Fuck the Noughties
I know it’s the run up to Christmas and the New Year, but there will be no Best of the Decade lists on this blog, no sir. The reason? Well, for fuck’s sake, I’m just far too fucking lazy! Christ almighty, no disrespect to the people who have the energy to do it but I wouldn’t even know where to begin raking back through all the albums released in the last ten years, never mind starting to filter them into some kind of sensible order. Madness!
So if anyone wants to ask me I’ll shrug and say ‘I dunno, fuck it, probably Kid A or A Ghost is Born or Funeral or Lyre of Orpheus or summat like that I guess’. Probably. I think. Perhaps. I mean, I find it hard enough to balance my year end lists as it is, trading off the immediate glow of enthusiasm still retained by albums released in the last month versus the more distant memories of those out in January.
Spread that over ten years and Christ Al-fucking-mighty what a task. I mean, I was a totally different person back in 2000. And again in about 2002, and 2004. I moved up here halfway through the decade and suddenly became not just a fan but a reviewer and a promoter as well – fuck’s sake my whole relationship with music has been completely changed over the course of the decade.
The albums I listened to whilst working in a shitty gangster nightclub in Manchester in 2000 did something totally different for me than the ones I listened to in the giddy excitement of my first days with Mrs. Toad where I was thinking ‘fucking hell, this really is it, isn’t it’. Imagine comparing Withered Hand’s superb Good News, which has been in existence for a mere handful of months, to a record like And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo, which I have listened to in good times and bad for the last ten years.
I know this is the case over the course of a single year as well, but the magnitude of it seems a little more manageable. It also seems less grandiose a statement, too ‘my favourite album this year’ seems a little more hedged and modest than ‘the best album of the last decade’, which seems like it should be in capital letters or italics or have a load of bloody exclamation marks after it or something.
I know that’s missing the point somewhat, of course. Lists are just for fun, really, and largely for the entertainment of the people writing them, although also to a lesser extent for other people too. It’s just a bit of fun, and kinda fascinating to look at how, say, Wilco’s A Ghost is Born and the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s Regard the End would probably be on my list, despite never being an ‘album of the year’, whereas Nux Vomica by The Veils might not make the list at all, despite being my top pick in 2005. It’s also fascinating to try and figure out where albums by your friends, like the Meursault record for example, might stack up when held up against the likes of Kid A or The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats or Clem Snide’s Your Favourite Music. How do you even make that comparison fairly?
I don’t mean to criticise anyone who has compiled such a list of course – Euan has done a fascinating one over at the Steinberg Principle for example, and fair bloody play to him (page 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5) – but I genuinely don’t think I would even know where to begin. I have my lists of course, but what about the records which didn’t make those lists? I think I may just have to write off the last ten years as the decade in which I became the person that I am today, which had a lot of good music, and which will forever remain in a memory rather than a list.
Eels – Guest List
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I only did it cause I was bored one evening. And to be honest, bar the top 20 I think it’s all pretty interchangeable. There are also albums missing that probably could have been on there. It’s an impossible task really. I just did it for a bit of fun really.
the nme decade thing was a joke (but then again the whole paper is). Exactly: how do you fairly put something in it that’s sill fresh in the ears from a few months ago as opposed to something from 10 years ago? Q had albums in their list that weren’t even out for a good few eeks!? Still it’s not as difficult as all the ‘Albums/Artists of the century’ lists that had to be compiled at the turn of the millenium. jings.
I lost a ‘w’ in that….
Slim, the NME thing was a joke first and foremost because they put that everso medium Strokes record at the top. Muppets.
And yeah, artist of the century – nice one! How exactly do you compare Louis Armstrong with the Libertines again?
Indeed Euan, I wasn’t having a go. Just that my mind boggles at the thought of the whole task. I’ve started (in my head at least) compiling my best of the year list and everytime I go back to it I remeber another album I’d totally forgotten to include in the list, so the idea of doing it for the whole year…
I’m struggling with a 10 for this year as well though. it was much easier to think of 20 albums I love from the past 10 years. 50 was a bit much to be honest. and like i said, so many that could be on that list but aren’t.
True. It’s been a pretty thin year for albums this year, actually. I can think of about five off the top of my head, but I generally do a Top 20, so it might get a little tricky towards the end of that list.
I’ve never really been able to compile definitive lists of which something sits at the top. Maybe this year I will actually have an album of the year. But a look back at the decade? I’m more interested in what other people filter it down to. I might do a post on just that. If I ever had the time. Tsk.
top 10 albums of the year. bit of a nightmare. i have 5 definite favourites. the other 5 i’m not sure about though.
I really liked euans top ten …..couple there that I may have to investigate.
The weird bit about Euan’s list is how much I disagree with it, given I love virtually every record on there that I know.
I like Euan’s top 10 as well. My problem with these lists is that I probably haven’t even heard some of my favorite albums of the decade yet. I’m just now getting a feel for my favorite records of the 1990s. Then trying to put them into some sort of hierarchy is just futile once you get past the 3 or 4 really elite records. Still, it’s fun to think about.
Exactly. it’s fun to think about.
Matthew, you disagreeing with me is nothing new!
Euan, what number is Katy Perry’s breasts in at again?
Shonagh – they are pretty good. get over it.
Matthew – feel free to tell me why you disagree if you like. Be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Well it’s weird because I feel that a slightly different emotional state at different times in my life and I could easily have had an identical top ten to yours, because I love all those albums. I just happened to be listening to subtly different albums at the times in my life when I was most likely to bond tightly with music.
It just seems like a whisker by which I prefer A Ghost is Born to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for example, so that it could easily just be my own personal circumstances at the time I heard each record that happened to tip the balance.
Well, that and the fact that my taste is just much better than yours of course.
i think you are quite right about “end of year lists” being a lot more fun for the compiler than the reader. beyond the top one or two records, i have little interest in where an album is 7th or 8th in someones list, let alone going as far as 36, 37 or beyond. usually, these lists simply result in my purchasing overhyped pap – eg: the bug’s london zoo as the wire’s no.1 album of 2008
and as an aside, this year has been great for good records. but that’s just because my taste is much better than all y’alls. of course..
I listened to Found Can Move and a bit of the bonus disk from Flick The Vs on the bus this morning..
Anyone care?
No?
Didn’t think so.
Well, I’ve only taken a slight peek at Euan’s list, I’ll admit, but I know there’s loads of artists and records on it (as well as on your list, Matthew) that I’ve never heard or have no interest in. It’s funny being on a different continent, being of a different generation, being hid in a cave for much of this decade, my list would be all over the place!
and I do still listen to the indie, semi-mainstream radio station and, more importantly for this year, I’ve focused intently on new music. So I’d have to disagree with your appraisal of 2009. I think it’s an amazing year for albums! I’m having a terrible time narrowing it down as well as getting everything reviewed in time. The sheer number of stunning debuts has me shaking my head!
Me less so, I have to confess, although I’ve yet to go back through the list and seriously take a look at it.
Sorry, my hamfisted at attempt at wry observational humour before was meant to illustrate the difficulties I’m having raising an interest in anyone’s lists this year.
Maybe because it’s a decade’s end so there are all kinds of combinations of quantities and timespans on offer, or maybe it’s because the lists are full of so many obscure entries that it’s difficult to actually get a handle on any of them because there’s very little you’re familiar with.
Either way I’m starting to wish they would all just go away. Roll on February.
I fuckin’ hate lists of ranking order.
I’m in hong kong…..
What a miserable bunch – and that’s coming from me. Can’t you just all see it as the bit of harmless fun that it is?
Not really miserable as such, I don’t want to stop others people’s fun. I’m just struggling find anything interesting in it for me.
Is Chutters really in Hong Kong?
Is he? Good. Is Hong Kong higher or lower on you list of the decade’s best places you’ve been than, say, Barnsley?
Barnsley Chops are good. They’re the ones where you get two chops joined together. Tasty.
What are everyone’s top twenty favourite cuts of meat of the decade?
number one – ham shank
Boom boom.
Boom Boom, you say?
Top ten best John Lee Hooker songs!
Twenty favourite children’s TV puppet characters!
I’ll tell you how the Meursault record might stack up against the The Sunset Tree by The Mountain Goats.
It would tower over it, pull down it’s own pants, and DO ONE on it.
Uh-huh.
And howdaya like them apples!
But I rather like Sunset Tree.
Poor old Sunset Tree.
[...] to the best albums of the decade – as well as the best albums of the year. For Matthew at Song by Toad though, it isn’t really possible: [W]hat a task. I mean, I was a totally different person [...]