Well, it was only a matter of time.

For the past 6 years or so, Fayetteville has been fortunate enough to get to know Little Rock’s American Princes pretty well. They’ve played here steadily over that period in all types of venues, and they’ve amassed a pretty good following in Fayetteville which is just a short 3 hour drive from their home base in LR. As much as we’d like to claim them as our own, they are more Little Rock’s than ours (though Fayetteville could be considered a third home for them after Little Rock and Brooklyn).

We knew they were a great band and we knew that their latest release “Other People” was probably their crowning achievement thus far, and a front-to-back rock-and-roll masterpiece. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the world figured it out and the American Princes got the acclaim they deserved last week when Magnet Magazine named “Other People” the best album of 2008.

This is huge news for the Princes and huge news for all Arkansas musicians on the whole. The Princes are in pretty good company on Magnet’s list with Brian Eno and David Byrne, Dr. Dog, Nick Cave, TV on the radio, the Dodos, some of the biggest indie bands in the world right now, but Arkansas’ own American Princes, at least in the minds of the writers who put together the list, came out on top with the best album released in 2008. Pretty impressive. Congrats dudes. Y’all deserve it.

Read the full Magnet interview with the American Princes here.