Best of 2006: Introduction

Back in 2003 I started tracking my favorite albums via playlist in iTunes. Every time I found an album I really liked, I would drop it into the “Best of 2003” playlist. By the end of the year I had collected all of my favorites for that year.

In 2004, I felt so strongly about a couple of the albums that it occurred to me that it was time to make my list public. Unfortunately, I never found the time to write about it on my blog. And I couldn’t quite formulate a way to describe how an album would merit inclusion into my list. Thus, the Best of 2004 never received the treatment it deserved. Finally, at the end of 2005 I had some time to let my thoughts and words coagulate and trickle onto my computer when I blogged about the Best of 2005.

This year, the criteria for inclusion into the list is the same as last year. To be eligible, an album only had to be added to my CD collection in 2006, but not necessarily released in 2006. Some long-time favorites with which I had familiarity but had not previously owned on CD were only eligible for “Honorable Mention” along with a few others that didn’t qualify for the Top 10.

In order to make it into the Top 10, a CD had to saturate my listening time for an appeciable length of time. These ten CDs took up more than 75% of my listening time during the year, a clear sign of appreciation. Although I have ranked them, distinguishing between any two is very difficult indeed. When I obtained each it probably remained in heavy rotation at home, on my iPod and at work for several weeks, often receiving two or three plays per day. This is the quality level required to make the Top 10.

Over the next couple of days I’ll be writing three articles about my picks for Best of 2006. In addition to the album lists, I have added the Top 5 Songs of 2006. This year several songs really touched me but the albums from which they came were not good enough to make the Top 10 Albums. Since I couldn’t possibly make a Best of 2006 list without them, I added the new list.