Sunday, December 12, 2004

Numbers

Feeling listless? Look no further, 'cos it's that time of the year again. Debate is already raging about the NME top 40 albums of the year. In my opinion, their selection wasn't as bad or as cringe-worthy as I feared (their pet bands like The Zutons and The Music were at least shunted to the rear end of the list) although I did have a little bit of a giggle about Razorlight getting as high as No. 8. It does seem like a very fashion-led list as I would have thought one of the advantages of the 'Cool List' they printed a few weeks earlier was that it could have liberated the hacks to consider the albums of the year on their musical merits rather than a judgement on the performers' street cred; drug consumption and/or ability to easily fill the gossip pages. Sadly, what the list lacks is any real surprises or unfashionable choices, the nearest they come to sticking their necks out is by putting The Beastie Boys' album (by common consensus, their worst record yet) in at No. 16. Perhaps it was just force of habit.

To provide a little contrast, the somewhat broader church of journalists over at Uncut provide a slightly more reflective Top 70 albums of the Year. And now, The Observer Music Magazine has weighed in with its' own Top 20 in which Brian Wilson rubs shoulders with the likes of Goldie Lookin' Chain and Girls Aloud in a bizarre selection that seems to me less sincere than a politician's apology. I don't often buy the mag as it's a bit 'pseudo' for my tastes generally, but judging on this issue it seems to be clearly straining for The Face readership demographic. Do they not realise that one of the reasons for that mag's demise was that outside of the EC postcode areas there was much-diminishing demand for being lectured to about how Girls Aloud are as good as Blondie by middle-aged white men with double-barrel surnames?

Only askin'...

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