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Year-End Lists for Spin, NME, Uncut, MOJO and The Wire

December 23, 2002 by A.S. Van Dorston

December is always a frenzy to hear any album I might have missed that might make my top 40. I don’t publish my final Lucky 13 list ’til after New Year’s, the way it should be. Given the lead time to send to printers, many magazines have their critics polls wrapped up by Halloween, to serve more as consumer guides for the Xmas shopping season. So I take ’em with a teaspoon of salt. I also suspect that the polls don’t always reflect what the critics truly enjoyed. For example, the sometimes self-consciously hip Pitchfork avoids anything remotely mainstream rock. Which means their Top 50 list is a bit affected, because it probably doesn’t accurately reflect what all the contributers ACTUALLY enjoyed and listened to the most — I’m sure there’s at least a couple who secretly listen to their Foo Fighters or Korn, never to be admitted to Pitchfork’s editors. I’d love to crash their holiday party — I’d ply them with about five tequila gimlets and ask, “Sooo, what was your ACTUAL favorite album this year? You like dancing to Justin Timberlake wearing nothing but your bunny slippers?! No, of course I won’t tell anyone!”

There’s also straight-up tampering with results, which I’ve always suspected but was confirmed by a staffer at SPIN, who recently wrote this in the CMJ bulletin board:

“i really pushed for Trail of Dead to be on the list, as well as the Liars. both those albums were on the list at one point, but fell off…the problem is that Spin, being a pretty large publication, has to appeal to both people who listen to say, the Vue and the Rapture as well as people who like Eminem and Blink-182. So that’s why some of the bands included on that top 40 aren’t even bands that we really honestly like that much….politics, man.”

That explains it. I wondered how the heck System of A Down got on top of their list last year, cuz I’d bet my CD collection that none of them listened to that album ever again. The only polls really worth their salt are the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll which last year surveyed 622 critics and doesn’t come out ’til February, and the Rock & Rap Confidential International Critics Poll which has even more contributors, but is on hiatus for 2003.

But taken as they are, flawed consumer guides, they are fun to check out, and possibly even discover some goodies you may have overlooked.

Complete lists from these magazines and more (Q, The Wire, etc.) can be found on Julian White’s Rock List Site.

SPIN
Though it was re-issued on a major, the choice of White Stripes is just dumb. Not that they’re not a great band, but because, even on an indie label, it was widely available last year enough to make the tops of most other 2001 critics polls. The Hives was also released earlier.

1 The White Stripes * White Blood Cells
2 Wilco * Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3 Beck * Sea Change
4 The Flaming Lips * Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
5 Eminem * The Eminem Show
6 Weezer * Maladroit
7 Missy Elliott * Under Construction
8 Queens Of The Stone Age * Songs For The Deaf
9 N.E.R.D. * In Search Of…
10 The Hives * Veni Vidi Vicious
11 Felix Da Housecat * Kittenz And Thee Glitz
12 Sleater-Kinney * One Beat
13 Jay-Z * The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
14 Bruce Springsteen * The Rising
15 Tori Amos * Scarlet’s Walk
16 The Roots * Phrenology
17 The Streets * Original Pirate Material
18 Scarface * The Fix
19 DJ Shadow * The Private Press
20 Bright Eyes * Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil…

 

NME
1 Coldplay * A Rush Of Blood To The Head
2 The Vines * Highly Evolved
3 The Streets * Original Pirate Material
4 The Coral
5 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
6 Queens Of The Stone Age * Songs For The Deaf
7 Doves * The Last Broadcast
8 Eminem * The Eminem Show
9 Datsuns
10 Interpol * Turn On The Bright Lights
11 The Flaming Lips * Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
12 The Libertines * Up The Bracket
13 Polyphonic Spree * The Beginning Stages Of…
14 N.E.R.D. * In Search Of…
15 The Music
16 Beck * Sea Change
17 Boards Of Canada
18 Soundtrack of Our Lives * Behind The Music
19 The Hives * Veni Vidi Vicous
20 Johnny Cash * The Man Comes Around

Uncut
Interesting list, though as a British mag, their inexplicable love of all things Americana and MOR roots-rock continues to amuse. The favoring of washed-up geezers is getting alarming (Robert Plant? Jackson Browne???). El-P is a surprising choice for #3, over the conspicuously absent The Roots, Mr. Lif, Rjd2, Boom Bip, Common, Talib Kweli, Blackalicious (sorry, I can’t count Eminem). Guess they shoved the “hardest” one up to the top to make up for it. Aside from its geezer-centricity, and weakness in hip-hop/soul, it’s (with all 70 listings) probably the most well-rounded and stylistically diverse of all of them, not counting the queen bitch goddess of polls, the Voice’s Pazz & Jop.

1 Flaming Lips * Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
2 Bruce Springsteen * The Rising
3 El-P * Fantastic Damage
4 Wilco * Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
5 The Streets * Original Pirate Material
6 Lambchop * Is A Woman
7 My Computer * Vulnerabilia
8 Beck * Sea Change
9 Suicide * American Supreme
10 David Bowie * Heathen
11 Tom Waits * Blood Money
12 Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man * Out Of Season
13 Ryan Adams * Demolition
14 Soloman Burke * Don’t Give Up On Me
15 Waren Zevon * My Ride’s Here
16 Badley Drawn Boy * Have You Fed The Fish
17 Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucus * Songs To No One 1991-92
18 Robert Plant * Dreamland
19 Eminem * The Eminem Show
20 Jesse Malin * The Fine Art Of Self Destruction

MOJO
1 Solomon Burke * Don’t Give Up On Me
2 Flaming Lips * Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
3 Queens Of The Stone Age * Songs For The Deaf
4 Wilco * Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
5 Beth Gibbons & Rustin’ Man * Out Of Season
6 Supergrass * Life On Other Planets
7 Beck * Sea Change
8 Brendan Benson * Lapalco
9 N*E*R*D * In Search Of…
10 The Coral
11 Bruce Springsteen * The Rising
12 Wire * Read & Burn 01 & 02
13 Cornershop * Handcream For A Generation
14 The Streets * Original Pirate Radio
15 Guided By Voices * Universal Truths & Cycles
16 Boards Of Canada * Geogaddi
17 The Libertines * Up The Bracket
18 Tom Waits * Blood Money/Alice
19 Mudhoney * Since We’ve Become Translucent
20 Roddy Frame * Surf

The Wire
1 Sonic Youth * Murray Street
2 Derek Bailey * Ballads
3 Boards Of Canada * Geogaddi
4 Asa-Chang & Junray * Jun Ray Song Chang
5 Various * Improvised Music From Japan
6 Jim O’Rourke * Insignificance
7 Godspeed You! Black Emperor * Yanqui Uxo
8 Cecil Taylor Feel Trio * 2 Ts For A Lovely T
9 Dj /rupture * minesweeper suite
10 Philip Jeck * Stoke
11 Barbara Ess & Peggy Ahwesh * Radio Guitar
12 Eliane Radigue * Adnos I-III
13 El-P * Fantastic Damage
14 Suicide * American Supreme
15 Vajra * Mandala Cat Last
16 Antipop Consortium * Arrhythmia
17 Radian * Recextern
18 Low * Trust
19 Henri Chopin/Various * Revue Ou
20 Raoul Björkenheim/Ingebrigt Håker Flaten/Paal Nilsen-Love * The Scorch Trio

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