As we have every year for the last quarter-century, we present the Dallas Observer Music Awards. This year, our panel of music experts and industry veterans nominated 200 artists, venues and organizations. Over 4,000 people voted on those nominees, and their selections are the 40 winners listed here.

They're a worthy bunch. Some are well-known outside North Texas, like Sarah Jaffe (whose latest exploits include singing the hook on an Eminem song and providing the soundtrack for Pixar's most recent short) and The Polyphonic Spree (whose new album reached number eight on the Billboard Album Chart, in addition to winning our Best New Release DOMA). Some of this year's winners are elder statesmen of this area's music scene: Paul Slavens, who was nominated for the very first DOMA in 1988, won a pair this year.

You can see one outline of the music scene in this year's winners. Booty Fade is less than a year old, but the collaboration between DJ Sober and producer Picnictyme represents the pulse of Dallas' nightlife scene better than anyone else. The O's, whose members have a pedigree that includes major label deals, have earned enough goodwill here that they could probably win city council seats in addition to their continued success in the DOMA voting. Denton's Seryn and Dallas' Larry G(ee) are probably the area's two best bets for a national breakthrough in 2014.