Posted on Sunday 22 December 2002
‘Tis the season for a hundred top ten lists from wannabe hacks. Here’s my top ten in music for 2002.
1. Eminem. Again. An album, a soundtrack, a hit movie, getting the leg over with Kim Basinger and a very public apology from ‘let’s be friends’ fuckhead Moby. Result.

2. Bootlegs hit the mainstream. Soulwax took the art of mixing bits of one tune on top of another, mastered it and extended it over an entire album. The Sugababes covered an existing bootleg with Freak Like Me and the Freelance Hellraiser’s Stroke of Genius created something greater than the sum of its parts. Rubik cube my ass.
3. Guitar-based music wakes up. Clinic, Interpol and the Notwist all produce intelligent contemporary rock albums that kick the arse of the britpop/nu metal horseshit we’ve been fed in recent years.
4. Peer-to-peer. The peerless (hah) Audiogalaxy is sued and effectively closes down. Napster Incorporated does the decent thing and keels over. Kazaa gets sued. A Microsoft commissioned paper on P2P concludes that filesharing is ultimately unstoppable. Record sales slump. The obscure Soulseek program becomes popularised on forums and mailing lists.
5. Witnness. Arguably the finest lineup for a festival in 2002. People get down and hump in the mud.
6. Anti-folk. Kimya Dawson, The Moldy Peaches and Jeffrey Lewis spearhead a movement of simple and beautiful acoustic music.

7. Underworld. Darren Emerson is a stupid bastard. Not content with ruining my Last Big Night out of the Summer, a couple of years ago he quit as the main creative force of Underworld. I can imagine his face as he heard A Hundred Days Off. Funny.
8. The Driven reunite.
9. Acid. Acid 4 is released but it’s too slow to run on my PC so I stay with Acid 3. I learnt to love this sequencer through making a series of beat-orientated mixes. It makes your mix material into figurative lego bricks and no, it doesn’t just work with dance music.
10. B00mb0x is 2. Aww.
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