2023 Bucket Resolutions
I don’t bother with New Year’s Resolutions, but I do have to resolve the problem of my deferred decisions. The downside to this ‘bucket’ system is…sometimes one hits the rim and balances between two buckets.
But I’m also not bound by any ‘professional’ expectations, so why not give myself time to figure them out more?
This year, there were 39 albums rated as “Teal” — which means I would place them somewhere between a 7.7 and 8.3 on the traditional 10-point scale. Those that ultimately fall below an 8 are relegated to Green; those that manage to prove themselves as at least an 8 are promoted to Blue.
I also had two albums get dropped into the Lavender bucket during the final rush. These would have a rating between 9.3 and 9.7, and could go up into Purple or down into Blue.
Lavender is rarely used, so I can’t say much about the tendencies there. But, historically, the Teal bucket has a roughly-one-in-three promotion rate, meaning that I expected about a third of the 39 Teal albums should make it to Blue.
Whether it’s due to a failure on my part to give some albums enough credit the first time around, or having more success in recognizing which albums were definitely in the seven-point range more immediately, we had fewer total Teal albums in the bucket this year, and a whopping 46% (18 albums) went Blue.
For the Lavender bucket, it was a 50/50 split, with Earthside jumping up to Purple and Nickel Creek being relegated to Blue.
Please feel free to review the list below and revisit those reviews. The next week will see me feverishly comparing and ranking albums — M&M Tournament-style.
Meanwhile, our first two albums of the year dropped today! If all goes well, I’ll get Bring Me The Horizon’s album review up next Friday. The rest of the January batch may be delayed somewhat.