Coldplay's Viva La Vida, Or Death And All His Friends was the top-selling album of 2008 worldwide, selling 6.8 million copies, according to data released today by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents some 1,400 record companies around the globe. Coming in behind Coldplay were AC/DC's Black Ice; the soundtrack to the … More »
Well, the Village Voice's annual music-critics poll is here, and... it's about what you would have suspected. In an oddly Grammy-like move, the top single, M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," is actually from 2007, and benefits from 50 carryover votes. And following the paper's arguably racist cover from its 2006 P&J issue, TV on the … More »
Nielsen SoundScan has released its year-end numbers for music sales, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they aren't all that great—no albums cracked the three-million-sold mark this year, with Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III almost getting there (2.874 million) and every other album in the top 10, um, not. Thanks to SoundScan's Dec. 31-to-Dec. 28 chart year, the … More »
When 2008 started, I was sure it was going to be awesome. "It's going to be two-thousand-great," I told anyone who would listen, ignoring the various signs (MTV ringing in the New Year with Tila Tequila, hints of economic collapse, etc.) that things wouldn't exactly go as planned. Or even be much good at … More »
I like You & Me, by the Walkmen, but seeing it on so many year-end lists made me a little suspicious. After all, it seems almost designed to appeal to anyone listening to it in November or December. It's not only a wintry album, warm and soft and a little bit logy, like you've just … More »
This is what you've all been waiting for, right?
THE GOOD: Nos. 50-41 would have made an awesome alternate-universe top 10, what with Marnie Stern, Ponytail, High Places, and Beach House all being within. Alas.
THE BAD: I will not quibble with the No. 1 choice and the reasons for its placement being … More »
Earlier this month, we took a look at Christianity Today's best-of list, which seemed to judge records on an "is this Christian enough?" scale as much as it did musical merit. To balance that out, the online music mag Patrol serves up a list that looks at vaguer connections between faith and music. Patrol started … More »
Music coverage has been rather light in the post-David Browne era at Entertainment Weekly, to say the least. To be frank, their non-celebrity music coverage is moribund at best, usually gathering as much print space as the stage section does. It almost feels like an afterthought. Heck, I wasn't even sure who they'd tap to … More »
Here are some top 10 lists I can get behind, if only because they are based on something slightly empirical: AOL has posted its lists of 2008's most-searched-for musicians, songs, and music videos. The results are not completely surprising, with the Jonas Brothers taking the top slot and American Idol-bolstered David Cook coming in at … More »
The music video channel that could Fuse had been running its "Top 40 of 2008" special over the last few days, but I just couldn't bring myself to watch—Katy Perry wasn't just performing two songs, she was co-hosting the whole thing. The premise was amusing, matching the year's "best" videos against each other … More »
Pitchfork's big pile of lists continues to grow with today's unveiling of how its readers poll turned out. While there was some grumbling about the site limiting the number of options for each category (largely to Pitchforky type acts and albums, understandably), in the end, things likely would have come out the same way. The … More »
Indie digital music vendor eMusic has released its year-end list, and I gotta say...wow! This is the deepest and most balanced list I've seen so far, and it throws consensus out the window for a broad analysis of the year in music. Sure, there are a Santogold and Deerhunter and She & Him here … More »
Rolling Stone's year-end lists went online today, and its album rundown is topped by a relatively new band! The No. 1 record of the year in the boomer bible's estimation is TV On The Radio's Dear Science—although order is restored at No. 2, which is given over to the latest edition of Bob Dylan's Bootleg … More »
Today sees the release of year-end lists from Time, New York magazine, and the Observer Music Monthly. Instead of our usual single-list appraisal, these three seem to offer an opportunity to try and locate some sort of consensus, since they represent (respectively) the mainstream, the middlebrow, and the muso. Compare and contrast:
THE CONSENSUS: Everybody … More »
The social-music site Last.fm—which allows users to track the music they listen to on their computers via a process called "scrobbling," and also has full-song streaming capabilities for certain tracks—released its "most listened to" list earlier this week. The artists list was topped by MGMT; the most-listened-to album was Coldplay's Viva La Vida; and perhaps … More »
Yesterday the iTunes Store released its year-end lists, and while its "best of" lists are somewhat intriguing (the albums rundown is topped by Raphael Saadiq, while the "Best Songs" list has both Motley Crue's "Saints Of Los Angeles" and Hercules & Love Affair's "Blind" in its top 10), it's the sales charts, of course, that … More »
London's Fact Magazine—which runs one of the sharpest-witted, up-to-the-minute music blogs around—has been doling out year-end lists for a few weeks now, the newest of which is its Top 20 albums, preceded in recent weeks by Top 20s of reissues and DJ mixes. These lists are thankfully different than the ones you'll find in … More »
