Your Lows Will Have Their Complements of Highs

I noticed last night that Last.fm has just put up their Best of 2009 list, week one of three. I actually chequed it out, and trust me, unless you are mentally prepared for how ridiculous the list is, don't click on it. Of course, the list is based on how much people have listened to an artist that released an album between October 1st of 2008 or November 16th of 2009, excluding compilations, EPs, live albums and best of collections, giving information on which songs have been most popular, showing a graph of the amount of scrobbles on a time scale (also including your scrobbles of that particular artist, if you have any). Additional information includes where the majority of people have seen the artist live (festivals vs. gigs), and a "hype-o-meter" which measures how quickly an artist rose in popularity in 2009.


I may have taken AP Statistics, but I don't need it to see the obvious problems with this list.


First off, one thing you'll notice is that many of the musicians on the list are bands that have been around for a while, like U2 and Depeche Mode, where obviously they've had a very steady following for years that would probably listen to these bands in the bathroom if it was recorded on an album. Secondly, other artists, such as Eminem and All American Rejects, artists that obviously are very prevalent in mainstream media, rank highly not because they released an amazing album this year, but just because they're popular. My third problem is that the list doesn't actually have anything to do with the real quality of the album; musicians like Regina Spektor and Metric are on this list, though the albums they released this year are mediocre at best. Actual albums worth listening to, such as Passion Pit's Manners or Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest are ranked fairly lowly, and in some cases are beaten out by artists like A Day to Remember.


Am I the only one who has a problem with this? Because I better not be.


I don't mean to verbally beat up people who actually enjoy the music of All American Rejects and the like, but you have to be honest here, they did not release one of the top 40 best albums of the year.


And now, to end the abuse and show you something worth listening to:

Wild Beasts - "Hooting & Howling"