follup

Is better than Oh Mercy. Possibly. I agree about the Dylan press since Time Out Of Mind. He's basically released solid, unspectacular records to raptuous applause. With a few exceptions (Things Have Changed is amazing) the songs just don't stack up to much pre-desire material. It's nice to have on but it doesn't really grab me. I do, however, like his grizzly croaking.

Classic albums - i think classic albums don't really exist in the same way anymore full stop. Maybe everything's too diversified for grand unifying albums from the days of old. Also, in a genre where evolution isn't exactly encouraged most things have been done before. But then again - Cohen, Dylan, Waits, Springsteen etc. - they seemed such huge personalities. I'm not sure anyone from the past 10 years has succesfully cultivated anything similar.

Thought the sound was way too bass heavy near the front, and didn't the band slag off the sound for the entire right side of the room at the end?

Also, I'm not sure Daniel Johnston was even playing the right chords for True Love Will Find You In The End. Hard to tell. It was kind of sweet though slightly uncomfortable.

The residents were my favourite band of the weekend. I wasn't sure quite what to expect but not quite that. Spiritualised were a close second. I carry on thinking of different bands that played and smiling to myself. The sign of an incredible festival!

wowee zowee is the best place to start. Crooked Rain, S&E or even Brighten Up The Corners are all more accesible! Wowee Zowee's a sprawling mess of an album.

Also, isn't Unseen Power of The Picket Fence on this? I saw a tracklisting which suggested it was, which, if it is, is surely an obtuse choice.

I was talking to someone last night who claimed to be a pavement fan but had never heard Shady Lane. I wish I could remember who the person was so I could delete them from my address book.

Kings of Convenience? The review is bizare in the extreme with it's strange comparisons to 'NAM' bands, (which apparantly the Bowerbirds sound nothing alike! Great, who else do they sound nothing alike?). I also think this album got more than 6.9 on pitchfork.

The strange paragraph which also mentions Ipod adverts, C4 and mobile phone adverts could've been summed up in a sentence with 'sound a bit like devendra banhart'

when Blur are currently playing a greatest hits sets, loaded with songs from the same britpop era! Aside from Trimm Trabb they didn't really play anything more experimental than quickening up a couple of older songs anyway, which is precisely the kind of criticism you'd probably hear about oasis since '97. Tender's a song I never needed to hear in the first place, let alone again. Everyone else in the crowd seemed to love it though. I was going to post about it being a low and This Is A Low being a high and She's So High being a bit middle of the road but wasn't clever enough to riff a pun on it.

One of the problems with glastonbury is how where you stand can completely affect your enjoyment of a performance. I didn't feel the Bruce performance as much as Neil or Blur but I think that was as much to do with being that bit further back where the crowd looked a bit less interested and the sound that bit more muted than the actual set itself.

Is that the same blur who played one song from this decade and liberally peppered the set with songs over 15 years old?

And Tender remains awful.

They were far better than I expected though. Nick Cave was incredible!

But as i'm not a multi-millionaire i'm going to leave out the pound of scallops. Anyone got any idea what gumbo file is and whether you can actually buy it in supermarkets? The rest i'm going to make up from the skeleton instructions, the size of crab cans would also be useful information!

But the new one's overlong, lacks standout tracks and ideas and seems a bit tired. If you didn't like the first one there's not very much to get excited about this one, if you did it's worth a listen, it's certainly not bad, but it's probably time for conor to take a break.

He'll probably bring out two more albums by the end of the year instead.

'It's not Ok' and 'away from here' (i'd never consciously heard an Enemy song before). I think the reviewers being over generous.

Originally it had 'leave' in the rarities bit. Apparantly it was a trip hop version. So rare it doesn't exist? I'm pretty sure I have a version of Lucky with Michael Stipe singing on it.

contains ''In time it may be remembered as a masterpiece, in time it may be remembered as the biggest folly they ever made.''

And the final paragraph starts ''This will without doubt be remembered as their worst album, their Spaghetti Incident, their very own "My Beauty".''

Christ, picked the wrong option there.

The reappraisal's a bit unnecessary though. Does it really need a score? I think EIIRP is a far stronger opener than Packt Like Sardines, and Kid A's beautiful in it's understated way. Also, adding those songs off Amnesiac would just ruin the flow and make kid A sound disjointed (so more like Amnesiac and AHTTT then).

Maybe they'll give Lift and Follow Me Around a proper release 5 years from now.

I remember NME writing a fairly large article slagging the whole thing off as some kind of pathetic self indulgent sub-warp knock off (although the 7/10 review was actually quite positive). I don't think the 'head would give the NME an interview at the time.

The strange thing is, the album's not even that difficult with the exception of maybe Tree Fingers and Kid A. How to Disappear and Optimistic are both feature guitar prominently. You had people like Nick Hornby slagging it off on radio 1 for being too experimental. Times were odd indeed.

As an album it's a really good, coherent mood piece. It just works. Amnesiac and AHTTT have their standout moments but always felt a bit tossed together for my liking. Maybe the solo album helped form the less schrizophrenic nature of In Rainbows.

To be honest, I was just about to re-buy the Bends and Pablo Honey anyway as my copies are scratched to pieces and I was waiting for EMI to put out a decent B-sides compiliation. I have a bit of stuff but it's on copied CDR's from about 8 years ago. DVD's are a nice bonus though I imagine i'll watch them once and never again! I think I have all those OK computer B-sides on singles/How Am I Driving and the promo's are a bit less appealing.

I imagine radiohead are also nonplussed, but then I don't think we'd be getting re-issues at all if it was down to Radiohead. I doubt they'd consent to releasing genuine rarities either, they seem quite protective as a whole over stuff like that. Stupid perfectionists.

Considering it's well over 10 years since the Bends/OK computer came out they were probably due a re-issue.

I hope i'm right. It's like one of those Richard and Judy competitions but where you get to see what the first 40 people went for first, just to save complete embarrassment.

is estimated at around 10-1 on PC's and is a huge problem for that industry hence the introduction of draconian DRM on certain games. Which doesn't work either and just pisses off people who legitimately buy the product.

I agree that the industry needs to change though. I-Tunes and similar programmes are priced at joke prices. The average consumer after an MP3 is given a choice of either paying more for an MP3 album than a physical one or downloading illegally for free. They can hardly be blamed for taking the illegal option. I don't illegally download and use e-music (I think amazon's selection of £3 album's is also a more reasonable stance). Surely, a more workable model is to work out all the costs associated with the label, work out how many people would be willing to pay a subscription and then come up with a flat fee to access all music or something similar, instead of 'well, a CD in a shop used costs £10 so we'll charge £11 for an MP3. Also, as pointed out, general music sales in this country haven't fallen by 95% it does suggest that people are downloading things they wouldn't actually otherwise be buying so the figure is a bit misleading.

...after a quick look on ticket master. Which I agree is obscene, but if people are willing to pay that to see a legend who probably won't tour again then that's their choice. They might think that paying a lot of money is fine for someone who's given them years of entertainment and the fans who put him there in the first place are probably all rich by now.

And anyway, it's not like he actually owes 'the fans' anything. Nobody's forcing them to go.

He just lived like one. I read somewhere that he had about £500k in the bank (plus future royalties) which you'd think would be enough for a retirement fund.

I'd imagine if you're leonard cohen you may well need a manager to look after your financial assets if you're going to disappear for a while.

Isn't £60 - £90 about what artists like Tom Waits/Dylan/Springsteen charge generally? I guess it's some kind of supply/demand dynamic. Or maybe he just prefers his rich fans these days.

But can't get the money back because it's all been spent or something. The reason he didn't notice the money going missing was to do with his living in a buddhist monastery somewhere remote for 15 years.

Although i've only ever read that in newspapers (and the entertainment sections at that). So it could all be lies.

A professional journalism qualification but as far as i'm aware there's no such thing as a professional music journalism qualification, or general code of conduct for music journo's etc.

So no, 'professional' is probably not the right word. I think most music reviewers write the most astounding nonsense, but I like looking at vast amounts of random scores. All hail metacritic

An album summary with 3 'highlights' from each would've made more sense!

But anyway, good call on Scentless Apprentice and Aneurysm, no Polly? Seconds for On A Plain. #10 & #9 are odd choices if you ask me. I can see the 'cult' appeal but they don't really deserve top 10 status. Am I the only person who likes Know Your Rights? Quite possibly. I always liked Blew as well. Heart Shaped Box is a justified #1!

I love hefner though. The odd thing is that the article reads like some kind of attack on the record's masculinity when I know more Hefner fans who are female than male. I notice some slightly out of context quoting to back up the argument too. To me Darren's lyrics always had a kind of knowing irony to them which ran opposite to:

''the same dry fetishisation of fags, booze and booty that runs through all indie-rock''

And do not mention the ''Hymn For The Alcohol'' as a highpoint is criminal. Considering some of the records which score 9's on this site the album deserves at least 15.

I don't actually own any hefner B-sides aside from those on Boxing Hefner, any ideas on which are the best ones to pick up/download legally?

And where's Tunnel of Love?! Surely that's better than the Rising?

Polvo would've been the worst thing of the weekend. Iron and Wine were pretty disappointing too. The National were fantastic, and the Animal Collective were my personal fave - I was half expecting something unlistenable or an hour of ambient noise but even the first half when they didn't play so many proper songs was fantastic. Peacebone was incredible. The other band who I thought it could go either way having heard tales of repetitive onstage jamming were BSS who were full of fun. (bit of a short set though, shades of stadium rock and they must have the most annoying front man ever)

I wasn't overly convinced by Battles. Good but not great. The Saturday set persuaded me to take a chance on Tony Teardrop on Sunday who were good. I thought Okkervil river were ace too!

...then that time my brain must've exploded because I sure don't remember it. I'm beginning to think Maths Rock really doesn't exist at all. I think it's been alluded to that to give a name to a scene that doesn't really exist is bizarre, even by music journo standards. Slint seems a bit of a strange place to start as well.

Still, it was nice to read about a few bands i've never heard of before. Not so sure about the Foals (or the 'genre' generally though)

The best verve album!

I think the onerous ticket process, last year's dire weather, very mixed headliners (the one not highlighted as a key point above, KoL, may be good but headliners? I actually think Jay-Z's an interesting choice but the other 2 are not) and a reluctance to reveal the rest of the line up til after tickets have sold puts off people who don't really have that kind of money to throw about.

I don't think Eavis really helps matters by slating everyone who paid £150 last year for not being diverse enough and the way he's tried to rectify it is quite astonishingly cack-handed. He's basically put off the core glastonbury goer and without making any decent effort to make it appeal to anyone else. If he wants kids maybe he should look at the Reading/Leeds headliners (please no!).

I was very tempted not to go this year following last. The line up was fairly poor last year but it's the weather which really spoiled it. It surely can't be that bad again? I think line-up's aren't really as important at something like Glastonbury (or Reading/V for that matter) because you'd pretty much have to hate music to not be able to find decent/curious bands to watch 75% of the time.

In the end I decided to go - in terms of big UK festivals if it's a choice between glasto, reading and V it's not really a choice and I wanted to do something. I just hope it's dry!

The scoring did correspond to a % of records released, there are 11 marks available so the top % is actually 9 (i've yet to see a rating system where this is the case and it doesn't really make much sense to do. A scoring system based on a normal distribution would be better if you were going to do things in such a way)

On the whole I think a 5 star scoring system is better. It probably leads to a greater range of marks reviewers are willing to give. Q used to have an explanation of what their marks actually meant with 5 being 'truly exceptional' and 3 being 'fine within it's field but not for everyone'. It seemed (theoretically) a bit more objective than other scoring systems.

DIS reviews do tend to be on the high side. A lot of records which are worded as 'okay' get given 8s and some flawed records (flawed even in the eyes of the reviewer) have been given 9s. Maybe they just review records they like though!

How can GT be lambasted for sounded incredibly dated and in the following sypnosis GATS be heralded as a lost classic?! I'd swap those two 'now's around. Even now, the first rays of summer bring with them the first notes of Slash and Burn.

Agree with most of the rest of it. Know Your Enemy suffers most from the length but there's some really good songs on it. The bit about This Is My Truth being better than the singles is completely correct. I've been saying that for years. It's got some of their most tender, understated songs on it and yet the constant radioplay of the combined nonsense that is Tsunami and You Stole The Sun (which has a nice verse but an awful chorus) seems to taint opinions of it.

I struggle to pick out individual tracks from Lifeblood. It's not awful, but it's nothing better than 'okay'

at ATP by a mile. I dunno if it was entirely her fault 'cause the sound was 'ucking dreadful, but the sound for everyone else was great.

It's too difficult. I'll have a think. Exit Music would definitely be in there. The Gloaming would not!

Career. Not that they're bad at all but they're a bit niche.

Hmmm, I can't see any of the above bands having anywhere near the Radiohead kind of career. It's hard to tell these things though, I don't think Pablo Honey really marked Radiohead out as a 'longetivity' band.

It's probably even harder nowadays than it was for radiohead then. It's all instant success or nothing, and being popular quickly isn't a recipe for long term success.

Was called 'chasing payments' and was about working in an accountancy department. It's not actually that bad.

I think sometimes the anti-hype is as ridiculous as the hype. It's like 'we're all cool and hate this band, so anyone who likes them is clearly a drip-fed hype moron with no opinion of their own. Tell me i'm cool again'.

And isn't there something a little bit odd about journalists (who often create hype) moaning about hype? It's weird reading reviews talking about other reviews and hype rather than the record itself.

Last year too!

Why Low didn't make the list. I think on another topic it's mentioned that it's because they'd released better albums before but that's true of about half the list!

I really really liked the first album but the negative reviews and lack of any airplay completely put me off buying the second. Is it really any good? I might try and find it cheap on my lunch break!

...But why they'd be picked as glastonbury headliners is beyond me. Suede only get about halfway up the bill whenever they play and they had more than 2 decent albums!

Tellingly, the only person who thinks it'd be a traversty if they didn't headline is Ricky. Although Eavis is not beyond bizarre decisions. In his twisted logic he probably thinks that the verve headlining + hike in ticket prices + putting on more phone lines = more 16 years old turning up.

and buy a sigur ros release but this does seem particularly unnecessary. I don't think sigur ros are really a band to benefit from a stripped down sound either.

Takk's really not that bad though. It has some really ace moments, it's certainly a better attempt at a shiny pop record than Mogwai have managed in recent times.

... to have a look at more than 5 reviews on the same page? My favourite bit's the reviews section but it was better when there were more of them and it was less hard to miss one you wanted to read. But I could just be being a little stupid.

I tried clicking on the word 'reviews' in the vain hope that it would take me to a long list of reviews but that didn't work. I did however accidentally click on a writers name and was presented with everything he'd ever written!

...be a more appropriate place for this kind of rambling?

Also, why of 3 acts on the bill are only one being reviewed? I guess it must be nice to be a reviewer and get into gigs for free and not even bother staying for longer than 40 minutes or so, but if I had to pay 10 pounds to see a few bands i'd probably watch the entire gig.

I think there's a fine line between some of these gigs and a tribute act. Slint seem to have made a latter day career entirely out of playing back a record that's over 10 years old. How many poeple really want to see that? (Erm, quite a lot apparantly). I went to the B&S one a few years ago and it was okay (they're better musicians now), but there is something a little dull about knowing the bulk of the setlist before a band comes on. And what makes the gigs better than sitting at home listening to the album? I've not been tempted by one since, and mainly because the concept fails to excite me rather than the acts who have played. Also, how many times do you go and see an artist complain because they've stuck rigidly to the new album in some slick marketing ploy?

However, some of the article is just ridiculous. In what way are nostalgic repertoires taking centre stage? If they are isn't it a failing of new music? (and they're just plain not taking centre stage anyway, there were probably 50 new gigs you could've gone to see in London the night of Sonic Youth's performance(s)). And what better way is proposed to celebrate a classic album? The obligatory 2 CD + DVD reissue for 16 pounds? A Q poll?

Also, what's this about:

''Long gone is unpredictable energy, everyone wants to know how many hours to purchase for the car park.''

The ''unpredictable energy'' probably depends entirely on which band you go to see (Tip: New bands not on major labels tend to have more of it), but i'm sure 'everyone' is more interested in how long the queue for the bar is than the queue for some fictional car park!

As long as the reviewers give reasons for why they loved/hated it so that you can agree/disagree and decide which one to believe the most! Two reviewers liking something is a bit boring. It'd work better on overhyped albums like the Arcade Fire/Bloc Party/etc. albums which seem to lack any kind of proper critical judgement in the press (although not without their merits, overhyped does not always mean bad).

I think the problem is, though plently of people do have different views how will you know until you give it to them? So if you gave 2 copies to two different people and they both came back with glowing reviews you'd have to sack one of them and employ a miserable reviewer instead. Unless, of course, people have preconceived ideas on what score they're going to give the album before the listen to it.

It wouldn't be a very good idea in lifestyle mags like the NME. Nobody would know which bands were cool and which clothes to buy. Their worlds would implode.

...before AIH. They're different bands really aren't they? Of the two I'd say bearsuit were best and less in the 'making music that sounds like it's made my children' section.

Contradicting reviews: This is probably a good idea. Maybe it should be done more often, though i guess it could be a pain finding 2 people who'd listen to an album/single and then offer a very different viewpoint.

...it's all a bit mediocre. There's great tracks on every album but you have to sift through a lot of dullness to get to them.

I think i've seen them live more times than any other band, by virtue of them playing every single festival ever. They've got less exciting in that department too!

...anybody's forcing anyone to buy the re-issues. Maybe if you were a huge joy division fan you'd rather have the option of paying for extra live tracks than not? If you want to buy the non-reissued i'm sure you'll still be able to for 5 pounds from wherever and have not so nice packaging and not as many songs.

...that the quality of record had little bearing on record sales.

Then again, I was also under the impression I was reading DiS and not Smash Hits so maybe i'm just wrong all the time!

Think of all the time wasted on basically saying 'I don't like it much'. I couldn't even be bothered reading all that, the score and last paragraph said it all.

And Jyoti's great, as is Joanna's first album. And i'm not sure what actually counts as Conor's first album but Letting Off The Happiness is pretty exciting.

do you mean more expensive?

...rubbish as the mercury's are, it's not like anyone else can come up with anything better.

Does the Lilly Allen one actually qualify under Mercury rules? It certainly doesn't under musical ones. I'd have been embarrassed to see Bloc Party involved, it's not that it's an awful album, just an okay one and the lyrics, UCKUCKUCK.

Patrick Wolf would've been nice and Jarvis would about deserve a nomination. The real question might be is the British Music Scene this completely and utterly turgid right now? And i'd preferred a more balanced list (in either case) which might've turned me on to something new and different. Chance would be a fine thing...

A single Artic Monkey's song which struck me as new, interesting or even vaguely exciting.

It's a good job then that I've found this stellar review so I won't even have to hear the new song to know what it sounds like or whether I should try to listen to it based on past experiences. Oh.

...often calls it the Daily Heil so I imagine lots of Guardian/Times readers do too!

''Which is a tad unfair really, as despite the ridiculously over-emphasised Interpol comparisons – yes, both bands are influenced by a combination of English post-punk and early REM, so what? – Editors stand out from the rest of the crowd as distinctively as an Aberdeen Angus in a swimming pool. Who, exactly, they’re supposed to be copying is as big a mystery now as it ever was.''

Er, Interpol? I think the Joy Division Comparison's are mostly down to the vocal stylings both bands employ rather than the music. The first album was mediocre. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't that interesting a couple of a singles aside. I imagine the new one's exactly the same. All music is boring nowadays!