drbeeper

“What the F is up with all these damn lists?”

Another year of “I must stop being so compulsive about this”, followed by another refrain of “maybe next year”…. All I really accomplished in this regard is a huge pile of 2010 releases I haven’t gotten around to listening to yet – some of which I’m sure would have ended up fairly high in the rankings.

The “recorded music industry” had another epic “shit the bed” year. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks… Fortunately, industrious young bands have streamlined the process of releasing their music, and the diversity of sound and freedom of expression is palpable. Finding a solid “pre-sampling” routine continues to be a big challenge – I don’t want to bother listening to crap, but I don’t want to miss something great that might be off-putting for some reason after a quick, cursory listen.

Overall I found the year to be extremely “middle heavy” in terms of my reviews. There were some releases that I really loved, but overall no group of releases stand out that much from another. Most of my top 25 (or so) are fairly interchangable – the final ‘rank’ in many cases came down to number of plays overall. As is increasingly the case year-after-year, there are some really fun records to be found, even down toward the hundreds. Not sure that anything here is going to end up in the all-time-classic pile, but I suppose only time will tell.

The final reviewed tally: