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As always, this year's 'Best-Of-2010'
lists make interesting reading. I've assembled these lists for many
years now, and I always wonder how this year's list stacks up against the list
we compiled last year - or any prior years.
We could just
compare the consolidated Summarized List Of The Top 50
CDs, From All Of The SoT Staff lists, year-on-year, but that would be
misleading for several reasons.
Firstly - if you look at each
reviewer's individual lists, they're richly punctuated with gems that aren't
universally popular among all of our staff. These include music in
genres ranging from RIO through AOR, from death metal through progressive
folk, and from fusion through pomp. So as deserving as those albums may
be they those don't typically make the consolidated list.
Second - not
everyone hears every album, every year. As the years progress most of
the staff get to hear most albums, but at the time I distill all
20-or-so lists into one, the staff's partial knowledge of the year's catalog
detracts from the completeness of the consolidated list.
Finally, in
the nature of the complex music we evaluate, it's common for albums to gain or
fall from favor over time.
So - what records would you choose
for the past decade - in retrospect? I for one would like to find out
what the SoT staff thinks. Our writers are from 5 continents and have
differing tastes, yet they share a passion for and a knowledge of music that
always impresses me.
So - I'm going to ask everyone on our staff to
provide a retrospective of the whole decade. This will be a big exercise
and will yield an interesting best-of-decade list, as well as a slew of blog
entries, another poll, and probably a few articles and interviews; and it will
be spread over the next several months.
I know perfectly well that 'the
decade' was over a year ago. I'm claiming a sort of poetic license with
that inconvenient fact - and our survey will include all albums from 2000
through 2010, inclusive. I'm really looking forward to discovering a few
shining gems, and will probably purchase more than I should.
More important, I hope you will also find value
in this endeavor, and will be able to add some top quality items to your
collection.
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