I've always been a little skeptical of the whole "Best _____ of the Year" awards thing, but the folks over at BlogCritics are doing their own awards, so I sorta-kinda feel like I ought to throw in my $0.02 regarding the best works of various categories.

The real problem is, with both books and music, I have neither the memory nor the cultural background to really make sensible comments about the best anything of a given year. Memory is a problem in that I can usually never remember in what year a given book or album first appeared-- this is aided somewhat by things like the book log, but even there, all I can really find is the year when I first encountered a given book. The larger problem is that I don't tend to restrict my reading and listening to books or albums from the current year, as I'm always reaching back to pick up some key work that I missed when it first came out (often by virtue of not being born yet, but let's leave that aside for the moment...).

For example, two of the best albums I've acquired recently are Revolver by the Beatles, and a Richard and Linda Thompson best-of collection (the Island Records one). Neither of these is a new record in a grand sense, but they were both new to me, and both very, very good. Inevitably, those things I buy that are new to the wider world will get lumped together in my mind with those that are simply new to me, sometimes to the detriment of new stuff.

Of course, I've never been one to let an inability to say anything really sensible stop me from saying something (I don't really qualify as an introvert...), so I'll make a stab at it.

Cribbing shamelessly from the best-album list put together at BlogCritics, I have to say, well, I didn't actually listen to most of those albums. Of the three that I actually did buy last year, I'd have to give the nod to The Rising by Bruce Springsteen. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is good, but goes in a bit too much for the "dissolve into weird noise" ending that inexplicably gets critical acclaim, while Sea Change is a good record, but sort of... indistinct. There's a sameness to all the songs that keeps them from really standing out. I like "Lost Cause" a whole lot, but I'd have a tough time naming any of the others without a lyric sheet in front of me..