NME End Of Year Poll Fix?

[The Welshman]

NME defends album of year poll

Andrew Dickson
Friday December 2, 2005


The NME, one of the UK's most popular music magazines, tonight denied allegations that its top 50 albums of 2005 poll, published in tomorrow's edition, had been tampered with for commercial reasons.
The allegations, first published by the blog Londonist.com on Wednesday, suggested that an early version of the poll, which is compiled each year by the magazine's editors and writers, had been radically overhauled prior to publication. It was alleged that artists including Beck and Patrick Wolf had disappeared from the top 50 entirely, while others, among them high-profile names such as Babyshambles, Oasis and Kate Bush, had seen their ratings significantly boosted.

Another band, Arcade Fire - relative outsiders whose album Funeral was one of 2005's surprise critical successes - had, it was further alleged, been knocked off the coveted Best Album spot by Bloc Party's Silent Alarm, who were originally at number two in the poll.
Londonist claimed to have access to an early version of the poll that collated writers' responses before the editorial team intervened. This spreadsheet, which has been seen by Guardian Unlimited, appears to record numbers of votes, and includes a running order significantly different from the published version.

Connor McNicholas, NME's editor, firmly rejected accusations made by the blog that the magazine had caved in to commercial considerations when editing the list. "I strongly resent the insinuation that there is any kind of commercial pressure," he said. "These people are on a different planet."

Called upon to explain how the poll was compiled, however, Mr McNicholas said: "The mechanics are a reflection of NME editorial policy. It's a very fuzzy process. We take a vote in the office; it's quite informal."

A spokesman for the magazine later clarified the situation, saying: "All the writers are asked for their top 50 albums of the year, which is then collated and passed to the editors.

"This is probably an early working document, nothing more. There's nothing suspicious going on."

Following contact with NME's lawyers, Londonist has since taken down the story. Speaking soon afterwards, its editor, Rob Hinchcliffe, said: "We got this list in good faith and we think it raises some interesting questions. We've got no vendetta against the NME. This list matters to a lot of people, and that's the only reason we've questioned it."

"If the NME is saying what we've claimed isn't true, all we ask is that they're transparent about the process."

I'm hardly surprised.

[Vicious]

If voting mattered, it would be illegal.

[The Welshman]

Well, the NME has pissed me off since it celebrate it's 50th Birthday a few years ago and decided to print a Top 100 Albums Of All Time poll, also voted for by it's writers, etc.

Obviously there's always gonna be disagreements with who's top etc, but when my eyes witnessed the atrocity that was of putting The Strokes: It Is Shit ahead of Oasis: Definitely Maybe, I nearly cried and died.

CEASE!!! CEASE!!! CEASE!!!