December 11th, 2007
Those end-of-year lists…
I’m a sucker for end of year lists. They’re good for two things: turning you on to something you may have missed, and a healthy bout of fist-clenching indignation about what’s been included and omitted.
The Irish blogosphere has started posting its best album lists (would love to see some book and film lists too) as are various well-known music bloggers. Eric of The Yellow Stereo is collating the lists of lots of music bloggers around the globe (myself included) to make an aggregated shortlist.
There will always be albums that are inexplicably feted, albums everyone liked and you didn’t, or ones you feel you’re the only person in the world championing. That’s one of the things that makes these lists so enjoyable.
Unless it’s the Observer Music Monthy’s Top 50 albums of 2007.
I read it with a certain amount of head-scratching. Number 1 is The Good, The Bad and The Queen. Really? It’s a good album, but it’s not even in my Top 20. Jamie T is at number 2, for an album that is irritating, repetitive and not even the best of example of that gobby young Londoner niche that there’s so much of about at the moment.
But it gets worse.
Girls Aloud are included (and at a shocking 24), two places AHEAD of PJ Harvey’s masterful White Chalk.
Boxer by The National - easily in my Top 5 albums of the year - is nowhere to be seen in the list.
Fall Out Boy and Paul McCartney just about make the Top 40, while Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky is not included at all.
The Klaxons are at 13 - ahead of MIA (20), Bjork (36) and Grinderman (38).
Dizzee Rascal is in the Top 10 for an album that’s alright. But here’s the thing. When it was reviewed during the year in the OMM, it got five stars, but wasn’t afforded one of the ‘First Ten’ reviews (the ones with the big word count) or even ‘The Next Ten” section. It was shoved onto a page with the two and three star reviews and summed up in about 60 words. Maybe this was because his record company - unlike those of KT Tunstall and Hard Fi in the same issue - could not afford an ad in the magazine.
Yesterday was the first day I didn’t buy The Observer for the Music Magazine. In future, if there’s anything worth reading in it (and not the reviews, that’s for sure), I’ll read it online.
December 11th, 2007 at 9:08 am
There is something decidedly fishy about OMM. Occasionally it has some interesting features, but most of the time it reads like a mouthpiece for the marketing departments. Some of the reviews are so uncritical, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been written by the band’s manager. There was a run of about three issues in a row where every featured album was given a four or five star review. We’re not exactly living in a golden era!
Paul Morely’s advertiorial on Arcade Fire was one of the most sycophantic things I’ve ever read in any music magazine.
Maybe I’m just nostalgic for the good old days of Melody Maker, Mr. Agreeable and album reviews that actually described the music and didn’t have stars or a mark out of ten at the bottom.
For what it’s worth I’ll be snorting with derision at any Best of 2007 list that doesn’t contain:
múm – Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
The High Llamas – Can Cladders
Gruff Rhys – Candylion
December 11th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Hmm, a few oddities alright. To be honest with regards to the Girls Aloud/PJ Harvey issue the way I always look at it is the music being judged for what it is and its target audience. As in the Girls Aloud album may do more for a pop fan than the PJ Harvey album may do for someone with more eclectic taste. Just a thought.
However (and I’m a sucker for lists too) these things are always a bit redundant when you think about them, the quantifying and ranking of something with a subjective appeal. All done to get attention without too much effort and maximum exposure for the “fist clenching indignation” they generate - it’s easy journalism!
December 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hey Sinead I have to agree completely. I used to religiously buy the Observer every time the music magazine was included because they always included a few leftfield releases in their roundup that you wouldn’t come across in most of the mainstream music (print) media.
I hadn’t bought it in ages but like yourself and so many people I’m also a sucker for lists and bought it on Sunday, imagine my disappointment.
It was like reading Q magazine
*shiver*
God bless the interweb - So very many lists!!
December 11th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Re: Dizzee Rascal - If I remember correctly they had a gushing interview with him in the same issue as the review explaining that his new album was one of the best British albums in years. it’s not, it’s shite.
Lot of people bashing the OMM today strangely but….
Mika for President!
December 11th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Lordy Sinead,
That’s Observer Music and Observer Woman that’s got up your goat over the past while.
Please god, I hope the Observer Sports Monthly doesn’t experience the same dip in standards….
December 11th, 2007 at 11:59 am
James, you’re right, it has a fishy whiff of marketeers paws all over it. I have no faith in the reviews at all, especially after hearing that appalling Hard-Fi album, and spotting the five star review in OMM, mere pages from a full page ad for said album.
And now you’ve made me all nostalgic for Mr. Agreeable, bless him. You know what, I had a Mr. Agreeable t-shirt…
Like that Mum album alright, and Candylion is in my Top 20. Must confess to having only heard a bit of that High Llamas album, but the soundtrack Sean O’Hagan and Tim Gane did for that French film was so lovely.
Joe, I know what you mean about pop v indie, but the fact that Girls Aloud are included when The National and Wilco aren’t is madness.
And when can we expect your list?
Colin, we are members of a slowly growing club of people who used to get very excited by OMM and now can’t overlook its many flaws. Q Magazine? It could be worse. It could have been Hot Press…
Niall, I remember we had the same discussion about the Dizzee thing back in August. The merits (or lack thereof) of the album are one thing, but editorially, it’s a very strange decision to give something five stars and hide it away with the lesser-rated reviews. I nearly missed it.
And do point me in the direction of who else is bashing OMM…
Shane, I love the Sports Mag, and the Food one. Even the once off film mag they did was alright.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Really looking forward to your lists Sinead. I’m sure they’re be plenty on there to get me through the post-Christmas blues.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Not as bad as the Guardian’s list: they initially give Klaxons album 1/5 for being “noisy rubbish” but then ‘re-reviewed’ it (after the Mercury prize..) in time for their end of year list, and put it at number 5 for the year.
Good shout on Candylion, also Hey Venus, I think, it a fantastic pop album.
But the album of 2007 is The Besnard Lakes “Are The Dark Horse” and that is a fact, jack. And it’s not even in their top 50.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The Observer has always had a big thing for Girls Aloud. I think they have some patronising notion thay they are lending them credibility. Though, to be honest, I probably listen more to them than to PJ Harvey myself….
December 11th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
So much I could write about, but the shock of no Wilco, no National (I could go on but that would be my list then) on there… I used to KEEP my OMM’s I liked them so much fer christsakes! Now I just peruse it online. It’s utter fucking rubbish these days…
Any yes, like almost every facet of life it’s getting the whiff of Marketing C**ts about it…
December 11th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Am being told there are problems posting comments and I just tried to post one for Martin there, who emailed me. It works for me and won’t post for him. If it’s happening for anyone else, let me know.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Have a look over at mine Sinead. I feel your pain, and had a good rant about OMM last night too!
December 11th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Ah c’mon Sinead, out with your list!
December 11th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Lists are a snapshot of a point in time, i.e. they may not reflect what you thought the day before or what you will think the day after. Indeed, I am forever re-evaluating what I hear. Music that I had no time for five years ago can now sound intriguing and beguiling. Other stuff that I liked then now sounds puerile or dated.
If I was to do a list for 2007 (which, without wishing to sound like Scrooge, I won’t), it would be of the music that interested me during this calendar year and not just limit it to what some suit & tie guy saw fit to release during that timeframe.
That, for me, would be a more interesing benchmark of how my tastes and interests are evolving.
(And don’t get me started on the corporate agendas of any commercially-published list!!)
Rant. End of.
December 11th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
PJ Harvey’s mouth is scary.
December 12th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
whats goin on? jamie t at number 2? should be number 1!!!
you’re a moron
December 12th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Good point Jim.
December 12th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
The OMM have been loudly shouting that it’s cool to like pop all year, that Girls Aloud are as essential to the modern music fan as, say, Burial is. Their values-system might be skewed, if only because I don’t buy into their schtick. But I do think that Darragh Purcell ploughed a similiar terrain to better effect a few years with his Pop on 3 show, who’s format argued that Sigur Ros were as important as whatever r’n'b act were top of the charts that week. I felt I could trust the man. His pop-sensitivity has always been A1 since his days DJ-ing at Psychedelia in Galway.
I’ve decided to hold off my own best of year list till January… need Christmas to revisit some LPs but Burial, Panda Bear, MIA, The National, LCD & Matthew Dear will probably all be high up there.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
The Observer Sports Monthly has gone particularly shite in the last while. I remember there was a change of Editor on it or the OMM recently so that accounts for the shitness of at least one of them.
On the list note, don’t get too upset. Anytime I look at anything that is a Top 10 or Top 50 I always feel indignant. It doesn’t matter whether its comedy, music, literature, goals etc you’ll always disagree with loads of it. It’s always someone elses opinion. Fuck other people and their silly opinions. We know that ours are much more valid.
And PJ Harvey’s mouth is scary.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:05 am
OMM have had the same editor since day 1 (Caspar Llewellyn Smith) and the problems begin and end there. Lets be honest, it’s a music magazine aimed at the same people who read the Observer’s Women’s magazine (which I seem to recall Sinead taking apart page by page and Polly Vernon pic by Polly Vernon pic).
The fact that you very rarely get features in the OMM from the Observer’s reliable and readable Kitty Empire says a lot to me about the magazine’s priorities and editorial pitch.
As for the Top 50 albums, all such lists are bait and we’ve been snared