Best Music Writing 2009

I'm thinking that I'd like to big up more good recent music writing on my show (previous recipients of this dubious honour include Jordan/Deej and Tom Ewing) but I'm lazy and don't want to trawl through lots of indifferent material to find such gems regularly. This is the thread where you help me (NB. no-one is getting paid here so I'm not exploiting you really).

Plus who here doesn't like a good read?

The pieces I refer to above are deej and jordan on Gucci Mane's best bootleg tracks of 2008, and assorted Popular entries by Tom (I particularly like his work on "The Winner Takes It All", "Tainted Love" and "Come On Eileen").

I'm finally reading your "Taxonomy of Vacuous Pop" thread and it's pretty amazing, so I'll nominate that.

also, "Music De La Muerte" by Sam Quinones... it appeared in the April issue of Vibe Magazine. It's about how the drug wars in Mexico has affected the country's music... really interesting stuff.

So have the finalists been announced?

I emailed Daphne a week or two ago to see what was up, and she said she'd be emailing people soon, and I never heard anything, so I guess I didn't make the cut.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/special/section/best-music-scribing-awards-2009

I emailed Daphne a link to that crazy blog entry about all the occult symbolism in Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video; I don't know if the guy will let her put it in the book, though. He seems pretty attached to his paranoid anonymity.