High Violet at number twenty eight. I'm pretty much furious.
Okay, right now I'm trying to deal with my Pazz and Jop ballot, so here's a rough outline of what I'm doing.
1. The ArchAndroid (Suites II And III) - Janelle Monáe
2. High Violet - The National
3. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
4. The Monitor - Titus Andronicus
5. Body Talk - Robyn
6. Everything In Between - No Age
7. A Badly Broken Code - Dessa
8. Forgiveness Rock Record - Broken Social Scene
9. Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty - Big Boi
10. (tie) How I Got Over - The Roots
10. (tie) The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
10. (tie) This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem
So right now I'm having a few issues. The first three are pretty much set in stone. The second three I'm having trouble with, but they'll probably stay in the same places. The third three are more likely to change, but I'll probably submit them in that order. At this point I have no idea what I'll submit as number ten. It's one of those three, almost for sure, but yeah. It's tough. I'm kind of leaning towards The Roots, but...man.
As for points, I need to give these albums points. I have one hundred points, and they can receive thirty points at max and at least five points. I am sure of one thing: number ten will receive five points. The more I think about Janelle's album and the more I write about it, the better I realize it is. I'm comparing it to my top ten albums of the decade.
10. Kala - M.I.A.
9. Satellite Rides - Old 97's
8. Late Registration - Kanye West
7. Hospice - The Antlers
6. Sound Of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
5. You Forgot It In People - Broken Social Scene
4. Decoration Day - Drive-By Truckers
3. Dear Science - TV On The Radio
2. Boys And Girls In America - The Hold Steady
1. Funeral - Arcade Fire
Near the midpoint of the year, I was complaining about how nothing this year would crack my decade top ten. Now that I've articulated why I think Janelle's album is so wonderful, I feel like if last decade extended into this year (or if the decade was just 2001 to 2010 seeing as there is no album from 2000 on my list...), Janelle would belong probably at number fucking two. As such, I'm considering giving her the full thirty. Thing is, High Violet is powerful in a way that reminds me a lot of Funeral, and it's not very far behind (would probably wind up right behind or ahead of Hospice), so I don't want to blow that many points on Janelle (who is honestly looking to take the number two spot on Pazz and Jop behind Kanye. I'm a lot more worried about The National, especially after Pitchfork shafted them so mercilessly).
It's tough to deal with these points, but I'll find a balance.
Now for songs. I get ten and a mention is a basically a point no matter what I do. "Fuck You," "Tightrope," and "Dancing On My Own" are looking like the big winners in that order, and my list contains all three. I also contain a song that was regarded as one of the best of 2009. I'm usually a dick about release date, but with songs I allow songs to be regarded in terms of what year their album was released in.
1. "World Sick" - Broken Social Scene
2. "I Can Change" - LCD Soundsystem
3. "Shine Blockas (Featuring Gucci Mane)" - Big Boi
4. "Out Go The Lights" - Spoon
5. "Terrible Love (Alternate Version)" - The National
6. "Lost In The World (Featuring Bon Iver)" - Kanye West
7. "Tightrope (Featuring Big Boi)" - Janelle Monáe
8. "Fuck You" - Cee-Lo
9. "Black Sheep" - Metric
10. "Dancing On My Own" - Robyn
This is pretty close to what I'll eventually have, probably. There's a bit more I'd like to fit on there. "A More Perfect Union." "Helicopter." "All I Want." Kanye West's "Runaway." "Bloodbuzz Ohio." "Empire Ants (Featuring Little Dragon)." "O.N.E." "Cold War." I could keep going.
Along with working hard on my ballot comes working hard on my year-end list. I plan on twenty-five albums plus honorable mentions so that my list can look like a comprehensive and exhaustive work plus extras. I plan on having the same thing for songs, because while my top ten is really strong, song lists tend to get super arbitrary past a point. My honorable mentions for songs will be super numerous.
Why do I put so much work into this, though? I mean, aren't I just turning art into a contest based on an arbitrary time period they were released in?
Well. Yes. And I'm super embarrassed about that. Honest. Recently I read two of my favorite critics, The A.V. Club's Noel Murray and Scott Tobias, discussing their annoyance of people who spend their time predicting the Oscars. I indulge in a bit of that myself, so seeing two of my favorite writers essentially deriding my kind hurt a bit. Scott recently said that he didn't have a problem with it unless they viewed film through that prism. I enjoy predicting Oscars and year-end music lists because I enjoy the idea of predicting the future. I follow this sort of thing year-round and I get a kick out of lightly poking fun at the predictability of it all. After all, once "Runaway" got BNM'ed over at Pitchfork I predicted that Kanye's album was a shoo-in for album of the year around the board. I realize that one of the reasons that people enjoy making these lists is the same reason as I enjoy predicting them: When Pitchfork places My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the best album of 2010 tomorrow, they're anticipating that history will agree with them, and that that they will stand by their choice for their half-decade list in four years.
Maybe I corrupt my opinions by reasoning them out every time I write in depth about an album, but I do know what I like and why I like it. I avidly enjoy list-making because it organizes albums mentally, it gets me better in touch with my sensibilities, and, best of all, the contest between works it creates gradually pushes the extent to which I like the list-toppers even further. Sure, reducing Funeral "the second best album of the decade" (or "the best album of the decade," for that matter) doesn't really encapsulate how special it is, but thinking about it atop everything else allows for a different kind of admiration than you can otherwise have.
It's the first year that I've been intensely paying attention the entire time, and my year-long project is finally coming to a close. As such, I'm putting my heart and soul into its presentation, and am even including a meta-list that actually acknowledges my struggles with placement, my thoughts on its current state, and other stray thoughts that I might have. I might seem a little crazy, but the constant battle made me enjoy the year's music even more than I would have otherwise, which, just looking at how bountiful the year was to the medium, would have been lots.