12 x 12: Your favorite bloggers pick their favorite albums
Welcome to 12 X 12: The First Annual Some Velvet/I Am Fuel 2006 Year-In-Music Blogger Poll. It’s the obviously logical combination of music and accounting.
Bruce from Some Velvet Blog rocks all sorts of goodness on a regular basis over on his site and at his radio station. We had so much fun working on our massive Girl Talk post together that we once again decided to pool our creative energies to come up with our first meta-music poll (not to be confused with a Metamucil poll) for the year 2006.
Together we brainstormed a list of our blogging dream team, inviting some of the music blog world’s most respected folks to submit their favorite albums of the year. The following brave souls accepted:
Bruce from Some Velvet Blog
Heather from I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS
Chris from Gorilla vs. Bear
Duke of The Late Greats
Philabuster from Badminton Stamps
Dodge from My Old Kentucky Blog
Jennings from rbally
Chad from Everybody Cares, Everybody Understand
Eric from Can You See The Sunset From The Southside?
Cara from Scatter o’ Light
Jeff from Jefitoblog
and last but certainly not least, no poll would be complete without the spiritual guidance and participation from Jesus himself from What Would Jesus Blog?
Here’s how it worked: We asked everyone to submit their top 20 lists, assigning points to weight their votes with everyone’s #1 top-choice album getting 20 points; number two album getting 19 votes, etc.
We hired the same accounting firm that the Car Talk guys use – Dewey, Cheathem and Howe – to tally all the votes. And (drumroll please) . . . here is what we came up with.
Scientific? Sort of.
Meaningful? Surely.
Fun? You betcha.
The Top 12×12 (12 albums from 12 bloggers) of 2006
#1 -The Animal Years – Josh Ritter – 77 points
Thin Blue Flame – Josh Ritter
#2 – Post-War – M Ward – 69 points
To Go Home -M Ward
#3 – Everything All The Time – Band of Horses – 61 points
Funeral – Band Of Horses
#4 – The Warning – Hot Chip – 58 points
Just Like We (Breakdown) – Hot Chip
#5 – The Trials Of Van Occupanther – Midlake – 56 points
Many folks dig the song “Roscoe”
#6 – Hell Hath No Fury – Clipse – 52 points
Dirty Money – Clipse
#7 – Rabbit Fur Coat – Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins – 49 points
Handle With Care – Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins (and help from Conor Oberst, M Ward and Ben Gibbard)
#8 – (tie) 45 points each
Boys And Girls In America – The Hold Steady
First Night – The Hold Steady
Talk Talk Talk Talk – Love Is All
#9 – Fishscale – Ghostface Killah – 44 points
The Champ – Ghostface Killah
#10 – Ys – Joanna Newsom – 43 points
many tunes here @ the Hype
#11 – The Crane Wife – The Decemberists – 42 points
O Valencia – The Decemberists live from the Riviera Theatre, Chicago Nov 11, 2006
#12 – American V: A Hundred Highways – Johnny Cash – 38 points
God’s Gonna Cut You Down – Johnny Cash
If you are curious to see the full ginormous list of albums that were tossed into the pot for consideration by all of us, and then lovingly labelled and categorized on a giant spreadsheet by Bruce I mean our accounting firm, then here you go:
9 – Damien Rice
Alright, Still – Lily Allen
American Myth – Jackie Green
American V: A Hundred Highways – Johnny Cash
And Now That I’m In Your Shadow – Damien Jurado
Animal Years – Josh Ritter
Anti Anti – Snowden
Antidepressant – Lloyd Cole
As Daylight Dies – Killswitch Engine
Be Your Own Pet – Be Your Own Pet
Beach House – Beach House
Bedroom Classics, Vol. 2 EP – Josh Rouse
Begin To Hope – Regina Spektor
Ben Kweller – Ben Kweller
Best of the IRS Years – REM
Big Iron World – Old Crow Medicine Show
Bishop Allen – EP’s
Black Holes And Revelations – Muse
Boys And Girls In America – The Hold Steady
Breathe – Dan Berne
Broken Boy Soldiers – The Racounteurs
Canavas – Silversun Pickups
Cansei De Ser Sexy – CSS
Catastrophe Keeps Us Together – Rainer Maria
Chemical City – Sam Roberts
Comfort Of Strangers – Beth Orton
Corinne Bailey Rae – Corinne Bailey Rae
Crashing The Ether – Tommy Keene
Dog Problems – The Format
Donuts – J Dilla
Down Beside Your Beauty – Favourite Sons
Dreams Don’t Count – Jules Shear
Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly of A Mountain – Sparklehorse
Dying To Say This To You – The Sounds
Eingya – Helios
Everything All The Time – Band of Horses
Field of Crows – Darden Smith
First Impressions Of Earth – The Strokes
Fishscales – Ghostface Killer
Flying Canyon – Flying Canyon
Food & Liquor – Lupe Fiasco
Fort Recovery – Centro-matic
Fox Confessor – Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood – Neko Case
Funnel Cloud – HEM
Future Sex/Love Sounds – Justin Timberlake
Game Theory – The Roots
Give Me A Wall – Forward, Russia
Gnarls Barkley – Gnarls Barkley
Gulag Orkestar – Beirut
Half Perfect World – Madeleine Peyroux
Hell Hath No Fury – Clipse
Hell Under The Skullbones – Grahm Linsey
Hello Love – The Be Good Tanyas
Homecoming – Griffin House
How We Operate – Gomez
I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass – Yo La Tengo
I’m Your Man: Motion Picture Soundtrack – Leonard Cohen
Imaginary Kingdom – Tim Finn
Inside In/Inside Out – The Kooks
It’s Never Been Like That – Phoenix
Just Like The Family Cat – Grandaddy
Keep Your Heart – The Loved Ones
King – T.I.
Let Me Introduce My Friends – I’m From Barcelona
Lightness – Peter and the Wolf
Living With War – Neil Young
Look At Who You’re Talking To – Human Television
Love Travels At Illegal Speeds – Graham Coxon
Lullabies In A & C – Bel Auburn
Makers – Rocky Votolato
Minor Works – J. Tillman
Mockingbird – Derek Webb
Modern Romance – Sasah Dobson
Modern Times – Bob Dylan
Mr. Lemons – Glen Phillips
Night Ripper – Girl Talk
Nine Times That Same Song – Love Is All
No Midnight – Birdmonster
Nothing But The Water – Grace Potter And The Nocturnals
October Language – Belong
Offshore – Early Day Miners
Oh! Calcutta! – The Lawrence Arms
Open Season: Remixes And Collaborations – Feist
Orphans – Tom Waits
Pearl Jam – Pearl Jam
People Gonna Talk – James Hunter
Pieces Of The People We Love – The Rapture
Post-War – M Ward
Put Your Ghost To Rest – Kevin Devine
Puzzles Like You – Mojave 3
Rabbit Fur Coat – Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins
Rather Ripped – Sonic Youth
Rebels, Rogues And Sworn Brothers – Lucero
Reiter In – Chris Whitley
Return To Cookie Mountain – TV On The Radio
Return To The Sea – Islands
Say I Am You – The Weepies
Show Your Bones – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Shut Up I Am Dreaming – Sunset Rubdown
Silent Shout – The Knife
Slow New York – Richard Julian
Snow Angels – Over The Rhine
So Much More – Brett Dennen
So This Is Goodbye – Junior Boys
Some Echoes – Aloha
Songs That You Might Not Like – Boat
Soulwax – Nite Versions
Stay Afraid – Parts & Labor
Sun, Sun, Sun – The Elected
Suppy And Demand – Amos Lee
Tangerine – Dave Mead
The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
The Body, The Blood, The Machine – The Thermals
The Californian – Bob Schneider
The Crane Wife – The Decmberists
The Dividing Island – Lansing-Drieden
The Dust of Retreat – Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s
The Eraser – Thom Yorke
The Evening Call – Greg Brown
The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly – The Bicycles
The Greatest – Cat Power
The Information – Beck
The Lemonheads – The Lemonheads
The Loon – Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
The Seeger Sessions – Bruce Springsteen
The Shining – J Dilla
The Trials Of Van Occupanther – Midlake
The Warning – Hot Chip
The Way To The Bitter Lake – Spider
These Four Walls – Shawn Colvin
Through The Windowpane – Guillemots
Till The Sun Turns Black – Ray Lamontagne
Time Being – Ron Sexsmith
Tired Of Hanging Around – The Zutons
Today Is Tonight – The Changes
Tower Of Love – Jim Noir
Under The Skin – Lindsey Buckingham
Unicornography – The Falcon
Ways Not To Lose – The Wood Brothers
We Are The Pipettes – The Pipettes
We Are The Vehicles – Maritime
We Shall Overcome – Bruce Springsteen
We The Vehicles – Maritime
Westerns EP – Pete Yorn
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys
What’s Going On – Dirty Dozen Brass Band
What’s Mine Is Your – Elliot Morris
Where Is The Glow? – Kite Flying Society
Wolfmother – Wolfmother
World Waits – Jeremy Enigk
Writer’s Block – Peter Bjorn and John
Yellow House – Grizzly Bear
Young Machetes – The Blood Brothers
Ys – Joanna Newsom
Whew! So now you have some ideas for your Christmas list. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
Name: Heather Browne
You only look at albums you own?
What about
Deep Purple – Machine Head?
Mott the Hoople – All the Young Dudes.
Jimi Hendrix – Experience.
FogHat – Fool for the City.
These guys did it first.
Anonymous — December 15, 2006 @ 3:12 pm
Thanks for the effort. I love these big collaborative things. Fascinating.
Anon above missed the 2006 part.
Trevor Jackson — December 15, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
Hmmm…no dissing Ghostface, but this list is fishy. Not having TVOTR is unfathomable!!
Sebastian — December 15, 2006 @ 4:44 pm
dont you mean fishscale, not fishcake?
Anonymous — December 15, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
Yes, Anonymous. How could I have forgotten the fantastic FogHat album in 2006. That would have been perfect for our top 10 of the year.
And thanks for catching the typo, other anon.
heather — December 15, 2006 @ 5:24 pm
It is actually quite interesting (I think) that (if I counted right) there are (out of a possible 240 (20 x 12, right?) albums that could have been on the compiled list, that there were 150 different albums. That’s over 12 distinct and unique albums (on average) from everyone that contributed.
Josh Ritter getting top honors with only 77 points is ridiculously low. There was (if my math is correct) 2520 possible points. The top 13 albums accounted for only 679 (just more than 1/4 of the total) points.
It amazes (and also pleases me) to no end to see the diversity within this group of bloggers.
Eric — December 15, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
Thanks for this super incredible post and letting me be a part of it.
Cheers,
The Duke
Duke of Straw — December 15, 2006 @ 8:04 pm
Yeah for Josh Ritter! I am quite fond of three of the picks, including Josh, Midlake, and Band Of Horses. But to see Dylan off the top…man…that hurts!
Natsthename — December 15, 2006 @ 8:47 pm
Hmmm…
“Fox Confessor – Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood – Neko Case
The Seeger Sessions – Bruce Springsteen
We Shall Overcome – Bruce Springsteen”
I smell a conspiracy to keep Neko and Bruuuuuce down!
Matt — December 15, 2006 @ 11:28 pm
Everyone in most of these lists always errantly misses or overlooks the brilliant She Wants Revenge – She wants Revenge, their debut album blew me away and is still regulary featured in my I-Pod
Sid Sawdust — December 16, 2006 @ 6:42 am
i wasn’t respected enuf to be asked? i’m hurt. so hurt, i’m dropping out of blogging in january.
Ekko — December 16, 2006 @ 10:47 am
matt wrote:
“Hmmm…
“Fox Confessor – Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood – Neko Case
The Seeger Sessions – Bruce Springsteen
We Shall Overcome – Bruce Springsteen”
I smell a conspiracy to keep Neko and Bruuuuuce down!”
—
as these two will definitely be in my top ten for the year (with neko’s brilliant record likely at the top), I was going to point this ohio-like irregularity out too, but matt said it better.
I doubt bruce received enough blogger votes, but I’m curious
if combining the neko entries might
propel her into the top 12.
don’t make us call in howard baker or russ feingold to find out.
but black helicoptors aside, very cool post/feature ms. b and friends!
one more note– no top 12 for the hold steady either?! it’s a felony I tell you.
last note I swear– anon#1: foghat? really? you’ve gotta get out more bro/sis.
cwb — December 16, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
Bruce says:
“Definitely not an incorrect tally….
Neko only showed up on two lists for a total of 21 points.
Bruce only showed up on two lists for a total of 25.
The “big” alphabetical list was basically all the albums from every list I got.
And when I cleaned it up for the post I left one of the two Neko and Bruce albums in.
Sorry….
BW”
heather — December 16, 2006 @ 11:35 pm
Wow…that’s some serious work, Heather. In the end, couldn’t rank all albums, so on my blog did a festive 50 of tracks of the year.
Ed — December 17, 2006 @ 3:25 am
woah – that long list at the end says it all. you guys picked a group of bloggers with very different tastes.
c — December 17, 2006 @ 8:57 am
Fantastic work on this list! (Although I can’t read the 12 circle so well, those things drive me crazy.)
This list is great fodder for a mixtape while I travel this week for the holidays – Thanks
marc — December 21, 2006 @ 8:12 am