Chris Barth of Pretty Much Amazing does a... well, pretty much amazing job of summarizing the Year-End List phenomenon in music blogs. Specifically, he muses about how something he loves about music can turn out so wrong, making some astute observations along the way:
How can Paste Magazine’s top two albums – the best two records produced in the last year – not even merit mention in Blender’s top thirty-three? (Sidenote: the explanation for this is that Paste is crazy)
He even includes a list he calls "The Thinking Man’s Commandments for Making Best-Of Music Lists" where he states how Year-End Music lists should work. Here is number three:
Your list isn’t comprehensive, I promise. There will always be someone asking “where is ____?” Cut to the chase and admit that you didn’t listen to the whole Bon Iver album because you were too busy spinning “Skinny Love”. That you couldn’t get to the Brian Eno/David Byrne collaboration because it was your girlfriend’s birthday and you were slaving over a romantic mixtape. That you don’t like Beck, so you have no idea how his new album is. All Year-End lists should be titled “My/Our/Readers’ Year-End Favorites” or something of that nature.
After reading this post, I thought it was a good time, since we are halfway through our series, to see how our own lists stack up thus far to the rules he proposed (including the ones in the picture at the top).
Year-End List Manager
- Bon Iver = Street Cred. Four out of our five writers have listed a Bon Iver track. They have ranked 1st, 1st, 5th and 2nd on our lists. CHECK
- TV On the Radio MUST be in your Top 5. Only one mention of TV On the Radio so far at 7th with "Crying." Just wait for our favorite albums of the year. IN PROGRESS
- Include a minimum of 3 hip-hop records to seem "well-rounded" (Kanye West, Lil Wayne's 2134126th Mixtape, etc). Not only have we done this, we have listed "American Boy" three times by itself. We also have Lil Wayne's "Phone Home" and the Cool Kids' "Black Mags." CHECK
- She & Him SHOULDN'T be anywhere near the #1 spot. Not a single mention of Zooey so far. CHECK
- Avoid Katy Perry at all costs. This one is a little unfair. "Hot 'N Cold," along with Britney Spears's "Womanizer" and Miley Cyrus's "See You Again," have to be the most well-produced pop songs of the year. Although I am a little too embarrassed to have "Hot 'N Cold" on my iTunes, I must have visited YouTube 100 times listening to the song by now. That's over six hours of my life I'll never get back cherish forever. CHECK
- Post your Year-End List on November. Three of our Top 10 posts debuted in November. Britney Spears's Circus hadn't even come out! CHECK
Pretty "impressive" how "well" we do. I'm a little embarrassed. Then again, following this list so closely means that we have street cred and are well-rounded. Who can argue with that? Let's look at the other list:
The Thinking Man's Commandments for Making Best-Of Music Lists
- Thou shalt not write thy Year-End list until the Year-End. Sorry Chris, unfortunately we have finals and Hanukkah to worry about.
- Thou shalt not publish a list of the 100 best albums. Believe us, we couldn't spend that much time listening to that many albums, especially considering how many times we listened to Metro Station's "Shake It."
- Thou shalt not pretend to have listened to everything. Stay tuned for our "10 Albums of 2008 I Didn't Listen to that Suck" post.
- Thou shalt pick one release type and stick with it. We have tried our best by to be consistent and sticking to major label US releases in 2008, ensuring the appearance of Bon Iver. We also have a no "Paper Planes" rule.
- Thou shalt not steal. Who are we going to steal from? Paste? She & Him's Volume One was the best album of the year. Meanwhile, TV On the Radio's Dear Science, is at 50. Maybe they got it backwards.
- Thou shalt not confuse a great track with a great album. Also, a great album does not make a great track.
- Thou shalt explain thy choices. The dissonant essence of these songs sting like a haunting truth.
- Thou shalt treat mixtapes like albums. Tracks on our list include Grizzly Bear's "While You Wait for the Others" and Brendan Canning's "Churches Under the Stairs."
- Thou shalt not number your list. Sorry, it was the only way you would read our entire posts scroll to the bottom.
- Thou shalt…umm…have fun? We'll make up our own tenth rule too: "Thou shalt not use the word 'haunting' when talking about dance music."
Stay tuned for more of our Top 10 Tracks of the year.
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