The worst thing about the Gremmys is how much weight it puts on my opinions. I may have listened to a lot, but my tastes are as fickle as anybody else's, and even as I write them I know I'm leaving off specific records that others really enjoyed. So why not bring in some friends to provide some different perpsectives? Here are some picks from cool people who I know listened to a lot and whose opinions I respect.

The Gremmy Awards hinge pretty heavily on my own inexplicable tastes and biases, which is why I like to call for backup and ask for opinions from people who I know absorb a LOT of new surf material. I give them carte blanche as to how they'd like to present it, and most of my "editing" here is just formatting to fit the site better.

I want to make this known: this is publishing in April solely because of me -- these wonderful people submitted these months ago and I've just been such a disorganized mess that I'm getting around to compiling them now.

Gremmy Awards are hard. I often don't agree with them a year later, there are records that I inevitably overlook or great albums that just don't find a place. Thankfully, I've met a bunch of friends over the years that I know are listening to plenty of new surf releases, and so I ask them for their favorites so that you can have some opinions other than my own terrible ones. I give them cart blanche as to how they want to write them up, so this may be a little disjointed, but I think it's fun that way.

Huge thanks to everybody that contributed! Parts in italics are my own introductions.

The Gremmys put a lot of weight on my fickle tastes, so I like to spread out and get input from others who have listened to a lot of new surf music to add some balance. It's always fun seeing what releases clicked with other people, and which ones people happen to agree with me about.

I gave everybody full reign over how they wanted to format it -- after all the format of the Gremmys is pretty awkward on its own. Italics are my own little intros.

Thanks to everybody that contributed this year!

There aren't too many people doing awards for surf music which makes me very self-conscious about my choices. The Gremmys are just my opinions and some albums that didn't make an impact for me meant a lot to others, not to mention ones that I loved but just didn't make it to the top tier. So here are some other voices from people that I know are listening to a lot of surf and whose opinions I respect, and hopefully they'll cover some of the ground that I didn't.