SCOOP - NME Album Of The Year Editor's note: this post is going to stick at the top of the page for the rest of today as we feel it raises some important issues about the mainstream media, blogs and of course the music industry. Londonist will update as usual underneath this post. Today, NME publishes its annual Album Of The Year poll. For the benefit of our overseas readers, that's the New Musical Express, the UK's longest-running weekly music journal. The NME being the tastemakers that they are, this is a well-respected poll, with a coveted #1 spot. Well-respected, that is, until now... It has come to our attention that this year, NME may have chosen to publish a doctored version of the aforementioned poll. According to our source, the list of albums printed in this week's publication does not reflect the opinions of its writers, as you might expect. Instead, we're told you'll find a heavily edited version which, we have on good faith, takes some commercial and political factors into consideration. In the document we saw were the actual results of the poll, according to the votes of the NME staff, which we can now compare with the version that appears in today's NME. We notice, for example, that Babyshambles appear at #9 in the published poll, despite fairing particularly badly in the 'genuine' poll. Dare we speculate that Mr. Doherty shifts too many papers for him to be outside the top 10? At least we can glean what NME's reviewers really think of Babyshambles album... Another band who seem to have shot up the rankings according to the list in today's paper is Oasis, who appear at number 24. This hefty leap is nearly matched by Elbow, who have also made the move from near the foot of the chart to a quite respectable number 35. There are four other artists whose positions in the published chart are nothing short of miraculous when compared to the original: Madonna, Kate Bush, the Brakes, and Test Icicles. These entries might be excused on the basis that they are relatively recent albums that might have been released after the votes were counted. But hang on, the Brakes album came out back in July, did it not? So why do the Brakes now find themselves at #40? And how come their sibling band British Sea Power drop down several places from their initial standing? Others disappear completely, having featured in the writers' votes. Whither have New Order, Patrick Wolf, Beck, Wrens, Cut Copy and the Tears fled? Lastly - and this is probably the most contentious discrepancy of all - the order of the top four or five results (including the number one spot, which is taken by Bloc Party in the published list) appear to have been shifted around slightly to reflect what is presumably editorial bias. If we were Arcade Fire, we'd be feeling pretty cheated right about now. As any music lover will know, end-of-year polls are important, as are lists in general (see High Fidelity). Hence, it would be extremely disappointing if the Album Of The Year list we spend hours discussing in the pub is almost completely arbitrary. They might as well have plucked the results out of a hat, for God's sake... Care to explain what external factors could possibly have influenced the poll to this extent, NME?