What I'll Be Doing & Why

I've got a serious love/hate thing going on with music writing--most days I loathe the very thought of it, most likely because I spend so much time thinking about it. I could list a million pretentious-sounding criticisms of it that I've come up with over the years, but these are ultimately just excuses I make for not writing anything at all.

After all, if music criticism is so shallow and unnecessary, why have I invested so much time coming up for all these reasons it's shallow and unnecessary? Maybe it actually has some value, or maybe I just enjoy pursuing things that are shallow and unnecessary.

And hey, what's more unnecessary than a list? How about a decade-spanning list with less-than-strict criteria for inclusion and no real order! So here's my plan: I'm going to write about albums from the last 10 years that I think are interesting, important or just great. Extra consideration will be given to albums that I have some personal anecdotes about, because really, what am I going to write about otherwise? "Swirling guitars"?

Some of these albums will be no-brainers--eventually, you will hear my thoughts about Radiohead--but for the sake of brevity (if brevity can exist in a project with no real end) I'm going to make this a 1 record per band affair. So when you do hear my thoughts about Radiohead, you'll be hearing them about Kid A. Because come on, what else was I going to pick?

Also, along the way I might find the time to talk about particularly great singles or particularly awful trends or personalities that made themselves known during this decade we've come to know as the aughts.

Just kidding--nobody calls it the aughts.