For heavens sake; it's only a subjective view of the year. How anyone can take *any* end of year list seriously is, quite frankly, fucking hilarious in my book; it just makes some interesting reading. I remember reading an interview with John Peel about how he came up with the results of the Festive 50 each year, and even he admitted that his ledger book was open for a bit of self-manipulation.
I'm hoping that any NME manipulation was more to keep the list in line with readership expectations rather than record company pressure. As shit as NME is; it's still the last of the UK music weekly magazines, and is doing anything it can to keep it's head above water in the IPC Media group - let's not let it go the same way as Melody Maker. There are a whole group of kids from Barnstable to Banff who use it to get information on new bands that they probably wouldn't have heard; not everyone wants, or is able to, read blogs on a regular basis.
That said; the most abhorrent thing about the current NME is the blatant advertising of their tours, club nights and web store. What next? Their own label? That would seem a bit far fetched, until you think about how much they've managed to commoditize their brand in the last 10 years. Still, for all the dumbing down (and there is a lot – just look at the letters page) it’s still my guilty pleasure. Some people like fly-fishing, some people like dwarf porn, I’ll take NME any day (you can’t do the others on an elliptical machine at the gym)…
Cheeky Rapide (Age: 33 1/9th)

Oh - and I remember reading that Brakes got bunked up the list after the 'alleged massaging'. As much as I said lists were wank; Brakes were number two in my top albums of this year; so I’m happy to see that :-)