This is the thread where you make predictions about what will be in/win magazines' end of year critics' polls

beak = break. God, I'm a mess today.

None of this matters, so long as Neko's in there somewhere...

i've now got a sneaky suspicion Nelly is gonna top either the albums list or the singles list in NME as well as ILM!

nope, neko c came out too late for the polls.

dr c, lester & i = leonidas at thermopylae. we are fighting a rearguard action against the wracked, harrowing hordes of nigels and nicks!

nellyville only got 5/10 in nme.

Nelly topping albums would be odd, but he'll be in their top 50.

then again i remember barney hoskyns giving prince's "parade" an almighty slagging in the nme, and it still ended up their album of the year, so who knows? my bet would still be on one of those guitar bands with five letters in their name, though.

Nah, it'll be the Streets. Sidebet on the charidee album, though.

"Nah, it'll be the Streets."

I think so.

"Sidebet on the charidee album, though"

They wouldn't, would they?

Did any of you see Q's top 50? It's SOOOOO PREDICTABLE!

Ha, Kilian - I was just about to mention it !

I don't believe earlier today i popped into a newsagant - and a new edition of that ghastly Q magazine is on sale - with an essential Top 50 albums of 2002 feature, it's only November 5th!

Things are just getting ridiculous like last year NME did their end of year albums list early December when ever year before it was in the double end of year issue.

I flicked through the Q 50 feature - it's full of NME approved crap. Has anyone noticed that gradually over the past decade Q demographic profile has been lowering (partly due to the introduction of Mojo).

In my late teenage youth I sneered at Q for being an old fogeys music rag (Simon Reynolds - called it Mortgage rock)- you know: Dire Straits/ Clapton/ Phil Collins/ Paul McCartney - music for over 30something dullards with a company car.

..now Q magazine seems to be aimed at the casual 20something and upwards crowd with an interest in traditional song structured (mostly rock) music,

typical Q reader profile:
the only music magazine they read is Q! they look forward to watching Jools Holland Later on TV and reckon that the [tame and bland] daytime playlists of XFm, 6 music and Virgin - is where music is at !, the last CD they bought was the new Badly Drawn Boy yesterday, they reckon Coldplay have made a masterpiece and The Vines, Aqualung and The Coral are the best new bands of 2002, they are going to see David Gray in concert soon and are looking forward to new albums from say Turin Brakes and Starsailor next year, oh and they want new the U2 best of album for Christmas. Does anyone else notice this demographic? do you actually know people like this? Do these people really exist?

I see that Q magazine from reading MediaGuardian.co.uk recently has a new team in charge: editor in chief: Phil Alexander (ex Kerrang) and Paul Rees (ex Kerrang editor) as the new partnership, more yoof and rawk oriented?

One last thing most magazine end of year polls are total crap - they are just stuffed full of the most familiar/ over exposed/ high profile artists that happen to release music that particularly year.

I despise how both Q and NME approach music and what they select as important.

thanks to DJ Martian we will know instantly when any magazine anywhere evah has published a year-end list!

Most of the people I know that read Q don't fall into that demographic.

surely Doves 'The Last Broadcast' is Q's AOTY?

Q doesn't usually do a countdown-style AOTY list, does it? Which is odd because they appear addicted to doing them for every other fucking subject they can possibly think of.

I thought they just picked 50 albums without actually ordering them as such.

correct - no order - just goes under the slogan that goes something like: the 50 essential albums of 2002

predictable kate rant:

that "best of 2002" cd had only ONE woman on it. out of their 50 albums, only four of them even had women playing on them (and that's counting the tuba players from the polyphonic spree)

i wish i didn't notice these things... it makes me sound like a boring old riot grrrlie or something.

what are girls like me supposed to read? i'd read girlie magazines, but they're about boring things like fashion and makeup and have no music. lad magazines at least have stuff about music in them, why do we get left out? so i read muso magazines, and there's no girls. why don't girls read muso magazines? cause they're not represented. chicken or egg, self defeating cycle, etc. etc.

this is bad, cause i only ever buy the music press when i'm in it. i should cease this and just wait for my pr to mail the reviews to me instead of buying the whole mag to be upset by.

New Uncut is in the shops. Top 70 albums listed

top 10 as follows: most people predicted these:

1. Flaming Lips
2. Brucie Springsteen
3. El-P
4. Wilco
5. The Streets
6. Lambchop
7. My Computer
8. Beck
9. Suicide
10.Bowie

Marcello warned us there is far too much dull americana rock/ alt.country

some exceptions:

7. My Computer
9. Suicide
12. Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man.
22. Boards of Canada
24. Radio 4
25. Interpol
26. Doves
30. Rob
36. Ladytron
43. ESG
46. Schneider TM
47. ShelleyDevoto
50. Cornelius
52. Saint Etienne
56. Notwist

I am surprised no one else has commented on Uncut's best albums of 2002.

we all haf poll fatigue. our ire is all spent, Martian

7. My Computer
9. Suicide
12. Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man

I see the "influence" of Marcello here, fo' sure. But where is Derek Bailey?

Ok I just skimmed this thread, so forgive me, but does Marcello write for Uncut - has he been there a long time?

Yes, Marcello has recently started to write some album reviews in the last 2 or 3 issues?

"Uncut's top 3 will be composed of Wilco, The Streets, the Flaming Lips."

1, 4, 5. I didn't do too badly, did I? Uncut is actually the best poll. It's very much a list of the writers' most listened-to and enjoyed records of the year, whereas the NME and Q forget about all the little records which they've given great reviews to throughout the year, in favour of recs which have had a bigger impact. I liked their films of the year, also. Mullholland Drive, The Royal Tenenbaums and Donnie Darko all in the top 5. Hats off.

"I see the "influence" of Marcello here, fo' sure"

Rob's "Satyred Love" at number 30 also (it got a glowing review from Marcello).

any predictions for the wire list? does marcello get to vote in that too? better yet does he get a paragraph to himself!!!!!

Top 10: Coldplay Vines Streets Coral BMRC QOTSA Doves Eminem
Datsuns Interpol

Close behind: Flaming Lips Libertines Polyphonic Spree
NERD

Prediction:
Top 10:The Vines, coldplay, Doves, Queens of the Stone Age, The Streets, the Coral, the Electric Soft Parade, the Datsuns, Boards of Canada, Badly Drawn Boy.

(close behind - the Libertines, Polyphonic Spree, Eminem, The Flaming Lips)

I got 7 out of 10. 10 out of 14, if you count the "close behind" predictions. I conclude: NME is prob the most predictable of the polls.

I haven't heard anything from the Wire for ages. I keep pestering Messrs Herrington and Bohn about voting in the end of year poll (and perhaps getting a paragraph) but to no avail. Maybe Rob Y finally found that CoM post hah!

El-P at #3 in the Uncut list was, heheh, also a partial result of my, uh, "influence" ;-) - reynolds, stubbs, mulvey, andy gill and i all had it either first or second in our lists. doesn't appear at all in the nme list, as far as i can see.

"The predictability is general though, not specific. i.e. you have named a Top 10 for the NME. 5 of them then appear. Does that mean that the other 5 are fresh exciting albums you'd never think the NME would support? Hardly."

Tom is proven correct. I missed out on BRMC and Interpol, but NME have hardly thrown us a curveball by putting those in. And I'm still the only person who loves Beachwood Sparks!

is it a good time to revive this?

Maybe a new thread for 2003?

Yeah, start a new one, Kilian.