No Musical Express

The NME has come up with their annual list of best albums of all time.

1. The Stone Roses The Stone Roses
2. The Smiths The Queen Is Dead
3. Oasis Definitely Maybe
4. Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks
5. Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
6. Blur Modern Life Is Rubbish
7. Pulp Different Class
8. The Clash London Calling
9. The Beatles Revolver
10. The Libertines Up The Bracket

Much as I would have expected, it says more about the NME than it does about any artist on the list. Are they really saying that the flavour-of-the-month Arctic Monkeys are better than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie or Pink Floyd?

One thing to remember is that the NME doesn't represent anything like the whole of British rock, but just those bands that fit a very narrow template of what they think rock should be. The great tragedy is that the NME has had far too much influence over what new music gets exposure; they have the same malign influence over UK music as corporate commercial radio has in the US.

The other thing to remember is that Britain's baby boom was a decade later than America's, and came of age during the punk era in the late 70s. Just like America's boomers they've mistaken stupid generational prejudices for eternal truths.

This explains the lack of late 60s/early 70s artists in the list; they represented everything that was completely out of fashion way back in 1977. Later generations of NME hacks seemed to absorb these prejuduces by osmosis. For example, anything connected with 70s prog-rock is dismissed with derision; which is why you'll never see Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin on any NME list.

Saying that, the list is stupid even by NME standards; the ridiculously over-hyped Arctic Monkeys only released their album a week ago!