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Music: Current count 26050 [26017] rated (+33), 395 [396] unrated (-1).
One New Year's resolution that I've been able to keep is that I stop adding records to the previous year's list, so that now that 2015 is gone, I'm officially done with 2014. The final list for 2014 is here. Since the January 31, 2015 freeze date, I added 81 records to the file, bringing the total number of records there to 1248. That was up slightly from 2013 (1222) and 2012 (1190), but still well below the record years of 2011 (1415) and 2010 (1300). The first year I topped 1000 records was 2004, when I started Jazz Consumer Guide -- 1052 that year, which has only dropped below 1000 twice since (982 in 2005, 996 in 2008). The last Voice-published JCG was in 2011, and the freebies thinned out after then, but I had started using Rhapsody in 2007, which took up the slack (and then some).
In fact, the share of rated records I've sourced from Rhapsody (and a few other download sources, including links from publicists) has increased every year since 2007 (16.1%), up to 58.1% in 2014. (The series from 2008-13: 21.9% 34.0%, 42.5%, 46.8%, 47.4%, 49.5%.) It is not clear whether that trend will be sustained for 2015: my plan is to "freeze" the file no later than January 31, and to continue to add stragglers until December 31, 2016. The current 2015 file lists 1007 albums, of which 505 (50.1%) are from Rhapsody, etc. Virtually everything I add in that time will be streamed, so if I wind up with 1200 records (a little less than my 2012-14 average) I'll wind up at 58.5%. Odds of that happening are probably 50-50. Last year I added approximately 230 albums to my 2014 list after January 1 (133 in the pre-freeze January 24 Rhapsody Streamnotes, plus about one-third of the 50 more in the February 13 RS, plus 81 post-freeze albums, so another 193 wouldn't be out of ordinary. However, I suspect that I'm beginning to slow down, so I may not add that any. The number of physical albums I received (or in some cases bought -- not easy to separate the two, but the latter is certainly a tiny share for the last 5-6 years) has declined every year since 2011 (753, 623, 617, 523, 502), and significantly since 2004-07 (1017, 941, 1092, 956) -- peak JCG years, but also pre-Rhapsody, so I was also buying more CDs.
It would be a lot of work (and probably not worth doing) but I could go back through the metacritic files (and I'd probably need some additional sources) and figure out my share of all (at least fairly well known) jazz releases. If I did so, I have little doubt that it would show that my share has decreased regularly since 2004-07 (with a probable peak year of 2004). I've currently heard 211 of the 426 jazz records in the 2015 EOY Aggegate List, so 49.5% -- better than I would have expected, but I have many fewer jazz lists compiled this year. (Actually, I have a larger sample list, 2015 Music Tracking: Jazz, with 1040 jazz albums listed, of which I've heard 610 -- 58.6%; that list includes everything I have heard, whereas the aggregate only lists records that have appeared on other lists.) That's just one data point -- not a trend -- and while it strikes me as respectable I still sense that I am slipping.
I keep expecting my Jazz and Non-Jazz EOY lists to converge in length, but while I added four non-jazz albums this week (Days With Dr. Yen Lo, Halsey, Nozinja, and Skylar Spence -- underground rap, teen pop, Afro-electronica, and disco), Allen Lowe matched that on the jazz side (with a little help from Matthew Shipp), and Steve Swell added an extra, so now the counts are 76-63. Evening out compared to a month ago, but still there are blips. After the JCP ballots were sent off, I received 5-CD packages from both Lowe and Swell. It took a while to sort them out, but I wound up with five A- and 4 B+(***) (one of Swell's is 2-CD). Lowe's are all fairly matched, with a couple regulars and many friends circling around a common approach -- the sort of thing he previously released in single packages (the 3-CD Blues and the Empirical Truth and the 4-CD Mulatto Radio). Three of Swell's sets are the sort of avant-jazz that has little chance of appealing to non-believers -- solo trombone album, a compilation of scattered live sets (including more solo), and a trio with Peter Brötzmann -- but all are exceptionally well done, hence my grades. The fourth, Kende Dreams, is an all-star quintet where everyone excels. Good chance had I gotten it earlier it would have wound up on my ballot, but not feeling like bumping anyone so soon, I left it a notch lower in my file. Terrific album, even for someone with no interest or knowledge of Bartók (like me).
Among the old music, I picked out the two Kaiser records because I had them marked as ungraded, and could skip the step of finding them by tuning into Rhapsody. The unrated account is listed weekly. These are records that I have (at least at one point had) but never got around to. New records pile onto the end of that list, but I currently only have two unrated 2015 releases -- a cassette tape I can't play and a Kansas CD I won't (at least not now) -- and most recent years have been handled with similar efficiency. So most of those records are ten or more years old, many bought up when the last decent local record stores went out of business, and some date back to the LP era (in which case I quite possibly don't have them anymore). Still, I always like to knock a few off whenever I get in the neighborhood, as I was with the new Kaiser/Russell album.
Negro Religious Field Recordings appeared in an Allen Lowe Facebook post. I clicked on it, then found it on Rhapsody, and figured why not? There's probably a lot more down that rabbit hole, and maybe some day I'll go there, but for me this resonated not just from hearing Lowe's latest records but from checking out a Staples Family reissue that's nowhere near as good.
Good chance I'll post a Rhapsody Streamnotes sometime this week. Draft file is currently 125 records deep, more than enough. Probably enough time left in January for a second column too, although I have a couple other ideas kicking around.
EOY Aggegate list should be winding down, but I'm still have a bunch of lists I haven't transcribed yet, and a few stragglers are coming in. One thing I did do was to score the Robert Christgau [RC] and Michael Tatum [MT] grades I've been tracking: 5 for A/A+, 4 for A-, 3 for B+/***, 2 for **, 1 for *. I'm not sure I have them all yet, and will add new ones when they appear (until I stop working on the file). I might wind up doing the same thing for my own grades, but that would be a lot more work.
Here are some EOY lists by critics you should know by name (and note I especially appreciate long lists, which I regard as realistic for people who listen broadly):
Also:
For a list of many more lists, look here.
New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week: