Album of the Year Thread - 2022 - Winner - For the Sake of Bethel Woods - Midlake

[journolud]

I enjoyed this thread but ultimately the sheer volume of nominations, even over a 6 month period got too much. I don’t know how you could mitigate that but maybe split the year into months with two being selected to go to an end of year vote, by which time we should have had plenty of time to form an opinion.

There may be better ways.

Meanwhile just giving the Bonny Light Horseman album a listen. I remember reading a review in the year and earmarking it to listen to but never got round to it. I don’t consider myself am Americana fan but then do keep finding myself drawn to stuff like this. Nice combination of voices, I’d forgotten who was in them but then there was the instantly recognisable voice from one of my favourite tracks of the last couple of years

 

[Coatigan]

I only started following this thread a few months ago because I would like to discover some new music/artists. I must confess that I am a bit stuck in my ways being firmly rooted in the 70s predominantly! The only new music I tend to listen to is new releases by artists of that era eg Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt to name but two.

The way I access music now means I tend to listen to individual tracks rather than albums. I have hundreds of tracks in a "Miscellaneous" playlist on Spotify!

I would hope to contribute in some way in 2023 - had I done so in 2022 I would have nominated this album.


View attachment 64913

Rolling Golden Holy - Bonny Light Horseman

Nice album that. Would have got a hit from me.


@RobMCFC
Regarding this thread for this year, here are some very very loose thoughts.
They need thought through a bit more and are open to abandoning or being added to.

One of my issues with this one was that while I was happy to dish out hits against anything I liked, the final list didnt really include ones that I particularly was overwhelmed by. And it didnt include the albums I would have put forward had I been picking clean from my own. Here is how I think it could be streamlined.

We put albums forward as before, for discussion and listening. But if we would like to see them included in the final list, we put a simple yes/hit against them. No miss, no bullseye, just do we want it to feature in the list to pick from.

But we also limit the amount of hits/yesses of each poster to say 3-5. They can be applied retrospectively as well at the end of the year. I.e if someone saves theirs and then in december realises the album from march was the strongest, whack it on that. I would see this bit as not being tracked but more self-policing. I.e we all try note our own 3-5 yesses, and we trust nobody has given out 10. If people give less, their choice just means others shape it more.

Then you produce a list of say 15-20 albums with the most yesses.


Perhaps the individual final nominations of 10 also include the posters' own genuine favourites, whether or not they made it. Say 7 or 8 from the collective list and 2-3 of your own. With the usual 1-10 scores.

 

[RobMCFC]

Yes, I know what you mean about your favourite not being in the final voting list.

Unlike some of the other threads, I felt like this was a lot of effort (when people were nominating) for not much return.

Like you say, if we have it as more self-policing, it would be better.

Maybe we can just have the thread discussing new releases for the year and see where it goes. We can worry about nominations nearer the end of the year.