NME's Best Of Lists

My schedule this holiday season has been completely thrown off. First we had the Q magazine Best-of-2005 CD available in the middle of November (which actually meant that it was imported from the UK more quickly than it has been in past years--it was available there from the beginning of November), but NME has brought out its Best-of lists at the beginning of December. It was a long-time tradition that these lists, identifying the best albums, singles, etc., of the year, appeared in the last issue of the year, which was generally a bonus-sized issue because the weekly added the issue that would come out between Christmas and New Year's Day into the one due out the week before Christmas. It often made it over to these shores about a week later, showing up in stores a couple of days after Christmas. The late, lamented Melody Maker published a similar issue, and together the magazines provided a one-two end-of-the-year musical punch. After Melody Maker ceased publication a few years ago, it's possible that NME sees the monthly British music mags, Q, Uncut (NME's "sister" publication), and perhaps MOJO to some extent, as its primary competition and has responded accordingly. Last year NME moved its list issue up by two weeks, and this year by a third week, so it hit the Brit newsstands before November had slipped into history. I hope they don't move it up even further in the future. Having it this early is disconcerting enough.

But, regardless of my feelings of ennui about having it at the wrong time of the year, what about the lists themselves? The Futureheads took top honors for Track of the Year with "Hounds of Love." Although I'm not sure it rates quite that highly, I like both the band and the song, so I don't have a big problem. The Futureheads themselves, though, must be feeling great, because last year NME ranked it as only the 13th best track of 2004. A rise of 12 positions from one year to the next is nothing to sneeze at. It did much better than other nearby tracks from last year's list. Kaiser Chiefs' "I Predict a Riot," 11th in 2004, fell to 18th on the 2005 list. But that's nothing next to the dive Graham Coxon's "Freaking Out" took. Coming in at 12 in 2004, it dropped all the way to 46 in 2005. It might as well not have shown up on the 2005 list at all. A fourth repeat track, "Banquet" by Bloc Party, rose from 40 in 2004 to 13 in 2005.

So how does a track (let alone four tracks) from last year make it on to this year's list? Ostensibly it's because it was rereleased, and both "I Predict a Riot" and "Banquet" were shown with different cover art than they had last year. But that argument only goes so far. Last year, NME changed the list from "Singles of the Year" to "Tracks of the Year" to acknowledge the difference in how we get our music. Through movies, TV shows, commercials, and especially Internet downloads, a song could become popular and influential without ever being released as a single, and now NME could include those songs as appropriate. In fact, "Hounds of Love" made the list last year as an album track, and the single wasn't released until 2005. I'm not for sure, but I think five of the fifty tracks on last year's list had not been released in the singles format at the time of that list (I don't believe any of this year's list sidestepped a singles release). But still, if something counted as a track for last year's purposes, new packaging shouldn't make it count as a new track this year. "Banquet" was originally released in April 2004, almost two years ago at this point. Even if it went largely unnoticed at the time (though it was certainly noticed by NME), a 2004 record is a 2004 record. We want to know what was best this year, not what was best in 2004 and is still really good in 2005. For 2006, maybe NME can shoot for less than 8 percent repeats from this year.

And we haven't even got to the album list yet. More later.

[UPDATE: Here's the next year-end music post.]