I'm curious how other people go about this. I'm sure some are much more methodical than others. How do you compile your year-end list?

Do you have a running list throughout the year (from the discussions here, it seems some folks do this), or do you just have a list of candidates that you re-visit at the end of the year to determine how they rank? Do you actually give each album a ranking (ABC system, 5-star, 1-10, etc.) or do you use some other system?

Share with us if you like. I'll share my system in the first post.

The last couple of years, for various reasons, I've been able to listen to approximately 400 albums, so I compile a top 50 year-end list. Some of these 400 are dismissed pretty quickly, but I'd say that at least 200 I've listened to more than once. The stuff I like, I keep listening to until I start to get a little tired of it, then I put it on the shelf for a while.

I give everything an A to F ranking. This can get a little ridiculous when I'm trying to decide between C and D, for instance, because it's not going to make much difference in the end. I also use the +/- system, but only at the A and B level.

Based on this system, I determined 59 albums that were worthy of consideration for my list. I started re-visiting these, and determining their final order, while driving home to visit my family for Thanksgiving. I do this in sort of a countdown format, listening to albums that are either going to get squeezed out of the top 50 or barely make it first. I'll work my way down (or up) the list to the contenders for the top spot between now and Christmas.

My goal is to be done by Christmas, and then to spend the last week of the year working on the cd compilation that I give to select friends. If there's time, I might allow myself to labor a little over the top 10, and maybe even those on the fringe of the top 50.

EDIT: Minor wording change.

I'm not so analytical. When I sit down to make the list I draft an email to myself (I hate Word), then I just start moving stuff around until it feels right. 1 through 15 are figured out, but 16 to 20 feel like afterthoughts. I'd rather not have them on there at all if that's the case.

I usually write to the bands I'm considering, and see how much they're willing to pay for prominent placement on my prestigious list. Then I rank them by the size of the check they send me back.

I'm kidding of course. I usually make a list of stuff I liked (to any degree) and start relistening to it and ranking it. As I keep relistening to stuff, it usually moves around quite a bit.

Ditto.

I've never done it before, but this year, I'm trying to make a list as I buy more albums. I listen to each of the albums on my list periodically and if I decide I like it more or less, I move it.

This way, I won't have to do so much thinking when it's time to submit. (I'm not going to post it until very late, because there are some CDs I probably won't get until after Christmas.)

I usually have 40 - 50 new albums to listen to and go into the list.

I put them in rough order as the year goes, then in December my girlfriend and I take a long road trip.

I give them a score and see where it all ends up.

I hold artistic license for the end list if something just does not seem right, but this is only used sparingly.

I start pretty early in the year, as I too make a large CD compilation of selects from the year's best as I heard it for family/friends/coworkers for the Holidays.

I generally buy around 100-120 CDs a year, and try to give at least everything at least five spins (Commuting Daily in the Los Angeles area aids this cause immensley). All year long, I keep a running best of list going in a year end file, which I constantly tweak, so by the time year end lists come around, there's little left to decide.

That said, this year has been a difficult to stay on top of with a such large bulk of the better releases coming so late in the second half of the year.

I write down all the albums I have that were released this year, and then choose about 25-30 for consideration. Once I get it down to 20, I go to work. I usually have a pretty good idea of my top 5, but with the rest, I'll give them a quick listen. This usually entails not listening to the entire album, but just sort of "cruising" through them, maybe listening to 2 or 3 entire songs.

I've bought over 70 albums this year and plan on buying another 23-25 or so before I do my list. I also have heard quite a few more on the internet. Like LD, I make a list with grades. I grade from A+ to F. For example, here's how I have it now: I have 16 A+s, 18 As, 19 A-s, 16 B+s, 12 Bs, 14 B-s, 11 C+s, 16 Cs, 10 C-s, 4 D+s, 4 Ds, and 2 Fs. Because of the amount in each category, I won't be putting my top 20 in order, but my list will enable me to make a top 20.

quote:

Originally posted by MattD:
I've bought over 70 albums this year and plan on buying another 23-25 or so before I do my list. I also have heard quite a few more on the internet. Like LD, I make a list with grades. I grade from A+ to F. For example, here's how I have it now: I have 16 A+s, 18 As, 19 A-s, 16 B+s, 12 Bs, 14 B-s, 11 C+s, 16 Cs, 10 C-s, 4 D+s, 4 Ds, and 2 Fs. Because of the amount in each category, I won't be putting my top 20 in order, but my list will enable me to make a top 20.

Relieved to see that someone else is as analytical about this as I am.

Most current albums I get are to review, about 15-20 a year, I'll only buy an additional 10 or so, max, only ones I really want. At the end of the year I'll get them all in a list and cut'n'paste asking the question 'did I enjoy album A more or less than album B?', and so on, til I have an ordered list.

Apart from that the 100+ other albums I listen to are catch-ups from the last 50 years or so of music. There's a hell of a lot of great music that DIDN'T come out in 2006, by the way!

I simply write down all the albums I listened to that particular year (53 this year). Half of them are easily eliminatable. The other half I just kind of start getting a working order, and then I come back through and fine tune my list. Although this year seemed especially hard to differentiate between my top ten. I'm not sure if I had to do it again my list would be the same.

To make my final list, the record has to be great and fully listenable from head to toe-- all the way through.

I tend to make a "laundry list" of something like 100 releases. It tends to be just about anything/everything worthwhile I've heard in a year's span, including re-released shit, box sets, etc.

Then my "longlist" is about 50 to 60 releases. At this point I've hacked off releases by saying "yeah, but I don't really care about that, do I?" or "yeah but that had (one, two, three) good song(s)." This helps me build my singles list.

My "shortlist" is about 30 to 40 releases. These are some of my absolute, most-listened-to records of a given year. At this point, it becomes a lot harder to lop off entries, so I reluctantly take off any re-releases, non-American '06 releases, leaked '07 releases and so on. Of course, any of these rules can be superceded when I feel like it.

From my "shortlist" to my "top list"-- this is where its painful. Again, I strip things down to their absolute bare bones and consider how much I'll be listening to it over the next couple of years of my life. I consider the cultural significance and balance it with my preference.

Often times, the tie breaker is my straight-up genre taste (for example, last year I put "Mezmerize" over a lot of great releases because I'm biased to metal)

Chronologically, the release is more and more likely to be on my list if I've listened to it for exactly two to four months. After four months, even if the release is excellent, it tends to get lost in the shuffle of things.

EDIT: I handwrite all of this shit in my private notebook where I keep poems and freewrites. More intimate that way.

Props to you Yay! That is a lot of effort. Do you get paid to make your year end list?

I made a tentative list about a month ago. Since mid-november I've listened almost exclusively to 2006 releases.

For this weekend, I made an itunes playlist. I picked two random songs from each 2006 album I own and put them on the playlist (108 songs). I will try and get through the playlist this weekend (almost 9 hours long) and see which songs stand out and how they sound when placed next to another contender. This is by no means an exact science, but it will help me put my Jan/Feb/Mar faves next to my current faves and see how they compare. I don't want to favour new releases just because they are more fresh in my mind.

Really, I'm just trying to have fun with it. If I forget an album or have the order slightly off, I will live.

quote:

I don't want to favour new releases just because they are more fresh in my mind.

This is the reason for 90 percent of the entries on top albums lists.

You think its a coincidence all the good/critically acclaimed releases are rolled out July/August - October/November? This is when critics/magazines start their year-end lists.

The record companies aren't stupid. They know this. This is why there's a paltry release schedule December - February, because most critics forget about those releases or don't look at them at all when considering their lists.

For example, why do you think both Low's and Explosions' releases are coming out on March 20 next year?

Because that's how the industry coordinates it. Spring, Summer and Fall are the thirds. Spring is big releases, Summer is big tour packages and off-peak releases, Fall is the serious music, re-releases and expensive box sets.

I hear you on that Yay!

It makes me worried that because the Shins Wincing the Night Away is coming out in January and will likely receive less year-end love.

It's even more obvious with movie releases. Most movies that are released in Jan/Feb/March are real stinkers. I was so surprised when I first saw Fargo in the theatres because it was released in Jan or Feb. It blew my mind, because it was so awesome. I think it ended up winning 5 oscars, so I guess there are exceptions, but not many.

It's a valid point in the sad-but-true vein.

quote:

Originally posted by Musicalifragilistic:
Props to you Yay! That is a lot of effort. Do you get paid to make your year end list?

I have in the past, and this is the process I used. I still use it now because its what I'm used to and, hell, I think its fun.

I became a bit of an essentialist arbiter when I was an arts journalist, so its an involved process that took a shorter time than you might think. By cutting through the crap among the underappreciated/underexposed, you get clued into some great, obscure stuff that way. It involved a lot of mulling.

Remember that Kakilak Family record that P4K gave a BNM rating to last year? Of course you don't. Well I was on that record two months before they were. I never reviewed it, but I listened to it and dug it.

Its fulfilling in a neat, esoteric kind of way when you can be a semi-professional rock critic and beat VV, Spin or P4K to a punch.

quote:

Originally posted by Musicalifragilistic:
It's a valid point in the sad-but-true vein.

To me it is what it is. I accept it as part of the music/movie/entertainment industry. Its why I read "Entertainment Weekly" or "Variety" without active shame anymore. Its like "Whatever, dude, its an informative trade publication. Get off me."

As we speak, all the Oscar-worthy movies are coming out: "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Apocalypto," "Letters from Iwo Jima" (a companion to "Flags of Our Fathers")-- its all the same.

I'm way more methodical than most people here. I've never been diagnosed with Asperger's, but let's just say I have strong suspicions.

What I do is every quarter of the year I take all the albums I bought during that time and listen to them each a few times. Then I try to make a top five from them based on those listens. If I'm not absolutely sure, I will take all the borderline albums and listen to them until I'm sure about which of them I like the most.

I picked five because at one point I figured out that, if my top ten albums are equally likely to occur in each quarter, there is a 33% chance that one quarter will have at least 5 of them, but only an 8% chance that any will have 6.

The reason I break it into quarters is because 1) 20 albums is more manageable than 80 and 2) I don't want to have that recency bias Yay mentioned.

Then when I take those five from each quarter, I do basically the same thing. I listen to them, put them in vague order, and wherever I'm uncertain about the order I listen to them again until I'm sure.

I tend to like and criticize albums for different things than most of the other people on this board, and that seems to make me a target sometimes. But what really makes me like or dislike an album is pretty much empirical measurement of my own tastes. (Which I am well aware, is weird, and don't care).