The end of the year is a natural time for people to reminisce about recent events, and writers have milked this tendency for decades now. Because writers are often a very lazy bunch, they have settled upon a quick and easy formula to spare them the trouble of writing actual columns during the holiday season--the list! Simple, elegant, and the best way to provoke discussion, the list is the greatest weapon in the writer's arsenal -- though it also can backfire, as it can ultimately prove that the writer has absolutely no sense of taste whatsoever.
Given how prevalent lists are these days (just check your normal listings for VH1 or E!, which I believe are now counting down the 101 Most Awesomely Bad Shocking Celebrity Pet Hairstyles of the 2003 Fall Season), it was only a matter of time before someone began ranking the lists themselves. And clearly I am the person for the job, since I am incredibly self-aware, steeped in irony, and obsessed with meta-ness. Plus, it's much easier to criticize these lists than make one myself-- I'm still working on my 2005 list, and I'll get back to you in a couple of years on that. So I present to you, your 5 worst lists of the best music of 2006!
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Rolling Stone's Top 50 Albums/ Top 100 Songs: It is extremely easy to criticize Rolling Stone these days (and has been for years, actually) -- from the fact that they give every album a three-star review to their remarkable ability to hype up a band to levels that even the members' mothers would find a tad overzealous, the magazine is an easy target for armchair critics like myself. However, I have to give the mag credit for striking a good balance between the conventional choices and those that took Stephen Colbert-sized "balls". Picking Sonic Youth's "Rather Ripped" as the no. 3 album and Mastodon's "Blood Mountain" at 9 took enough "huevos" that I can overlook the uninspired selection of the new Dylan album as the top choice. Plus, it doesn't hurt that they remembered that Pearl Jam put out a great album this year, something that goes over very well 'round these here parts.
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Spin's Top 40 Albums: The Spin list had a lot of things going in its favor -- it remembered that The Editors put out a great album that did more than just put a British version of "Turn On The Bright Lights" and that Beck can still create a record that is just filled with sonic treasures. It even gave side projects their proper due, not elevating the Thom Yorke solo album and the Raconteurs disc to spots reserved for Radiohead and the White Stripes. Less forgivable is the easy cop-out to maintain indie-cred by making TV On The Radio's new one the number one choice (a fine album, but did I think this was the best album of the year? -- no). And they completely blow it by putting My Chemical Romance in at number 5. This upset me greatly.
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Entertainment Weekly: EW manages to make the same mistakes as Spin, plus they do them one better by slotting in Justin Timberlake at no. 4. I refuse to accept this man as our new "King of Pop", and hope others will join my resistance movement. EW also gets extra demerits since I can't find their full list on their website.
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Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums/Top 100 Songs: First off, if I have not even heard of nearly half of the top ten albums on the list, we have a problem. I work in a job in which I constantly am listening to new and underground music, and spend hours devouring news about bands and reading press releases, so I'm kind of "in-the-know". I know this willful obscurity is Pitchfork's schtick, but they've brought it to a whole new narcissistic level this year. They also pull the ultimate cop-out on their Songs list, refusing to list Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" on their list because "enough of the staff had heard the song last year" (even though the song was released in March). I declare shenanigans!
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Your local newspaper: No matter where you go, these papers are responsible for the absolute worst lists imaginable. Anyone that tries to claim that Beyonce's new album had actual merit or that Nickelback must have some artistic integrity since they sold so many records is a fool. Those were just my local examples, but you'll find similar mistakes anywhere else in the country.
I hope you enjoyed this most unnecessary list -- let's just not make this an annual tradition, shall we?
