Radio 2 didn't do itself any favours by revealing which albums its listeners considered the best of all time. Well, if that's who I would be listening with, I'll be tuning into Radio 2 even less often than I do already.I don't mind Dido. I think I have those albums. I liked the Keane album well enough when it came out. But surely everybody knows by now that Sgt. Pepper wasn't The Beatles finest moment and the Stones' best effort was possibly Exile on Main Street.
There's not a big issue with those particularly except the question was 'best album of all time' and some of the problem must have been that the poor voters only had Radio 2's nominated list of 100 to pick from and each artist was only allowed one title. But, however it was arrived at, the answer wasn't anything by Coldplay.
I'm surprised that anybody has stayed awake long enough to get to the end of a Coldplay album.
Surely this, and the fact that the only two nominations for Best Live Act at the Brits were the Stones and Coldplay, means that it is time for pop music as my generation knew it to be put to bed and we can listen to A Whiter Shade of Pale in perfect gaga serenity for whatever time remains to us.
Yes, of course, any such poll gets the result it deserves from the constituency of voters that it asks in the same way that in the 1970's, the NME poll results differed from the result announced by the returning officer for Smash Hits. But one commentator was in the right area when they said that this was a result garnered from people who aren't really interested in music.
I don't suppose many, if any, of the Top 10 I have just thrown together were on Radio 2's shortlist of 100, but here they are anyway. It does have to be remembered that Radio 2 is not only home these days to Bob Harris but also, still, to David Jacobs.
I will give considerably more thought one day to my Top 10 'Classical' (for want of a better term) albums. In the meantime, Radio 2, herewith,
The Magnetic Fields – 69 Love Songs
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Early Music featuring Peter
Tosh
David Bowie – Station to Station
Gregory Isaacs – Lover’s Rock
T. Rex – Electric Warrior
Al Green – Green is Blues
The Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy
The Velvet Underground & Nico – Produced by Andy Warhol
Elvis Costello – Get Happy