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NME Cool List 2008 announced

Find out who made the cut and have your say on this year's run-down

November 4, 2008 | 31 Comments
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Crystal Castles frontwoman Alice Glass has topped the NME Cool List 2008.

The crowd-surfing singer beat the likes of Jay-Z, Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and MIA to the top spot.

The full run-down of the top 50 is available to check out now on the NME Office Blog.

Jay-Z topped off a year in which he defied his deriders to headline Glastonbury by bagging the Number Two spot ahead of MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Turner, who are third and fourth, respectively.

Late Of The Pier's Sam Dust, Ladyhawke, Caleb Followill of Kings Of Leon and MIA came in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth respectively, with Oasis' Liam Gallagher returning to the Top Ten at Number Nine.

Liam is one place ahead of Glasvegas' enigmatic drummer Caroline McKay – who supported the Manchester legends at the Gallaghers' recent London Roundhouse gig and pipped bandmate James Allan to make the cut.

See the NME Office Blog for the complete NME writer's Cool List 2008.

Plus have your say about who you think should have made the list at the NME readers' Cool List page.

Watch NMETV on Wednesday (November 5) for a special Cool List countdown programme from 9pm (GMT) on Sky Channel 382 (repeated on Saturday, November 8 at 9pm).

The top 20 entries in the NME Cool List 2008 are:

1. Alice Glass, Crystal Castles
2. Jay-Z
3. Andrew VanWyngarden, MGMT
4. Alex Turner, Arctic Monkeys/The Last Shadow Puppets
5: Sam Dust, Late Of The Pier
6. Ladyhawke
7. Caleb Followill, Kings Of Leon
8. MIA
9. Liam Gallagher, Oasis
10. Caroline McKay, Glasvegas
11. Pink Eyes, Fucked Up
12. Guy Garvey, Elbow
13. Lil Wayne
14. Dave Sitek, TV On The Radio
15. Johnny Marr, The Cribs
16. Ezra Koenig, Vampire Weekend
17. Santogold
18. Ed MacFarlane, Friendly Fires
19. Florence Welch, Florence And The Machine
20. Dev Hynes, Lightspeed Champion

See the NME Office Blog for the full top 50.

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Comments (31)

Add a comment

pauliogeorgio

Nov 4, 2008

Gotta say i saw that one coming a mile off.Weird seing a top 20 with no Pete or arl too. Electro is in full swing.

ianblades03@hotmail.com

Nov 4, 2008

im not a black supremacist or anything (being that i'm white) but to have santogold and MIA so low down is just plain wrong!!!

LFC101

Nov 4, 2008

what a shit cool list... where the fuck is ryan jarman?

robert_hanley_80

Nov 4, 2008

I am way cooler than this bunch of neomaxizoomdweebies.

Heather2007

Nov 4, 2008

God what a load of shite so how is she cool

Gerbalism

Nov 4, 2008

Could someone tell me something that is remotely cool about Caleb Followill? And why is the untalented fatty Caroline McKay in the top 10? What is the music world coming to?????

whatawasteoftime

Nov 4, 2008

Mostly a cavalcade of cunts, as usual.

the_royal_wee

Nov 4, 2008

alice was amazing at reading fest. good choice. fun list. where's noel??

gazmassie

Nov 4, 2008

I will await your definition of Cool. If its making Shit inaudiable music then you have the Number 1 spot on. From Number 3 downwards it looks ok

jumbo999

Nov 4, 2008

fucking yawn

fatboy26

Nov 4, 2008

load of bollicks!

MikeyCisco

Nov 4, 2008

I'm surprised that genuine electro pioneers like Joseph Mount (Metronomy) haven't made the list, in favour of tripe like Alice Glass

jamesheal

Nov 4, 2008

Josh Homme will always be the coolest guy in rock - it comes naturally to him....

KIERANT123

Nov 4, 2008

Where the fuck is Ryan Jarman?

jlong5000

Nov 4, 2008

i've never understood crystal castles. to me, they're like a one time event. I can't possibly understand how people could listen to them more than once. It's noise. gazmassie is correct.

Caponee

Nov 4, 2008

NME you have a very diffrent oppinion of 'cool' then i do.Wheres pete, ryan jarman and noel fielding.The only people i find remotley cool in this list is Carl Barrat jonny marr liam gallagher and alex turner.Jay-Z LOLOLOLLOLL hes a dick

Daniel Plainview

Nov 4, 2008

Where is Borrell?

its_rudimentary

Nov 4, 2008

Johnny Jarman

Moz_1983

Nov 4, 2008

Another list of mostly flavour of the month, soon to be has-beens. In two or three years time, the mention of most of these names will draw a blank from everyone. Cool for me = talent, and only a couple on this list have it. The rest are poser trendy tossers who will thankfully soon disappear into obscurity.

Luke The Rifle

Nov 4, 2008

This is bollocks. Complete loada shite. If you have a look at the page where we, the listening public can vote for our 'cool list 2008', you will see the top ten is made up of British guitar band members. Thats what the public wants in NME! Decent Rock n Roll, not Electro, Not Synth shiiit, Not Los Crapesinos etc. We want proper rock music. Give some bands who are working there arses off, selling out The Forum credit..Big up The Rifles!!

ant_klaxon

Nov 4, 2008

glad to see only one of the gallagher twats made it in..ed macfarlene should have been higher though

digitaldave

Nov 4, 2008

what no James Blunt, Katy Perry, The Ginger one from Girls Aloud, Borrell, any of the Killers, Gary Lightbody, Pete the smackhead, all of the Fratellis, One Night Only and Iglu + Hartley, Andrew Sachs and his slutty granddaughter or John McCain?These are the coolest people in the country right now and the NME has, again, decided to overlook their sheer brilliance....I'm gutted, you're gutted, we're all gutted..... ;o)

therecluse

Nov 4, 2008

No Matthew Murphy of The Wombats ? No Luke Kook ? None of One Night Only?? I'm not surprised of the state of todays youth if these lot are there role models.

jumbo999

Nov 4, 2008

for a start, this "electro" thing. been bugging me for a year or so now. electro, as far as im concerned, has been around for 30+ years anyway. its evolved as technology has evolved. so i see no breakthrough artists here. no-one doing anything that new and exciting. secondly, you shouldnt even be producing a fucking cool list. where's franck carter now eh? his bands album didnt even appear in your end of year top 50 last year. that's not cool. it's the kind of thing smash hits would come up with. thirdly, i'll take a rough guess and say that at least 30 of these people will not be on next years list. in many instances i'd think a lot of these people would be a hell of a lot cooler if they did just fuck off.

what marion thinking

Nov 4, 2008

i vote for alex turner, caleb folowill is amazing and the vampire weekend singer

andybmxer

Nov 5, 2008

um jarman.............................

benw1993

Nov 5, 2008

why the fuck is jay-z number two, his performance at glastonbury was good but there was nothing cool about his pathetic wonderwall piss-take, noel was only voicing his opinion and responding that way was just childish

i luv noel xxx

Nov 5, 2008

How comw Noel Fielding isn't on the list?????are you all crazy?x

Heather2007

Nov 5, 2008

maybe because hes not a fucking singer or funny :P

RealMode

Nov 6, 2008

i don't even believe this is based on votes.

mirror_kisser02

Nov 8, 2008

Jarman, anyone? Only decent ones are Johnny Jarman Marr, Liam Gallagher, Alex Turner, & Caleb Followill. The other's can go fuck each other, for all I care.