With the HOA and the 70s poll in excellent shape, why not talk about the next big decade poll? Of course you are all aware that the actual decade is going to end in barely 9 months and soon we are going to be drowned in a flood of list of best albums and songs of the decade. So, what we are going to do during 2010? Our poll for the 00s (with the same rules that the previous)? Or do you think that is preferable let that flood sink and then judge it with more perspective? In that second case we can do the 60s poll during 2010 and then the 00s poll during 2011.
As I told to Henrik I can volunteer for hosting the 60s poll, I don’t mind if it’s during 2010 or 2011. And I’m sure that other one of us would be glad to host the 00s poll. But let me add a suggestion about the 60s poll. You all know that the first half of the decade was dominated by singles and the albums were not as consistent in those days (except for the jazz albums). I we try to stay true to the rules of the previous polls (10 albums per year) I’m afraid that the final list will include albums receiving few votes while a lot of our favourite albums from the latter part of the decade won’t have the chance to get in. Moreover it’s quite probable a low participation in the 60s poll during the first years (I hope I’m wrong anyway). So my suggestion is: why not chose the Top 5 albums of the years 1960-1964 and the Top 15 of the years 1965-1969 for the final Top 100 of the decade? It would be a more balanced (and realistic) list.
And what do you think about the songs? 1960-1964 was not a bad period for songs. Should we use the same approach as the albums (5 for 1960-1964 and 15 for 1965-1969) or should we chose 10 songs per year like the 70s-90s polls?

So let me use this thread for voting for the next poll. I will keep it open till we reach a number of, let’s say, 35 voters (this is the number of voters for the 1970 poll, and we have 40 voters yet for 1971!). Just please answer to these 3 questions:
1) What poll do you prefer for 2010? The 60s or the 00s?
2) For the 60s albums poll, do you prefer option A (top 10 per year like the previous polls) or the option B (top 5 from 1960 to 1964 and top 15 from 1965 to 1969)?
3) Same question for the 60s songs poll: option A (Top 10) or option B (top 5/15)?

I’ll go first:
1) 60s poll for 2010.
2) Option B for albums.
3) Option B too for singles.

1) 60s Poll
2) Option B
3) Option A

1. 60s (need extra time to reflect on later years)
2. A (for the sake of consistency, no rule of minimum number of album, though. If you know ONE album it should count. Jazz fillers.)
3. A (digging gives 10 songs easily)

making a guest appearance as "What Time Is It"

1) 60s Poll
2) Option B
3) Option A

And I suggest to reserve December '09 / January '10 for the 2009 Pazz & Jop Albums and Songs polls.

Andre (wishing you sweet dreams)

1) '60s in 2010
2) Option B for albums (5/15)
3) Option A for songs (10/10)

1)00s only cause it'd be more exciting

if it becomes 60's then:
2)B
3)A

I vote for the 00s, and either method for the 60s poll is fine by me.

Tough choice, I really am looking forward to the 60's poll but I don't know if I want to wait a year to evaluate the decade past. Why not both? I think both would generate a ton of interest and nobody would feel overwhelmed by either. I think the 60's and 00's are both decades where people already know what they are going to be voting for.

1) Honestly I'd like to see us do a 50s poll, too..so my real vote would be 60s in 2010, 50s in 2011, and THEN the 2000s in 2012 (if the planet doesn't explode then... ). But if the only choice becomes 60s or 00s, let's give the current decade a little longer to sink in. I vote 60s.

2) 10 per year
3) 10 per year again

well... tough choice, I love 00s much more than 60s but would be more logical to continue with 60s and let a little time to think of 00s albums.

So
1)60s
2)B
3)A

1) 60s poll for 2010
2) Option B for albums
3) Option B for singles

1) 60s (I'm surprised though that there aren't more votes for the 00s)
2) B
3) B (this was the most difficult choice for me, I could really go with A just as well)

1)60s
2)B
3)A

Tough choice, I really am looking forward to the 60's poll but I don't know if I want to wait a year to evaluate the decade past. Why not both? I think both would generate a ton of interest and nobody would feel overwhelmed by either. I think the 60's and 00's are both decades where people already know what they are going to be voting for.

I would feel overwhelmed. I don't like to fill my top 20s with records I don't like a lot, so I have listened to at least 10 new albums every month (for the 90s, 80s and 70s yearly polls) to give more albums a chance to make my lists. And I have even more to catch up with for the 60s (primarily jazz records) and especially 00s (all genres).

1. 60s
2. B
3. B

1. 60s
2. B, though I'm not really that convinced. I say we should add a wild-card round. Vote say 60-61 (5 albums each) in Feb, 62-63 in March, 64-69 take their usual (10 album) month-long polls, and in Oct and Nov vote in any album that didn't make it. I think that will balance the decade out the best. 15 in one year is too much for me.
3. A

Many thanks to the people that voted so far (especially to What Time Is It? and to It’s Past Bedtime).

With the initial 14 votes the trend is quite clear: 60s for 2010, option B for albums and option A for singles. Anyway I’ll wait till we get to 30 or 35 voters to post the final results. Hey, Kevin and the other 00s lovers, say your thing!

Very interesting suggestions too, I’ll try to answer:
- Fred/What Time Is It?: maybe during he first half of the decade I could count votes under five albums in order to stimulate the participation, but I would to encourage everyone to try to listen enough albums to find at least five albums worthy of your votes.
- John: my opinion is the same as Henrik’s, I usually listen to a lot of new albums for the polls, and I would need a lot of catch-up especially (I must admit) for the 00s. And if we do the two polls during 2010, what are we going to do during 2011?
- Greg Rumpf: great idea!! The 50s for 2012!!
- Alex D: your option with the wild-card round is quite interesting too, if more people is willing to support this option it could be done (or 5 albums from 1960-1964, 10 albums from 1965-1969 and a wild card round for the rest of the 25 albums to complete a Top 100). But probably this option could be even more asymmetrical that my option, we can have for instance more than 20 albums from 1969. Don’t believe me? Just look at the AM Top 100 for the 60s:
1960: 2
1961: 6
1962: 2
1963: 7
1964: 4
1965: 9
1966: 6
1967: 19
1968: 17
1969: 28

I've been looking for any other 60s Top 100 but I’ve only found the NME Top 50 albums of the 60s and it’s quite asymmetrical too:
1960: 1 (in fact is 1959, it’s “Kind of Blue”
1961: 0
1962: 0
1963: 1
1964: 2
1965: 6
1966: 6
1967: 13
1968: 9
1969: 12

Keep on voting!

Honorio, that is true, but I think it's preferable to having 15 albums right from the beginning. If it happens that we get 20 albums from '69, I still think that's better than automatically voting in lesser albums from other years. With a wild-card I think we can get the best albums from any year in the top 100.

OK then, Alex D. So we can introduce an option C (or better we can call that the option D in your honour ) for albums that would go like that:
- February 2010: we vote for 1960 and 1961 and choose a Top 5 for every year.
- March 2010: we vote for 1962 and 1963 and choose a Top 5 for every year.
- April 2010: we vote for 1964 and choose a Top 5.
- May to September 2010: we vote for 1965 to 1969 (a month a year as before) and choose a Top 10.
- October 2010: wild-card round, we vote for the best 25 albums outside the 75 chosen from February to September.
- November 2010: we vote for the Top 100 albums (and songs) like the previous polls.
So the ones that voted previously for the option A or B and want to change to the option D please feel free to do it and I will recount the votes. The one who don’t want to change don’t need to vote again. Myself I will go (again) for option B.

1) 00s poll
2) 5-15
3) 10-10

The reason there aren't that many great albums from 1960-1964 is that singles ruled until the Beatles. There's plenty of great songs.

1. 60s poll
2. Option B
3. Option A

Althoug Kevin did not vote (I think) in the previous album poll, it then showed that I am (among) the most 00s oriented people on the forum, and yet I'd rather have the 60s poll first, to give us some hindsight !

OO's! We should do one now and one later for perspective

'60s
Option A (there are lots of great albums in the early '60s, I swear. Or can we just be overly complex and go 7/13 or 8/12?)
Option A for songs, no question

1) 60's
2) A
3) A : huge number of great singles for 1960-64

Pre-1965 is not so bad, and I love to discover new stuff

Another option that occurred to me...

Since we likely won't be doing the 1950s, and that decade also has relatively fewer great albums, how about doing the polls like this:

55-56
57-58
59-60
61-62
63-64
65
66
67
68
69

And we could continue with the 10/10 convention.

'63-'64 may be particularly tough for songs though, but under the other system they might only get 5 & 5 anyway.

I think a singles poll that covers 1954-1965 would be fun for something later.

I don't see the point in having album polls for before 1965, because before 1965 artists released their best songs as singles and avoided putting those singles on their albums.

(Although you can argue in some cases albums benefited from not having singles. Like, Presley '56 benefited from not having Heartbreak Hotel).

Look's like it's going to be 60's poll next year.
I vote for plan B (5/15) in albums
and plan A (10/10) in songs .

I think we should do also a top 100 of the decade in the beginning of 2010. I mean the traditional poll in which everybody votes his/her own top 100. Maybe right after best of 09 poll(s).

And in 2011 it's time to do 00s again (with a different style).

I don't see the point in having album polls for before 1965, because before 1965 artists released their best songs as singles and avoided putting those singles on their albums.

Not sure that's altogether true...

Anyway, my point is that there are lots of good albums and songs from before 1965 (albeit many in less covered genres). We've just been "over-canonized".

Also, it seems unfair to me for music from 65 to 69 to get 50% more representation than years post-'60s - that is, if there is still a plan to vote for all the final decade winners against each other, which may or may not be wholly in my imagination?

Sonofsamiam, I’ve been thinking about your suggestion about doing the 50s and 60s poll together and it’s not a bad idea at all. Maybe we should consider it. Option C?

yeah, i like sonofsamiam's idea too

If someone wants to change his/her vote for option C please let me know.

sonofsamiam's proposal is good, so I change my vote for option C (including the regular 10 albums and 10 songs per month rhythm).

i'll officially change mine to C

I'll change to C as well and suggest that the first category is pre-1957.

I'm sorry, I can't follow all these options we're voting for. Could we have a master list?

I would suggest doing what Pitchfork did... they had been doing best of the decade album polls for 3 years (90s, 80s, 70s) and then decided that since the LP really didn't take of until 1966 onwards that they would collect their top 200 songs of the 1960s instead. To allow more variety they also made a limit of 5 songs per artist which I don't think is necessary.

I would have trouble limiting 10 songs per year for the single-rich sixties. And while our forum's tastes aren't completely predictable, I think we all know what LPs we'll see at the top.

I like SonofsamIam's suggestion since it seems like everyone is against a 50s poll. It seems like a decent compromise over not doing the 50s at all...though I do share others' concerns that post-1964 music will get a bigger

C for me too

C for me too, seems like the way to go now that I think about it.

Hmm..part of my message got cut off.

Should have ended:
"That post-1964 music will get a bigger "bump" than is probably appropriate. I know some will argue that it was a 'golden era' for music and thus deserves greater consideration in the 60s decade than the earlier part but that comes down to a value judgement that we did NOT make for the 70s, 80s, 90s etc. For example, I didn't hear any 70s fans who don't happen to enjoy punk rock arguing we should do 'two-fers' for 1976-1979 since it was mostly disco on the pop charts or punk rock/new wave otherwise. Also, I think the argument that albums were "weak" pre-1964 is one based on the thought that these are only the most critically acclaimed POP-ROCK albums...not taking into account jazz, country, folk, blues, R&B and standards genres."

Well, I vote for option C.

Well, I think I'll wait for more votes but the whole thing is getting interesting. I'll try to summarize the trends:
- It seems that the option for the 00s is not going to win, although a possibility is to do a poll for the Top 100 of the 00s during January (simultaneously to the 2009 albums and songs poll) or during February (simultaneously to the first month of the 60s poll). And then during 2011 we will have a complete 00s poll year by year.
- About the options A to D for albums we have still majority of option B (10 voters) against option C (7 voters). For songs instead there are 14 votes for option A (10 songs per year) against option B (limiting to 5 songs per year the first half of the decade).

So (with the voting still open) if finally the option C wins the schedule would be like that (if I understood correctly your wishes):
- February of 2010: everyone votes at least 5 albums and songs released during 1955-1956 and I select 10 albums and 20 songs. Or, following Henrik's suggestion, pre-1957 (well, maybe we should limit it to 1950-1956).
- March 2010: 10 albums and 20 songs from 1957-1958.
- April 2010: 10 albums and 20 songs from 1959-1960.
- May 2010: 10 albums and 20 songs from 1961-1962.
- June 2010: 10 albums and 20 songs from 1963-1964.
- July 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1965.
- August 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1966.
- September 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1967.
- October 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1968.
- November 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1969.
- December 2010: we vote our preferences of the resultant Top 100 albums of the 50s-60s and the Top 150 songs of the 50s-60s.
So if some other voter wants to change from option B to option C please post it. That's my case, I vote for the option C that I described before (I mean Top 100 albums and Top 150 songs). Other suggestions will be welcome.
And I would like to know your opinions about 1955-1969 versus 1950-1969 with the pre-1957 first month. And about the 00s Top 100 poll for January.

C sounds good

Let me revive this thread. Voting is not closed yet, so say your thing!

I was lately thinking about a different option. Let’s see if you agree:
- January of 2010: the summarized Top 100 of the 00s!! I’m sure that someone is willing to host this poll, I volunteer for the 50s and 60s poll.
- February of 2010: everyone votes at least 5 albums and 10 songs released during 1950-1952 and I select 15 albums (5 from every year) and 30 songs (10 from every year).
- March 2010: 15 albums and 30 songs from 1953-1955.
- April 2010: 15 albums and 30 songs from 1956-1958.
- May 2010: 15 albums and 30 songs from 1959-1961.
- June 2010: 15 albums and 30 songs from 1962-1964. We could even vote simultaneously our preferences for the resultant Top 100 songs of the 50s (or wait till December).
- July 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1965.
- August 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1966.
- September 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1967.
- October 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1968.
- November 2010: 10 albums and 10 songs from 1969.
- December 2010: we vote our preferences of the resultant Top 150 albums of the 50s-60s and the Top 100 songs of the 60s. We can choose to vote for the Top 100 songs of the 50s now and not in June.

People (like Jonah) that thinks that there’s no use to make an albums poll are free to choose voting only for the songs poll, but I encourage everyone to try to listen some albums from these period. It’ll be at least a rewarding experience
We have still plenty of time (more than six months) but let me know your opinions.

Wait, what do you mean january 2010 the summary of the T100 of the 2000s poll? Do you mean January 2011? In which case we do the 00s next year?

Also I think if we combine 50s and 60s it just gets way to confused. Truthfully, I best liked the original idea where we had

10/5
10/5
10/5
10/5
10/5
10/15
10/15
10/15
10/15
10/15

I understand that triple representation may seem like a lot, but it's only fair, what with the LP not trully taking off untill Rubber Soul and Highway 61 Revisited.

what would a "summarized top 100 of the 00's" include in it? Could you go into more detail please, Honorio?

Other than that your idea looks pretty good, although I'm not certain how well versed the AMF is in albums from pre 1965, myself have only heard about a dozen or so.

Right now, I'm just trying to listen to as many albums from the 00's as I can, so that my list will be as good as I can get it before that poll comes in (whenever that may be).

Honorio, I LOVE your new idea! I say it's probably the best idea anyone could ever come up with. I agree that there are a lot of good albums to be found from 1950-1964. Hopefully, those who will not vote in those polls will be able to listen to the selected albums and participate in the final decades poll.

I still think 65-69 should be separate from 54-64, because there was such a huge shift in the nature of the music industry around 1965.

I'm guessing what Honorio meant was, instead of doing year by year just have one big vote for the 00s at the start of 2010, then maybe we can do the year by year thing in a later year.

Henrik, I’m glad you liked the idea. Hope that many people join us. And hope that enough AMers are willing to listen 1950-1964 albums, using Spotify or whatever. If not, everyone can participate in the song poll using YouTube for instance.
About the “summarized” 00s poll I was suggesting a Top 100 (like the ones we made with all-time albums and artists). Then during 2011 we can do a “complete” 00s poll like the 90s or 80s before and 70s right now.

Oops, I just realized that 5 albums per year from 1950 to 1964 and 10 per year from 1965 to 1969 doesn't make a total of 150 but 125 (that it's not a "beautiful" number).
Maybe when we vote in December I can exclude the album receiving less points (the ones ending between 101 and 125) in order to get a final Top 100 albums of the 50s and 60s.

Honorio, I just said you had the optimal idea and here I go with a new suggestion...

January
1950, 1951, 1952 - 5 albums and 10 songs per year
February
1953, 1954, 1955 - 5 albums and 10 songs per year
March
1956, 1957, 1958 - 5 albums and 10 songs per year
April
1959, 1960, 1961 - 5 albums and 10 songs per year
May
1962, 1963, 1964 - 5 albums and 10 songs per year
June
1965 - 15 albums and 10 songs per year
July
1966 - 15 albums and 10 songs per year
August
1967 - 15 albums and 10 songs per year
September
1968 - 15 albums and 10 songs per year
October
1969 - 15 albums and 10 songs per year
November
1950s - top 50 albums and top 100 songs
December
1960s - top 100 albums and top 100 songs

Or we can do a 00s poll in January, move all yearly polls one month ahead and do both the 50s and 60s in December. Beautiful numbers, aren't they?

i like Henrik's proposal

Could we possibly include albums from pre 1950 in the poll of albums for 1950, 1951 and 1952. I realise that there are only 3 albums on the AM top 3000 from this period, but it would be a shame not to be able to vote for them in one of these decade polls.

Yes, I like Hendrik's proposal, it's rather elegant. We'll save the 00s for '11. This seems to be what most people want.

Yes, I prefer Henrik's idea too, cause making a list of 125 albums at a time would be quite difficult! And I'm also with Beans, we could from 50 to 52 vote for pre '50s albums either. Making this thing only for the 1950's poll would be unfair to that year, woudn't it?

There are so few albums from the early '50s, I might weight it this way...

January
1950, 1951, 1952 - 2 albums and 10 songs per year
February
1953, 1954, 1955 - 2 albums and 10 songs per year
March
1956, 1957, 1958 - 7 albums and 10 songs per year
April
1959, 1960, 1961 - 7 albums and 10 songs per year
May
1962, 1963, 1964 - 7 albums and 10 songs per year
June

...but that's just me. Really, the LP didn't start making it's mark, for rock, jazz, pop, etc., until about '56. But then there's a lot of good stuff if you're willing to look.

If that's too complicated, which is a fair criticism, I'm fine with Henrik's breakdown.

Yeeeees, Henrik!! That’s the best option! We can wait for the 00s until 2011. The 50s and the 60s are enough work.
About the relatively few albums from 1950-1954 you’re probably right, although you can find in rateyourmusic 76 albums from 1950, 90 albums from 1951, 106 from 1952, 162 from 1953, etc. (maybe the biggest problem is the availability of these albums, the possibility of listening it legally). About the number of albums per year, if in any given year there are not enough votes to complete a Top 5 I could select at the end of the yearly polls the most voted albums not in a Top 5 of the other years in order to compile a decent Top 50. In Spanish we call this a repesca, I’m not sure if repechage is the correct English word for that. Do you agree with this option?

I'm with Henrik. Finally a worthy option!

I vote Henrik.

Because although there are probably all sorts of equally good options, I doubt we're going to find a *better* option.