I Have Here in My Left Hand a Copy of Tonight's Top Ten List...

As a warm up to writing about my favorite albums of 2004, here is a fun article from popmatters. It's called "8 Simple Rules for Writing a Top 10 List" and it's from December of last year. Here's just a sample:

The year-end top 10 list is just one manifestation of a tradition that music geeks everywhere hold dear. For what would the music press be without its countdowns, greatest hits, charts, and lists of every stripe? Cataloging is a ritual we refuse to relinquish. It helps us mark time; boils countless scattered and overwhelming cultural products into easily manageable round numbers; it's a practice which sparks debate, gives meaning, creates excitement. But of all of them, the venerable Top 10 List takes the cake. A Top 10 list is holy, mega-intense: almost as telling as one's DNA code, and far less cryptic to interpret. Dare I say the Top 10 list is more meaningful than the desert island album? Yes, indeed: for it's just long enough to be illuminating, just brief enough be loaded. If the desert island album opens a window to the soul, the top 10 list cuts a cavernous gash through the body, making visible the blood, bone, and guts.