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How Do You Make Your Year-End List?


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I make a list of all the albums I really liked. Then, each week or so for the last two months of the year, I do a blind rank of the albums using a corresponding point system. 1st place = 10 points; 10th place = 1 point. Then I rank the albums according to the tallied points. It works best for me because the albums I like all stay the same, but the intensity with which I like them varies constantly.

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I do it by playcounts in iTunes.

I list the albums in contention for 2009 and then jot down the total play count of all songs on the album. I adjust each a little based on how often I spin the record or listen in my car.

Highest number wins and so on down the line. It was the only way for me to give any sort of measure to the process. I've found that I overlook things any other way, and it really helps me to differentiate albums that are more solid all around from albums that may have one great song and a bunch of filler. When I first did this, I noticed that when I just selected without looking at the numbers I had a tendency to pick the albums with one great song over albums that I enjoyed more completely for some reason.

Like last year -- Sybris's Into The Trees is a record I wouldn't have selected to make my list had I just thought about it. But when I looked at the total play counts, it was in my top 10 most listened to albums of the year. So I obviously really liked the record even though I would have otherwise passed it up.

Kind of crazy, I know.

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I keep a running list throughout the course of the year on my phones notepad (since I always have my phone handy and can add/edit at any given time)

around the first part of December i'll email that list to myself, transfer it into a google document then get to work on sorting it out.

Usually when I sit down to do that I have a damn good idea what top 3 is so I'll work out a rough draft of my top 10/15 and do at least one or two more drafts to sort it out and get what I feel like is a fairly accurate representation of my absolute favorite records of a given year.

a complicated way to come to what is a very personally subjective decision.

:EDIT:

What's funny is I posted this before reading the link and I see that my method is not too different from the authors.

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I have a file with all the reviews i did that got really high scores (all of the *rimshot), i re-read what i wrote, listen to the records again and figure out if i fucked up somewhere. then i make a list of all the stuff i bought and listened to that i didn't review cause i'm an idiot and i feel and obligation to people who send me stuff more to cover them before what i want to cover and combine the two lists. then i listen to everything again and cut it up into 25 records. then i drink a lot and feel like i'm wasting my time and no one cares. its a great ritual.

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I list the albums I really enjoyed. An unprecedented approach, I know.

unprecedented in that you don't obsessively arrange those albums you enjoyed into an arbitrary number that designates "this album was my favorite of the year, the rest are X amount of albums I really REALLY enjoyed as well" like the rest of us do! ;)

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Also -- I notice that as years progress, I have fewer and fewer albums from a given year to choose from. Seems I'm enjoying new releases less and less as years go by.

I always harassed my dad for only listening to his fogie rock and ignoring most new music. Apparently, I'm doing the same thing bit by bit.

I listened to as much stuff from 1999 as I did from 2009 this year, if not more.

Moral: never fuck with pops.

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I don't, because I don't think anyone really cares what I think.

Haha, that's what I think when my friend sends me his top 20 albums of the year and they're all goofy Scandinavian Metal bands. But I continue to do it anyways.

I guarantee this is Urban.

And my system's pretty basic, too -- I sort my iTunes by year then type up records I particularly enjoyed in a text file. I keep a running playlist of my favorite songs of the year, too, so I end up going through that to make sure I didn't miss anything. I also check out my last.fm stats to see what I've given the most spins to, and the last step is going through my car's back seat to see what albums have hung around the longest in there.

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Haha, that's what I think when my friend sends me his top 20 albums of the year and they're all goofy Scandinavian Metal bands. But I continue to do it anyways.

I guarantee this is Urban.

I say JB. Urban at least branches out into other kinds of metal. JB ONLY listens to stupid folk/fantasy metal.

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And my system's pretty basic, too -- I sort my iTunes by year then type up records I particularly enjoyed in a text file. I keep a running playlist of my favorite songs of the year, too, so I end up going through that to make sure I didn't miss anything.

this is me. after sorting it i look at the list and make an objective, gut decision on what is better than what. then i write them down in a word doc and think about what nice things i can say about them that i haven't already said on my website. then i format that shit and post it.

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And my system's pretty basic, too -- I sort my iTunes by year then type up records I particularly enjoyed in a text file. I keep a running playlist of my favorite songs of the year, too, so I end up going through that to make sure I didn't miss anything.

this is me. after sorting it i look at the list and make an objective, gut decision on what is better than what. then i write them down in a word doc and think about what nice things i can say about them that i haven't already said on my website. then i format that shit and post it.

I can't remember. Didn't you have your collection sliced in with your girlfriend? If you're dumpedbucket now does that mean you had to do the great record separation? How did that go? Also sorry if you got broken up with.

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