Another year over, a new one just begun......so said some hippy refusenik or other. And in doing so he accurately summed up the passing of one year to the next and marked the fact that now is the time for us - like a set of miniature monkeys with a set of miniature cymbals - to hand out awards, to sarcastically post pictures of Phil Collins with an Oscar and, most important of all, to make lists.
In that spirit, then, I bring you a basic idea for the first ever 'Over Awards', wherein we will hope to find whether mildly un-enthusing consensus will be followed (I'm looking at you, Fleet Foxes) or whether we can make a glorious break with tradition and not all vote for what the record company want us to vote for.
To whit, I propose that we decide the 'Spill albums of the year - what I shall slickly call 'The Overview' - in the following way:
With a deadline of the 31st of December, anyone that wants to should compile their top albums of the year, in order of preference, up to a total of ten. Whether you submit three, eight, ten or eighty albums the scoring will remain the same - 10 points for number one, 9 for number two and so on down to 1 point for number ten. Email your list to me via snadfrod@gmail.com (newly minted for the purpose, although too many of you know my true identity already...) and I shall tally all scores and produce a final list as long as may be reasonably typed. I think the system is fair, but am happy to have flaws pointed out in any manner that doesn't involve scoffing.
I think, for the purposes of scope, that the lists should be limited only to 2008 releases (although I will include Bon Iver, Pitchfork aside) but that could include remasters, special editions, best ofs and live shows. To cover those older albums that people may have discovered and loved this year, I am offering everyone the chance to give one 'Overtime Nomination' (this ain't just thrown together, folks) which I will list in the final presentation as an accompaniment to the 2008 selections.
Furthermore, hoping to provide a wider critical snapshot of us lot, I am suggesting that we throw the nominating open to books and films as well. These are entirely optional categories and could be widened beyond 2008 to include those works that have most defined your year. Here I reckon we should stick to top threes and see what happens. It may not work but the chance of having an Overwrite and an Overact category was just too much to resist...
Lastly, please feel free to submit ideas/winners for any other award you fancy and lets just see where it all goes, shall we? My aim will be to post all the awards over the first few days of 2009, so be sure to get your vote in soon otherwise it'll just be my list and do you really want to see that set in stone forever more as our collective opinion? Trust me on this one, you probably don't...
Anyway its Christmas, what else are you gong to do?
Happy voting!
32 comments:
By the way, that deadline will be 11.59 PM GMT. Just before I take the last slug of Midori and collapse into Auld Lang Syne. Just like every other year...
You know, I used to look to telly, newspapers, friends and family, that sort of thing, to provide festive entertainment. Piffling distractions, they all were. Right here, this is the holiday!
Expect an email shortly, snadfrod.
...an e-mail is on its way...
I have too emailed
Obviously we also need to nominate our favourite bits of metalwork from 2008, so that we can have an Overwrought category...
Marginally more seriously, I have suggested to Snad that we need a list, at least for the benefit of out-of-touch curmudgeons like myself, for "I've tried really hard to see what the fuss is all about but still just don't get it" acts and/or albums.
How about our favourite bits of nudity - Overexposed?
Email on its way this evening, snadfrod...
I too was going to suggest an Overrated category, but it may not be fair to those whose fave stuff of the year appears in it.
I'm really not sure that last sentence was grammatically correcxt, but then again, i'm in bed ill when i should have been enjoying my last day at work before the hols, so at least i have an excuse.
Am struggling to narrow down to 10 - never mind ordering the list. Looking forward to getting suggestions on what I missed. Off to North Carolina tomorrow, but will have the trusty shoephone with me, so will give it some more thought & get you something before New Year.
Guys, this is going very well so far, thanks to you all.
Thanks, too, to abahachi for his suggestion about a list of underwhelmers. I was going to contact you later on and ask if I could include it as a proper category, but you've beaten me to it and I think it should be included.
Sadly, I had also thought of Overrated for the category name, but I agree with Blimpy, its a tad unfair. So how about Overcooked instead? It doesn't imply that something is bad per se, just that it hasn't been done either as well as it could have been or to your own personal taste.
So top threes for most underwhelming or confusingly popular artist of the year, if you will.
Oh and the metalwork category is SO ON.
@Toffeeboy - I look forward to your nudity suggestions with ill-disguised relish. Jpegs, please...
And what about art - Overdrawn?
And cars - Overtaken?
And what does anyone think we can do for Overblown, Overheads and Overenthusiastic?
Keep the postcards coming, we may end up with a four-hour live simulcast on our hands. Hosted, preferably, by David Letterman.
What about:
Overheard
Overkill
OverRated
OverDone
OverCooked
Get Over it
Overvil River
Over & Out
How about Over The Rhine?
Switzerland, Germany or the Netherlands?
Let it be known that the special award for sporting achievement will be known as the Overmars Trophy.
I may need to lie down.
OverKeen ....frowning management or bed-wetting.. don't get them mixed up.
What "Over" category would be appropriate for the undoubted star of Radio 'Spill, the one and only Akira the Don?
How 'bout, since Snadfrod's an ac-tor: O'erweening.
How about "I'm so over the phrase 'I'm so over'" Or don't they say that in the rest of the world.
I do want to make a list, but I find these end of the year lists vaguely dispiriting. I'm working on a list, though, mentally. Yeah, mentally.
snad - i changed my mind about my number 10 placing, and have emailed you.
Kalyr, that would probably be Overplayed or, with luck, just Over.
Akira the Don: Over and Out (please...)
@blimpy, email received and points adjusted.
@steen - mentally, eh? Go on, finalise it, you'll feel SOOO much better. Oh, and its ex ac-tor now, so maybe it should just be O'erplayed? ;-)
@everyone - keep 'em coming over the fesivities and Merry Christmas one and all!!!
@blimpy, email received and points adjusted.
@steen - mentally, eh? Go on, finalise it, you'll feel SOOO much better. Oh, and its ex ac-tor now, so maybe it should just be O'erplayed? ;-)
@everyone - keep 'em coming over the fesivities and Merry Christmas one and all!!!
This may be a bit depressing, but so many great musicians seem to have died this year that perhaps we should have a list of those who have gone Over to the Other Side who meant the most to us musically.
Donds to that suggestion, Abahachi, having just this moment seen Mikey Dread on the Chrimbo TOTP2.
Here, with special passing mention to Adrian Mitchell, Ken Campbell, George Carlin and (simply because I'm still in the ante-room of his fanbase) Davey Graham, is my Over to the Other Side list in some semblance of an order:
1. Levi Stubbs
2. Norman Whitfield
3. Bo Diddley
4. Isaac Hayes
5. Mitch Mitchell
6. Miriam Makeba
7. Jimmy McGriff
8. Buddy Miles
9. Merl Saunders
10. Mikey Dread
11. Humphrey Lyttleton (though if we factor in non-musical affections, he climbs the list)
And that's just from my favoured sector of the musical universe.
From my favoured sector of the musical universe, Richard Wright.
And I have to mention Howard Sparnenn, who may not have been well-known, but who I did know personally; a great musician and a great guy.
Somewhat miscellaneous batch:
1. Esbjorn Svensson
2. Buddy Miles
3. Mitch Mitchell
4. Levi Stubbs
5. Davey Graham
6. Jerry Wexler
7. Isaac Hayes
8. Johnny Griffin
9. Jimmy McGriff
10. Bo Diddley
And add Oliver Postgate to Humphrey Lyttleton in the 'not exactly music but...' category.
You can add Eartha Kitt to that list now...
Damn, forgot about Wexler and Griffin.
I once found myself at a trad jazz open-air English Heritage in Twickenham with friends who lived out that way, and the bill was Humphrey Lyttleton, Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk. Ball was very good, in that way that trad jazz can sometimes break out of precisely that English Heritage carapace and recollect the music Satchmo played. Bilk was awful, no chops, utterly cynical in his barbershop costume, slurring and slumming his way through Strangers On The Shore and the rest. But Humph - whilst I'd have wanted to like him anyway - was tremendous; within the parameters of the music, his band sounded fresh and relevant, even playing 'out' at times.
Email on it's way Snadfrod. But here's a 2008 Top Ten of albums you'd expect me to be considering but I can't because I've never even heard, let alone bought them:
Guns'N'Roses, AC/DC, Goldmund, Kings Of Leon, Fuck Buttons, Hold Steady, TV On The Radio, Micah P. Hinson, Thunder, Mogwai.
DsD - as you well know, there are music journalists out there that wouldn't let that inconvenient fact get in the way...
Ouch! Thank you very little, Tim, for the reminder of my 2008 blogging low point - making a laughing stock of myself when trying to get almightily righteous on Swells' baldy-head over The Black Crowes.
;o}
Oh and btw, I'll agree publicly here that Apocalypstik more than held it's own in the Festive 'Spill No.1s chart.
Cheers that man.
DsD - I remember that thread for mostly for Swells making an idiot of himself.
I haven't heard AC/DC, GnR or Metallica's album yet either, so I don't know whether they're any good or not.
Oh, and Panic Room are playing The Venue in Stocksbridge near Sheffield on Friday 13th March. Time to apply for your passout from DarceysMam...
Top five bands I've discovered this year:
1. The Decemberists (2002)
2. Cinerama (1998)
3. Tindersticks (1993)
4. Midlake (2001)
5. Over The Rhine (1991)
6. Of Montreal (1997)
OK - that was six not five. I realise of course that none of these are new acts, so just to embarrass myself, I've put, in brackets, the dates of their first recordings. Looks like I've got a load of catching up to do in 2009.
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