In light of the year that we’ve all fought our way through—and certainly some more than others—not a single member of the editorial team had the stomach to start jockeying over the placement of one record over another. It was a lot of fun in previous years to say, “This record is 54, but this one feels like a 55,” but this year, we just couldn’t shake the arbitrariness of it all. And once we started pulling at that thread, we soon found ourselves interrogating the whole process. In the end, we were left staring at the conclusion that the whole affair was founded on profoundly misguided ideas about art. For years I’ve argued that what you’re really trying to do with any Best of the Year list is to tell a story—which I still believe is true. But if all of the albums taken together tell the story of the year, why does it matter the order in which they are presented?
I’m someone who loves year-end best of lists, but I’ve always disliked how so many of them are ranked. It’s the teacher in me, but I pretty much hate the idea of putting creative efforts like that...
I’m someone who loves year-end best of lists, but I’ve always disliked how so many of them are ranked.
It’s the teacher in me, but I pretty much hate the idea of putting creative efforts like that into a hierarchy. If I assign a project to my class, I don’t put them in order by quality after they come in. Instead, each project’s quality is judged against the standard, which is where their grade is found. Two projects might both earn As for different reasons, and they both might be brilliant in their own ways. There is plenty of value in saying both met the mark, but there is little value in saying one is better/worse than the other.
Ranking items forces the entries into a competition against one another, rather than against the standard. I’m much more interested in knowing which items cleared the bar to be considered “album of the year” rather than how close or far they are from the mythical first place spot. As such, I’m happy to hear Bandcamp is making this shift. NPR did it with their book lists a while ago, and I think their recommendations are better for it.
I’m someone who loves year-end best of lists, but I’ve always disliked how so many of them are ranked.
It’s the teacher in me, but I pretty much hate the idea of putting creative efforts like that into a hierarchy. If I assign a project to my class, I don’t put them in order by quality after they come in. Instead, each project’s quality is judged against the standard, which is where their grade is found. Two projects might both earn As for different reasons, and they both might be brilliant in their own ways. There is plenty of value in saying both met the mark, but there is little value in saying one is better/worse than the other.
Ranking items forces the entries into a competition against one another, rather than against the standard. I’m much more interested in knowing which items cleared the bar to be considered “album of the year” rather than how close or far they are from the mythical first place spot. As such, I’m happy to hear Bandcamp is making this shift. NPR did it with their book lists a while ago, and I think their recommendations are better for it.