Musically 2007 has been rather a disappointment in terms of musical releases: the number of underwhelming second albums emitted was vast (chief among them Bloc Party’s A Weekend In The City, which followed the potent debut of Silent Alarm like a come-down follows a crack high) and as for new music, well, it seems that an army of mindless clones has come to dominate British music, with a pack of identiket twats wielding guitars peddling pure populism and releasing music devoid of any creativity or spirit. Their music sounds so similar it all sort of blurs into one gloopish gulf of heartless riffs and shoddy beats, some creative void that might snag itself in your head but will ultimately just make you despise the unmemorable idiots that created it the more you consider it, or rather it would if you could tell them apart from those others ones who are exactly the same, except their drummer wears a hat.

It is lot like the glut of synth-wielding bands we experienced two years ago except for more larger, more popular and much, much worse. So for my Christmas wish I long for the death of this syndicate at some point in early 2008, preferably in a suitably gory and decisive fashion and to be replaced with far more moments akin to the most sublime point of 2007: the release of Radiohead’s new album.

It seems that the internet is finally blossoming into everything that it was promised it would be. The unorthodox release of In Rainbows is only one manifestation of this revolution, which has influenced every genre to an unprecedented extent. It rises beyond the greatest difficulties for distribution, the most inescapable problems for a band: what limit is mere geography in a world harnessed by wires of light? What relevance has province, country, even continent when you can listen to music from Cuba or Quebec as quickly as Coventry or Cornwall? Truly, there are no limits to this progress beyond those which people set themselves. The internet browser can be aimed anywhere that exists, an ability that enables it to overpower all media that preceded it with ease. What were previously monopolies now have only as much power as we allow them.

For instance the rant I began with to build momentum was based only upon the pap that the mainstream radio stations insist on playing. But why should I bother with this when I can watch instrumental Reggae Metal on YouTube or listen to the Bikini Kill reminiscent wails of all-girl Taqwacore from Canada? No reason at all, and it is the realisation of this that ultimately frees every music lover to pursue their own passions rather than taking what is on offer from the mainstream sources, which all too often is pre-fabricated, demographically-considered, meticulously-packaged, primly-plucked and carefully-presented nonsense or else just a bunch of dumb cunts who were set loose with memes (see: “The View are on fire”) and hefty marketing budgets by a bunch of industry twats after “Authenticity”.

There is no call to dismiss everything that you will find played on stations such as Radio 1 (Zane Lowe remains a man around a year ahead of the game and in pop-terms tracks such as Heartbroken really are pieces of blissful, bass-heavy brilliance) but the fact remains that it is simply impossible for any radio station or all of them to cater for everybody’s musical tastes. The internet may still not be entirely capable of managing this but more than any other tool in history it comes close. May 2008 see the expansion of its brilliance.

Oh yeah, and I hope that the Foals album is as good as their singles. If it is it will not only make up for the dearth of 2007 excellence but also all human atrocities and climate change.

R.E. Vamp’s 2007 highlights:

Radiohead - In Rainbows
Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris
Serj Tankian - Elect The Dead
Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Laura Marling - My Manic and I
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Is Is
Soulja Boy - Crank That
T2 & Jodie - Heartbroken