National Public Radio listeners today confirmed their reputation as bespectacled white geek-rockers who prefer not to actually rock by voting Radiohead's "In Rainbows" as the No. 1 album of 2007.
The listeners' Top 25 albums included only one rap album and one non-white artist: "Kala" by the Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A.
Five critics weighed in with similarly colored Top Ten lists, bringing the number of albums by non-white artists to three, including "Cornell 1964," a newly-released live recording by Charles Mingus, and "Twinight's Lunar Rotation," a collection of tracks from obscure funk-soul bands.
(The critic Will Hermes chose "Untrue," by the mysterious London producer Burial, which may or may not count: Burial has remained almost completely anonymous, making it hard to tell.)
Three critics also chose "In Rainbows" as No. 1.
Listeners picked Canadian acts Arcade Fire and Feist as No. 2 and 3, respectively, and rounded out their top ten with Wilco, The White Stripes, Spoon, Modest Mouse, The Shins, The National and Andrew Bird.
(Full disclosure: This writer's Top Ten list leads with The Fiery Furnaces' "Widow City.")
Comments (1)
Are such exclusive lists an example of racism masking itself as cultural taste?...Or another example of how our tastes tend to be very specific, very self-reflexive, very circumscribed?