It has been an extraordinary year for good music. Albums from Annie, Arcade Fire, Antony & The Johnsons, Common, Sufjan Stevens, John Legend, Konono No 1, Kanye West, The Magic Numbers, MIA, Joe Chester, Cane 141, Sons and Daughters and, best of all, Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté have made sure of that.
But it has been an extraordinary year too for bad music. Even before the new David Gray album takes over Tesco aisles every- where, we have had dull, bland, plodding, woeful fare from Cold- play, KT Tunstall and, worst of all, James Blunt.
Let's be honest: James Blunt sucks. We probably owe it to future generations to apologise right now for Blunt in much the same way as apologies are also due for Paul McCartney, ringtones and all 2FM DJs bar Larry Gogan.
But forget global warming and the damage to the planet's delicate ecosystem; Blunt is a much greater calamity. There are absolutely no redeeming qualities to his turgid, overwrought, bespoke, mass-market musical sensitivities. He is the music industry's Six Million Dollar Man - the result of a major record label having the technology and capability to make the world's first bionic singer-songwriter and the cash to make sure he's omnipresent.
Every single thing about Blunt - the vowel-clearing that changed his name from "Blount" to a user-friendly Blunt; the carefully constructed back-story, which reads like a particularly cliched Working Title film script; the patronage of Elton John; that bloody single - appears to be part of a cunning plan. Of course, he and his backers will protest, but denial is par for the course when you have a cunning plan and it is actually working.
You could blame David Gray for all of this. A little unfair, perhaps, or even a little disingenuous, but hell, why not? It was the Welsh singer-songwriter with a fine line in strenuous neck aerobics who showed that there was a market out for there for music that possessed the same appeal as scented candles. The initial success of White Ladder in Ireland is why labels keep on signing these berks and sending them over here to test the waters.
When Gray cackled in an interview around the time White Ladder was released about spawning "a nation of Grayites", we thought he was joking or talking about Paddy Casey. He probably was. But, a couple of million sales later and those Grayite feckers keep on coming with album after album of wimpy emotional ballads, music that is more research-based than anything a political party will try to sell you in the run-up to an election. It's as if Gray and Dido had kids and sent them into the world with acoustic guitars to do their worst.
It would be interesting to know how much Warner Music have spent on marketing, advertising and stealth-payola for Blunt and his Back To Bedlam album this year. It's fast heading for the one million sales mark, so the money spent on ads, plugs, retail promotions, tour support and the like must be considerable.
As the music industry knows, building an artist capable of doing serious numbers takes time and money, but it seems to be time and money well spent in the case of Blunt. He is, as they say in the business pages, delivering shareholder value and is now the most ubiquitous new name around. He will have to put up a new shelf to house all those Brits he'll get next year.
It's no wonder then that he can be touted as "the people's choice". We simply can't escape him and his dreadful music even if we want to.
But such musical angst by numbers is as disposable and interchangeable as any pop tart or tartlet you care to mention, be it Girls Aloud or Schnappi.
It may not be hawked as blatantly as most pop music, yet it's still marketed and targeted to the nth degree. Nothing is left to chance, even when you're the new Phil Collins with a posh back- story, a military history that reads well in the Daily Telegraph and this summer's most annoying tune.
