Lists, Lists, Glorious Lists!
Here’s what ran through the minds of newspaper, magazine and website writers everywhere around the end of November…
“Hey is that the festive period approaching us, by Jove it is, my my my isn’t it coming fast! I can’t concentrate it’s just so sparkly and I have all this copy to fill. I know… why don’t I make a list of the top albums/tracks/films/TV shows/ stuff I’ve found in my belly button/adverts/books released over the past year? That’ll get people arguing, sorry discussing stuff on our forums… man, people love a list.
Wait a minute, it’s 2009, I could do a best of the decade list, that’s like a best of year list times ten! Bangin’! I’ll knock this out in 10 minutes and start on the port.”
For the past month it’s been impossible to avoid best of lists being whacked out by the media. It all kicked off with venerable/pretentious US music website Pitchfork drip-dripping their Albums Of The 2000s list from late September (Radiohead’s Kid A won) through The Times (Kid A again), NME (The Strokes – Is This It) and The Guardian (The Streets - Original Pirate Material), even Vice got in on the act… in a way (BTW - there are a couple of expletives in the comments section below the article, so be warned).
It wasn’t long before king of the list shows, Channel 4 got started (Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars was voted, freakin’ VOTED, track of the decade. Who on Earth voted for this?), so now TV schedules are starting to fill up with them.
It’s all just pointless, the best album of the decade is an entirely subjective thing, it is yours to choose. Any type of collective decision on art is always weighted to the mediocre, the safe or the arty but not too arty. (For more on this, Simon Reynolds has some interesting things to say about our fragmented listening habits and how they have affected these lists).
And despite dismissing them as pointless, as existing only through laziness, I love a good list, so here are my top 5 albums of the decade. Hey hypocrisy is gonna be big in 2010.
1. Arcade Fire – Funeral
2. 2 Many DJs – As Heard On Radio Soulwax Part 2
3. Manitoba – Start Breaking My Heart
4. Daft Punk – Discovery
5. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
So… what’s yours?
1 Comment – Postiwch sylw
CLICryan
Rhoddwyd sylw 29 mis yn ôl - 4th January 2010 - 07:17am
Good post!
I had to split mine in two - mix CDs and albums, and in no particular order...
MIX CDs
Desyn Masiello - Balance 008
UNKLE - Edit Music For A Film
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist - The Hard Sell (Encore)
Funk D'Void - Sci-Fi Hi-Fi 04
John Digweed - Global Underground 019: Los Angeles
ALBUMS
Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
Justice - Cross
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Osunlade - Elements Beyond
Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around