XFM's Top British Songs of All Time

XFM counted down what they considered the "definitive list" of the top British songs of all time. It's a travesty. Oasis has 9 songs on the countdown, including 4 in the top 10 and all three of the top spots. "Live Forever" is apparently the greatest British rock song of all time (it is, admittedly, a pretty good song).

By comparison, the Beatles have 5 songs in the top 100 and have no song that ranks higher than 18th ("Hey Jude"), behind Arctic Monkeys' "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor," Muse's "Knights Of Cydonia," Pulp's "Common People," and The Jam's "A Town Called Malice." That last one stings (The Jam also have five songs on the list). Neither "Yesterday" or "Let It Be" made the list.

I know that Oasis is not just revered, but well-nigh worshipped in Britain, but... this list is just unacceptable. Muse, a very good - though not historically good - band, charts seven times ("Plug In Baby," for example, charts a few spots ahead of both "Come Together" and "Paint It Black"), while Led Zepplin charts a grand total of once (#51, 'Whole Lotta Love'). The Cure also only charts once (#79, "Close To Me,"), while The Verve and Arctic Monkey's both have two songs on the list and are both in the top ten.

How does a British radio station with some form of credibility expect to get away with this?

Now THAT'S How You Do It.

I've gotten awfully tired of mediocre online promotions - The Dark Knight's was particularly spotty, as I recall, with both a clever "I Believe In Harvey Dent" poster campaign and a series of lousy YouTube videos - and that's why I'm excited about "Yo Teach!"

"Yo Teach!" is the fake and deliberately terrible sitcom promoting Judd Apatow's new comedy Funny People, a riff on the "Welcome Back Kotter" teacher-who-cares three-camera show, but if you stumbled over it (and lacked any knowledge of current pop culture) you wouldn't know it's fake. It's hosted on NBC.com, it has a real listed start time (Sept. 27th) and ad campaign "School's Back In Session This September!" Plus it stars Jason Schwartzman as "Mark Taylor Jackson," a completely unaware falling star.

There's both a clip and an EPK available. Watch the EPK first. In fact, I'll embed it.


My favorite bit is Jason Schwartzman's "hard to argue with that!" delivery in "Student Body." Is it just me, or does this look like it could honestly be a real comedy pilot on Fox five years ago?

ESPN: Fantasy Focus

I mentioned earlier I was a part of ESPN's top fantasy league the other day, the Man's League, run by Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz, their two top fantasy columnists. As such, I was a guest on the ESPN: Fantasy Focus podcast yesterday. I was a little nervous, but I still think it's cool that I was a guest, so I'll include the link here. I'm on from about 10 minutes from the end on.

You'll find it terribly boring if you don't follow fantasy baseball, of course. I'm just kinda proud.

Empire Online: The Cryptic Canvas

I had loads of fun with this:

In honor of their 20th anniversary, Empire Online released a movie game called The Cryptic Canvas, a painting with 50 different movie titles hidden inside. Some are simple and straightforward, some are groaners, and some are fiendishly difficult. It's a good waste of a time while you're doing something else.

Here's a hint right out of the gate: all of the movies are from the past 20 years.


I've completed the puzzle, so I won't give anything away, but if you get stuck I'll put some hints for some of the hard ones in the comments, though even then I won't give anything away.