Your Hard Drive

This year was light on good albums for me as much because half the albums I bought I originally experienced song by song on my computer. For the albums I did buy as an unheard package, I found my willingness to listen to the whole thing through as a "complete work" severely compromised. I listened to every cd like it was a collection of mp3s on my computer.

In terms of the sheer amount of good music I heard this year, from 2000 or any other year, it was the best year ever. If 2000 is seen as a disappointing year albums-wise, it's probably because of a continuing and gratifying lack of critical consensus, and because rock specifically seemed to have a poor year compared to, say, hip hop. And all the best music came out on singles anyway.

Yes - because no album of high quality has been released this year, I'm afrid.

No - as good as Napster and your PC is, it will never replace the physical routine that is buying a CD and playing it on your stereo.....clicking on a MP3 file doesn't sound as good!

More generally, the concept of an album of the year is either A) the best album of the year by sheer quality standards -- exemplifying and standing at the top of the general trends of music B) an album which is best by being different and unique, and which itself spawns a flood of imitators.

In other words, an album of the year encompasses general trends in music. The napster phenom does not do that -- on a list of albums of the year, which we might expect would trace some sort of critical consensus of widespread trends in popular music -- this would stand out as an anomoly. While napster may change individual listening habits, it seems that large scale listening habits of society are fairly untouched. Time will tell, but I suspect a more appropriate choice would have been a teen-pop album of some sort -- while rock is dying, pop is bursting and the critical consensus is clear because MTV reports (creates?) it every day on TRL.

"Stankonia" "Wasp Star" "Supreme Clientele" "Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be" "Hyacinths and Thistles" "Artists' Rifles"

(and those are six purely off the top of my head!)

OK, I know I'm disobeying Tom's instructions, but I can't let such ridiculous instant crassness pass without comment.

As for the actual question: I suspect the Spin award is a symbolic thing (much like Time naming the computer as "man of the year" in 1982). We think of that now as prophetic; the Spin award would have been prophetic even a year ago, but right now it's the truth.

Think of it as one of those attention-seeking gestures that hides a genuinely true point.

And now you've made me break Tom's instructions.

Attention-seeking for sure - it'll get on the Reteurs wire and it'll sell a few more copies.

The place names I was naming myself after last night are all to be found on the River Stour in Dorset, the basis for the Confluence project. You never know, Phil, when you get here you might well see them for yourself :).

If so, possibly you could make it to the climax in Christchurch (not the NZ one, fairly obviously) on 14/7/2001 ...

We really must stop meeting like this!

more like FLASH DRive

is EB down with Stankonia yet?