Blogger Poll : British Albums Of The Decade

Phew, once more today we’ve broken our own rules and posted more than one blog. Here is our final one before Christmas as we get ready to close until January 1st.

The rather good Faded Glamour blog recently got twenty or so British bloggers together in a virtual way to vote for their favourite three British albums of the decade. Breaking More Waves cast its vote for three diverse recordings. We chose one from each of three of our favourite genres - Contemporary Rock, Folk and Pop. One of our choices came in 5th.

You can see the Blogger Poll: British Albums of the Decade top ten at Faded Glamour here and read commentaries by some of the bloggers, including ourselves. All of the bloggers choices with blurbs can be found here . We have a strong suspicion that one of our choices (from the pop world) will be met with snorts of derision, but we’ve hopefully provided a valid argument as to why it should be included as a choice. The argument has been edited on the Faded Glamour site due to space, so instead here is our full explanation that we wrote to Faded Glamour of why we chose Girls Aloud and Chemistry as one of our albums of the decade:

It seems to us that with the hundreds of end of decade lists that are currently floating around, pop music is getting short changed. Now of course there’s a reason for this. Pop music is very NOW (that’s why the Now That’s What I Call Music Compilations are so cleverly named) and ultimately its bubblegum stylings are meant to be disposable. It is for these reasons that serious rock critics don’t nominate pop acts for such lists. They are long since forgotten. Yet go to any wedding or a retro bar or club and the sounds you are likely to hear are not the sounds of the greatest albums of the decade, but pop music. Think Abba Dancing Queen or Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (one of the greatest singles of this decade). We think therefore it is important to remember the importance of pop music in our culture and celebrate its resonance to the masses.

The noughties have been the decade of reality TV. From Big Brother to X Factor you simply cannot get away from it. And near the start of the decade Popstars : The Rivals created Girls Aloud. Of course it is easy to mock Girls Aloud, but here’s a funny thing - Chemistry is actually a dizzyingly great pop album. It’s full of great electro pop production and big hooks, with lead single Biology having about ten of them. With Chemistry Girls Aloud did the unthinkable and produced something for those who were prepared to listen with open ears that was sassy, fun, sexy and packed full of brilliant tunes. It wasn’t meant for the dustbin.