ClaRK! Kent

Again, I can't really discuss Dylan in relation to Tom Waits, because I haven't heard nearly enough of his stuff, but I've liked everything else you've pimped musically, Skummy (Lucksmiths FTW) so I'm willing to take your word on his merits at least. Dylan has, as you say, recorded some bilge. Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded and Infidels are among some of the worst albums of the 70s/80s, and there was a really long time that I was saddened to think that he might never record a decent album without George Harrison and Tom Petty alongside him as the Travelling Wilburies. Time Out Of Mind and Love And Theft were pretty much a revelation in that department, and Modern Times is another good one, in my opinion. It's nowhere near as good as the stuff from his prime, nobody's gonna argue with you on that, but I guess that after all of the misses he's had in the last 20 years, people are going to cut the man some slack. Ironic really, considering for a long time every album he made was treated as a sort of mythical tablet from on high, with people queueing up to put the record on and hear what words of wisdom he'd spew forth that time.

Probably been mentioned as it's fucking awesome, but I can't be bothered to check the thread, yawn. Firefly - Lasted 12 televised episodes, plus 2 more that they didn't show/showed out of sequence after it'd already been cancelled. This is the main reason why FOX fucking suck. Firefly was easily the most innovative, exciting, and fresh TV show in the past 5 years, probably the best thing on TV since Buffy and Angel started. Whedon really is the man, and the network did him a great disservice here by simply not getting it, and not even trying to. The DVD sales alone showed that there is an audience for smart science-fiction, and the idea to mix the space opera style with the pioneering spirit of Westerns was a stroke of utter, unbridled genius. I don't think I've met a single person who has seen the show and not liked it, and the worst thing I've ever heard about it was from my mum, who claimed it was "really good, but not as good as Buffy" but I think that's just because she fancied Tony Head. Serenity was awesome, but given its okayish box office takings I doubt there'll be another, which is a damn shame because it's brilliant, the TV show was brilliant, and the actors were all brilliant as well. Ron Glass was a masterstroke, Jewel Staite is a zillion times more sweet than Alyson Hannigan's Willow, and Nathan Fillion is like Han Solo x100, and is probably the best leading man of any TV show of the past few years, with only Hugh Laurie in House offering any real competition IMO. Loved each and every episode, everything about it was clever, sensible, and well-written, and it's a damn shame it had to die. So yeah, FOX sucks.

I dunno, Arsenal hate is pretty easy. And I genuinely don't like Veronica Mars, I wasn't doing it to be facaetious or anything. It seems a bit... meh. It's like Buffy crossed with Harriet the Spy or something. But, mudda, right? Umm... Arsenal are teh suck?

^ I'd agree with a lot of that, but Blind Willie McTell? Meh to the Nth degree, from me, that one. I'm more of a fan of Rollin' and Tumblin', which is from Modern Times and is probably his best rock song since the stuff he did with the Travelling Wilburies in the late 80s.

Well, touche. The fact remains that I'm still allowed to post in threads about Bob Dylan, much the same way as Ringo is allowed to start entire threads about that crappy Veronica Mars show and nobody bats an eyelid. People just notice 'cos they all have it in for Dylan is all. I dunno why, pointing you to my previous post re: his awesomeness as evidence.

Dual nationality, so yeah... From England - The Smiths, Rolling Stones, Beatles, and lately Muse and Gorillaz. David Bowie too, actually. From Ireland - The Pogues, Boomtown Rats, Snow Patrol. I'd say U2, but they've been criminally awful for years and they've now made more terrible albums than good ones.

By far the best 10 thus far, with The Doors, The Lucksmiths, Johnny Cash and of course King Bob The Magnificent making this easily the greatest group in the countdown, probably until the end. The only sad thing is that a lot of these artists deserve to be in the top 20, some in the top 10, but alas. The top 20 had better be fucking good to justify this nonsense!

I think every album I listen to changes the way I think about certain things a little bit, if it's even remotely good, or if it's really awful, but for ease of use I'm gonna post the ones that had the most profound impact on me growing up, or whatever... The Beatles - The White Album My parents are big music fans, my dad was a session musician in the 1970s and has a lot of stories, and they turned me onto great music from my youth. I was about 9 or 10 when my dad gave me this album, and whilst I was too young to really 'get it' totally for a few more years, this was something totally different to all the music my friends liked/which was around at the time, which was wall-to-wall Spice Girls and Oasis. This album spoke to me a lot more, and made me realise that this was the kind of music I wanted to be listening to. Rolling Stones - Exile on Main Street I was about 15 when I first heard this as anything more than something my dad brought up when drunk and having a "Stones vs. Beatles" argument with my uncles. I instantly swung around to his way of thinking. This was blues, rock, pop, and just about everything in between, and they did everything better than anybody else who was doing it at the time. This is probably their finest album after Let It Bleed, but I heard that long after this one, so I'll always have a soft spot for it. Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde I'd loved Bob Dylan since I was a kid, but I never really thought about why that was when I was a kid who just liked humming Blowin' In The Wind or whatever. When I was like, just 16, I sat down and listened to this album in full, and something seemed to click in my head. This was the album that made me think of myself as a 'music' person, and that also - somewhat pretentiously - gave me what I can only describe as an epiphany. This album was the one that first helped me think about life, about things, about people and concepts, in an adult fashion. The fact that it's also closer to perfection than any artist has ever managed before or since doesn't hurt, either. Goldfrapp - Black Cherry I never thought I could like stuff that wasn't rock'n'roll. I was a bit of a snob, raised on Beatles and Stones and Dylan as I was, until I heard this album at a party when I was about 16 or so. This was beautiful. It was lush, full, and really very sexy indeed, whilst also being heinously musical and just damn addictive. This turned me onto electro overnight, and over the next few months I decided if I liked that, there was no reason I couldn't like other stuff too, so for the first time I listened to hip-hop, pop, and just about anything you can name with an open mind. This album was the one that inspired me to expand my horizons. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead It's a little-known fact that everybody secretly loves this album. It's an actual law, ratified by Parliament, that everybody likes this album. That said, I had really avoided The Smiths as a kid, because I was only familiar with Morrissey from his heinously-bad mid-90s period and foolishly assumed it'd all be the same. When I heard this album, it was beautiful. Really great, dryly witty, exceptional playing from everybody - Johnny Marr is probably the most underrated guitarist ever simply because so few people realise he is probably one of the best of all time - and truly brilliant songs. This one also came at a time I was in a relationship that was doing nothing for me, in any way shape or form, and was much more bad than good. A couple of the songs on this album really spoke to me, and this was shortly after my experience with Blonde on Blonde, so they helped me make the adult decision to end the whole torrid affair. This one pretty much defined my experience and expectations of relationships from then on, really. The Kooks - Inside In/Inside Out An odd choice, but hear me out. In about February of this year, I went to see a classical music concert in Birmingham with my schoolfriend Ryan, who is very much into that sort of thing. I really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I would (or told him, being the staunch rock'n'roll/indie fan I was) and it sort of stayed with me, the sheer musicality, depth, and beauty of it all. About three weeks later, I was listening to this album, and something struck me. It was so... boring. Really. There was literally nothing exciting about it, like I'd convinced myself there was. Everything was predictable, one-dimensional, and very mass-produced. I went and listened to a lot of my other indie albums, and I found the same thing. With a few exceptions (Libertines, Kings of Leon, The Dears) the whole genre is so empty to me these days, it just feels very stale and same-y. Feel free to laugh.

2004? BEST. YEAR. EVER.

Bernard Black - Fuck yeah. He's the man, all angry and Irish and bookshop-owning. He's the best thing ever. "I think we should talk about this 'one day trial' and how it's going." "Okay. How is it going?" "Currently... you're fired." "BACK IN THE WORM!" "Smoking and drinking all that wine. It's very bad for you, you know. Don't you think you'd be better without it?" "Yes, Fran, you're right. Sometimes between that first cigarette before breakfast and that 300th glass of cheap cornershop piss at 3am, you do look at yourself and think... 'My God... this is fantastic/.'" "Ah, the passports were in the other bag... the bag you helpfully unburdened yourself of by losing? ... You're fired."

Conversations and interviews from basically every BtVS/AtS/Firely DVD commentary show that when an episode is credited as written by, say, Steven S. DeKnight, what that actually means is that they all sit around in a room, Joss tells them the entire plot, they come up with lines and the pop culture references, the jokes, etc, the writer does a draft which gets picked over by the team and then they go off and draft again until Joss is happy. When Joss himself writes an episode, it's basically him in a room by himself 'til it's done, as Drew Goddard and Tim Minear have stated. He's entirely accountable for the sucky ends some of his characters have received, understandable as some of them were.

Dr. Gregory House, Capt. Malcom Reynolds, and Ted Maul from The Day Today/Brasseye are the only acceptable choices here. They all fucking own your souls.

I just got home from seeing SOAP, and I must say it's the best movie I've ever seen in my entire life, bar none. Mudda's right, even without the internet cult it still would've been fan-fucking-tastic, it was literally entertaining from the second they got onto that plane. I jumped a few times, towards the beginning, as I wasn't prepared for the violence and snake attacks to be so... well, detailed and gruesome. They were fucking gory. Some favourite bits of mine included...

Dylan's been getting much better lately, Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft were probably his best two albums since Blood on the Tracks in 1975, so I'd like to expect quite a lot from Modern Times. But, he's always been very hit or miss, so this one could be another Empire Burlesque or Street Legal too. Eugh. I probably won't bother getting the download, I'll just buy the thing on Monday 'cos Dylan albums usually have some fun stuff in the sleeve and that's nice. I've not heard any of the songs yet, even, 'cos I just wanna hear it all in one beautiful go.

The Hands of Blue in Firefly are never mentioned in Serenity. Sure, they get killed in the comic book, but I can't get that book so it felt a bit like they'd ignored it to me. Similarly, Riley's exit from BtVS was well wank. Joss is great at characters when they're there, but he's not so good at exits to be honest. him though.

That guy who played for Bolton?

Plus, y'know, it's for middle-aged metallers.

I'm also starting to get annoyed by that "London Bridge" song by Fergie. I quite liked the tune at first, and figured it'd be a good club song (not that I've been clubbing since it came out of course, Bristol is shite for nightlife that doesn't involve trance or stabbings) but now it's starting to irk me. I don't get the metaphor, and she's not even from London! Damn her.