Year-End Critics' Polls '08

DiS is very consciously about creating a sense of community and that community is the modern extension of a ground-level London-centric indie fanzine world. I find this pretty offputting as well but can't really deny it's been a significant factor in their success, despite the site as a whole feeling very cobbled together.

― Matt DC, Friday, 12 December 2008 11:21 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Success may be too strong a word there.

Bit patronising to suggest that he wouldn't (xp).

I meant success as in lots of readers, not as in actually making money.

They've done more with it than I would have expected, but also not as much as they clearly must have expected at one point

What, like Hull City?

In 2008 DiS ended their ties with BSKyB
http://www.drownedinsound.com/in_depth/3858825
...and lost their lead writer (who is now at Clash Magazine / Website)

Granuiad

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/critics-poll-2008 1-10
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/12/3 11-50 and two #31's

Seriously, people, TV On The Radio, you're being conned.

"an album that boldly took the guitar where no record had gone before"

Derek Bailey spinning in his grave even as I speak.

Seriously, whoever wrote that should have their hands smashed with concrete blocks, like they did in Mao's China, to teach them not to do it again.

Two words:

Living Colour.

YES MARCELLO CARLIN, MOST OF THEM HAVE BLACK SKIN AND THEY PLAY GUITARS THEREFORE THEY ARE LIVING COLOUR

You know I'm right.

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z214/13LILY_DANIELA03/LiL-Wayne_Guitar-psd4373.png

In the storied history of idiotic things said on ILM, Marcello's second post takes the fucking cake. I was with him on his first post re: TVotR, but goddamn man.

O_O

I'm pretty sure if Kyp Malone was playing hyperkinetic Vernon Reid guitar solos, they would get kicked out of indie rock faster than you can say "Brooklyn Vegan comment section"

They all look alike, huh Marcello?

I realise that some of you young 'uns don't remember the 1987/8 critical poll-topping phenomenon that was Living Colour. Plenty of used copies of their vibrant string of albums available to confirm the dazzling influence that they exerted upon their generation.

http://img.alibaba.com/photo/50141225/Snow_Shovel_with_Telescopic_Aluminum_Handle.jpg

Wow.

Living Colour were basically Marsalis metal.

The correct answers were Last Exit and AR Kane.

http://i38.tinypic.com/260tqvt.jpg

hey look, there's a suggest ban button after every one of marcello's posts, i wonder what that's for?

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/8383/vvaj3.jpg

Keep talking, Marcello, I still can't tell if you are insane or just a dipshit

Well, you can either provide a convincing and coherent argument to the contrary or you can lazily press the Suggest Ban button and enjoy an easy life of lazy mediocrity.

I realise that the amount of effort required for the latter is a lot less bothersome than that required for the former.

I realise that the amount of effort required for the latter is a lot less bothersome than that required for the former.

the amount of effort required for the latter is barely the effort that your bullshit deserves

suggest ban = not as lazy as comparing tv on the radio to living colour

^^^bingo

Marcello, are you trying to imply some sort of tokenism or are you just being a quasiracist dickwipe?

If you can't hear Living Colour's "dazzling influence" in Body Count, Rage Against The Machine, System Of A Down and Sevendust, you are indeed a huge dipshit.

Also, Living Colour is awesome and I might go play Time's Up right now.

I'm implying that, as with Living Colour, TV On The Radio are a fundamentally very average and non-innovative rock group who are getting a free "alternative" critical pass on the grounds of colour-related guilt.

Just as it was more convenient to like the easily absorbable Living Colour in 1987 than more problematic characters such as Public Enemy or Schoolly-D, so it is much more comforting to flee to the shelter of TVOTR rather than grasp with the panoply/explosion of creative black music in 2008, from Giggs to Ludacris.

And as for the presumed influence on Body Count, Rage Against The Machine, System of a Down and Sevendust - well, would we really have been any poorer without any of these?

OK, now I want to move from Suggest Ban to killfile.

The "more problematic" PE won the polls, not Living Colour.

The 1988 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

Albums

1. Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Def Jam) 1011 (79)
2. Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation (Blast First/Enigma) 716 (58)
3. Tracy Chapman: Tracy Chapman (Elektra) 685 (59)
4. Midnight Oil: Diesel and Dust (Columbia) 308 (27) *
5. Michelle Shocked: Short Sharp Shocked (Mercury) 296 (31)
6. Was (Not Was): What Up, Dog? (Chrysalis) 273 (23)
7. Pere Ubu: The Tenement Year (Enigma) 264 (26)
8. Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin) 264 (25)
9. Traveling Wilburys: Volume One (Wilbury) 263 (26)
10. Randy Newman: Land of Dreams (Warner Bros.) 261 (25)
11. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (Columbia) 254 (23)
12. Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson (Sire) 248 (24)
13. Ornette Coleman and Prime Time: Virgin Beauty (Portrait) 234 (21)
14. Richard Thompson: Amnesia (Capitol) 219 (22)
15. Cowboy Junkies: The Trinity Sessions (RCA) 217 (20)
16. Lucinda Williams: Lucinda Williams (Rough Trade) 214 (20)
17. Prince: Lovesexy (Paisley Park) 211 (26)
18. John Hiatt: Slow Turning (A&M) 209 (21)
19. Womack & Womack: Conscience (Island) 207 (19)
20. Prince: The Black Album (bootleg) 203 (21)
21. U2: Rattle and Hum (Island) 203 (15)
22. George Michael: Faith (Columbia) 199 (17) *
23. Living Colour: Vivid (Epic) 196 (19)

You might have a point if your bullshit theory wasn't full of holes big enough to drive a dumptruck through.

(ha - xpost)

Also, if you think the Ludacris album is better than the TVOTR album you have way bigger problems than quasiracist dickwipism

LC was 5th place in the 1990 poll, fyi (not that it gives any weight to what Marcello's saying)

Terrible list, that 1988 one.

Rarely has a poster been so aptly named as Whiney!

3. Tracy Chapman: Tracy Chapman (Elektra) 685 (59)

Ludacris is in no way more innovative or less prone to mediocrity than TV On The Radio (tho it may well be their albums are roughly equal in quality, know rap albums won't beat rock albums in these polls and get over it)

19. Womack & Womack: Conscience (Island) 207 (19)

How dare TVOTR sound insufficently black! Why, they don't even try rapping! Perhaps Marcello can sit them down and explain what real blackness is all about.

(More people voted for Talk Is Cheap than I'm Your Man?)

3, 19

xpost

Incorrect. It's a question of changing things, not getting over things. Better to demolish cancers than "get over" them.

Ludacris hasn't been substantially innovative for about half a decade.

i have no idea what you are all talking about but i do take issue with:

know rap albums won't beat rock albums in these polls and get over it

ughhh no, why should we get over this?

Unfortunately TV On The Radio fail to transcend their ghosted promise. They have to realise that their voices are not their own, that they are the product of a discourse.

Also, Battles do this sort of thing infinitely better.

It's the usual ILM malaise, Lex; white kids clinging on to the rotting deadwood of the old world instead of sailing into the new one.