Year-End Critics' Polls '08

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.

Marcello, four minutes ago:

http://communitiesonline.homestead.com/files/troll_2.jpg

'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'

"national cultures"?????

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41608000/jpg/_41608984_morris_dancing_pa_416.jpg

Invented by Moroccans, you do know that?

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.

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― Brother Belcher (Marcello Carlin), Friday, December 12, 2008 7:21 AM Bookmark

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

looooool

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2008/01/critics.jpg

About forty, but a lot more singles - well into triple figures.

o rly

my, that's a big number!

For the record, TVOTR do try to rap, briefly, on their new album. It's not to their credit.

Why don't you make us a CD-R of reggaeton songs that are better than TV On The Radio so we can listen to it.

how many riddims were there this year?

Damn, we could have used Marcello's input on the rolling reggaeton thread this year when we were talking about how barely anything is coming out.

I'm listening to Time's Up right now, as promised.

racist.

"For the record, TVOTR do try to rap, briefly, on their new album. It's not to their credit."

They did it as a favour to Marcello.

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).

What about Sway?

You're all arguing with someone who called Bob Marley an "Uncle Tom" and Leona Lewis a "half-caste". And while it's usually amusing to point out the holes in the argument of people whose virulent anti-racism makes them look worse than the (relatively mild) thing they're attacking, there is no reasoning with Marcello when he gets into this state so I wouldn't bother.