It’s that time of year again. Everyone’s throwing together year-end lists; Best DVDs of the Year, Best Albums of the Year, Best Screenplays That Will Never Get Made of the Year…

So it’s time for me to put together my Music Of The Year compilation. This year, more than any other, I’ve got my work cut out for me. You see, here’s how it works. Because I work where I do, I’m exposed to a lot of music. And because of Amoeba’s liberal check-out policy, I bring home lots of it. In fact, in this year alone I’ve collected more music than my previous thirty-six years on this planet combined. As Jeffrey Jones so famously proclaimed in Amadeus, that’s just too many notes. it’s as if I’ve stood beneath a cascade of cds with my arms out, hoping to catch something. Now, at year’s end, I’m standing amid a sea of discs. Many of them, I’ve caught. Most of them lie piled at my feet, waiting for me to sift through them. There’s some great stuff I’ve missed. And some interesting stuff I’ve caught. But rather than fret over all the music by, say, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Devendra Banhart or Nikka Costa that I haven’t had a chance to hear, I’ll just pull together a collection of songs that’ve have meant something to me this year. Songs that resonated, songs that made me go, “Whoa, hey, what’s this?” And you know what? They may not be from this year. Mirah’s “C’Mon Miracle” made an impact on me in 2005. But that one came out in 2004. I went through a Wilco phase that’s impossible to ignore. And I had a moment with Petra Haden and Bill Frisell. Their album came out in 2003.

That’s why it’s my “Year In Music” rather than some restrictive “Best of 2005” collection. Music is entirely subjective. And I’ve probably missed all of the “Best Of” stuff. I was too busy re-discovering the AC/DC remasters to catch everything new and cool.

Anyway, stay tuned. I’ve narrowed it to 65 songs. I’m gonna try and whittle that down to forty. And then if you send me your snail mail address, I’ll wing you a copy.

And no, there won’t be any AC/DC on the comp.