SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL >>

• Best Wine Bar
  Bev's Wine Bar
  Guest Best: Zack Coulter Tucked away in a back corner of Minneapolis's Warehouse District, Bev's is the kind of place worth seeking out. Classic and dimly lit with high ceilings and gracious hosts, Bev's offers a simple yet right-on list of wines and beers. The wines gently touch on a... More >>
• Best Strip Club
  The Seville
  When choosing the right strip club in which to spend your hard-earned paycheck, there are a few obvious things to look for. Good-looking dancers, a comfortable environment, and a solid selection of booze to get you in the proper mindset for the show. The Seville has all of these and a lot more.... More >>
• Best Store for Sex Toys
  Smitten Kitten
  If you've ever ordered sex toys off the internet for fear of being embarrassed wandering into your neighborhood Sleaze-Mart, you owe it to yourself and your genitals to check out Smitten Kitten. Their selection includes only safe toys; in fact, the Kitten founded a nonprofit organization called... More >>
• Best Adult Store
  Sex World
  Plenty of places in the Twin Cities sell porn and sex toys. But only one place is an adult entertainment experience. Sex World, everyone's favorite neon eyesore in downtown Minneapolis, is more than just a place to pick up a vibrator or rent the most recent celebrity sex tape; it's been a rite... More >>
• Best Sex Podcast
  Sex Is Fun
  Not sure how to properly masturbate your partner? Wondering which herbs will make you the horniest? Curious about how to straddle the dildo attachments of the Sybian sex machine (and the best way to achieve that elusive, earth-shattering orgasm as a result) but not ready to drop the $1,400... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar (St. Paul) (1 Comment)
  The Muddy Pig
  It's clear before you've even taken a seat that the Muddy Pig is something special: It's one of those bars where banners advertise not cheap domestic pitchers but fine Belgian ales like Duvel, where the flat-screen TVs are visible but not the center of attention, and where the windows are big... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Bar (Minneapolis)
  Stasiu's
  Like so many great bars in northeast Minneapolis, Stasiu's has a relaxed, distinctly neighborhood feel. The patrons include blue-collar men enjoying beer with their neighbors; hipsters barhopping on their way to Grumpy's, the Hex, or Nye's; and lovers of ladies taking a break from the Double... More >>
• Best Irish Pub
  The Liffey
  No disrespect to Minneapolis's myriad Gaelic-flavored watering holes, but when it comes to Irish pubs, you might want to look across the river to the one Twin City that actually boasts an Irish Catholic history. Walk inside the dimly lit, dark wooden interior of the Liffey, kitty-corner from the... More >>
• Best Brewpub (13 Comments)
  The Happy Gnome
  Ah, the Happy Gnome. A veritable who's-who, or rather what's-what, of esoteric craft brews, equally keen on imports and domestics. Forty-four draft beers line three separate rails. Every other day or so, a new brand of keg replaces an old. Not a wide enough selection for you? The St. Paul... More >>
• Best Happy Hour
  Bar Abilene
  A critical and often overlooked criterion of happy hours has to do with timing. Sure, two-for-one cocktails are delightful after work, but early evenings aren't exactly the optimal or most responsible time to milk happy hours for all they're worth. At Uptown's Bar Abilene, happy hours thankfully... More >>
• Best Gay Bar (1 Comment)
  Jetset
  If you haven't been before, Jetset can be a little hard to find, but just listen for the beats. DJs spin house tracks that are audible from the street. Once inside, go for broke ordering drinks—the bartenders love to show patrons there's more to cocktails than vodka tonics. Just be sure to... More >>
• Best Lesbian Bar
  Twilight
  Sadly, Pi, the only exclusive lesbian bar in the Twin Cities, closed in 2008. So where do women go when they want to meet new people, dance, and have a good time with friends? The nomadic Twilight is easily your best bet. Though the location changes every couple of months or so (one recent party... More >>
• Best Cocktails
  Town Talk Diner
  Many bars around town have their own specialty cocktails. Often they've been given funny names that play off of double entendres, and contain about as much sugar and artificial coloring as a bowl of kids' cereal. It's harder to find a bar with specialty cocktails that one would actually enjoy... More >>
• Best Bartender
  Johnny Michaels at La Belle Vie
  What's your alcoholic attitude? Aristocratic as a g&t made with Earl Grey-infused gin? Funky as a black-cherry vodka mixed with cranberry juice, dried cherries, black pepper, and goat cheese? Or as playfully abstaining as a marshmallow Peep floating in a blue raspberry soda? Whatever your... More >>
• Best Concert of the Past 12 Months (Local)
  P.O.S., Vampire Hands, and Solid Gold at the Hexagon Bar
  In a music community as close-knit as ours, there really is no such thing as a "secret show" or "unannounced special guests." Bloggers and Tweeters trample over one another to get the latest scoop, and every musician is friends with at least one or two people who have the ability to spread news... More >>
• Best Concert of the Past 12 Months (Touring)
  Nine Inch Nails
  There's no way around it—the arena is the gulag of the rock experience, that hostile, imprisoning environment one flocks to only out of direst necessity. To fill that cavernous space with an energy that can survive the echoing acoustics and concrete concourses requires a sophistication... More >>
• Best Album of the Past 12 Months
  Maverick, Gay Witch Abortion
  Maverick, the long-awaited first album from the notoriously named Minneapolis duo, is one of the best heavy records the Twin Cities scene has ever produced. The album streamlines doom metal, stoner rock, no-wave, and post-rock into a flat-out blast of raw sonics. Jesse Bottomley's guitar can... More >>
• Best Local Band Made Good (1 Comment)
  P.O.S.
  Going into 2008, the local punk rapper was two years past the outstanding Audition, and the anticipation to find out what was coming next was drawing as tight as a bowstring. Going into 2009, P.O.S. almost certainly is staring down the barrel of major national fame. With his new full-length,... More >>
• Best New Band
  Lookbook
  A year before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs made all the music critics lose their shit over their new-old electro sound, locals Grant Cutler and Maggie Morrison began toying around with classic '80s synth beats and echoic vocal effects under their new project, Lookbook. The songs they produced, many of... More >>
• Best Live Artist
  The Blind Shake
  It's said that great art should be out of reach, but just barely. Perhaps that's why the Blind Shake have such an engaging live presence. There is something familiar in their blood-and-guts garage rock, but it's only distantly familiar, like the map of a dream. Strident and asphyxiating, their... More >>
• Best Female Vocalist (1 Comment)
  Aby Wolf
  The songs on Aby Wolf's debut album, Sweet Prudence, only hint at the magnitude of this virtuoso's singing talent. Looping her voice on top of itself, Wolf accompanies her mid-range melodies with soaring, nimble, high-register wails and pretty, choir-girl arpeggios, creating sublime choral... More >>
• Best Male Vocalist
  Chris Beirden of Vampire Hands
  George Harrison must have had a love child. It's uncanny. Close your eyes while you listen to Vampire Hands, and Chris Beirden will transport you back in time. The dude makes you want to drop acid and set his album on loop. His voice is haunting and arid and barren and ethereal and gorgeous,... More >>
• Best Rock Band
  Knife World
  From the deepest, dankest basement party, where the cologne of old sweat and spilled beer drifts like mustard gas, to the 7th St. Entry stage, where their fans pay a cover and buy their beer from the bar in a show of good citizenship, the indomitable rock outfit Knife World knows no master.... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Artist (9 Comments)
  Muja Messiah
  The Twin Cities' reputation as fertile grounds for underground hip hop is well-deserved and hard-earned, and it has resulted in a number of classic albums. But we could always use more hip hop that hits the streets and clubs as hard as it hits the headphones, and Muja Messiah spent most of 2008... More >>
• Best R&B Artist (1 Comment)
  Black Blondie
  The members of Black Blondie, a foursome now whittled down to three ladies, are as much memorable musicians as they are characters. Singer Samahra, especially, makes her mark—channeling the spirit of Neneh Cherry circa "Buffalo Stance" when it comes to fashion and, when it comes to skills... More >>
• Best Blues Band
  The Butanes
  This is the fifth consecutive year (and sixth total) that the Butanes have nabbed the title of Best Blues Band, and it's easy to see why: Their blues renditions are as solid as the hardwood floors in front of the stage at the Eagles Club in Minneapolis, where you can catch them live every... More >>
• Best Jazz Artists
  Fat Kid Wednesdays
  Venturing into the basement of the Turf Club on a Monday night is like descending into the annals of an underground jazz club that existed 40 years ago, in somebody's grandmother's basement. Tucked inside the wood-paneled walls of the Turf's Clown Lodge, concertgoers will find some of the Twin... More >>
• Best Folk Artist
  Gabe Barnett
  In a land of 10,000 Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie wannabes, Gabe Barnett seems like the most fitting victim to compare to those folk icons. But to do so would imply something less than genuine about this fiercely independent, grassroots folk singer. He embodies the spirit of the wandering... More >>
• Best Experimental Band
  Slapping Purses
  Experimental music? That's a wide net. Cast it into the ocean and you're likely to drag up more boots and tin cans than rock lobsters. But there's Slapping Purses, thrashing about on the forward deck among all that offal like some bizarre, deep-water lungfish. Cheap Casio keyboards never saw... More >>
• Best Concert Venue
  Varsity Theater
  Though the Varsity Theater has only focused on music since 2005, the popular Dinkytown venue has been around for a whopping 94 years, operating as a theater until the 1980s, when it morphed into a concert hall. The new Varsity debuted four years ago with a Feist concert, wowing Twin Citians with... More >>
• Best Rock Club (1 Comment)
  7th St. Entry
  Look, 7th St. Entry has a lot working against it. First, it's downtown, and heading there to see AIDS Wolf on a Saturday night puts you butts-to-bollocks with bumper-to-bumper traffic and throngs of people on their way from the Wolves game to the Hard Rock Cafe. There's parking to contend with,... More >>
• Best Jazz Club
  Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant
  The Dakota is hardly the only jazz club in town, or even the only great one (St. Paul's legendary Artists' Quarter is a perennial contender). But the Dakota's 1-2-3 punch is hard to compete with: Its incomparable acoustics make it one of the best-sounding environments for live jazz (or R&B... More >>
• Best Blues Club
  Famous Dave's BBQ and Blues Bar
  Nestled into one of the most gentrified, yuppie-friendly neighborhoods in the metro area, Uptown's Famous Dave's seems an unlikely place to be the hub of a genre rooted in oppression and despair. But despite its awkward locale, Famous Dave's continues to draw the best local and national blues... More >>
• Best All-Ages Venue (4 Comments)
  Eclipse Records
  After a multiyear hiatus and a long-awaited relocation from the Macalester campus to the final feet of University Avenue before St. Paul becomes Minneapolis, it's a grand pleasure just to write the name Eclipse Records once again. As it was a decade ago, Eclipse Records is a musical incubator,... More >>
• Best Dance Club (3 Comments)
  First Avenue
  Objects appear more vivid when set against a dark background, although it's doubtful the interior decorators at First Avenue considered that when they doused the club in practical black lacquer paint. Against that backdrop, the kaleidoscope of characters on display every Saturday at the Too Much... More >>
• Best Club DJ (1 Comment)
  Jimmy 2 Times
  Jimmy 2 Times really knows how to rock a party rock a party—and if you think that last part was a typo, it's a crying shame you haven't seen Goodfellas. The lingo behind Jimmy's "Get Cryphy" party might need some explaining, too: "Cryphy" is the wild-child offspring of "Crunk" and "Hyphy,"... More >>
• Best Karaoke
  Vegas Lounge
  Ask any fan: Half the bars around town that feature weekend karaoke are packed by 9 p.m. If you get your request in early, you might get to sing one song. But on a busy night, don't even think about singing two. This is not the case at the Vegas Lounge, a fun bar that manages to not become... More >>
• Best Band to Break Up in the Past 12 Months (11 Comments)
  The Alarmists
  For a while there, back in early 2006, Brit-pop loving indie kids the Alarmists seemed like the perfect candidate to be Minneapolis's next little band-that-could. Critics salivated in unison over the salacious pop melodies on the band's breakout EP, A Detail of Soldiers. Their shows started... More >>
• Best Band Name
  The Not Goods
  ... More >>