Year-End Critics' Polls '08

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.

Clinging onto Elbow nurse for fear of something worse.

http://mjau.weretree.com/rnd/just-keep-digging.jpg

Also, Battles do this sort of thing infinitely better.

What "sort of thing" is that, exactly?

Battles don't sound anything like TVOTR. They do, however, feature black folk playing rock, so I guess that'll do.

Which is more than can be said for "an album that boldly took the guitar where no record had gone before" which is now officially the most ridiculous assertion ever published in the Grauniad not written by Richard Gott.

http://www.errorloading.net/uploads/backhoe.jpg

Good call on Womack & Womack, Reverend. Why up so early?

Fell asleep at 8.

Much like the artist himself did while making it.

ughhh no, why should we get over this?

because it's The Guardian, a newspaper of certain cultural position in a country where rock music is generally more popular (whether it's 'innovative' or not).

if Badu and Wayne's albums - which seem insincerely elevated in these lists - experience a significant sales bump or profile rise as a result of being in their top 10 then i'd be surprised.

The Badu album means more to me than album of this decade, imo. Insincerely, my behind.

I'd question whether rock is actually more popular in Britain than rap and/or dance and/or R&B.

It's certainly written about more for obvious historical/demographic reasons but that doesn't in itself make it more popular.

But the disease through most of the polls we've had so far is the same - stick to the dying embers of whiteboy indie instead of embracing the life of the future, and thus concluding that '08's been a crap/average year and thus saving 50-year-old Fifty Quid Man much inconvenient time and expenditure investigating actual new music.

Guys, there's really no rap album that came out in 2008 that's worthy of being the No. 1 album of the year. But I understand where you're coming from, lex et al

And how many 2008 rap albums have you listened to, exactly?

Have we met?

And, how many 2008 rap albums have you listened to, exactly?

Marcello, please keep talking to people who listen to a lot more rap than you as if they never listen to rap.

yeah, whip it out, Whiney, show us your list. don't let the size of Marcello's Paper Trail thread intimidate you.

look out, this british guy is challenging your rap cred

Why should they have been "insincerely elevated", blueski? Especially when I assume the Lex voted for Badu as his favourite album and I know a few others (myself included) who had it in their top five. There's no reason to believe it wasn't placed exactly according to the votes it got. Same goes for Lil Wayne.

This attitude just suggests that if a hip hop album DID get the top spot - if this list had been running in 2003 or 2004 then Outkast and Kanye might both have done so - it would no doubt also be dismissed as insincere posturing/tokenism/hip hop for white people/blah blah blah.

Nobody listens to more rap than Marcello. Don't you know he started this gangsta shit and this is the motherfuckin' thanks he gets?

I really can't find a way to respond to him without sounding like an arrogant "whippin out my music dick" prick or a total .xls aspie nerd, so can we all just agree that I listen to a whole fucking shit-ton of rap

because it's The Guardian, a newspaper of certain cultural position in a country where rock music is generally more popular (whether it's 'innovative' or not).

ok i) i don't believe this, ii) if rock is more popular then it shouldn't be - and the media should be the ones transmitting this.

The Badu album means more to me than album of this decade, imo. Insincerely, my behind.

^^^this.

Guys, there's really no rap album that came out in 2008 that's worthy of being the No. 1 album of the year.

my no 1 is erykah, but young jeezy, wiley* and nappy roots made really outstanding albums; lil' wayne, t.i. and trina made inconsistent ones but with amazingly high highs; will also rep for gucci mane, bun b and tinchy stryder too (they're certainly better than tv on the radio, at any rate).

*grime wave, not see clear now. obv.

nah, you're just hangin' out on the ringtone thread talking the talk while marcello's out in the real world walking the walk

xpost

For the record, Marcello, if you wanna to talk #s, 41. And I agree with Whiney.

And how many 2008 rap albums have you listened to exactly?

Oh my god.

I have to work today you fucking boner, so I don't have time to count all the piles of promos and downloads, so can we say somewhere around 100?

Maybe more, I don't know.

I guarantee I've heard every rap record that you're heard that isn't some oi oi oi bullshit with someone talking about smoking weed over a PlayStation

about 30 nat'l releases for me (if you count mixtapes and local releases, then triple that #), and I also agree with Whiney.

Why should they have been "insincerely elevated", blueski? Especially when I assume the Lex voted for Badu as his favourite album and I know a few others (myself included) who had it in their top five. There's no reason to believe it wasn't placed exactly according to the votes it got. Same goes for Lil Wayne.

fair dos i was being overly cynical. i just can't imagine a non-rock album being voted #1 but then am half-thinking 'well that's probably fair enough when you look at who's voting in these things and how everything is slanted against 'other' and why shouldn't one ethos dominate if that's an honest reflection of things etc.

I have a solution! Maybe these magazines and newspapers and websites and blogs should just vote for NO music by colored people! That would solve their tokenism issue!

Marcello, I'm usually with you, but you're not making a whit of sense.

To be honest most if not all of the Grauniad's Top 50 should have been rap/R&B/grime/dance/reggaeton but I fully understand their need to keep their elderly readership happy with dollops of grim Bob Harris/Radcliffe & Maconie-friendly whiteboy whingeing. Hauntology really is so 2006.

no, The Reverend, that's ridiculous. they should have their own list.

I have a solution! Maybe these magazines and newspapers and websites and blogs should just vote for NO music by colored people! That would solve their tokenism issue!

thinking of imposing a "no white people" rule on my lists

(though i think the only artist who'd be affected is ashlee simpson)

lolntology

How can all these mags release their best-of-2008 lists now, when there's still more than a month left of 2008?

It is a well-known fact that most albums released in December are usually either "best of" compilations or crowded with songs about Santa, reindeers, Christmas trees, snow and mistletoes.....

ONLY MY TASTES ARE VALID GET WITH IT, PEOPLE

Hey, Geir, would you like to get involved in this race debate? You could only improve it!

ok i) i don't believe this,

why don't you believe it? anything other than 'narrow-minded bias/conspiracy among media' type reasons?

ii) if rock is more popular then it shouldn't be - and the media should be the ones transmitting this.

'shouldn't be' only because more balance seems good (even if it's not really proportionately representative of national cultures), not just 'let's tip the scales the other way'

I haven't seen Geir's list yet but how can he leave out Sounds Of The Valleys or The Priests or the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards or any of the other highly melodic tunesmiths on sale for £6.96 at Tesco?

It's the same with all these polls, really; the innovative and truly talented are seldom even mentioned, it's always the mediocrities and Buggins' turns who've been around for years.

Lex, Marcello: are black people better at singing and dancing than white people?

Yes or no, no need for expansion at all.

My head is spinning around right now, exorcist-style.

I do not believe Jean Charles de Menezes died just so that Fleet Foxes and Glasvegas could live.