01

Bloc Party
Silent Alarm

I was actually really shocked when I realised that this was going to be number 1. I never ever would have guessed it. Never. Even after I had owned it for a month, I would have thought a top five place unlikely. Yet here it stands, album of the year.

Bloc Party first came to my attention a couple of years ago when they won the best unsigned video competition on MTV2. That song was ok, but nothing great. I ignored them. Then the hype started, they’ll be great, the album will be awesome, blah blah. Hype in general means mainstream bollocks, and is more likely to turn me off than turn me on. And the album came out and I still ignored them. And then people kept on at me. Eventually I got hold of a tape copy, and found that I was listening to it fairly often. So after a while I bought a second hand CD copy for £3. And played that a lot too. But even then, I wasn’t thinking that it was anything that special, just a better than average rock album.

The thing is, I just never stopped playing it. I got loads of albums throughout the year (as always). In fact, with my acquisition of an ipod, I got more albums than normal because I copied loads, in addition to my usual excessive CD buying. But this still got played all the time. It is here by accumulation, it is here because I love every single track and can’t stop playing it. An album that has grown and grown in my estimation throughout the year. I have had it since February, and it has not even started to get old. Bloc Party are not as cool as either Oceansize or Arcade Fire, both of who’s albums I thought would come above this, but when I sat down and listened to them all for THE LIST, I just found that the one I enjoyed most was Silent Alarm. It is not exactly ‘a masterpiece’ in the way the other two albums are: it doesn’t have their originality or flair. I just enjoy listening to it more than anything else that was released this year, and that’s the criteria…

My favourite track is the beautiful ‘This Modern Love’, though ‘Helicopter’ obviously stands out too. The final track is not quite as good as all the rest, but that is getting really picky. The downside? Well, when I saw them at Leeds I was really disappointed – didn’t think they were that great live. I’ve seen footage of them on TV from elsewhere, and I think perhaps they are an average or even poor live band. So, the jury is still definitely out on whether Bloc Party are a great band. After all, this is still their debut, and live they have not been convincing. This is a great album though.

And to my surprise, I utterly love it. I guess that sometimes it is actually worth listening to the hype…