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By Luke Lewis

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?

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By Luke Lewis

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?

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By Luke Lewis

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.

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By Tim Chester

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.

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By NME

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!

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By Tim Chester

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

The Dead Weather at NME

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

Green Day

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
Muse

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
Biffy Clyro

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