Make sure to download the newest episode of the pmaCAST: Looking Better, Shining Brighter Than You Do, featuring Four Tet, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The xx, Yeasayer, Department of Eagles, Hot Chip and more.

OMG. Can you believe that [X Magazine] didn’t include [underrated album Y] on their 11/12^ths-of-the-Year-End List of the best 142 albums?

Does In Rainbows count for Best of 2008 lists? What about Oracular Spectacular? Can they be on Best of 2007 AND Best of 2008 lists? Who makes the rules for these year-end spectaculars? Is it the Web Sherriff?

Is making a Best-Of-2008 list in November like selling 2009 car models in the spring of ’08?

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)

Is the Pitchfork 500 a NASCAR race?

All these questions have been bouncing around in my head over the past month, and I think it’s time to let them go free. After picking on The Hype Machine last week, I think it’s only right to look at another trend that fits the mold of Things (I Love) That Are Wrong With Music.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE year-end lists. Love them. In fact, I love lists in general – grocery lists, places I want to travel lists, Franz Liszt – all of them. There’s something very satisfying about looking back at what just happened and saying, “Hey! That was great!”. But for me, Year-End Best-Of Music Lists are like those little candy corn pumpkin things. I’m addicted to them, even though something inside tells me they’re wrong.

And they are wrong. Or rather, they’re done wrong. Everyone and their mother does Year-End Music Lists wrong. Here is how, in my fantasy universe, music lists would work:

The Thinking Man’s Commandments for Making Best-Of Music Lists:

1. Thou shalt not write thy Year-End list until the Year-End. Said list shall be published no earlier than January 15th December 20th, to allow for proper music digestion. Period.

2. Thou shalt not publish a list of the 100 best albums. Year-End lists shall contain no more than 50 albums, preferably 25 or fewer. If you can’t decide between 50 and 51, cut your list at 49. Even 50’s a stretch, seeing as each album is around an hour long and you’re going to want to listen to the good ones three or more times. By my quick calculations [(50 best albums x 3 hours each) + (100 other albums x 1 hour each) + (“I Kissed A Girl”, “Lip Gloss”, “A Milli” x 750 times each)] = a whole bunch of listening. So keep the list concise. Pretty soon we have to start making our 2009 lists, so we can’t spend too much time catching up on what we missed in ’08.

3. Thou shalt not pretend to have listened to everything. 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.

4. Thou shalt pick one release type and stick with it. If you count the UK release for one album, the US date for a second album, and the digital release of a third album, you deserve to die a slow, painful death. Select one and use it. No hedging.

5. Thou shalt not steal. Don’t use the list on Pitchfork/Stereogum/PMA/Cokemachineglow to fill in gaps in your personal picks. Be strong. If you don’t like an album, don’t list it just because you’re supposed to.

6. Thou shalt not confuse a great track with a great album. One song does not a record make. Sure there are some awesome tracks out there – tracks that make you want to pick an album for your top 10. Sigur Ros’ “Gobbledigook” does that for me. But the rest of the album doesn’t quite meet the standard of other top albums. Save it for the Top Tracks list.

7. Thou shalt explain thy choices. Seriously, a list of 50 albums that you think are stellar isn’t worth much unless you give some detail as to what those discs are all about. Explain that the Ratatat’s LP3 is full of more slower, more relaxed instrumentals than their usual bangers. Tell me that Black Milk’s Tronic is the place to look for explosively original beats. Invite me to sample the soulful sound of TV On The Radio’s Dear Science,. But explain why each album has a place in your heart so that I can figure out which of them I want to give a shot at mine.

8. Thou shalt treat mixtapes like albums. We’re starting to get into the more contentious of my positions, here. It’s my opinion that Mixtapes, be they Lil Wayne’s ramblings, Diplo’s remixes, or Esau Mwamwaya’s re-stylings, deserve to be treated like real albums. That amount of music in one place deserves to be recognized as a whole piece, rather than a collection of individual tracks. Ignoring mixtapes is the same as discrediting their makers. If you want to keep getting quality, free, non-cookie cutter music from your favorite artists, give them some love for their efforts when it comes to list-making time.

9. Thou shalt not number your list. Yeah, I said it. This is the commandment that is most frequently ignored, the product of our desire to constantly quantify everything in our lives. But when you really think about it, it is completely preposterous to try to differentiate between number 8 and number 9 in terms of overall enjoyment. What scale are albums judged on? The Pitchfork scale (10.0 highest, monkey peeing in his own mouth lowest)? The AV Club scale (A highest, F- lowest)? The Richter scale (10+ epic, under 2 micro)? Let go of the need to say this is better than that, and instead, simply appreciate great works of art. Group them in tiers, if you must, but don’t split hairs to decide which album wins. Take the red pill. Believe that rank doesn’t matter, and it will be so.

10. Thou shalt…umm…have fun? I dunno, there are really only 9 commandments. Just don’t be stupid.

Year End Lists are like chicken pox, taxes, and those Frank TV ads – unavoidable. And in many ways, that’s great. Just remember, all ye makers of lists, that with great power comes great responsibility. If you’re going to make a list this holiday season, take the time to do it right. Protect yourself, your friends, and your readers. And if you do pick a favorite album of 2008, go buy it or something. You can’t buy studio time with blog praise.

Chris Barth is a guest-blogger here at Pretty Much Amazing, and will almost certainly break most of these commandments with his own year-end lists. You can read his daily entries at his blog, The Stu Reid Experiment.

BONUS/RANDOM/NO WHERE ELSE TO PUT THESE:

Shwayze – What Am I Doing Here (samples Santogold’s “L.E.S. Artistes”)
Death From Above 1979 – Blood On Our Hands (Chromeo Remix)
Stevie Wonder – Superstition (Justice JNSTY Remix)
Britney Spears – Amnesia (Album Version)
Katy Perry & Yelle – Hot ‘N Cold

Tags: Best of 2008 Lists, Lists, The Hype Machine, The Thinking Man

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 12:33 pm by Chris Barth and is filed under Feature. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.