2011 Year-End List-Making Process-Discussion Thread

How do you formulate your lists? What kind of statement are you attempting to make about 2011, music in 2011, your attitude toward music in 2011, what kind of person you are/were in 2011 as reflected through your music listening, etc., etc.? How many outlets do you have to make lists for? Do they differ substantially? If so, how and why?

i'll start with your last question: because.

I am about 90 percent done with the first lists I was asked to supply, for The Wire. Top 10 albums of the year, Top 10 reissues of the year. My albums list is about 70% metal, leaning toward meat 'n' potatoes death metal and punkish grind, and a few jazz titles. My reissues list is all jazz and Latin music.

If I'd had room (say, a Top 20), my albums of the year list would probably have contained Latin pop, some minimal (but loud) techno, and J-pop and/or K-pop titles, as well as more jazz and more metal; there are definitely albums, like Deicide's To Hell With God and Gui Boratto's III, that I wish I could make space for but can't.

When I'm making a list for The Wire, I know that my role, to some degree, is to be a knuckle-dragging American caveman, and while I don't go out of my way to be that guy, I really do listen to more metal than anything else, and I'm not gonna pretend I've heard more than 5 percent of the music covered in the magazine all year. So filling out a Top Ten for them is in some ways an exercise in futility - I know nothing I choose is gonna make the Top 50 they publish in the magazine (the one exception, ever, was in 2006, when someone besides me gave Celtic Frost's Monotheist the nod, and it made it in at like #47 or something), but my list will at least stand out from all the others published on the website.

I do the list the same way every year: I keep a running document of stuff that sounds really great to me, with a couple of notations by date e.g. "as of July this rules" etc. I organize it this month or next. The thing my list won't really reflect this year is that I listened to classical music more than anything else; that's not a field I keep current on as far as release schedules. So like my favorite things to listen to this year were collections of Scriabin's piano music and Freddy Kempf playing Prokofiev and this Russian pianist named Yevgeny Sudbin, and the Ultima Thule podcast (which I put on my year-end list last year). I think my lists in recent years reflect that I'm pretty tuned out as far as what the state of music is generally, so about me that probably says that I'm somewhat withdrawn and solitary in how I listen. That extends to metal as well as other genres, I don't really feel tuned in to what people are enjoying in metal; I loved the In Solitude record this year, and the Hate Eternal & Goreaphobia & Goatmoon & there's a new Ride for Revenge due in December, but most of the lead-review metal releases are things I don't care about at all; my dB ballot tends to end up giving 10 points to somebody who otherwise might have had, like, three altogether. This isn't "contrarianism" though at least not by design, it really is just me listening to what I like and not listening to what doesn't do it for me.

i keep an ipod playlist throughout the year and then i look at it

i got nothing. necro deathmort and pj harvey, that's about it. hell, i don't know, i only do pazz & jop and i'll find ten records somewhere for that. i don't think i even send anything in for decibel anymore. actually, last year i think they made me do one. most of it wasn't metal.

i slip in and out of consciousness as far as the current year is concerned.

scott the goreaphobia album, c'mon that shit rules

i could easily do a top 500 of albums i loved this year that didn't come out this year. and that i heard for the first time this year. but they don't have a poll for that.

i don't think i heard it. i liked that midnight album a bunch. i would vote for that somewhere.

i'm not normal though. other people will come here and be normal. i just can't get used to listening to music on a computer. i doubt i ever will. and thats how promos come now. i could email a zillion labels and they would send me a zillion albums via a zillion download links, but i don't do it.

i have to review an album this weekend and i have the download and i've been putting it off for two days and i REALLY like the group and i know it will sound horrible and i will have to pretend to be excited about it. and if i burned it to a cdr it would still sound horrible.

the future belongs to the lex!

I ordered the Goreaphobia from Sevared, to properly enjoy a metal album I like to blast it on my boombox

i feel like an idiot. sorry, phil! disregard my posts.

What kind of statement are you attempting to make about 2011

I've been drawing up year-end singles/songs lists for different publications (three, with some overlap) since 1985. The amount of new music I hear in any given year has varied, and the way I've arrived at a final list has varied too, depending upon how much I heard and how much of it I liked--there were a couple of years in the 00's where I had to scramble. But I've never tried to make any kind of a statement about any year, and I can't even imagine trying to do so. There are people who can do that, but not me. I mean, I've certainly listed songs that reflected the news of the day--Legendary K.O. being an obvious example--and sometimes the news of the day has framed how I've heard other songs: "Nothing Has Been Proved" seemed to speak directly to all the scandals of its year. And in 2008, I had two election-specific songs--the Ron Clark Academy and Figghole--but, in all honesty, that was more a snapshot of what was going on in my own life, how obsessed I had been with the election, than any attempt to make a statement.

Anyway, I don't think that's what you mean--you're talking about a statement about the state/future of pop music. Which, for me, is an even more emphatic no.

Okay--I reread your original post, and you account for different meanings of statement. To quote a very great Texan, oops.

To quote a very great Texan, ^hoos.

First time making a proper proper list (that actually counts down to a favourite). Easier than I thought. Sort by date on iTunes, pick out the songs, throw them all in a playlist. Rearrange through comparison. Glance over the Last.fm charts to see if you haven't missed or misplaced something. Picking the top 5 or so was the hardest. I'm listening to the playlist now, just to see how I like the ordering. It's sounding alright.

As for music in 2011 / how I fit into it, it's all in the write up I'm posting w/ the list. I'm not writing for publications, so I have the freedom to do what I like. One track per artist (rules bent for collaborations), in order to vary it a bit. Have stolen a couple of rules from Kieron Gillen which integrate albums into the top tracks list: if an artist has released a lot of work that has been much valued, their representative track climbs higher on the list. Will probs post it up sometime soon, because other end-of-year lists corrupt me horribly and I want to be free of influence. Might even stagger it 50-40, 40-30 etc. Because it's all about the anticipation, innit?

Have stolen a couple of rules from Kieron Gillen which integrate albums into the top tracks list: if an artist has released a lot of work that has been much valued, their representative track climbs higher on the list.

ugh son

WORST rule.

I keep a running document of stuff that sounds really great to me

this is what i try to do, but inevitably i miss dozens of records i've liked but listened to in passing.

k3v and tim otm

my ritual: throughout the year i try to keep a running tally of what i'm listening to (so i'm not scrambling to remember stuff in december), and each month i blog my top 5 albums and singles of the month. then at the end of the year i send my top tens to p&j, my local weekly, and sometimes one or two other places if they ask for it, and i blog my top 50 albums and top 50 singles. usually the singles are all things i love (and always officially released mainstream chart hits, not deep cuts or indie stuff), and the albums list is more 'the better half' of the hundred or so albums i heard just because i like ranking and writing about that much stuff whether or not i love the stuff at the bottom of the list or feel strongly about where it's ranked.

WORST rule.

Please explain, everyone.

'favorite singles' (or songs) lists should rank actual favorite songs, not inflate the value of a song in order to represent love for its artist or parent album.

Everyone does albums lists anyway, that approach simply increases the likelihood of the songs list being a redudant reflection of your albums list.

If anything, I tend not to vote for songs from albums I love on my songs list, unless I've enjoyed it as a standalone song rather than in the context of the album.

also everyone has their own rules and i get that, but i'm personally not a fan of the 'one track per artist' rule (although i usually try to avoid more than one in the top 10). sometimes people have a great year and more than one great single.

i think the trend to nominate album tracks in singles lists is disgusting savagery

As I get older I care less about the order in which I place albums and singles. I have a list of thirty to fifty albums and singles, whittle it to fifteen in December, replay them one more time before emailing the list and comments to Pazz and Jop, and the album I like best becomes my album of the year.

engrossing thread

can't wait for omar little to link to it derisively elsewhere

these are all posts very much in character btw

so let me get this straight: everyone keeps track of their favorite albums and songs, and then at the end of the year, everyone references those albums and songs when making one final list

got it

sometimes I blindfold myself to keep things innaresting

If the list is boring then I have failed.

so let me get this straight: everyone keeps track of their favorite albums and songs, and then at the end of the year, everyone references those albums and songs when making one final list

man there's so much fine detail that you're missing here it's embarrassing but I can see how an outsider wouldn't catch the nuance of what deep cats like us are really up to ITT

I remember Planet Sound used to have a rule that if a song was featured in their singles list then the artist wasn't allowed in the albums list, and vice versa.

my best of 2011 is going to be a list of the tracks i liked the most in no particular order

i put rebecca black at the top of the list

i don't remember how i constructed lists b4 "friday"

an outsider wouldn't catch the nuance of what deep cats like us are really up to ITT

"cats" referring to people is criminally underused slang FYI.

I tried and somewhat failed keeping the singles and albums list apart this year. Sue me.

*calls lawyer*

And if you only put together a singles list, not an albums list, "album track" has no meaning; everything's just a song.

well it's not a "singles" list then

Song list, then, if it makes you feel better.

clem actually otm in that my tracks list is not strictly a singles list by any means

Argument that's worn out by now: define "single" in 2011.

clemenza do you (or anyone else) do a tracks list but not an albums list? because i didn't even think anyone did that for that mentality to make sense

That's a completely fair point wrt to this thread. But I'm talking about in threads where I am in a totally thread relevant discussion and I still get trolled by k3vin and J0rdan.

i think alfred means take it to 77 tbh. ilx beefs will happen, but this is now taking up a large part of the thread.

Sorry, I've never been invited to the 77 board, so I don't have that option to discuss it anywhere else.

engrossing thread

― J0rdan S., Sunday, November 13, 2011 2:51 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can't wait for omar little to link to it derisively elsewhere

― some dude, Sunday, November 13, 2011 2:54 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1979/ga790114.gif

define "single" in 2011.

A song that's considered an A-side. Simple enough.

Sincere question: A-side of what? Do they still press CD singles? I honestly don't know. When Billboard compiles its Hot 100 chart these days, what criteria are they using? I thought it was some combination of airplay (on whatever passes for a hit radio station these days), downloads, YouTube hits, ringtones, physical sales (again--of what?), etc. So maybe that's simple, but it's not as simple as it was in 1972, or even 1989. I mean, I know certain songs are designated as singles, but without a corresponding physical object, I'm a lot less sure of what that means than I was 20 years ago.

Anyway, for me it's a moot point. Since I don't vote for albums, and many of my favourite songs in any given year are non-charting songs, it's a much more accurate representation of my year to simply vote for songs.

It's a loose definition.. not really something concrete, as other people mentioned earlier. I'm having trouble thinking of examples that fall on the line between what's clearly an A-side and what isn't..

But I disagree with people who say "every song is a single because it's 2011."

just vote for songs. just because it wasn't a single where you live doesn't mean it wasn't a single in silesia or in the cairngorms

Fair enough--I don't pay attention to charts nearly as closely as I did 15-20 years ago, and if I did, I imagine I'd be able to balance all that stuff and identify singles as easily as I did then. Seeing as album tracks had already started creeping into my year-end lists by the mid-'90s (I know I voted for Yo La Tengo's "Moby Octopad" one year without giving a moment's thought to whether or not it was a single--checking now, it wasn't), and maybe even before that, I just stopped caring. I think some of the world has moved in my direction, but clearly most people still prefer to stick to as precise a definition as possible of what constitutes a single. (On a somewhat related note, one of my favourite things ever was when J. Hoberman included Game 6 of the '86 World Series on his year-end film list.)

people's preferences regarding nominating "album tracks" probably flow from whether they tend to consume music more in single-like format or album forma

As somebody who consumes music way more in album form, this is true for me -- but again, probably in the opposite direction from what Tim F was suggesting when he wrote that post above. In other words, I avoid voting for mere "album tracks" (as in, not singles in any way I can verify whatsoever) on my singles ballot precisely because there are too many album tracks to keep track of and choose from. Limiting the definition just seems more practical -- but also makes sense to me philosophically, since it demands that I'm not the only person on earth who perceives the song in question as a single.

Doesn't bother me a bit if I'm the only person on Earth who perceives a song as being worth a vote--all I want to do is figure out and vote for my favourite songs of the year.

yeah but that approach has its biases - as does any other, admittedly - it's just lame when the overlap between album and singles lists is so strong, like what's the point

The point is that I'm voting for my ten favourite songs of the year. How it's marketed or perceived is irrelevant to me. I understand that that runs counter to the format of the polls themselves, which is to say albums go here and singles go there, but unless someone specifically says "You can't do that" to me--and no one ever has (seeing as I'm one vote among many hundred, why would they?)--it doesn't concern me.

Oh--you're saying the confluence of albums and singles lists is lame. Maybe, I don't know. Thinking of the things I tend to vote for, I don't think my own ballot has much bearing on that.

who knows why the deep cut sings

^^^

Okay, this is not an innocuous display name. I'm not imagining this shit and I'm not sure why I'm just expected to shrug it off as "playful".

because adults shouldn't get all in a huff when someone joking refers to them as a "biatche"

you do you, but i don't think it requires an abnormally thick skin to withstand "jon/bia/tche 2.0"

I could buy that if I'd ever interacted with Lamp. It doesn't come across as "joking" or "playful" when its out of the blue and from someone not even involved in the conversation.

But you guys contine to stand by your lame excuse of "lol just jokes" and continue making ILX a completely unpleasant place to post.

well i have no opinion on lamp's display name but i would venture to say just having been around ilx for five years or so, if you can't brush that low level and innocuous trolling off your shoulder, it might just be better to take a hike

not that i'm encouraging or rooting for such a thing, i genuinely enjoy having you around, but idk man

Adults shouldn't be throwing around insults so freely. Really tired that this stuff continues on ILM. I thought there had been some improvement in the overall tone here.

i still don't understand where jon was insulted. he got overly pissed over a poster making a "bon voyage" "joke", then everyone was like "hey man, chill out, it's totally innocuous" and then he threatened to leave ilx and then lamp admittedly tried to stir something up, but on the level of stirring something up, lamp's twirling his finger around in lake michigan w/ that display name imo

I don't know whats confusing. I acknowledged that I took some dude's dn in the wrong spirit and apologized for calling him out. As I've explained a couple times, its people like you and k3vin barging in and stirring shit up when it had nothing to do with either of you that bothers me.

I mean, enough of this, particularly in this thread. This was a good thread started in good spirit and I don't want to continue to shit all over it. Last thing I'm gonna say is that I think its pretty lol that the guys doing the harrassing are the ones that get to decide that it's just playful and in what spirit its to be taken. World doesn't work that way, maybe you'll figure that out someday.

hey guys i'm home!

haven't caught up on the thread. jon i hope we're cool? let's be cool.

sorry that last post was in goofy dn from yesterday btw

dude we're making fun because your spaz-outs are totally amusing and characteristic at this point, we don't hate you or anything. just like, look at yourself right now. read your posts and tell yourself to chill the fuck out

and given the fact that jordan and i both probably overpost to this board as it is it's pretty inaccurate (on top of paranoid) to say we're 'following you' from thread to thread

xp lol

jon you're right and neither i nor kevin nor al nor anyone on the board can tell him you how you should take things, but i'll offer for the final time that your definition of "harassment" -- as it pertains strictly to internet posts on ilx -- is very broad imo and you would probably do good to take a second and think what actual ilx "harassment" is like, cuz i promise you that this is not it

but again, do what you do

don't leave!

i mean i really don't think jon should leave, i already said that, but if he can't take "jon/bia/tche" i'm really not sure where to turn

I must admit, attention-whore that I am, that I never inspired one of ship's dn parodies; not even a 'Bugs A. Homie' or anything...

― vultures of the english horn now to shit (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, November 15, 2011 12:56 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I feel ostracised for not having my name punned on. Boohoo.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, November 15, 2011 1:19 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i've tried w/ both you guys but haven't thought of anything better than 'dick mouthy' tbh

iiiinfinite jjjjest (some dude)

this is still one of my faves

I could buy that if I'd ever interacted with Lamp. It doesn't come across as "joking" or "playful" when its out of the blue and from someone not even involved in the conversation.

ive never posted abt yr crazy overreactions to really innocuous posts before bcuz who cares, i did think it was an opportunity for lolz last night but tbh i had already forgotten that was my dn when i posted this evening. idk to me you can come across like the dude who screams at the teenage barista at starbucks cuz she got his order wrong and if you tell him to calm down is like WELL its just supposed to be OKAY that i get the wrong kind of MILK!! abt it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgi7QCu1qAo

Tuom Sawyer and Fuckababy Finn (some dude)

^^forgot abt this one

Some Dude dn list truly incredible, makes me feel lame for never changing mine.

I am with clemenza about the tracks list; my list is not 100% subjective but it's as near to that as I can get it. And what I mean by that is that it's based solely on how I gauge my personal response to that piece of music, regardless however format it reached me. I especially try to keep my tracks ballot as uncalculated as possible.

As far as albums/tracks ballot overlap, I'll be honest: if an album track is my song of the year, or if I rank a couple songs from an album really high, then I feel kind of disingenuous in not ranking the album too. Like, I will likely put two Jhene Aiko tracks on the top half of my EOY ballot this year, so I feel that I should admit that her Sailing Souls mixtape is probably one of the better albums all year...

I tend to define "single" as anything listed as "single" on Spotify, at least where Spotify has the track. They always have separate artwork for singles as well, which helps keep the concept dimly alive.

For the past couple of years, I've also included very occasional non-single tracks on my "best singles" list, where the track has somehow taken on a separate life of its own. A prime example from last year: Scissor Sisters "Invisible Light".

I was thinking about something I posted yesterday, and I realized it wasn't entirely consistent with a comment on my year-end ballot last year:

(Yesterday) Doesn't bother me a bit if I'm the only person on Earth who perceives a song as being worth a vote.

(Last Year) ("It's Not Meant to Be") might more accurately be my #1 of the year, but "Check It Out" is out there, it has some meaning in the world, and my inclination with what basically amounts to a coin toss is to vote for the hit--someone may see my list and think "Oh, I know that, that’s great."

All things being equal, I'd rater be voting for something that everybody knows than voting for something that nobody except me knows--there'll always be that part of me that grew up listening to the hits of the day. But if the obscurity means more to me, that's what I vote for.

"Rather"--by voting, I'm a rater, but "rather"'s the word for that sentence.

Prom Dressantino

There hasn't been a great dn after that one tbh

greater

Ní bheidh a leithéid ann arís

how did some dude make the bon/voy.age joke BEFORE jon threatened to leave o_O

most prescient of display names only

most opportunistic of display names only vvvvv

Ha Whiney. I know what u mean.