Album of the Year: The National, Boxer

In a year when American guitar bands continued to stand head-and-shoulders above most of their British rivals, Ohio’s The National provided a urbane, mature, and deliciously dark counterpoint to the psych-folk of artists like Spoon and Iron & Wine. Taut and fiercely intelligent, Boxer captures, instead of turning away from, the brooding anxiety that has stalked American culture in recent years. Matt Berninger’s rich voice achieves an impressive emotional impact without a shred of affectation.

Listen to “Mistaken for Strangers”
Download audio file (the%20national-mistaken%20for%20strangers.mp3)

Runner-up: Jamie T, Panic Prevention

Damp squib of the year: Live Earth

Let’s face it, it always sounded a bit rum. Gigantic concerts for poverty sound illogical at first, but if they raise masses of money - or even if they influence the debate - they ultimately make sense. Gigantic concerts to stop climate change just sound wrong. Yes, if it builds awareness, it’s worth the jet flights, the lighting, the fireworks, the car journeys made by the thousands in the audience. But only a genuinely passionate, political event - at least as much so as Live8 - could have made all the excess seem justified. In the end, it was anything but. From the UK concerts being hosted by Chris Moyles - a man who probably thinks climate change is for girls - to David Gray and Damien Rice’s baffling decision to sing “Que Sera Sera”, a song that seemed to encapsulate the very complacency the concert was supposed to shake us out of - the event was vacuous and soulless from the start. Without an actually-great moment along the lines of Kanye West’s appearance at the Concert for Diana, it just felt like being stuck inside one of those green adverts full of smiling children that oil companies make.

Runner-up: Playstation 3

I-don’t-see-what-all-the-fuss-is-about phenomenon of the year: Heroes

My brother loves it. Critics like it. People who liked Lost before it got all silly like it. It’s slick mainstream sci-fi, what’s not to like? And yet, I hate it. I hate the cliched Japanese character and his absurdly wide face. I hate the uptight politician’s ludicrously square chin, the central-casting blandness of the actors playing

minor characters. The villains in Lost, as baffling as the mythology has become, remain genuinely discomforting. Malcolm McDowell spewing stock evil-genius stuff about the Survival of the Strong? The pretty, evil one eating people’s brains, for god’s sake? I just don’t get it.

Funky new web thingy of the year: Tumblr

As anyone who monitors my ever-declining rate of posts to this website can tell you, it isn’t easy finding time for regular full-length blogging. And how often do you have something really new to say, anyway? More often you just want to share something cool you’ve seen on your travels around the web. Enter Tumblr: simple, in many ways quite limiting software with one killer feature: predefined templates making it one-click simple to share audio, video or photos. The result? A lot fewer posts here, maybe, but a whole new avalanche of web-highlights shared over on my “tumblelog,” Ravindr.

Love-it-or-hate-it-you-can’t-ignore-it innovation of the year: Facebook applications

2007 was, of course, when the rest of the world finally joined me and a handful of US student friends on Facebook. No sooner had they piled in that these blasted applications came along. Suddenly I was being thrown cows and zombie-zapped by people I hadn’t seen for years. This is, obviously, rubbish. And yet, buried underneath the mile-high pile of crap that has built up since applications were allowed in the Spring, are some real gems: iLike, despite its ridiculous Apple-lite name, is great for adding songs to messages and wall posts; What I’m Listening To finally puts all that last.fm information where you need it; and apps like My Blogs, Flickr Gallery and del.icio.us let you use your profile as a hub for all your web 2.0 shreds of personality spread across the web. There are plenty more needed, instant messaging being a priority, but having hundreds of companies working on the task must be better than having just one. Now, if only someone would ask me what sort of pirate I am.

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