Looking back at last year's lists

As I prepare to compile this year's lists of my 15 favorite long-players in the "Canadian" and "Non-Canadian" categories, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit last year's lists. To see how they've held up, one year later.

Here's last year's top 15 Canadian records. I think that some of those records made the list simply because they were fresh on my mind at the end of the year. This is a natural tendency, and it's exactly the reason that some movies are re-introduced just before the voting for the Academy Awards takes place. Anyway, there are a few of those records that I haven't listened to very much at all since then. Still, though, I think the list held up pretty well. On that list, the records that are still in heavy rotation around here are:

• Hannah Georgas -- This is Good (#11 on the list)
  
• Land of Talk -- Cloak and Cipher (#8)
  
• Kathryn Calder -- Are You My Mother (#7)
  
• Dan Mangan -- Nice, Nice, Very Nice (#5)
  
• The New Pornographers -- Together (#3)
  
• The Besnard Lakes -- ...Are the Roaring Night (#1)

The "non-Canadian" list was a bit of a mess right from the drop, and I think I immediately had doubts about how I numbered them. It looks like that list didn't hold up as well as the Canadian list. The records that are still in heavy rotation are:

• School of Seven Bells -- Disconnect From Desire (#13 on the list)
  
• Sharon Van Etten -- Epic (#10)
  
• Thrushes -- Night Falls (#9)
  
• The National -- High Violet (#4)
  
• Kristin Hersh -- Crooked (#3)

I'm not going to retrospectively re-order those lists, but I would have put that Sharon Van Etten record at #1 if I'd known then what I know now. And The National at #2. And as luck has it, SVE and The National recorded a fantastic song together this year for the movie "Win Win".

Over the next two weeks, I hope to be working hard on getting my 2011 lists together. This means doing a lot of listening, a lot of video watching, and a little bit of research.