Poll of Polls: Elbow win it

HMV's annual Poll of Polls has, for the second year running, agreed with musicOMH's pick for album of the year.

Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid topped the list drawn up from critics' favourites this year. LCD Soundsystem's Sound Of Silver was the winner in 2007.

The full chart looks like this:

1) The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow

2) Third - Portishead

3) DIG!!! LAZARUS, DIG!!! - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

4) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

5) Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

6) Dear Science - TV On The Radio

7) Oracular Spectacular - MGMT

8) For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver

9) Glasvegas - Glasvegas

10) Made In The Dark - Hot Chip

UK's biggest selling albums of 2008

So the top selling albums in the UK in 2008, according to the Official Charts Company, were:

1) Rockferry - Duffy  

2) The Circus - Take That 

3) Only By The Night - Kings of Leon 

4) Spirit - Leona Lewis 

5) Viva La Vida... Or Death And All His Friends - Coldplay 

6) Good Girl Gone Bad - Rihanna 

7) Day & Age - The Killers 

8) Out of Control - Girls Aloud 

9) Funhouse - Pink 

10) Scouting For Girls - Scouting For Girls

Two of these made our Top 50 Albums Of 2008 list - Kings of Leon, contentiously, given its 2.5 stars rating, and Girls Aloud. (Duffy, for the record, would have been No 55, but given Top 50s only go as far as 50 by definition, she didn't make it.)

Six of the Top 10 were North American imports.

Duffy sold 1,685,000 copies of Rockferry, which was produced by Bernard Butler and released through A&M, part of Polydor.  The major label group, owned by Universal, was also responsible for Take That, Girls Aloud and the million-selling Mamma Mia! soundtrack, the year's bestselling compilation album.

Critics' favourites Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, TV On The Radio, Amadou & Mariam and Elbow (Polydor's Mercury winners) were nowhere to be seen.  Nor, in fact, were any releases from independent labels.

For the record, the two biggest selling tracks of the year helped line Simon Cowell's pockets a little more. The top 10 were:

1) Hallelujah - Alexandra Burke 

2) Hero - X Factor finalists 

3) Mercy - Duffy 

4) I Kissed A Girl - Katy Perry 

5) Rockstar - Nickelback 

6) American Boy - Estelle/ Kanye West 

7) Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon 

8) Now You're Gone - Basshunter 

9) 4 Minutes - Madonna/ Justin Timberlake 

10) Black & Gold - Sam Sparro

Are you thrilled?  Surprised?  Despairing?  Did you buy any of these?  

Eartha Kitt dies aged 81

Eartha Kitt, the singer, cabaret star and actress once described by Orson Welles as "the most exciting woman in the world", died on Christmas Day, aged 81, after a battle with colon cancer.

In a wildly varied life Kitt, born in the cotton fields of Carolina, played Catwoman in the Batman TV series, starred opposite Sidney Poitier on the silver screen, played both the Fairy Godmother and Wicked Witch Of The West in stage productions of Cinderella and The Wizard Of Oz respectively, voiced Kaa the python in a BBC radio adaptation of The Jungle Book, worked with Bronski Beat on the 1989 hit Cha-Cha Heels and gave several benefit concerts supporting HIV/AIDS organisations. 

The woman who defined the term "sex kitten" performed her final London shows in 2008 at the Pigalle Club in Piccadilly.

Zavvi, latest high street victim, goes into administration

Zavvi, the music retailer formerly known as Virgin Megastores, has been placed in administration, adding further woe to an already miserable year for high street shops and music retailing.

Zavvi's website has been unable to sell anything since the collapse of the Woolworths-owned EUK distributor, Zavvi's main supplier. It has been reported that Zavvi owed a substantial sum to EUK. Administrator Ernst & Young have said they'll try to keep the chain running until a buyer can be found for the business.

In the same week as Whittard of Chelsea and The Officers Club folded and Woolworths' administrators began to close their shops, Zavvi's failing will leave even more shopworkers concerned for their 2009 outlook; the company operated 125 shops across the UK.

If Zavvi closes it would leave the record industry with just HMV, owners of Fopp and Waterstones, as the last major music chain selling their physical products on the high street. It's unlikely that pressure from supermarkets and the internet, in particular Amazon, will let up on the business, but the failures of Woolworths and Zavvi in quick succession should at least give His Master's Voice a breathing space.

In better news, independent record seller Rough Trade, celebrating its 30th birthday in 2008, reported its business growing by an impressive 7% year-on-year despite being caught up in the failure of the distributor Pinnacle earlier this month. If big chains failing offers hope to the likes of Rough Trade, perhaps there's some semblance of a silver lining to the gloom. Here's hoping so at least.