When I started assembling a list of my ten favorite albums of the decade, a task an increasing number of blogs I read are undertaking, I realized that selecting ten albums to represent ten years of music was a nearly impossible venture. Even after I resigned myself to 30 albums instead of just ten, I found the list somewhat unsatisfying for a number of reasons. So, as a preface to the upcoming series of posts of my 30 favorite albums of the decade, here are a few of the rules I set for myself:
First, the list is based on albums overall, rather than albums that contain a particularly strong collection of songs. For instance, the self-titled Crystal Castles debut album, which contains six of the strongest electronica tracks of the decade (“Untrust Us,” “Crimewave,” “Courtship Dating,” “1991,” “Vanished,” and “Black Panther”), failed the rather ambiguous test of “coming together” as an album, rather than as a collection of tracks. This, like all my self-imposed rules, is subjective and somewhat arbitrary, but I’m hoping that actually seeing the albums I picked will make the logic a little more apparent. This was, though, a useful criterion for deciding between certain bands with multiple excellent albums, which brings me to the next rule…
Second, no artist can be represented in the list more than once. (There’s one quasi-exception, but I maintain that it’s not really a violation of the rule.) This isn’t to say that there aren’t artists who deserve more than one spot in the top 30 (Arcade Fire and Andrew Bird come to mind), but I’m using this rule as a way to compensate for my personal biases with regards to some artists. By limiting artists that I’m, presumably, quite fond of to one spot each, it requires a higher degree of diversity. Which, in the effort of filtering ten years of music down to 30 albums, is always a good thing.
Finally, and most problematically to me, I’ve excluded pure “pop” records. Were I to have been at all systematic about this, I would now offer a coherent definition of “pop,” but, mostly because I don’t have an operating definition that I worked from, I’ve just been following this rule on intuition. Certainly, most of Britney’s discography warrants a spot on the list (In the Zone, at the very least), as does Lady GaGa’s The Fame, but both have, along with many other quite deserving records, been left out. I don’t know whether this is elitist douchebaggery (“pop shouldn’t be on best-records lists”) or my inability to cope with having Destiny’s Child on the same list as The Mountain Goats, but either way, it’s a mostly pop-free top 30. That being said, there are some artists who, for me, complicate the definition of “pop” to such a great degree that I couldn’t help but include them on the list. You’ll know them when you see them.
Anyway, the first ten albums will be posted tomorrow. For anyone who feels like putting together their own list, I’d love to read it.