OK, I wrote this for the Costello discussion list, but it ended up being much longer than any post really should be, so perhaps I should have put it here on my blog to begin with! Sorry for those of you forced to read it twice since it's only slightly revised, horror of horrors. Anyway, it's mostly about music. What else? I don't have a top ten albums list for 2002. I have come to the conclusion that I hate trying to rank things after Ben told me to do my top twenty films (have a look at them here if you like) and I couldn't *ever* get the order right after Singin' in the Rain being number one. (Is Rushmore better than Dazed and Confused? Is Heavenly Creatures better than All About Eve?) I eventually had to give up in morose disgust. However, here are things I can remember loving to listen to last year.

The Cornershop album, Handcream for a Generation. It's *terrific*. 'Heavy Soup' is so cool. On the powerpop tip: is it completely untrendy (or too teenybopperish) to love the Phantom Planet album, Guest? Well, so be it, for I love it. I also had a warm feeling about Weezer's Maladroit (and that Muppet video! Deep, abiding soul-love for the Muppet video!). Way too pretty to be believed: *both* of Badly Drawn Boy's releases this year. God, I never want 'Something to Talk About' to end. I always have to play it at least twice over. Possibly entirely too serious for their own good on that last track and sounding a bit too much like black album Metallica, shudder, but otherwise rawking: Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf. (Who I will be seeing in a week! Woo!) Also the best air-drumming album of the year. I really liked the new Costello album although it has to be said that I probably just liked it because it compared so favourably to the horror that was the Bacharach collaboration. Objectively, I can say that it was patchy in parts but still... I'm very, very glad that '45' exists. Beck's Sea Change, I think, was really sad and majestic (yes, I too would be miserable if my girlfriend dumped me and I ended up sleeping with Winona Ryder), plus the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is too lovely. I will go out on a limb and say that 'Do You Realize?' is better than anything on The Soft Bulletin. Plus, they use a giant gong live. Yay. Oh, and of course my darling Supergrass, Life on Other Planets. They never change drastically, but always come through. (Alex says they were a 'disappointment' for him! Hmph. This may be something like our 'View to a Kill' vs. 'Girls on Film' thing, Mr. W.) Missy Elliott, Under Construction. Naturally. Hiphop often seems like such a singles medium, but her whole albums are always worth listening to.

Speaking of singles and hiphop: I don't know if Outkast's Sly-esque 'The Whole World' ('I catch a beat runnin' like Randy Moss!') came out in late 2001, but I certainly played the fuck out of it in 2002, along with Missy's 'Work It' and Nelly's 'Hot in Herre' (which has the added bonus of being really hilarious). And I really really liked 'Underneath it All' by No Doubt, although the lyrics make it sound like Gavin is a bit of a dick to poor Gwen! That band is growing on me, oddly. Sometimes I could almost see myself buying an album, which I find quite weird. Oh, and I don't care how many times I hear the Hives' 'Hate To Say I Told You So'. I must have heard it a hundred times in the library workroom and it continues to make me jump up and down foolishly, and it's *very* old by single standards.

I was too late on these but my they're awfully good (a huge category! I will forget lots of things here): Can You Dig It? The 70s Soul Experience, which along with the sixties companion box Beg, Scream and Shout! is just embarrassingly wonderful and has made me teary too many times to count. Another 'greatest thing ever that came out years ago' which has a more than a passing relevance to soul music is DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, 'Brainfreeze'. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I will love Alex forever for suggesting this; plus, it also made me seek out Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars and Sitars (funky Bollywood music compilation, huzzah!) *and* the later collaboration Product Placement, which rules. Oh, and I originally missed that Jurassic 5 album from a few years ago, but it's good! Now I should get Safety in Numbers, I suppose.

Fun New Zealand releases that no one gives a damn about (unless you read the Face): the Brunettes' debut (our Nancy and Lee!); Rhombus (yeah, all dub sounds the same. But this is *our* dub, dammit!); the Datsuns; the D4 (the latter two bands are playing at SXSW this year, Austinites).

Best live shows: Super Furry Animals, without a doubt. Truly awe- inspiring. 'Best mindfuck yet', as Arnie said, and as they looped over and over and over. Elvis, of course. I *finally* got to see Pete drum, and gosh was he fabulous. (I recently had a debate with someone about him being a 'journeyman drummer' only good within his field, and comprehensively demolished their argument with the rabid ferocity of the newly religiously converted.) Cornershop's poorly attended Houston show. The Beta Band. The McCartney show, which I silently but tear-rollingly cried all the way through (well, I stopped for 'Freedom' and 'Your Loving Flame' because they suck, and I stopped when Macca came running onto the stage waving a giant Texas flag, because that was cheesy and lame beyond description and I had to put my head in my hands and go 'no no no, Paul, NO, god you are so annoying at least 50 percent of the time!' a lot) because I was in the same room (albeit an extremely large room) with a Beatle, and I never thought that would happen, and they *are* my religion and stuff. I am a big, shameless dork. :) Probably a few I can't remember.

Overrated: The Streets, Original Pirate Material. Yeah, I understand. You go clubbing and take E, yeah, 'weak become heroes', and eat egg and chips the next morning and play Playstation and wonder if that girl you pulled really likes you. And, um... piffle. It's all right, I suppose, in parts. It'll date in about three seconds. The NME loved this because it's so damned self-mythologising. I dunno, maybe I would have liked it more if I'd been pilling off my tits at the Brixton Academy more than once in my life. Alex likes this. Am I just going to have to pull the 'but he's English' thing to explain it to myself? ;) OK, maybe another part of my problem is that two-step is a very very annoying genre to me, and that's solely because of Craig David, whom the librarians are calling 'Crapper Than Your Average'. (Giggle.) Am I being unfair to that doe-eyed little Streets geezer?

Songs and other things that made me laugh: Ween's 'Bananas and Blow', which despite my not really caring about Ween at all just gets funnier and funnier every time I hear it. Best Jimmy Buffett spoof ever; Andrew W.K.'s 'Party Hard'; the Mr. Show DVD, seasons one and two (I should really devote an entire post to this); the David Cross standup album, Shut Up You Fucking Baby!; my Christmas present, every episode of Strangers with Candy on VCD; Tenacious D, perennially; and Brent, who is still the funniest person in the world and according to my fellow librarians 'deserves his own show'. I agree.