Now Taking Votes for your Album of 2016.

At the tail-end of each November – whilst compiling my own compendium of treasured records – I solicit votes for your album of the year. I’ve long forgotten why I solicit votes for your album of the year, beyond some vague notion that it’s fascinating to learn about records loved to, cried with, or simply ignored, but a quick look back at previous calls for votes suggests that I always make this “long-forgotten” claim, so why break with tradition?

Is it only a year since you proclaimed Ones and Sixes by Low as 2015’s finest LP? Seems like decades ago, to be honest, but that’s what happens when weird becomes our default setting. I thought it a considered, nuanced selection, echoing sentiments that had you voting for Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon your #1 in 2014 for Benji) and Nick Cave (Push the Sky Away in 2013) in prior years. But as we all know, this year has gone a bit wrong, so I fully expect Alexander Armstrong’s Upon a Different Shore to be elevated to the status of minor deity.

Here’s how it works. You hit me with your favourite four albums of the year – RANKED IN ORDER – and I collate and publish the results (based upon a 4-3-2-1 scoring system: tie-breakers being number of votes). Your Top 25 will be revealed here, alongside my own Albums of the Year run-through, in mid-December.

Voting options include the comments section below, via email – lazerguidedmelody (at) gmail.com – on Twitter (@lazerguidedblog), via Facebook (which I rarely use, but the option’s there if that’s your thing), or simply accosting me with your enthusiasm in the street.

Deadline: December 10^th, and I look forward to hearing from you. Unless you wish to vote for Herr Armstrong, natch.

(Also: if joining in with year-end, music-related list construction floats your flotilla, you can do far worse that follow @TheFestive50, who’s busy doing a similar exercise with your top tracks of 2016).