Year-end lists and why they're lame.

A very boring and elitist rant about the merits of year-end lists.

Simply put, 2012 was a goofy year. Not just for music, but for pretty much everything and everyone. Elections, a narrowly missed apocalypse, and Black Friday sales beginning several hours before Friday even begins (and that was all within the last couple of months). That said, musically, 2012 was filled with several major follow-ups from artists like Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, to Bob Dylan, Ke$ha, Justin Bieber, and everyone in-between. Every time I looked at an upcoming release schedule, I nearly peed my pants due to the overwhelming number of forthcoming records from artists I actually cared about. Of course, this posed a problem: With so many major records coming out, how would I ever have the time to discover anything I might not know about? This opened my eyes to the importance of small, independent music blogs, radio stations, and any other form of music media. Now that almost everyone has instant access to whatever music he or she wants (which carries its own conversation), how do we learn about new bands in a year like this, where we're busy listening to albums Swing Lo, Magellan on loop? How do we learn about these bands, when major music media outlets and top-notch publicists hold so much power now? It's a total jump back to the days pre-digital music, the majority of which I never truly experienced.

A year like this makes highly anticipated year-end "best of" lists from media like Pitchfork and Rolling Stone incredibly easy, because we're already familiar with so many of these artists. There's no risk in listening to a heavy rotation of Fiona Apple, Japandroids, Frank Ocean, and Titus Andronicus because these are well-respected bands that would need to try their darnedest to let us down. And, for the most part, these were all incredibly solid records that deserve multitudes of avid listeners. But, the growing trend (almost necessity) among music-related media of listing the "best" albums of an entire year is inherently flawed because of our tendency to gravitate toward the safety of familiarity. Several arguments can be made against the idea of a "best of the year" list, the most obvious being "you probably haven't listened to everything that has been released in the past two months, let alone the entire year." Additionally, one could argue that you would need to listen to each record several times before you could establish an entirely valid critical opinion.

But, the flaws of such an idea extend far beyond this. It's extremely difficult to distinguish between what music is actually "the best" overall, as opposed to a personal favorite. I could argue for days about why Mount Eerie's Clear Moon is a much better album than Mumford and Sons' Babel, citing specific examples of superior songwriting, flow, and concept. But, let's face it: Babel, on several basic levels, is much more listenable than Phil Elverum's music will ever be. Most people will get more enjoyment out of the less-ambiguous, romantic antics of Marcus Mumford than they will from Elverum's off-putting ambiance. So, which ends up being your favorite record? If you're the average music-indulger, you're most likely going to praise the album you enjoyed the most, whichever one put you in the best mood. Good music critics are often able to distinguish the "good" from the "catchy" in single album reviews. Things get hairy, though, when a staff attempts to collaborate on a single list of a year's best albums, representative of an entire organization's image.

The result is one of two things:

1. A relatively safe list largely composed of "well-known" records. While the order of the records will vary from outlet to outlet, year-end lists are pretty identical in scope. This is mainly due to flawed voting systems, where the better known records among the staff will garner more votes, leaving each individual's "hidden gems" out of the race.

2. A nonsensical list obscured for the sole purpose of obscurity. Often, different sources will attempt to differentiate their lists by sprinkling in several artists who didn't necessarily get the right amount of international buzz and acclaim they might have deserved. While the promotion of lesser-known artists is essential, especially through such an impactful list, these additions feel entirely forced, in a way that screams, "Good gosh! We have no Lithuanian afro-beat between twenty and thirty on our list! We'll just throw this guy in at twenty-four."

While "best" is, in fact, subjective, its overarching definition is not. The "best" music of an entire year, by definition, is better than all other music released over that period of 12 months. Compiling a list of 50 albums and claiming they're better than the vast amounts of records to which you never got around to listening is comparable to judging an eating contest and overlooking half of the qualifying and present contestants who paid their $5 entry fee. Because a list of "best albums" intends to analyze any full-length LP released in a given year, this "competition" should ideally include everything that falls into that category, but again, that's entirely impossible.

So, in order to fight the system, Pizza FM presents to you some of its favorite albums of 2012, in the form of a staff list compiled by our Executive Board. Some of these might actually be "the best." You might end up hating half of them. Our opinions might, on some cosmic level, actually be completely invalid. But we do know that some part of Pizza FM really enjoyed these records this year, and that's why we're sharing them with you. We also have a sick obsession with letting you know our feelings because we love you more than you can imagine.

Happy New Year!-Adam and the rest of the crew at Pizza FM