Hey there.

Hey there, nerds! What better way to kick off a music blog than with a good ol’ Favorite Albums of the Year list, right? Right.

First off, I can promise you right up front that Grimes and Taylor Swift are not included on this list, and also that you may completely disagree with my choices. That’s totally fine. I tend to operate within a few specific genres, and I can’t help it if you have bad taste. Seriously though, musical taste is a pretty subjective thing, so you shouldn’t ever let anyone convince you that what you like is not worthy of praise. People listen to Justin Bieber and watch American Idol, for Christ’s sake. Although I may never understand that, there are a hell of a lot of those people out there in the world.

I can also promise you that I love every album on this list. One of my hopes for this Favorites list (and the blog in general) is that you might find something you haven’t heard before or come to appreciate a record that you hadn’t previously given more than a cursory listen to. Another hope is that this will foster some discussion about what records you like. So, use the comments section to tell me all about how you think my list is genius, or that I have god-awful taste, or that this blog is stupid, or to share a record that you think is 10 times better than anything on my list. There are few things I appreciate more than when someone shows me an album that just blows my mind. Plus, then you get to brag about how you liked it before it was cool.

The list is a top 20 of my favorite albums of the year, and I’m hoping to cover 5 albums per day for 4 days. There is a general review of the music for each album, and then a review of the physical copy I bought on vinyl. The point behind that is not only to nerd out about variants and other hyper-dorky aspects of collecting, but also to give you an idea of whether or not you should bother buying it on vinyl. There have been plenty of records I’ve bought that sounded absolutely terrible and that I paid way too much for. I buy vinyl to listen to, and so that is the perspective I will be approaching the review with. Obviously, my one copy can’t speak for every copy, but it should give you a general idea of what’s worth wasting your money on. If you own one of the records I talk about, use the comments section and let me know what you think of your copy.

Damn it, I’m long-winded. Okay, let’s get on with it.-