Platt Cool List

So, very sorry indeed about this whole dealio... it's been over two weeks since I last posted, mostly due to my inability to balance this with both bill-paying and getting a job to facilitate the former. But I return with a slightly late retort to the NME Cool list after Beth Ditto from the now-excellent The Gossip nicked this year's meaningless honour. No doubt she is cool, but these are the coolest people in our music world right now...

10. Joanna Newsom - Possibly mental but winsome, beautiful and truly charming. Couple this with her making arguably the year's best record and you have one cool chick.

9. Bob Dylan - The bugger can barely sing anymore but his stock has never been higher. Topped the U.S charts for the first time in bloody ages, was in a brilliant documentary at the end of last year and, that aforementioned record, was far better than it had any right to be.

8. Green Gartside - Scritti Politti return with avengeance and likely their best ever album and this now bearded pop-genius sits atop their hard-won throne.

7. Tom Jenkinson - Squarepusher's main man remains the finest exponent of challenging electronica and has now managed two superb, utterly polar records and is now some sort of untouchable within the knob-twiddling community.

6. Ana Matronic - Just ridiculously cool, curvaceous redhead whose brassy sexuality is irrestible, admirable and, as I've already said, cool.

5. Thurston Moore - No real explanation needed but after the brilliant Rather Ripped, he's straight back in to my cool list.

4. Colin Meloy - Likely a slightly mental kind of guy in a quaint sort of way, you cannot deny the utter brilliance of his new album with The Decemberists and therefore, cannot deny his cool.

3. Romeo Stodart - The Magic Numbers mainman is cuddly, talented and SO lovely and has made what I promise will be the sleeper classic of the year.

2. Tom Waits - Just plain the coolest man on the planet. Continues making music you either love or loathe but I fuckin' love it and Orphans, 54 tracks of barn-busting brilliance is just an orgasm for the right pair of ears.


AND THE WINNER IS...


1. Cat Power - She's just made her most lush, beautiful record and just oozes cool. Live too, she is bewitchingly beautiful, gawkily charming and worth every penny for the heartstopping beauty of that voice.