Hooray for Humans' Signature should be in there somewhere ...

Two JJ72 albums in there is proof enough there haven't been 50 great Irish albums in the last 10 years.

I'd throw the new Halfset in there.. The U2 records are token gestures, right? Although at a push 'All that you can't leave behind' deserves a mention. It's amazing, a top 50 from 89 to 99 would easily wipe the floor with this list.. You can probably blame Westlife for that.

Top 50? We could stretch to a Top 10 at a push.

SK2 and the Thrills managed to make it in....:shocked:

I just double-checked the vote count and majority of the albums in the above list (exactly 26 out of the 50 albums) were voted by at least 3 writers. Making it IMHO a water-tight list for those 26. I'd say you'll find that the albums in the list that some people are less convinced of will be among the 25 voted by 2 voters...

I'm disappointed that 'Songs From The Deep Forest' by Duke Special isn't on the list: I have a theory that the drippy radio edit version of 'Freewheel' has turned people off him. (The album version is much more robust.)

'Absent Friends' is a much better DC album than 'Victory For The Common Muse'

And 'SK2' is a cracking album, which just goes to show that CLUAS Writers know nothing :)

 

Phantom are covering the story on todays news

Posted By aidan on 25 May 2009 08:10 AM

I'm disappointed that 'Songs From The Deep Forest' by Duke Special isn't on the list: I have a theory that the drippy radio edit version of 'Freewheel' has turned people off him. (The album version is much more robust.)

Its certainly turned me off. I cannot stand the song and I cant really imagine liking any of his work. I've seen him perform other tunes live and I dont know what all the fuss was about. His voice really irritates me and he goes on like hes doing something really unique and artistic but as far as Im concerned his music is average pop.

I can't remember if I voted for The Plague Monkeys "Surface Tension" now, because if I didn't I really should have. It just squeezes in being released in 1999. Just an absolutely gorgeous album that stands above most Irish records of the last decade in terms of artistic ambition and beauty.

I would also encourage all Cluas writers who voted for Damien Rice to recant and replace their vote with "Surface Tension" instead, you know it makes sense, don't make me come over there! :D

Posted By Binokular on 28 May 2009 02:16 AM 


I would also encourage all Cluas writers who voted for Damien Rice to recant and replace their vote with "Surface Tension" instead, you know it makes sense, don't make me come over there! :D

I can't think who that might have been! ;-)

The Frames in at number 1. I wouldn't have predicted that myself.

Here's the top 10, as announced yesterday on Phantom FM. Full ranked top 50 will go live on the site tomorrow:

Best Irish albums of the last ten years (as voted by 35 CLUAS writers)

1 The Frames ‘For The Birds’
2 Bell X1 - Music in mouth
3 Damien Rice - O
4 Jape ‘Ritual’
5 Ash ‘Free All Angels’
6 U2 – all that u cant leave behind
7 Cathy Davey Tales of Silversleeve
8 Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
9 The Frames ‘Dance The Devil’
10 Simple Kid ‘SK2’

Oof. That's about as damning an indictment of Irish music in the past 10 years as it's possible to get. Shocking.

Posted By eoghan on 29 May 2009 12:03 AM
Here's the top 10, as announced yesterday on Phantom FM. Full ranked top 50 will go live on the site tomorrow:

Best Irish albums of the last ten years (as voted by 35 CLUAS writers)

1 The Frames ‘For The Birds’
2 Bell X1 - Music in mouth
3 Damien Rice - O
4 Jape ‘Ritual’
5 Ash ‘Free All Angels’
6 U2 – all that u cant leave behind
7 Cathy Davey Tales of Silversleeve
8 Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
9 The Frames ‘Dance The Devil’
10 Simple Kid ‘SK2’

I think the top three artists were as expected. Perhaps only the U2 album feels out of place for me in that list (although it's a masterpiece compared to their current shocker). I'm happy that there's a good portion of poppiness there too - and 'SK2' by Simple Kid really does deserve to be there.

None of the albums I picked made it in to the top 10 although, to be honest, I wasn't expecting them to be. Some of the albums I did pick made the top 50 however: God Is An Astronaut's astonishing 'All Is Violent, All Is Bright', David Holmes 'Bow Down...', Ten Speed Racer, Tycho Brahe, Cathal Coughlan.One of my most listened-to Irish albums of recent years - Ann Scott's 'We're Smiling' - didn't even make the top 50! The top ten is a little conservative and predictable and, as Carry Grant pointed out, apart from Jape and Simple Kid, not a great advertisement for Irish music for the last ten years. U2's 'All that you...' is a very weak album (nowhere near as bad as their latest turkey 'No Tune On The Horizon' however), I don't know how the Frames got in twice and Damien Rice's 'O' is still the dreariest collection of songs I've ever heard. Still, move outside of the top 10 and there are some very interesting choices there.

Is the full ranked listing with writeups uploaded yet or am I being daft and not seeing it?

Posted By Binokular on 03 Jun 2009 03:14 AM
Is the full ranked listing with writeups uploaded yet or am I being daft and not seeing it?

It's not uploaded yet. It's taking way longer to put into HTML than I expected. It will however be live tomorrow morning!

Cool, no rush, it'll be done when it's done! :)