I think years and decades are pretty arbitrary markers of eras in popular music. What makes the 2000s the 2000s, and what makes something released in October 1999 markedly different from something released in February 2000, other than that only one can be included in a "Best Albums 2000-2009" list? Mark Grace had the most hits in the 1990s, and Todd Zeile had the most errors in the 1990s, but really, what importance to either of those statistics have (beyond being cool trivia answers) when neither of those guys are going to get into the Hall of Fame of anything beyond "Cubs players beloved by certain groups of women in Lincoln Park between 1989 and 2002." (and a larger question of whether anyone...ever really loved Todd Zeile is certainly debatable)
Still, I'm a sucker for lists. It's hard to have a list of you don't set these markers, or else you just have a bunch of records (not that there's anything wrong with just having a bunch of records, and in fact, sometimes it's cool to just have a bunch of records). In the coming weeks, there will be lists. There will be a Favorite Albums of 2009 list, and there will be a Favorite Albums of the 2000s list. These lists will ultimately not mean much other than display how much I think I like Spoon.
I also might be moving this over to Wordpress but I haven't decided yet. In the end I don't think there's much of a difference considering that I don't really mess with layout that much, but I like the [preliminary] way this Wordpress looks.
The Wordpress layout does look cleaner. I like it, but I like that Blogger signs in for me if I'm logged into Google, so. Plus I've been a rather loyal Blogger user since I first learned the word "blog" in May, 1999.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow!
Re: year markers.
I don't like them either for being arbitrary, and it's also difficult to define, like: are the best albums of 2009 limited to those that were released in 2009 (in the U.S.), or are they the best albums of 2009 that you started listening to for the first time, or are they the best albums that you like of the year regardless of anything?
I'm a sucker for lists, too. I like to group albums into Good Albums for a Good Cry, or something like that.
Animal Collective leaked on Christmas day 2008. RUH ROH, everyone's lists are SCREWED!
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, I mean, maybe there's a separate list for "albums that made my year" or "albums to which I listened to the most this year." Hm...interesting possibilities.