WEB WATCH
This time of year is renown not just for its holidays but for its year-end lists. They are fun, they provide fodder for friendly disputes around the water cooler or at the bar, and they provide a nice sense of order to the year/decade/century/millennium that has passed. Last week we looked at what Rolling Stone and Billboard thought of the decade based, respectively, on logarithms and sales reports. This week we thought we’d check out some more local and Canadian based lists.
Deep within yesterday’s Metro newspaper was an outline of their picks for album of the decade, decreeing that the ten records listed are ones “you can feel good about having in your library.” Massey Hall favourites Feist and Arcade Fire made the list at #2 and #5, but we were most excited to see an album very dear to our hearts in the #10 slot: Neil Young Live at Massey Hall, 1971 (released in 2007). Live at Massey Hall includes material from the recent After the Gold Rush, but also tunes that would soon find their home on what would be the epic Harvest album and others in the years following. If you aren’t patting yourself on the back right now for owning this one, consider asking Santa for a last-minute addition to your gift list.
The CBC has just put out a list of their favourite albums of 2009. Metric’s Fantasies, we are happy to notice, came in at #8. Metric was here not too long ago, touring this album with two shows at Massey Hall. Meanwhile, over at Eye Weekly the tune of the top ten changes slightly: they are ranking not albums but concerts. Wilco’s pair of shows in October make the list at #5, with a report of a “glorious deluge of noise squalls” filling our Massey Hall. (You can check out Eye‘s original review of the concert here.
Can’t get enough of this ranking-the-world’s-music thing? Have I got the holiday gift for you! Head on over to CHARTattack’s annual reader’s poll, where you can vote in categories like The Golden Toque Award (Best Canadian Album), The Lord Mullet of Stanley Award (Best Haircut), and The That Rocked Award (Sweet Happenings in Music This Year). While you’ll have to wait until January to enjoy the full results of the poll you can watch the polling results ebb and flow right now, and – better yet! – read up on what theCHARTattack folk think of said ebbing and flowing by reading their regular updates (like yesterday’s article: Avril Lavigne Apparently Sexy, Has Great Haircut). Worth watching: Tegan and Sara, who are playing Massey Hall in January, have been clawing at number one spots all over the place, including Best Album and Best Hair.
Happy list-themed procrastinating everyone!
Stefania Paterak is the Programming Coordinator for Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall.
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