Before you get indignant, I’m not suggesting that the music press has somehow disseminated itself throughout your consciousness and hijacked your opinions. My point here is that in fact, I think music is a remarkably consistent thing in that records across every genre with the ability to change your entire outlook are released every year. There are bedroom producers and garage bands hidden all over the place, secretly pushing the envelope. Admittedly, (and obviously, I would hope), the press do occasionally pick up said records, but then in doing so, they immediately establish a somewhat unavoidable bias that works in both directions - either you're gonna get snobby and reject the artist, or you're gonna decide you quite like that particular artist and get angry with all the former. Or you could be like me and get gratuitously angry at the whole affair! And thus we all alienate each other just a little more. Wonderful.

As mentioned in our review of the particularly fantastic James Blake, an infuriating selection we get every year is the BBC’s Sound of the Year award, winners of which include path breakers like, Keane? Little Boots? Mika? I daresay the most elaborate practical joke that Lebanon has ever played on the international community would have a pretty difficult time capturing the essence of a single day of anyone’s life, let alone a year. Sniping at easy targets you say? Me? Surely not.

Jean-Xavier Boucherat