The ‘Official’ Drowned in Sound.com Top 41 Albums of 2002

Yeah, so you got the tentative version of a Top 20 at the arse end of 2002 but a couple more votes came in which helped The Streets to win by a virtual mile. Eventually a nice round 50 votes were cast and this allowed Biffy Clyro to sneak in at the expense of Doves. Cheeky. A massive total of 130 different albums were voted for this year but merit has been given only to what has been decided by democracy and better promo campaigns to be The Top 41.

The Voting

Every staff member was requested to provide a list of 5 of their favourite albums of the year in order of … favouriteness. An incredibly complex points system was devised by yours truly which gave heavier weighting to those albums which were the #1 choices and also those albums which received more than 1 vote but of lower placings. To have made into this list – The Final Cut – the album must have been voted for by a minimum of 2 writers. It made it fairer. Promise.

The Final Cut

• The Streets – Original Pirate Material
• McLusky – Do Dallas
• Foo Fighters – One By One
• Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf
• Idlewild – The Remote Part
• …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Source Tags & Codes
• The Cooper Temple Clause – See This Through And Leave
• Bright Eyes – Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground
• Queen Adreena – DrinkMe
• Reindeer Section – Son Of Evil Reindeer
• Sigur Ros – ( )
• Biffy Clyro – Blackened Sky
• Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Robots
• Ladytron – Light & Magic
• Desaparecidos – Read Music / Speak Spanish
• Six By Seven – The Way I Feel Today
• Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
• Tori Amos – Scarlet's Walk
• Sleater Kinney – One Beat
• The Coral – The Coral
• Doves – The Last Broadcast
• Martin Grech - Open Heart Zoo
• Gemma Hayes - Night On My Side
• Miss Black America - God Bless Miss Black America
• Beth Gibbons - Out Of Season
• Norah Jones - Come Away With Me
• Soulwax - 2 Many DJs
• Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
• Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head
• Silverchair - Diorama
• Ben Kweller - Sha Sha
• The Datsuns - The Datsuns
• Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher
• Glassjaw – Worship & Tribute
• Radio 4 – Gotham!
• Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi
• Badly Drawn Boy - About A Boy
• Sugababes – Angels With Dirty Faces
• Beck - Sea Change
• Raging Speedhorn – We Will Be Dead Tomorrow
• Eminem – The Eminem Show

The Truly Exclusive

There were some albums which some of our staff found uniquely beautiful. They alone deemed these albums to be their #1 choice of 2002 yet nobody else saw anything even remotely worthy in them. There’s no accounting for taste round here. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

• Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs (even though it came out in 2001)

• Brave Captain - Advertisements For Myself

• Breeders – Title TK

• City Of Caterpillar - City Of Caterpillar

• Coheed & Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade

• The Delgados - Hate

• Gonzales - Presidential Suite

• Jesse James - Punk Soul Brothers

• JJ72 - I To Sky

• Kid 606 - The Action Packed Mentallist Brings you the Fucking Jams

• MC Nabon - MC Nabon

• The Pornorphans - Beyond Good And Evil

• Remy Zero - The Golden Hum

• Rocket From The Crypt - Live From Camp X-Ray

• Sevendust - Animosity

• The Transplants - Transplants

There were a few of our staff who surpassed all levels of being alternative and chose 5 albums that nobody else voted for (and more than likely will not have even heard of). Adam Anonymous, Ralph Cowling, Steve Gray, Mat Hocking and Joe Shooman: we salute you. Zombina And The Skeletones? I mean, come ON! You can not be serious.

DiS-cuss: How wrong is that list, exactly? Why are such cretins allowed on board here? Why are their opinions allowed to be aired? Why the hell isn’t it an alternative to anything else? What kind of number is 41?