The SWSL End-Of-Year Music Lists 2003

I write this, appropriately enough, as ‘High Fidelity’ blares out of the TV in the background. Appropriate, because of the central character’s obsession with music, and, more particularly, with lists. It’s a film I hate, at least partly because I’m the sort of person who’s the butt of most of the jokes.

I know that at this time of year the internet is awash with public professions of personal preference regarding music released over the previous twelve months, and also with numerous scathing critiques of this whole tendency. OF COURSE what I think matters not a jot in the grand scheme of things. OF COURSE organising and ranking albums, singles etc into lists is a horribly artificial practice which necessarily assumes that subjective opinions can be somehow quantified.

But fuck it all – come the end of December, I am powerless to resist the psychological compulsion to list stuff. I make no pretence to be all-inclusive – it’s personal, subjective, OK? I’m writing about what I’ve heard, and, believe me, I know there’s so much more out there that I’ve missed out on. Despite professing occasionally to be an enlightened lover of music in general, the lists below do suggest otherwise – that I am still very much a resident of the white-boys-with-guitars ghetto.

Music is all about opinion. So, if you’d like to take issue with any of my choices, or you’ve got any comments to make, then feel free to do so. And if you’re not interested, or are disgusted at the whole self-indulgence of it all, don’t read – it’s as simple as that.