Yesterday the CE of HMV, Simon Fox, said that "within three years technology would become its single biggest product category ahead of both CDs and DVDs. It plans to devote 25% of the floor space to MP3 players, tablet computers and headphones as the CD goes the way of other defunct formats such as vinyl and tapes." http://t.co/wtGH0Oj

This sounds like a counsel of despair. The pushing of music to the far end of the HMV stores, or upstairs, at the expense of technology is what they have been doing for a long time in some stores already, but clearly this has not worked, and meanwhile shares fall below two bob a pop.

Mr Fox quotes three years but already some commentators are giving them 12 months. Is even that optimistic ?

http://www.nme.com/news/the-white-stripes/54804

Already we have had mumblings on other threads about Q's and Mojo's choices of the best album(s) of the year. However for me the fun of these is the (hopefully) wide range of opinions and the range of focus.

So I offer this thread as a one-stop shop to collate what is out there, in terms of other magazines, blogs, record shops, newspapers, all sorts, which might be journalists or a bunch of guys and gals behind the counter, but other constituencies.

To start it off, here is Piccadilly Records in Manchester

http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/shop/feature.php?feature=663

Rough Trade

http://www.roughtrade.com/site/content.lasso?page=AOY_2010_11-100_v2.htm...

Folk Roots

http://www.frootsmag.com/content/critpoll/

and, er, some jazzer.

http://100greatestjazzalbums.blogspot.com/2009/12/jazz-albums-of-year-20...

For me the value of these is to highlight what I might have completely missed. I'm going to off now and find out about Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Watching Master And Commander tonight I strikes me that we rarely get to see versions of military history involving the British from the other side.

You would think from depictions from Shakespeare onwards only that history is an endless sequence of English victories, but since, say, France exists independently this is clearly not true. But in terms of the movies I can hardly think of any contrary versions, except for , of all things, The Flashing Blade, and that is France v Spain. I know there are French films about Napoleon or Joan of Arc, but I've never seen them on UK telly.

Now Germany has its own particular history, perhaps Das Boot the only one we see because of its undoubted quality or is it pretty much the only one ? However you might expect France to have their own history of low-budget history flicks, celebrating what must be at least some home wins.

Similarly,(this might be especially for the international Massive) do (say) France and Spain produce their own Hornblower/Sharpe potboilers which will never be seen anywhere else, or is this a purely British phenomenon ? Or is it simply that there would be no market for a flick involving a foreign power, no matter how ancient, standing triumphant over English dead ?

Obviously I am discounting anything involving Mel Gibson here.

Showing more imagination than your average bathroom cabinet standby, Cerumol Olive Oil Ear Drops have commissioned a survey about the most misheard song. However it is surely cheating to choose a song by REM as the most misheard, this being not among their most well known ones so more likely to be misheard in a survey, even it is not among Stipe's most mumbling partial bollocks (and I say that affectionately).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/8015543/REM-song-is-...

Purple Haze (No. 2 ) is much more famous and so surely much more misheard ? And they made an advert of out of Desmond Dekker's Israelites, not even mentioned. Tsk...

Anyway, after a while a song is not so misheard as wilfully tampered with.

Any faves ?

I am SERIOUSLY forward looking to the Sondheim-fest at the Albert Hall tomorrow night.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2010/whatson/3107.shtml

If you try to take me to Lloyd Webber or The Glums I may have have to kill you, but I adore Sondheim's stuff. Now Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter in the film of Sweeney Todd had a certain something, but what you really want are proper singing actors, and Bryn Terfel has few peers for sheer presence on a stage, then add in Maria Freidman and Daniel Evans who really know what they are doing in Sondheim. Plus Judi Dench as a startling bonus.

Absurdly excited. Will anyone else be in the queue tomorrow night waiting to profer a whole five pounds to stand in the arena ?

On the back of our chums posting a rather inviting playlist http://is.gd/cnf7S , I think I'm in. I see there were previous threads, which went up to Episode 7 or so. Comparisons are invidious, but how does it compare in the end to, y'know, the other thing ? And was it good to the last drop or did it go off the boil?

Do we know whether it is going to turn up on proper telly, or Uncle Rupe's channels or will I end up waiting impatiently for Amazon deliveries, as with The Wire ?

Now bear with me. This should be grotesque, bizarre and ridiculous on this forum, but I have a sudden and unexpected crisis.

For a few years now I have given up on the Top 40. Not necessarily because of its content, but because it was getting so difficult to get to hear it. I would expect to hear the pop hits of the day on Radio One, but being a working person, the (ahem) Drive Time options turned into Chris Moyles who plays a record every 3.7 years and then in the evening Scott Mills who whenever I switch over is doing an oh-so-funny wind-up on some poor sod, and will play something eventually, but by then I will be a danger on the Queen's highway.

So with the crankiness of age, I go elsewhere. 6Music in the morning before setting off, Two in the evening. That's fine, but does puts you in a certain demographic, which mostly plays Old Stuff or (for want of a better term) Alternative Stuff.

Meanwhile I like world music, and a little while ago saw the annual African tour, which had K'Naan, whom I liked more than a little..

Then today, I saw this http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles.shtml
and K'naan, Somali rapper, IS NUMBER TWO IN THE CHARTS ! AND I DIDN'T KNOW !!

Now, the bleedin' obvious solution is the Top 40 show of a Sunday afternoon. But, having a life, I am usually elsewhere then.

So, starting from first principles, how can I actually get to hear the contents of the charts, preferably in the car, which has FM/AM but not DAB, and involves minimal amounts of DJ bollocks. Obviously adverts are a pain, but if the DJ shuts up and plays the discs to compensate I will make allowances. I am in the North West of England with a side-order of Welsh border, so certain metropolitan jolliness won't reach me.

All suggestions gratefully received. unless it involves spending my life in front of videos on the telly.

As per the Massive survey, it reflected artists whose best stuff showed up on self-contained albums. Not all the good stuff is there. Compilations and greatest hits tends to be disqualified in mag surveys, though not live albums and soundtracks.

So, without promising to count this up, what are your top ten compilations ? Me...

James Brown - Solid Gold: 30 Golden Hits
Aretha Franklin - 30 Greatest Hits
Madness - Complete Madness
The Beach Boys - Sounds Of Summer
Various - The Sound Of The City (Charlie Gillett-curated, in five volumes, serious cheating)
Elvis Presley - Golden Records Volume Two
Madonna - Ultimate Collection
Sandy Denny - Who Knows Where The Time Goes
Chuck Berry - Hail, Hail, Rock N Roll
Pet Shop Boys - Discography

There lies the problem : there are loads of James Brown/Aretha/Elvis compilations, to name but three, so they can't really be collated. Still, this tends to take in better those singles artists and those pre-Beatles.

Bob Marley, Hank Williams, Ray Charles, Sly, The Bunnymen, Toots, Jerry Lee Lewis (both rock n roll and country periods), Smokey Robinson, Al Green and the American Graffiti and The Harder They Come soundtrack still fall off...

There I was, flicking over to Dave in a bored moment, when up pops an ad for, of all things, Exile On Main Street. This was described firstly as "greatest rock 'n roll album ever" and then, amazingly, "Exile On Main Street : The Perfect Gift For Father's Day".

This raises the questions :

- what sort of dad would appreciate Exile for Father's Day ? Being a big fan, I would to think All Of Them, but I fear we are looking at the louche end, i.e. if your dad would be portrayed by Bill Nighy

- what hint has your dad or, let's face it, you been dropping for Father's Day ?

While those vuvuzelas are giving me a migraine and tinnitus I remind myself that there is more to South Africa's musical horizons than the sound of bees.

The mighty Mahlathini & Mahotella Queens for example:

and the glorious Miriam Makeba

There, I feel better already.

Venerable scribe turns his attention to gobiron-betrayed misanthrope.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/05/listening-van-morrison-greil...

... is unwell. Very unwell.

http://www.mickkarn.net/

Tonight is the last night of the Optimo club at the Sub Club in Glasgow.

I am not a natural clubber and have hated most clubs I was ever at but Optimo was so much a cut above. I don't live in Glasgow anymore and thought I was finished with the clubs, but I belatedly discovered Optimo. My friends there would think it was some sort of midlife crisis, but it was so hugely enjoyable in a way these clubs would make out they were but so rarely were. They released a CD collection a few years ago and its only rival for me of its type was the 2 Many DJs platter.

An idea of how eclectic it was can be gauged from their posted list of the fave tracks:

http://www.optimo.co.uk/blog/

and someone has come up with a Spotify list of about two thirds of them.

http://open.spotify.com/user/moggieboy/playlist/3itIALK339v6FQ95lPhtWg

I am pig sick I won't be there for the last night. Still, all things must pass.

Something which came up on the Frankie Boyle thread (http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/frankie-boyle-has-line-been-crosse...) was the attitude of the parties to the arts.

Two points

1. the Digital Economy bill, which seemed to be hurried into law in about three hours by eight MPs in the chamber. The magazine and this site has taken an interest in this over a long period, but the law has been rushed in on the back of fag packet, so oozes disaster. Has any of the Massive studied what has been passed into law ?

2. the Licensing Act is in place for a while, so that now a show by one man in a pub not licensed for live music will lead to a criminal prosecution while Sky TV showing the football is exempt. In May, it was recommended that small venues with unamplified performance by one or two musicians be exempt, but the government still said no. So, a major football game is deemed less dangerous to public order than a couple of folkies in a pub. Thus far the authorities have not given a toss.

At a time of brutal economic crisis this seems small beer, but it seems to be close this time, so do we have even the slightest bit of leverage this time ?