#year-end-lists

#year-end-lists

When I first started working as a music critic, I held nothing more sacred than a ranked albums list. The album felt like the idealized musical vehicle, a prime mechanism for the expression of true artistic vision and an opportunity to see that vision at scale. Songs there were always so many songs. Too many to really wrap your arms around and judge fairly, in my opinion. But albums were self-contained, easier to quantify and could be stacked up cleanly next to each other