[No RIYL post this week - the RIYL folks took last week off without telling me(!), so last week's list is this week's list and this week you'll have to settle for a music post about a different kind of music list.]
If the first of January is when I write about my camera, then the second of January must be the day I set aside to slam the WXPN's of the year's fifty best albums (no, wait, two years ago I didn't start complaining until the third).
Anyway, here's how the WXPN Top 50 Countdown works: I send in (and post) my top ten discs of the past year. A bunch of other listeners who don't know squat about good music send in their lists. At the very end of the year (and, recently, into the new year a little) 'XPN plays back the top fifty vote-getters.
Then I start listening to the countdown full of sunshine and happiness and, very early into the list (say, by #49), an album good enough for me to put in my top ten (say, Alejandro Escovedo's The Boxing Mirror) shows up. I then spend the rest of the countdown complaining as every lame album (say, Nightcrawler) by every Adult Alternative Radio prettyboy (say, Pete Yorn) does better than my pick. This? I say. This is better than my pick?
You get the idea.
First, here are my top 10 albums of the year (and how they did on the countdown):
1. Cat Power The Greatest. WXPN rank: Did Not Rank
2. Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. WXPN rank: 29
3. The Pernice Brothers Live a Little . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank
4. Bob Dylan Modern Times. WXPN rank: 1
5. Birdie Busch The Ways We Try . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank
6. The Capitol Years Dance Away the Terror . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank
7. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions . WXPN rank: 6
8. Alejandro Escovedo The Boxing Mirror . WXPN rank: 49
9. Neil Young Living With War . WXPN rank: 45
10. Beth Orton Comfort of Strangers . WXPN rank: 38
Now here are 'XPN listener's top ten albums of the year:
1. Bob Dylan Modern Times. I can't complain too much about this one, since I put it at number four. Still, it would have been nice to have the top disc be somewhat of a surprise.
2. Gnarls Barkley St. Elsewhere. I think this guys are very talented, but they didn't have a whole album's worth of talent. I can't blame voters for rewarding them for the few songs they did well, but number two?
3. KT Tunstall Eye to the Telescope. I saw this one coming, too. Everybody seems to be big on the sassy KT, but it's not my type of music. I will say that she's a hell of a lot less annoying than hearing XPN play Sheryl Crow for the hundredth time.
4. Beck The Information. I'll just repeat what I said when Beck's Guero showed up at number three last year: "Look, I love Beck's music and see him as a musical genius but this disc didn't do much for me, especially coming right after the terrific Sea Change. I'm all for him going back to the funkier stuff but this album just didn't connect with me." (I do think The Information is an improvement over Guero, mainly because it incorporated some of that Sea Change vibe. It still didn't connect with me much.)
5. The Decemberists The Crane Wife. No argument here. I didn't put them on my top ten, but each time I listen to this I like it a little more.
6. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. I kind of expected this to hit the top three. Springsteen took what could have been a dry history lesson and turned it into a hootenanny.
7. Ray LaMontagne Till the Sun Turns Black. I actually copied this from a friend, so I got to listen to the whole thing a few times. Better than his last album, but I still don't fully get the LaMontagne mystique.
8. Citizen Cope Every Waking Moment. Fun, but not top ten fun. Belongs maybe in the forties?
9. The Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers. I don't think the Raconteurs would put this in the top ten. If it was for best song of the year for "Steady, As She Goes," I'm with you, but the rest of the album is filler.
10. Amos Lee Supply and Demand. Amos is a local folkie, and I was somewhat okay with him hitting number six last year, but enough is enough. He's not that good. And if it's for hometown pride, there are plenty of other Philly acts to honor. If only XPN would play more of them.
So that's it. The combination of too many bad picks and the countdown being played over several days made me not care so much about hearing it this year. I liked it much better when they played all 50 albums back-to-back, rather than three or four here and there.
I think the fact that four of my picks didn't rank just shows that I get my music from places other than 'XPN. As long as 'XPN quarantines much of the interesting and risky music to the nighttime and continues to add more and more classic rock to their daytime programming, the less and less I'll be getting my new music tips from them. There is no excuse for my number one pick, Cat Power's unbelievably good The Greatest, to not even show up. I think if 'XPN went deeper into albums by younger artists, as they used to do, their listeners would have been impressed. Instead they played the title track and little else.
'XPN's still the best radio station in Philly, but they have to realize that there's plenty of places to get music these days other than the radio. Otherwise, pretty soon these lists aren't going to mean anything to anyone anymore.
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