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- Best Albums Of 2000 - Have Your Say
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- The Bravery's Sam Writing Songs For Shakira, And Other Weird Indie/Pop Crossovers
- The NME Chart Top 40 Revealed - 2/11/09
- 10 Tracks You Have To Hear This Week - LCD Soundsystem, Maximo Park, Field Music
- The NME Chart Top 40 Revealed - 2nd November 2009
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Posted on 06/11/09 at 04:11:33 pm
This week we kicked off our Decade In Music series with a look back at NME critics' 50 best albums of 2000.

If we made a fresh list now, with the gift of hindsight, it'd probably look a lot different. I doubt we'd place Coldplay's 'Parachutes' above Radiohead's 'Kid A', as the mag team did nine years ago. And I can't imagine we'd place Badly Drawn Boy so highly, or go quite so crazy for Kelis.
But hey, maybe in a decade's time people will be equally mystified by the current NME team's love of The Horrors.
Here's the full list of 50. What do you think? Any glaring omissions? Is QOTSA's 'Rated R' a weird choice for Number 1, or does it still stand up as a classic album?
Posted on 06/11/09 at 12:13:12 pm
Groundhog Day was on the other night, that existential masterpiece in which Bill Murray plays a modern-day Sisyphus, doomed to relive the same miserable day, over and over. I started watching for a bit, then I thought, 'Hang on, I've seen this before'. Since then, I've become convinced that the film is not a parable; it's a work of pitiless realism.
Let me explain. This morning, like Bill Murray's hangdog weatherman being tormented by Sonny and Cher, I was woken up by the radio. On 6 Music there was Bono at the MTV Awards, singing 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' at the Brandenburg Gate. Appalled, I flicked to Radio 4 - where Sue MacGregor was chortling about Sesame Street. That's weird, I thought. What decade are we in again?

Posted on 03/11/09 at 05:20:23 pm
I was stunned to learn in the new issue of the mag that Shakira's hit song 'She Wolf' was penned by The Bravery's Sam Endicott. It's vaguely disorientating to discover that the foppish singer - best known for singing 'An Honest Mistake' and calling Brandon Flowers "a kid in a wheelchair" before vanishing off the indie radar - has reinvented himself as a pop hitmaker-for-hire. It's a bit like finding out Dick Valentine from Electric Six is back, and is standing for election as your local Lib Dem MP.
Can that really be Sam, penning lines like, "I'm starting to feel just a little abused, like a coffee machine in an office", and vowing to "behave very bad in the arms of a boy"? Well, no, actually: he only wrote the music, not the lyrics. And you can sort of see the similarity with The Bravery, in that the song drifts by on the flimsiest of synth-borne melodies.
Posted on 02/11/09 at 11:22:23 am
Imagine a Westlife-free world, a national Leona-free chart with Chipmunk chipped off, The xx marking the spot where JLS used to be, and Gaga and Miley burnt on a bonfire of pop pap lit by Jordin Sparks - a ringtones-devoid countdown of, y'know, good tunes?
That just happened. Today marks the first NME Chart as we reclaim the Top 40 and count down the biggest selling tracks in the NME world.
Every Monday from 10am, NME Radio will be counting down the Top 30, then at midday NME.COM will announce the Top 40 right here.
Posted on 10/30/09 at 04:06:05 pm
This week's new-music playlist includes some Halloween goth-shlock from Loverman, the uplifting kiddie-electro of Penguin Prison, and a "lightning bolt" of a track from Rihanna.

1. LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou
Suicide and Alan Vega have inspired some brilliant covers recently, from Springsteen’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ to the Klaxons’ ‘Sweetheart’. And now, the gods of synth-spookery bring us the long-lusted-for return of LCD Soundsystem on November 9. Tense and sexy, its moodily hypnotic, deep disco mooches around dub deep spaces, dragging the death-rattle country-punk of the original into nightclub shadows. Stuttering rotorblade beats flash overhead, James Murphy crooning "Helicopters flying a long way down south/To a secret-mission town in the USA". New album in March: hooray!
Posted on 30/10/09 at 03:15:26 pm
Imagine a Westlife-free world, a national Cheryl-free chart, with Chipmunk chipped off, The XX marking the spot where JLS used to be, and Gaga and Miley burnt in a bonfire of pop pap lit by Jordin Sparks - a ringtone, X-Factor empty countdown of, y'know, good tunes?
That just happened. Today marks the first NME Chart as we reclaim the top forty and countdown the biggest selling tracks in the NME world. Every Monday from 10am, NME Radio will be counting down the Top 30 while at midday on Mondays NME.COM will announce the Top 40 right here. Then to watch the videos all you need to do is turn the goggle box to Sky Channel 382 to see NME TV reveal the Top Ten every Tuesday and Wednesday at 9am and 6pm and the Top 40 every Saturday at 4 and Sunday at 8.
This week sees The Temper Trap consolidate on their festival success and an excellent NME Radio session by climbing to the upper echelons. It's a good week for Florence and The Big Pink too and it's great to see Miike Snow with two different entries in the top forty. Comment your thoughts below and come back next week to see who's climbing and who's dropping...
40 MSTRKRFT feat. John Legend - 'Heartbreaker' [Geffen] - BUY
39 General Fiasco - 'We Are The Foolish' [Infectious Music] - BUY
38 Muse - 'Resistance' [Warner Bros] - BUY
37 Dead Weather - 'Treat Me Like Your Mother' [Columbia] - BUY

36 Arctic Monkeys - 'Cornerstone' [Domino Recordings] - BUY
35 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 'Heads Will Roll' [Polydor] - BUY
34 Cribs - 'We Share The Same Skies' [Wichita Recordings] - BUY
33 Wild Beasts - 'All The King's Men' [Domino Recordings] - BUY
32 Gossip - 'Heavy Cross' [Columbia] - BUY
31 Dead Weather - 'I Cut Like A Buffalo' [Columbia] - BUY
30 Wolfmother - 'New Moon Rising' [Modular] - BUY
29 Jamie T - 'Chaka Demus' [Virgin] - BUY
28 Prodigy - 'Take Me To The Hospital' [Takemetothehospital] - BUY
27 Friendly Fires - 'Kiss Of Life' [XL Recordings] - BUY
26 Ian Brown - 'Stellify' [Fiction] - BUY
25 Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - 'Dance the Way I Feel' [Stiff] - BUY
24 Arctic Monkeys - 'Crying Lightning' [Domino Recordings] - BUY
23 XX - 'Islands' [XL Recordings] - BUY
22 Kid Cudi ft Kanye & Common - 'Make Her Say' [Island] - BUY
21 The Enemy - 'Be Somebody' [Warner Bros] - BUY
20 Green Day - 'East Jesus Nowhere' [Reprise] - BUY

19 Jamie T - 'Sticks 'N' Stones' [Virgin] - BUY
18 Muse - 'Undisclosed Desires' [Warner Bros] - BUY
17 Kasabian - 'Where Did All the Love Go' [Columbia] - BUY
16 Bloc Party - 'One More Chance' [Wichita Recordings] - BUY
15 Florence & The Machine - 'Drumming Song' [Island] - BUY
14 Biffy Clyro - 'That Golden Rule' [14th Floor] - BUY
13 Miike Snow - 'Animal' [Columbia] - BUY
12 La Roux - 'I'm Not Your Toy' [Polydor] - BUY
11 Miike Snow - 'Black & Blue' [Columbia] - BUY
10 Mumford & Sons - 'Little Lion Man' [Island] - BUY
9 Editors - 'Papillion' [Kitchenware] - BUY
8 Muse - 'Uprising' [Helium 3/Warner Bros] - BUY

7 Dizzee Rascal - 'Holiday' [Dirtee Stank] - BUY
6 Kasabian - 'Underdog' [Columbia] - BUY
5 Florence & The Machine - 'You've Got The Love' [Island] - BUY
4 Big Pink - 'Dominos' [4AD] - BUY
3 Calvin Harris - 'Flashback' [Columbia] - BUY
2 Temper Trap - 'Sweet Disposition' [Infectious Music] - BUY
1 Biffy Clyro - 'The Captain' [14th Floor] - BUY

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