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Best of 2006 - The MatrixTM ReduxJanuary 7, 2007... If you've been reading Afterbirth of the Cool since the beginning, you've already have been introduced to the concept of The MatrixTM. For those of you who ain't been reading Afterbirth since the beginning, though, The MatrixTM is a spreadsheet I prepare every January based on the year-end best-of lists of new music from various publications. I started preparing The MatrixTM because I wasn't able to hear to a lot of new music in my day-to-day existence and needed a way to pick the new releases I would gamble my money on, sound unheard. My rationale was that if the reviewers at Exclaim, Pitchfork, Mojo, Spin, Now and Eye all liked the same release, it was probably worth a gamble. Sure, I took the reviewers' descriptions of the music into consideration, too, but the numbers had to be right first. In the intervening years, due to the rise of websites like Insound and Better Propaganda, later due to the rise of MP3 blogs, my ability to sample new releases has increased exponentially. The MatrixTM still serves a purpose, though: now I use itTM to decide what to download, and what I download, in turn, to decide what to buyTM. The Pipettes - Your Kisses are Wasted on MeIn the 2006 edition of The MatrixTM, different weights have been assigned to each source's rankings. With Pitchfork's and Spin's rankings, this was quite simple to do. The number one release in Pitchfork's Top 50 got 50 points, and the 50th release got 1 point. Similarly, the number one release in Spin's Top 40 got 40 points, and the 40th release got 1 point. Etcetera, etcetera. Because I trust Spin's judgement less than Pitchfork's, the weight of Spin's rankings is discounted. The best-ofs from Exclaim! gave me trouble because there was more than one list to grapple with. Rather than lumping all new releases together, Exclaim! groups them into eight different genres, so there were eight number ones, eight number twos, etc. I'll spare you the gory details about how I ranked and weighted these fuckers other than to assure you the process was all scientifical-like. Best-ofs from Mojo were not included in The MatrixTM this year because the British just don't seem to "get" this whole "rock" thing. Bardo Pond - Lost WordSo, what is to be learned from all of this? Well, for one thing, statistics can be used to prove anything. Based on the numbers, Hot Chip and The Hold Steady are better than Herbert and The Thermals. Based on the songs, though, it just ain't so. Likewise, while neither The Pipettes nor Bardo Pond made it into The MatrixTM, I'd rather listen to the songs I've posted by them than almost anything by anyone on the list. Thank G_d for MP3 blogs!
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