Fleetwood Mac McCaughan

Way slow on the uptake, but this is my new wimpy indie-rock jam up and down, and yeah, the guy's voice is immediately irksome, but then I started thinking of Lindsey Buckingham and Superchunk and we were back in business. The noise break is popping too (when is it not?). Rest of the album is not as good, if a super cursory Rhapsody spin is to be trusted (and it probably isn't).



The video is perfect for the wimpy vibe, as it features:

1. a daytime, all-ages rock show
2. nothing but dazed and confused extras
3. androgynous-bordering-on-gay across-the-room pining
4. a totally implausible motorcycle

N.O.R.I.

NOW WE ON THE RUN EATING

JOHN KILDUFF 4EVER

Carrie Bradshaw For Mayor

It's shaping up to be a good few days for encounters with articulate NYstalgia, thanks to this article and - especially - this interview with Luc Sante, my favorite Bard professor whose initials aren't T.K.

Gripe effect

Well the Idolator poll is a) interesting, b) messy and, ultimately, c) discouragingly Pitchforky/Spinny in its consensus.

I appreciate that this is a massive undertaking, and I am thankful that Idolator took it on. But if you're going to try and posit your list as a substitute to the post-Xgau Pazz & Jop, why deliver a poorer product?

Top on the list of deficiencies is the way voters' ballots are (mis)filed: annkpowers should have been represented as Ann Powers, jon dolan as Jon Dolan, Ace1234 as whoever the hell chose that as his/her login handle, etc, etc. (Young is here).

A very close second on the list of deficiencies is that you can't click on, say, the #4 single of the year and see who voted for it. Similarly you can't click on Josh Eells's #7 album to see who voted for it along with him and how well it placed overall.

Add to this:

- A snoozeville essay that features far too many appearances of the word I,
- One bit of (im)personal history (related to Josh Eells's #7 album),

and it is just about official: I call bullshit on Michaelangelo Matos.

Wipe effect

"When we spectators are sitting in a movie theater looking at the screen - you remember at the very beginning, before the picture is on, it's a black dark screen and then light thrown on - are we basically not staring into a toilet bowl and waiting for things to reappear out of the toilet? And is the entire magic of spectacle shown on the screen not a kind of deceptive lure trying to conceal the fact that we are basically watching shit?"



I will spend two hours in this man's spittle-rich company, filmed, personally beheld, paginated or otherwise, anyday. He consistently gives me the simultaneously depressing and intoxicating impression that he is getting roughly 2000% more pleasure from life than I am, and I don't mean simply because sitting in a chair is enough to break his brow into a fiercely engaged sweat.

Voyeurs, mama's boys, murder fantasists, necrophiliacs and so on: the best £21.99 you'll spend this year.

Get You Some

Top non-singles of 2006

Sonic Youth "Jams Run Free"
Clipse "Ride Around Shining"
Ghostface "Shakey Dog"
Hot Chip "The Warning"
Justin Timberlake "Summer Love"
Clipse "Trill"
Lil Wayne "Sportscenter"
Killers "Read My Mind"

Top songs heard on New Year's Eve

Trans Am "Television Eyes"
Killers "When You Were Young"
Prince "1999"
Donna Summer "Love to Love You Baby"

Top albums of 2007

Modest Mouse "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank"