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Our parents may soon get hit with a watered-down dose of indie soon, as word comes from NME today that the forthcoming album from veteran crooner and all-around heebie-jeebie sorta bloke ROD STEWART will feature covers of Oasis' "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and Primal Scream's "Rocks."

OASIS will be releasing a new Japanese single out soon for "Don't Go Away," which will feature the long-sought-after-on-CD track "Sad Song," previously available only on the vinyl format of "Definitely Maybe."

Meanwhile, April appears to be the month to, erm, kill yourself. (Funny, it's been a good month for us!) But apparantly it's NOT been good for WENDY O. WILLIAMS, formerly of seminal 80's pseudo-punkers The Plasmatics, who ended her life with a shotgun blast this past Monday. Also released today was news of the death of ROZZ WILLIAMS, (no relation we suspect,) singer with the more-than-seminal, Uber-goths Christian Death. Anyone up for taking bets on how long 'til Cleopatra releases a tribute album? Us, we're betting it's a death pact with the Milli Vanilli guy.

Looks like things are officially heading to an end for the trouble-plagued BLACK GRAPE. As you'll remember, founders Shaun Ryder and Kermit got into a row around New Year's, causing Kermit to leave the band for an indefinite time period. Now NME is reporting today that Shaun Ryder has officially announced that the band is on indefinite hiatus in order for Ryder to pursue a film career.

Based in New York City but born in Leeds, pseudo-glam-rock cadets Spacehog are at it again with their second full-length, "The Chinese Album."  With current single "Mungo City" storming the US charts and a support slot for the spring/summer Aerosmith tour recently confirmed, the band could become officially massive any day now.   On Tuesday, April 7, lead guitarist Ant Langdon took time off from holiday in Florida for an EXCLUSIVE interview.

As reported at Rolling Stone's website, New Order intend to play some Joy Division tracks during their performance at the Phoenix Festival in July. In addition, the band intends to record new material together for the first time in the better part of a decade. Whether this will result in a new single, new album, or simply a few new tracks included in the box set remains unclear. It seems that the long-anticipated box set will be released in two parts, the first of which is now scheduled for June.

So now the warm fuzzies start to sink in... Our dream of the past year and a half is finally a reality, and you've officially encountered Excellent Online. The fact that you're here reading this now is all that we wanted. Allow me to formally say 'allo. My name's Shane, and I'm one of the 4 administrators of our spanky new facilities here.

Well, the final results are in, and while there are a few surprises, the
year was pretty much dominated by three bands: Radiohead, Spiritualized,
and The Verve. Over 90 albums and over 200 songs received votes, which is
one indication of how much the list has grown. In some of the categories,
I've listed more slots than last year, to give a broader perspective of
the list.

The Excellent Mailing List Top 20 Albums of 1997

Ahh... The classics..

Top 15 Albums of the Year

1. Bluetones - Expecting to Fly
2. Suede - Coming Up
3. Lush - Lovelife
4. Boo Radleys - C'Mon Kids
5. Kula Shaker - K
6. Ride - Tarantula
7. Beatles - Anthology 2
8. Trainspotting - SOUNDTRACK
9. Tricky - Pre-Mellinium Tension
10. Cardigans - First Band on the Moon
11. Blur - Live at the Budokan
12. Ash - 1977