Well at least some casual listeners are listening to the pop stars, Bad Bunny is playing the Super Bowl, KPop is huge, African songs were hitting the charts regularly (until this year sigh) - the problem is that a) "casual listener"ship has fragmented and b) media aren't doing their job

I think there's some honest American cryptid vs Chinese spy cryptid sentiment there

Amazing 1980s vibe that they get a woman to do the typing *even when they're hacking into MI5*

Thanks so much for the kind words!

Newly rich Captain Haddock is determined local businesses Mr Cutts and the Rock Bottom Insurance Co will see none of his wealth, so we can deduce its nonexistence

What a panel

Also any time Harcourt and Pendleton are not on screen I’m saying “where are Harcourt and Pendleton?”

At first I thought the ending was a bit gimmicky but I came round on it! My 5 points went to The Giver in this the year of country

I remember really not liking Shiner but with hindsight I can’t make any great claims for Sid’s Snake as a work of genius either

I don't think the weird Union Jack meets Confederacy design of the "Galactic Flag" ever shows up again and that's probably for the best...

Voted Paul’s Boutique but if it loses who could begrudge the goths a crumb of joy

It kind of requires me to have knowledge of an outcome from a future tournament (will Surfer Rosa beat Nation Of Millions)

Sets up the first final since I’ve been following these where I don’t know how I’m going to vote

There’s a definite hollowing out of nightlife in some big cities in the UK which makes local scenes harder to come by - I guess maybe similar things apply in the US? But local rap scenes seem to do OK and something like 1/10 of my list is Kampala based so idk, a lot of it is just bands nostalgia

A lot of the subtext of all this commentary is “people like me should get to decide what matters and if we don’t then the answer’s nothing”

In the 00s you could just about hold onto the idea that the story of musical creativity and progress was linear and its norm was bands making albums (some of which would become Classics); the reality has always been messier and that mess is inescapable now

And men are writing entire books saying nothing’s happening! Come on