douchebag

"didn't send us a free copy"

The-Dream though.. awesome

the problem is nothing to do with the players themselves and everything to do with the headphones. A high ohmage pair get nowhere near that volume.. some headphones can barely be driven at all by iPods, even in their current state. It's just the awful 2-bob Apple packaged headphones that let in loads of outside noise and are ridiculously shrill (needing high volumes to achieve any bass) that need to be looked at. If Apple started packaging their iPods with their new canalphone types then a lot of this would go out the window. THAT is what Brussels should be acting on

but the idea that Simon Cowell doesn't like music is bullshit of the highest order. Of course he cares about money, but do you think he's spent his entire life doing something he doesn't care about? Anyone who's watched the programme knows he gets affected and is attached to music in the same way as anyone else. Except he's interested in pure pop, and the basest element of that - the vocalist. And he gets other people interested in it.. do you not think it's a good thing that the public at large is exposed to "the creative process"? And the creative process doesn't just mean writing shitty indie 4 chorders, but the actual process of performance. Getting inside a song, going through it as one single, uncut take. Is it not good that the public see a singer stripped bare of the production techniques used by *gasp* even credible artists? Is that not something worth taking into the wider world?

an album that you'd expect to be very popular amongst derr yoot but not anyone over the age of 20. To succeed in a chart which is ruled by people over 20 and reaps virtually nothing from the younger listeners (who wouldn't buy a CD if you forced them at gunpoint).

ima get it

but christ, you're a fucking idiot. An idiot with zero musical sensitivity. An idiot who thinks that "wanking" is an adequate descriptive term for anything that steps outside of the bare bones of musicianship. An idiot

i mean, those are the credentials i look for in my top 12 guitarists lists: "also plays guitar"

she plays bass very badly

i am shocked at the exclusion of Thurston Moore though. She's a right hotty

Not everything has to be “affecting”. Some things are good enough as hyper-technical flights of fancy, the pleasure of listening to someone who is really excellent at their instrument of choice. This whole review reeks of stinky rockism, a none-too-veiled mistrust of perceived pretention and self indulgence. No wonder jazz is dead

it never ceases to amaze me how people still mistake "reviews they don't agree with" for "bad reviews". After seeing the negative comments on this review (and after having agreed with the author before from afar) i decided to listen to the artist in question. Fucking hell.. to think that people actually like this sort of thing. This bland, irritating, devoid of all but the most base elements of music sort of thing

keep up the good work author. Keep fighting the good fight

LITERALLY NOBODY

even the people who liked the first album don't care anymore. If this is some grand scheme to get rabid ad clicking Twang arseholes to this website then you guys really don't have a clue. You might want to give something ubiquitously internet like Animal Collective a shit review though, that'll heat the traffic right up

but this shortlist is pretty dull. Some would say even worse than the actual Mercurys. I would say that

may well turn out to be the best album ever. Give me now

you absolute penis

gotta say i was intrigued. But that video is just.. pathetic. I'm sickened to my very core

will you just marry twitter already?

"Most Unnecessary Article Ever"

they sound like Why?

"cum presenter"

strangely fitting as well..

i love playing guitar, i'm just too good at it

addictive, challenging and rewarding. Playing an actual guitar is none of these things

you'd know

please can we have the full rundown? I want to see the whole picture

i've got plenty spare

any opinion of what is "classic" should be taken with a pinch of salt - it's as much about external factors than it is about the music itself. An unquestioning view of the canon is very dangerous indeed, but most actual music fans do question them. The canon is partly a self extending cycle caused by lots of people listening to something because it's hyped, and y'know.. loving it. So the sense of it being part of a canon amongst a majority is continued.

But the same is true about whatever processes were put in place to form the Pluto shortlist. It is an exercise which is primarily based the current opinions of the compilers, and so is coloured by a lack of foresight as much as the canon is coloured by a sense of reverent rose-tintedness. In my opinion, the records on the list should have a sense of longevity - if they fail to live beyond the blogospherical hype surrounding whatever "best album of the year" list they might be involved in then i'd suggest that they are in some way not *that* good. But maybe that's just a criteria that i use and which you don't. Who is right? Me of course, but for argument's sake we'll put it down to the old opinion conundrum

i think it's a bit sad that you're so militantly pro "new music", rarely looking backwards and constantly pressing forwards (although i suppose it's an effect of being a new-music mogul). Patronisingly enough, i feel a bit sorry for you

And just because you don't like "the classics" doesn't mean there isn't a hell of a lot to discover from times already passed. I could name a fuckload of records from The Past which are better than xyz. And basically, much as i take onboard your opinion on music being about movements, it's about moments as well. In fact, if you totally reject moments then you might as well stop talking about records altogether - go immerse yourself in the artists involved with a scene and view it from a totally organic perspective. Because once it gets pressed onto wax that's it. The motherfucker is a relic, a document, an artifact of a specific time and place and feeling.

Are the records on the list going to stand up in the future? Who knows. Will you want to listen to them again in the future? I would hope so

does every article you do have to have a DiScuss bit at the bottom? Some things just aren't DiScuss worthy. Like this

sweet jebus

after 4 or 5 listens i feel similiarly underwhelmed, but i reckon it could be saved by a top notch production job. It's difficult to tell if it's got one from the stream, i guess we'll have to wait until the release (lol, i mean leak lol)

but you can't really judge something's production from a low quality stream

that was pretty broad in scope and sound though, right? I.e. there was no "style" other than "no style"

but of course: new Squarepusher album = MAJOR BONER

i'm shocked

Obama's list just seems like an exercise in demography clasping

positive and socially responsible black music? Check
Strong women? Check
Manrock? Check

I suppose putting in some country music would be a totally transparent manouvre, but a bit of the Boss? Yeah, that'll appeal to blue collar middle America

McCain's seems a bit more genuine (although the ABBA love-in seems a bit strange)

Basically, someone needs to steal their iPods and look at the most played list. As it is, this exercise seems pretty worthless

(and a reason why the Mercury prize is better) is that it naturally rewards the albums heard by the most people. At least with the Mercury prize, despite whatever conceptions you have about the judging process, they all listen to all of the albums. Here people may have heard just a small selection, probably the most hyped albums, and so more people will vote for them by default even if it is just a vote for voting's sake

So even though half of DiS hate Foals and half of them like it, it's got a strong chance of winning because 90% of DiS have heard it. You get me?

It'll show something, sure, but i'm not sure if i care about what it shows. Basically, the fringe efforts are even more marginalised than in the real Mercury prize

the general music listening population don't read reviews, they use other (less geeky) means. I suppose now there are more internet based discovery tools (and a far broader internet community), so maybe people are just finding music that way rather than via the radio/tv stuff they're mass-marketed. But casual fans will discover music casually.

There has probably been a bit of a step down in the way that certain "music fans" treat reviews - you only need to look at the comments in any DiS review to see that - but these are probably the same people who vowed to never trust music journalists again after the NME panned Led Zeppelin II. Scorned fans who are, in general, idiots. They just have a global soapbox nowadays

makes this song a winner

Simon Says gtfu