us|against|them checks out my Top Albums of the Decade list and finds it wanting. I’m not going to make any comments about Us V Them’s taste (or lack of it!) but I do find it interesting just how little common ground there is even among people who listen to what you might broadly call ‘alternative music’. My list isn’t a pop one by any stretch of most imaginations – indeed looking at it I’m struck by how indie-weighted my album purchases still are. But then I think ‘indie’ means a different thing to somebody brought up on Factory and Rough Trade than to somebody brought up on the close-knit local scenes you get in the US, where – massive generalisation here – I get the feeling community is more important than diversity.
(But let me appeal to the readers who come here from places like Us Vs Them, or Kempa or westernhomes – what am I missing out on? If my knowledge of the 90s is so shockingly lacking that I’m getting only a 2% strike rate, then surely you lot must be able to offer some advice?)