).
We want to show our love, because we can.
Without further ado, let us introduce THE REYKJAVÍK GRAPE-
VINE’S FIRST (HOPEFULLY) ANNUAL MUSIC AWARDS!
It was clear pretty much from the get go that Hjal-
talín’s ‘Enter 4’ would take this cake, but our lovely
committee still felt like we should be honouring
some of the other great albums of 2012—leaving
out great works from Retro Stefson, Ojba Rasta,
Ghostigital, Moses Hightower and Valgeir Sig-
urðsson, to name but a few, was tough. However,
“THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE” as per our High-
lander-inspired guidelines. And at that meeting,
we couldn’t stop talking about that Hjaltalín al-
bum and its effects on us.
“‘Enter IV’ is nothing less than a game chang-
er,” remarked one panel member. “It was like a
slap in the face. I didn't expect it! And through
repeated listening, the thing only got better.”
“It’s a masterpiece,” remarked another, “the
band moves away from that huge sound of their
first two albums and ventures off into an adven-
turous exploration of sound, melody and emotion.
You don’t see a lot of Icelandic bands talking about
human feelings in such an honest way.”
In the end, we probably spent an overt amount
of time discussing just how much we liked the al-
bum, sounding more like awestruck fanboys than
a proper panel of ‘music expert professionals.’
The panel deems ‘Enter IV’ the best Icelandic
album of 2012. It is a huge leap for Hjaltalín as
a band and Icelandic music in general. In a year
with so many contenders, rising above the greats
was always going to be tough, so it is all the more
impressive that Hjaltalín accomplished this.
Read more on ‘Enter 1V’ in panel member Bob
Cluness’s review of the album, page 19.
The Grapevine’s First
Ever Music Awards, Ever
Hjaltalín - Enter 4
Album of the year
We called up some people who are
deeply involved with Icelandic music
and whose opinions we trust pretty
well and asked them to be on a small
committee that would determine who
would be the first recipients of our
music awards thing. These people
are: Andri Freyr Viðarsson, popular
radio and television host for Rás 2
and RÚV respectively, Kamilla Ingib-
ergsdóttir, Iceland Airwaves’ head of
PR, and our very own Bob Cluness,
music writer, prosthetic limb builder
and head of Grapevine’s music writ-
ing team.
We arranged two meetings with
these people, which we ceremoni-
ously monitored and recorded for the
purposes of eventually writing down
and publishing their arguments.
They had preliminary discussions at
the first meeting, talking about what
they liked in Icelandic music in 2012
and who they thought should get an
award and why. Then we exchanged
records and songs and ideas and re-
convened a week later, after everyone
had had plenty of time to think and
listen, to determine the final list of
recipients.
All in all, it was around four hours
of feverish and passionate talking
about music. And the results are
here! Read on for our condensation
of the discussion of how they reached
their decision. Feel free to fret and
disagree, you could even write us
a letter telling us why (if it’s not an
asshole letter, we promise to print it.
We could even give you some sort of
prize... imagine that!).
Hurrah!
By Haukur S. Magnússon
Who are these people?
This is how
we did it:

Th
e
Re
yk
jav
ík G
rapevine Music Aw
ards

BEST ALBUM
2012
Andri Freyr Viðarsson
Andri Freyr Viðarsson is the co-host of
extremely popular Rás 2 morning radio
show “Virkir morgnar” (“Active morn-
ings”) along with making the also-ex-
tremely popular television programmes
“Andri á f landri” (“Andri Wanders”). His
role as radio personality ensures he gets
exposed to most, if not all, Icelandic mu-
sic that gets released, and his long-standing love for music is well
documented, having performed with bands, DJ’d and written about
music since his teens.
Kamilla Ingibergsdóttir
Kamilla Ingibergsdóttir is a heated music
fan and has been actively involved with the
organisation, management and staging of
Iceland Airwaves for a while now. She also
worked for the Iceland Music Export for a
number of years, before recently moving
on to a full-time position with the Air-
waves festival. Due to Kamilla’s position
and passion for music, she can be frequently spotted at concerts
around town and keeps an extremely close eye on every going-on
in Icelandic music.
Bob Cluness
Bob Cluness has been The Reykjavík Grape-
vine’s Music Manager (a title we invented
for him and entails him keeping tabs on
what’s being reviewed and by who, as well
as making sure our reviews are fit to print)
since early 2012. Prior to this, he had held
a position as ‘occasional music-and-some-
times-other-stuff freelancer’ since 2009,
after he submitted some super fun writing to us and we thought:
hey, that guy should write some more! He also works as a prosthetic
limb maker for Össur, which is pretty damn awesome no matter
which way you look at it.
Héðinn Eiríksson
Isn't it crazy that these are our first ever music awards?! We were sure we'd done this before... Oh well!