It's that time of year again where we ask you to decide who made music extra special in the calendar year.

Vote now in the Shockwaves NME Awards and we'll tally up your votes into shortlists to be announced in January. The overall winners will be announced a month later, at an awards party at London's Brixton Academy on February 25.

To make the voting a bit more interesting online, as well as the standard voting form we've introduced three features where you get to rate the main candidates in the Sexiest Male, Sexiest Female and Album Artwork categories.
If we've missed anyone out, let us know by commenting below and we'll add those most in demand.

It's democracy that Barack himself would be proud of.

Be honest, how many windows of your advent calendar did you open this morning? Just the one? Seriously? Whatever; as well as being the start of a month-long chocolate binge, today also sees the release of Glasvegas' 'A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss)'. As you'll have gathered from Jamie Fullerton's review in NME last week, the fruits of their Transylvanian labours are well worth a listen – albeit not exactly glowing with festive cheer ("Fuck you" is becoming something of a catchphrase in the NME office).

With this in mind, we thought it the perfect time to run the rule over the rest of this year's tinsel-draped, sleighbelling Christmas releases.

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Since his 2004 'comeback' album 'You Are The Quarry', Morrissey's album sleeves have often told us as much, if not more, about his psyche than the actual tunes contained therein themselves. The cover for his newie 'Years Of Refusal', which was revealed today, is his most intriguing to date. What's the significance of the baba? And that metallic android thing draped on his arm?

We demand to know: just what does all this mean?

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Sounds daft now, but when NME was a lad, we awaited pantomime season - and the chance to watch Les Dennis or Andi Peters twatting about as Buttons or some other hastily made-up character - with feverish anticipation. Nothing we ever saw back in the '90s came anywhere close to Slipknot's opening gig of their current UK tour at London Hammersmith Apollo last night (December 1), though.

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When you bowl into Paddington station half cut on a Friday night and hit W H Smith to buy some mags to later distract you from the fact that the man in the train seat next to you smells like a fungus ashtray and there are no other spaces, the last thing you expect to see is your local lo-fi indie doom-rock scenesters adorning the cover of a national style magazine.

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Yeasayer are a band of paradoxes. Following their stellar first-ever headlining gig in Los Angeles Sunday night, frontman Chris Keating - purveryor of heart-wrenching, challenging, Middle Eastern-influenced indie rock - admitted to loving pop music.

"I really like Justin Timberlake and corny R&B songs, like Rihanna," he confessed. "But I hate Alicia Keys. Her voice is all nasally. I just don't get it." Guess you've gotta draw the line somewhere.



It just so happened that Yeasayer took the stage at the Troubadour at almost the precise moment the above-mentioned artists performed across town at the American Music Awards . "I feel like every time we come to LA we're competing with some awards show," Chris said. So it goes in the land of self-congratulation.

Riding high on the post-show afterglow, Chris was in good spirits despite getting harassed by a drunken surfer who blagged his way backstage and offered to write a novel about the band. "We don't need a novel, just don't barf on me," was Chris' response.



Although it's been an amazing year for Yeasayer, Chris admitted they're eager to get off the road and head into the studio after touring relentlessly. "We're building a cool studio in upstate New York where we can hibernate for the winter," he said.

Meanwhile, moustachioed bassist Ira Wolf Tuton regaled us with some seriously intense stories while swigging on Wild Turkey. "You can't say anything because I know where to find you and I'll have a hit put out on you," he threatened. I admitted it was the first time anyone had threatened to kill me for writing about them and he seemed completely shocked. Umm, OK, Ira. Mum's the word.