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Tuesday 17 November 2009

Albums of the Decade (through a male gaze)

At least K to the O and crew got a look in

It's not a surprise that The Strokes topped NME's top 100 albums of the decade poll, neither is it a surprise that both the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The White Stripes have two albums in the poll. It is a complete surprise though how poorly represented female musicians are in this poll.

Bands with female members make up for under 10% of the poll. I'm aware of how poorly magazines represent women but I concluded this was because of all the business crap that gets in the way of creativity and that most music writers appreciate female musicians away from the office.

There are so many bands and artists that have been missed out that I don't really know where to start. I'll just list those whose place in the list is questionable.

For starters anything with Pete Doherty in, including every Libertines record. He encouraged a whole generation of pretentious, vapid, stoned, self-serving boys to pick up guitars and make millions from yelping on about nothing.

Arcade Fire are just boring. I don't care how many critics love them I tried to get into them before and I fell asleep.

The Klaxons are a great band and all. Nice to dance too, but album of the year. No. How they won a Mercury is still one of the biggest unanswerable questions of the known universe. What the Klaxons essentially did was serve up nostalgia music for 90s babies to flail around to. It should not be award winning, just nice.

I think I'll stop now. I've gone to a dark place.

To read the NME's Top 100 Albums of the Decade
click here.

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