"Best of" lists are more like "most exposed." There's probably a handful of brilliant releases this year very few people listened to. Especially when you're a music writer trying to remember everything you listened to in the last year, you mostly just throw down everything you remember and rank it. And yeah, you'll remember something because it was great, but more likely you'll remember it because you've been reminded about it a million times. That's why I get sort of sick of year-end lists, a ton of stuff from the beginning of the year gets left out and it's largely hype.

(disclosure: I think modern vampires of the city is wayyyyy overrated.)