so diverse it covers bass-heavy ragga (the bug), dutch dubstep (2565), early-90s hardcore homage (zomby), a singer-songwriter album from a veteran techno producer (brinkmann), absurdly theatrical disco (kelley polar), etc?

i came here to say thanks to the original poster rather than argue, but even if the list did end up more conservative than i’d hoped, if all those fall into the ‘artsy indie’ category then not a lot doesn’t. anyway, peace.

1) Unlike Michaelangelo, I see no reason why a release that came out October 2007 (or, uh, a podcast “posted” then — someday maybe I’ll listen to one of those!)should not be eligible for a 2008 list. As Michaelangelo knows, the Pazz & Jop poll even had a “year of impact” rule that said literal release date didn’t matter. And when silly magazines insist on ending best-of-year years long about, I dunno, early November, saving stuff for the next year might be the only way that late-year releases will ever even have a fair shot.

2) There is all sorts of grey area between “albums” and “reissues.” Always has been, always will be. My recommendation, which is to say this is what I always do: If a given release is on the new-release/reissue cusp, stick it on whichever list needs the most help. (Assuming you’re allowed to make both lists. If not, your job is even easier.)

like 2562, claro intelecto and thomas brinkmann, right?

(And also, I was wrong. The 2008 Jay Reatard album I like is *Singles 06 – 07*, which was way livelier, catchier, and more rocking than that CD of ho-hum Matador singles, which I barely made it through once [and even the one I liked was still a far cry from, oh, *Singles Going Steady* or *Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts* or *Pure Mania* or whatever it wishes it was]…So that means TWO albums I like. Approximately the same as every other premature year-end list I’ve seen so far.)

Gore on the reissues list is cute though! (I didn’t even know that got reissued!)

Am i totally missing the boat here? Can someone explain what differentiates a reissue of an older album (usually with sonic improvements and maybe some bonus material) vs. a new release of older-yet-not-heard-before material? God I need to go home.

“Surely 2008′s giant pile-up of African vault finds deserves a heftier representation in the reissues Top 20 than Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou at No. 18? (At the very least, the majordomos at the mag need to give Franco’s Francophonic Vol. 1, just out on Sterns, a spin.)”

We have all the soundway Nigeria comps in the office (and they were on our shortlist for re-issues; as was a heap more stuff), but we ended up going for the orchestre poly-rhythmo de cotonou instead. More of us just liked that one more. Cheers for the heads up on the francophonic comp though; we don’t have that and should hear it.

Re: Arthur Russell, it’s actually out top 20 reissues and compilations. As a collection of Russell demos recorded over 30 years, we felt it fell into the latter.

Thing about lists like that is because they’re consensual, and reflective of all our staff and contributors, a lot of worthy things get missed. In our blogs section we’ve got individual contributors and artists talking about their best of the year, which are obviously a lot more individual and arguably more interesting. First two are here:

[www.factmagazine.co.uk]
[www.factmagazine.co.uk]

we’ve also got end of year charts from no age, kode 9, ponytail, sinden, toddla t and many more, which we’ll stagger on the site over the next week.

Best wishes, apologies for the long post, cheers again for the kind words and most of all, merry Christmas!

tom