The “NME” Looks To Pop (And Crabcore) For Its Future

noah | August 5, 2009 1:30 pm

Apoplectic British music magazine NME has just issued its latest Future 50 list—“the 50 acts pushing things forward in 2009,” in the rag’s sorta-esteemed opinion—and one thing that’s sort of surprising to me is how pop-centric the overall list is. Sure, the top two slots are taken by Pitchfork darlings (a one-two punch of Animal Collective and The Knife), but the list also includes Lady GaGa, frequent Girls Aloud collaborators Xenomania, and the Idolator-beloved site Popjustice? Also the kids’ program Yo Gabba Gabba!, and… The Take That stage show?? Also, perhaps to goose newsstand sales by putting a little bit of the fear of God into anyone browsing the list online, the hyper-annoying, hypersexist, Hypercolored outfit 3OH!3 is at No. 41. The full list after the jump. 50. Gaggle 49. Xenomania 48. Invasion 47. Yo Gabba Gabba! 46. Diesel:U:Music Radio 45. Cooly G 44. Star And Shadow Cinema 43. Sonar Festival 42. Blackout Crew 41. 3OH!3 40. Stephen McGregor 39. Opera 38. Aldene Johnson and Hannah Marshall 37. Project Natal 36. Lady GaGa 35. Rostam Batmanglij 34. Hyperdub 33. Seb Chew 32. Sweden 31. Greg Kurstin 30. Beck 29. Sonic Boom 28. Take That’s stage show 27. Bandstocks.com/Patrick Wolf 26. Micachu 25. Salem 24. Gigbaby 23. The Dream 22. Ray Tintori 21. Platform 20. The Big Pink 19. Twitter 18. Popjustice 17. Mike Sniper 16. Nick Zinner 15. Norwich 14. Bradford Cox 13. Mattias Arrelid 12. Dan The Automator 11. Blocks Recording Club 10. La Roux 9. Little Boots 8. VBS.TV 7. Jack White 6. The XX 5. Omar Souleyman 4. Dizzee Rascal 3. Trent Reznor 2. The Knife 1. Animal Collective I don’t know about you, but for some reason, this list makes me a little excited about at least the next 15 minutes of what music might bring us. (Although thanks to the inclusion of Twitter, I’m trying to figure out if “Opera” is a reference to the style of music or the Web browser.) The NME: The Future 50 [NME]