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The MatrixThere's something I need to tell you about me... I'm a dabbler. Unlike a lot of audiobloggers, I do not obsessively follow new music. I haven't for about a decade now. It's partly by choice. There are other things I like to do nowadays. Like eat, for example. But it's also partly by necessity. I have to be much more careful about how I spend my money than I was when I was an undergrad, suckling at the student loan teat of the now-withered welfare state. (Remember the welfare state? The social safety net erected so that baby boomers would never know a day of want? The social safety net the baby boomers are now dismantling … because life was so easy for them that they can't imagine why anyone would ever need help? Yes, that's the one!) Even when I have money, though, I am a cautious consumer. I don't want to clutter-up my life with run-of-the-mill shite. So, I've had to find less-expensive and less-disappointment-leaden ways of indulging my interest in new music. Today, I am letting you in on one of those strategies -- THE MATRIX… Every December, I pull together the best-albums-of-the-year lists of various publications and make my list of music to buy based on what the critics had to say; more specifically, based on how many critics liked what albums … plus what they had to say about them. This means that I am always a year behind, true. But it also means that I don't end up buying a lot of treadwater music. Sure, there have been disappointments... I vaguely recall one highly-acclaimed CD with clever packaging --cardboard-and-paper-with-match-attached-- but forgettable music. (At least, I think there was a match attached. Certainly every time I think about the CD, I think of matches.) Actually, come to think of it, the number of disappointments haven't really gone down since I instituted THE MATRIX. Still, it is a thing of beauty that I take intense pleasure in putting together. Perhaps that, whatever it means, is the most important thing I will tell you about me today… Anyway, below, is the matrix for 2004 where X=Exclaim!, P=Pitchfork, A=All Music Guide, E=eye and S=Spin. Only those albums that were voted for by three or more of the publications are included. I have also omitted the complex vote-weighting system … because I'm too tired to explain it. Oh, and there's a link to a song from 2004 at the bottom of it, too.
Junior Boys - BirthdayP.S. Sorry about all the hyphens in today's post. I have a cold January 30, 2005 | | |
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