Out of curiosity, I compared my top 25 albums of 2016 with some of the other popular lists to see how much overlap existed.   More overlap this year than any other with Pinegrove leading the way appearing on 7 other lists. My greatest overlap was four with the 45 from Brooklyn Vegan. This is still relatively small as most of these lists have significant overlap. As an example, Pitchfork and Spin share 36 of the same 50 with many in the same order.

• One overlap with the 50 from Pitchfork (Pinegrove #46)
• Three overlaps with the 50 from Spin (Pinegrove #48 , The Hotelier #31, and Joyce Manor #23)
• Three overlaps with the 50 from Consequence of Sound (The Hotelier #43, Into It. Over It. #35, and Pinegrove #30)
• Two overlaps with the 50 from Paste (Andrew Bird #24 and Pinegrove #14)
• One overlap with the 50 from NPR (Pinegrove #38)
• One overlap with the 15 from Jon Caramanica from the NY Times (Joyce Manor #11)
• Two overlaps with the 50 from Stereogum (The Hotelier #39 and Pinegrove #24)
• No overlaps with the 60 from GorillavsBear
• Four overlaps with the 45 from Brooklyn Vegan (American Football #40, The Hotelier #22, Pinegrove #10, and Joyce Manor #6)
• And 6 overlaps with the 20 best emo/punk albums from Brooklyn Vegan (John K Samson #20, Jeff Rosenstock #12, Into it. Over It #8, American Football #5, The Hotelier #3, and Joyce Manor #1)
• Three overlaps with the 20 from Punknews (Joyce Manor #13, John K Samson #13, and Jeff Rosenstock #8)

I purchased 77 full length albums in 2016 and honestly there were not many misses. 2016 has been my favorite year of albums since 2010.

Using my album formula, here is the ranking of my favorite 25 albums in 2016.

1. Ceschi / Pat The Bunny’s Self Titled Split (DIY Bandits)  – 9.775

2.  Dowsing’s Okay (Asian Man) – 9.436

3. Pinegrove’s Cardinal (Run For Cover) – 9.395

4. John K. Samson’s Winter Wheat (Anti) – 9.331

5. Joyce Manor’s Cody (Epitaph) – 9.277

6. Andrew Birds’ Are You Serious (Universal) – 9.220

7. Brian Fallon’s Painkillers (Island) – 9.094

8. Into It. Over It.’s Standards (Triple Crown) – 9.067

9. Jeff Rosenstock’s Worry (Quote Unquote) – 9.004

10. Tiny Moving Parts’ Celebrate (Triple Crown) – 8.947

11. Arrows In Her’s It Tired Me All The Same (Broken World Media) – 8.922

12. Al Scorch’s Circle Round The Signs (Bloodshot) – 8.869

13. Real Friends’ The Home Inside My Head (Fearless) – 8.864

14. Worst Party Ever’s Anthology (Bandcamp) – 8.738

15. Kevin Devine’s Instigator (Procrastinate Music Traitors) – 8.672

16. Billy Bragg / Joe Henry’s Shine A Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad (Cooking Vinyl) – 8.487

17. Ramshackle Glory’s One Last Big Job (Self Released) – 8.467

18. Camp Cope’s Self Titled (Bandcamp) – 8.455 (re-released by Run for Cover in 2017)

19. Mom Jeans’ Best Buds (Counter Intuitive) – 8.213

20. The Hotelier’s Goodness (Revolver Music) – 8.175

21. I Love Your Lifestyle’s We Go Way Back (Dog Knights) – 8.047

22. American Football’s LP2 (Polyvinyl) – 7.899

23. Luke Winslow-King’s I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always (Bloodshot) – 7.778

24. Michael Jordan Touchdown Pass’ Strange Days (Bandcamp) – 7.692

25. Posture & the Grizzly’s I am Satan (Broken World Media) – 6.815

The end of the year is upon us again.   I do love this time of year.   You get a moment to step away from the routine and think.   I like to remember the great times of the year, while setting strategy and objectives for the new year.

I also love using my downtime to listen to a lot of music.    It truly is a labor of love going through all the music of a particular year – remembering and enjoying the standouts, listening and rating the ones that were forgotten, and discovering some new ones along the way.  For me there is pleasure and comfort in creating a sense of order to the massive quantity of music and memories into a single artifact that i can use as a catalyst to recall the best moments of a particular span of time.

For those not initiated, my lists are always for the period two years ago.    I believe that favorite album compilations should lag by two years for two primary time constraining reasons:  to address the staying power of the album and to acquire a suitable number of fine albums.

2016 was a great year.  I bought 77 albums and 957 songs from 2016.   2016 was my favorite year of music in 2010s. It was my 8th favorite year in the 66 years of music that i have rated. I will spend the next few days finishing the rating and selecting my tops from 2016.

Let me know your thoughts on the hits and misses.