Rewind is the annual year-in-review issue of The Wire, a British music magazine founded in 1982. The year-end issues have been published every January since 1986, adopting the current "Rewind" title in 1997. Each year-end issue has included an annual critics' poll, collating critics' ballots into a list of the year's best releases. The polls survey writers affiliated with the magazine.
Across its history, critics' polls in The Wire have tended to reflect the magazine's eclectic, avant-garde sensibility and coverage of experimental music across a broad variety of genres. The magazine's first few polls were limited to selecting the best jazz LP of the year, in accordance with its original focus on jazz music. As the magazine's coverage expanded, it began incorporating other lists of the best albums in selected non-jazz genres, but kept the jazz poll at the centre. In 1990 the magazine had its first all-genre poll, and the following year the main poll opened to include albums from any musical genre. Beginning in 2011, the main poll expanded to encompass not only albums, but any musical release of any length in any conceivable format. Nevertheless, the poll has typically continued to emphasise releases from the album format above all others.
History
1985–1991: jazz era
The early polls were limited to jazz albums, mirroring the magazine's focus at that time, but the purview gradually expanded; by 1990, the main jazz list was published alongside lists for blues, Latin music, "composition" (i.e., classical music) and "suspect rock" (i.e., experimental rock). The magazine published an all-genre poll for the first time in 1991, a so-called "open vote 'beyond' category" that was still subordinate to the "main" list of jazz and improvised releases. The Mix, a remix album by German electronic group Kraftwerk, was the first release to top an all-genre poll.
1992–2010: Record of the Year
In 1992, The Wire stopped privileging its jazz poll and instead began to designate its all-genre poll as its primary year-end list. The blurb accompanying that year's poll announced that the "main chart takes the form of an all-inclusive, open-ended category—contributors were asked to vote for their favourite records across all genres, from jazz to Techno, opera to Africa, metal to Minimalism." The magazine continued to publish genre-specific lists, including for jazz. In 1993, The Wire started calling its all-genre poll the "Record of the Year".
2011–present: Release of the Year
In 2011, The Wire switched the name of its annual critics' poll from Records of the Year to Releases of the Year. The change meant that critics could cast votes for "any self-contained audio entity, be it a vinyl LP, 12" EP, cassette, CD, download, mixtape, etc." Editor-in-chief Tony Herrington explained the reasoning and observed how it had changed critics' submissions:
The cover design for the 2017 Rewind—published January 2018, issue number 407—was a work of interactive audiovisual art. Using a custom augmented reality app, a smart device's camera would show the abstract magazine cover as a three-dimensional, with accompanying audio. The project was cited in the 2019 book The Fundamentals of Graphic Design as "an immersive and dynamic experience perfectly reflecting the publication's long-running championing of experimental approaches to making and performing music."
Critics' polls Year Artist Album Musical genre Nation Poll name 1985
Decode Yourself Avant-garde jazz US
1986
Song X Avant-garde jazz 1987
In All Languages Avant-garde jazz
1988
Live in Bologna Avant-garde jazz 1989
Ming's Samba Avant-garde jazz
1990
Time on My Hands Avant-garde jazz
Cecil Taylor in Berlin '88 Avant-garde jazz 1991
Lost and Found Avant-garde jazz
Kraftwerk
Electronic DEU 1992 Arrested Development 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... Alternative hip hop US
1993 Björk Debut Electronic pop ISL
1994 Portishead Dummy Trip hop UK 1995 Tricky Maxinquaye Trip hop 1996 Tortoise Millions Now Living Will Never Die Post-rock US 1997
Shleep Art rock UK 1998 Sonic Youth
Experimental rock US 1999 Mouse on Mars Niun Niggung Electronic DEU 2000 Antipop Consortium Tragic Epilogue Alternative hip hop US 2001 Björk Vespertine Electronic pop ISL 2002 Sonic Youth Murray Street Experimental rock US 2003
Cuckooland Art rock UK 2004
Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings Avant-garde jazz US 2005
Lost and Safe Folktronica 2006 Burial Burial Dubstep UK 2007
Comicopera Art rock 2008
London Zoo Dubstep 2009 Broadcast and The Focus Group
Psychedelic pop and sampledelia 2010 Actress Splazsh Tech house UK 2011
Far Side Virtual Vaporwave US
2012
Quarantine Avant-pop 2013
Loud City Song Avant-pop 2014 Aphex Twin Syro Electronic UK 2015 Jlin Dark Energy Footwork US 2016
Blackstar (★) Art rock UK 2017
Paradiso Sound collage US 2018 Sons of Kemet Your Queen Is a Reptile Avant-garde jazz UK 2019 75 Dollar Bill I Was Real Psychedelic rock US 2020
Workaround Electronic UK 2021 L'Rain Fatigue Avant-pop US 2022
¡Ay! Avant-pop Colombia 2023 Yo La Tengo This Stupid World Indie rock US
See also Pazz & Jop – a critics' poll conducted by The Village Voice HMV's Poll of Polls – music retailer HMV's aggregate year-end poll compiling various publications' polls (including The Wires), published from 1998–2012
Citations
References
External links Charts at — includes every Rewind poll since 1994, including genre specialist charts