One year has changed to another and that means its time to pester the usual suspects for their lists of the top albums of the year. For those of you who are children of the digital age, an “album” is a collection of prerecorded music that magically emanated from round pieces of black plastic called “vinyl” when played on a machine called a record player. As the years passed, those round things we called “records” were replaced by smaller, shinny round things called “compact discs.” This was prior to the computer revolution that would bring us file sharing, MP3s and Lady Gaga. Now, in the grand tradition of “everything old is new again,” vinyl record albums are making a comeback and music collectors who once sneered at CD prices for being too high are now gladly paying twice as much for the same music they bought on CD and triple what they originally paid for it on vinyl. It is only a matter of time before purists clamor for the simplicity of the Close ‘N Play and pine for the “warmth” of the cylinder.

And now for the obligatory year end “best of” lists from those who haven’t surrendered to the realization that nothing recorded today is worthy enough to remove that worn out copy of “Blonde On Blonde” from the turntable or “The James Gang Rides Again” from the 8-Track deck.