Heart on a Stick
Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:
stream full album ° seen/heard ° buy
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
seen/heard ° listen ° preorder
stream full album ° seen/heard ° buy
Incoming!
posted 11/22/2006
Families gather for foodstuffs and football. Shoppers assemble to exhaust their collective credit limit. Music bloggers squirrel themselves away, bury themselves in their headphones, determine exactly which of the year’s CDs was seventh best.
Over the next several weeks hundreds of bloggers – pro journos, amateur hounds, bored Philistines – will post exhaustively researched/casually slapped-together lists of the Best Albums of 2006... and I want to see them.
I want to see them all.
Last year, well into list-making season, I hunted down bunches of bloggers’ Top 10 lists and compiled them in a searchable, linked, ranked spreadsheet. It seemed a good way to find both good music and good blogs (if you want a longer explanation, go here). I gave it a big ugly name – The 2005 Music Bloggregate – and ultimately it contained 148 sources and 419 titles. With a late start and without any kind of push it wound up getting mentions in The Chicago Tribune and Salon. Hopefully some nice people found good music, good sources for more.
My imaginary team of nog-slinging elves and I are ready to give it a go, again, and hope to make this year’s survey both larger and easier to navigate. But we’re asking for a little help:
Send me links to your lists.
I’m sure I’ll still hunt and peck around, but if the mountain could meet me halfway I’d really appreciate it. When you make your list – or when you stumble on to others’ – simply e-mail me the link to that entry (not the list, the link).
Here’s what I’m looking for:
Best Album of 2006 lists...
- that have been published online and will (hopefully) stay online
- to which I can directly link
- that either rank their selections or limit their “best” list to ten unranked selections
Do not send links to lists of songs! Albums only! Non-music blogs are welcome.
There are some limitations – one list per person, no splogs, no myspace entries, etc. A more detailed list of qualifications, along with the hows/whys of ranking, can be found here. But if all else fails, just send along the link.
E-mail your links to: heartonastick (at) g mail (dot) com. Use “Top 10” or something similarly appropriate as the subject heading. Questions, concerns, comments – send those along as well.
I’m not trying to influence how or when you make your lists. There’s no set “form.” And there’ll be zero judgment/commentary on my part; if K-Fed’s your Number One, make K-Fed your Number One. Just do what you were going to do, anyway. The beauty of linking back to the original source is that the context remains intact.
I’ll start compiling early because some people start posting their lists right after Thanksgiving. But don’t worry if yours isn't ready. Mine's definitely not. I’ll start posting the bloggregate once I’ve got a decent amount of sources, but it will be periodically updated, at least through the end of January.
Just keep me in mind and send along your stuff when you’ve finished it. And feel free to forward around or repost this message. I appreciate your time and any assistance you might offer.
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I’m not sure of the status of the Village Voice’s annual Pazz/Jop Critics’ Poll; the eviscerated weekly canned the poll’s creator, Dean Robert Christgau, and has already dumped its annual film critics’ poll due to budget constraints. I hope P/J still happens, if not at the Voice then elsewhere. If it does, I’ll once again cite it as one of my sources. I also hope those who both participate in P/J and blog post their non-poll year-end lists online, so I can include those, too.
But I did want to mention this: Last year’s Pazz/Jop cites 795 participants. The elbo.ws aggregator currently claims 1700 music blogs.
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Oh, right: And Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Unless you're reading this after the fact. Then: Wow, don't you think you overdid it a bit?
YES? YOU THERE IN THE BACK? (1)
1. mjrc left...
11/25/2006 9:09 am :: http://lostinyourinbox.blog-city.com
let the aggregating begin!