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.