The Critique Of Best Thing Of Time Lists

At the end of a year, and the end of a decade, it's obviously going to be a big time for Best Things Of The Time list. Of which the most common, or at least the most salient to me, seems to be Best Album lists. Like this one, this one, etc. Naturally I'm tempted to make one myself. But I start to wonder about the point of them. Like, what's the purpose? What are they trying to do? What would I be attempting to achieve by constructing and publishing such a list?

Obviously the answer is going to be different for me, just some dude writing on a blog primarily read by friends, than it is for something like Pitchfork, a widely read review site which represents more than the tastes of a single mind.

The most immediate and cynical answer is that they're about showing off how excellent your own taste in music is. I think this is the kind of answer that is presumed by some comments I got regarding my anachronistic top five list last year, that it displayed (and perhaps parodied) a certain standard exhibitionist structure, having a slightly surprising choice at number 1 (to be attention grabbing), an obviously great album at number 2 (to reassure audiences that I do have tastes that it is possible to relate to), something completely obscure at number 3 (to show of my obscure music cred), etc. My most immediate reaction to this comment was just "But, no, I actually think those were the best albums of that year, in that order." My more measured reaction was to think maybe I did not-so-consciously construct it that way.

A second answer, and one that particularly appeals to me, is that they are a purely self-indulgent, self-investigatory exercise: I've listened to all this music, I have some vague opinions about their values, and their relative values, and I'd like to just make it all a bit more explicit by ordering the albums, and writing a bit about each of them to justify my choices to myself. On this way of seeing it, actually publishing the list here on a blog is completely incidental; the real audience is myself, and actually writing it up, and apparently addressing it to an external reader, is just a way of ensuring that my thoughts are coherent, orderly, fairly argued, and understandable. This answer appeals to me because I already do plenty of things that look like this. For example, I construct iTunes playlists just of those songs that have brought me to tears, or those by Canadian artists. There's not much use to such lists, to me or anyone else, it's just that I like the idea of having access to reliable information about this. You know, for implausible emergencies? Again, what the hell is the point of using something like last.fm if not to gather pointless information on myself; it's not like anyone else would look at that information as much as I do. But the problem with that kind of information is that it's all purely descriptive, and unjustified. The end of year list thing is so interesting to me because it is a more evaluative form of this same kind of activity, and so, I think, much more valuable in itself.

Another purely self-interested answer to the question, and a related one, is: By resolving to make such a Best Of Year list, I thereby give myself some motivation to actually listen out all the albums in the year that I may've missed, that I have vaguely heard might be good, or that I've listened to, but not quite carefully enough. So with that list from last year, I actually went out of my way to hear all of This Year's Model, Excitable Boy and Peter Gabriel's first self titled album, just for the purposes of writing that post, which was a totally worthwhile exercise.

Another less solipsistic answer is the friendly suggestion that a good reason to make such a list is just to recommend awesome albums to everyone who might read the post. This obviously looks like the most noble answer, so it'd be nice if it were true. Unfortunately I'm not convinced that it is true, or if it is that it's particularly sensible. I mean, why wait until the end of the year, instead of just recommending stuff as it comes? Why try to recommend some set of 10 albums to everyone, rather than tailoring your recommendations to individuals? Why make such a list when there are already so many other people making such lists, such that if everyone was doing it for this purpose it would be collectively self-defeating, as everyone would have too many recommendations coming in all at the same time to possibly heed a significant number of them? Why force recommendations into such an unnatural format as an arbitrary amount of albums over an arbitrary period of time? The best answer to all these questions is probably just "it being the end of the year gives one a decent excuse to do it now, rather than never. The arbitrary format makes it doable without too much creativity." Also, despite all those issues, I can't deny the thought going through my head when I write such a list, "Man, everyone should totally love this album as much as I do." Though if I were to believe (and correctly understand) Kant, this may just be part of the idea that, in making an aesthetic judgement, I universalise it.

Finally, there is the possibility that the making of top 10 type lists at the end of a year is just some arbitrary Music Nerd tradition. Problem with this answer, of course, is that plenty of music nerds don't do it, so you're still going to need something like one of the above answers to account for those who do.

But then, of course, the most obvious conclusion is that all of the above considerations/motivations go into the construction of such lists. Still, I am still inclined to say that, for myself, the self-justificatory reason is still my strongest. Anyway, all that said, I will now go on to not end this post with such a list!