Wild Mercury Sound’s New! Improved! Top 75 Of 2008

With blogging, of course, you publish and be damned, then, once damned, you publish again. So it is with the Top 75 I unleashed on an unsuspecting world on Tuesday, only to soon realise that it was, basically, a bit of a cock-up.

Thanks to those of you who pointed out that Nick Cave and Bon Iver should both have been in there. Here’s the full 75 on one page, with them added and, unfortunately, Stereolab and The Fall making way at the other end. I’m conscious that I could keep messing about with this rundown for the next 12 months, so I’m going to let it lie now, but please keep your comments coming.

Before I try again, though, I ought to answer a couple of questions posed on the original thread. The Duke Of Monmouth wondered whether my omission of the My Morning Jacket, Drive-By Truckers and Felice Brothers was “a statement that the folk rock genre which as Assistant Editor your Magazine promotes (very well by the way) either has run its course in your eyes or have the above had a off year”?

I’d say that, on the contrary, any list containing Lambchop, Jenny Lewis, Campbell & Lanegan, Calexico, American Music Club, two Will Oldham albums, Fleet Foxes and, um, Bon Iver suggests that it was actually a rather good year for Americana.

Fortunately for me, Wild Mercury Sound is a reflection of my own taste, which contributes to Uncut’s editorial position, but doesn’t entirely dominate it. Plenty of people here were very enamoured by the Truckers record – hence some grief when I explained why I was disappointed by it here (I also had a moan about “Evil Urges” here).

As for The Felice Brothers, I’m very in the minority on this one, but I find them a hokey comedy band, I’m afraid (another small part of me died the other day when I discovered one of them had written a book called Hail Mary Full Of Holes). I haven’t blogged about them, but I did rather foolishly try to take on their immensely prickly fans here. If you ever want to really irritate me, by the way, say things like, “They sound like people living it, not talking about it.” That always goes down well.

Not a huge amount of love for Deerhunter here, Kris, no. I liked the odd bit of “Cryptograms” and the Atlas Sound album, but the thin indie vocals are a real distraction, and there’s a whiff of shoegaze to the whole project I’m not hugely keen on. I seem to be in a minority on this one as well, though.

Finally, this backhanded compliment. “I always enjoy WMS most when it’s talking about new music rather than my fellow Saga generation demographic of Sprinsgteen/Zeppelin/Cohen etc.” Sorry to disappoint, but I’ll keep writing about all the music I like, whichever generation makes it (am I not qualified to write about these people because I’m younger than them? For God’s sake. . .). One of the points of Uncut, and this blog, is that we try and convey our excitement about all the music we like, whether it’s a Leonard Cohen gig or a Sun Araw 12-inch.

But enough for now. Here’s 75 good records. . .

75 Greg Weeks – The Hive (Wichita)