Did you think I made a huge list of surf releases for nothing? I listen to a lot of surf (though definitely not all of it) and this year I'm going to give credit where it's due by awarding outstanding instro groups with a dinky .png file with their name on it.
UPDATED! Here they are
- Best Album Art
- Best Modern Surf Record
- Best "Rad" Surf Record
- Best Way-Out Instro Record
- Best Trad Surf Record
- Best of Everything Else
- Every surf release I know of
Criteria
I have to like it. There's no science here, it's just my opinion, my own biases. However, I will divide it into a few categories and drip-feed it throughout the rest of December
Those categories are
- Trad: Songs will be judged on the strength of their melodies. Nobody's reinventing the wheel, just inventing the time machine
- Rad: For the adrenaline junkies. Breakneck punk-inspired instros built to destroy
- Modern: Taking the familiar sound to new, bigger, more imaginative places
- Way-Out: Sounds only bound by a very thin tether to the normal surf listening experience
- Best Art: Who looks as good as they sound
- Best Production: Who sounds as good as they sound
- Other: Because maybe I haven't thought this through as far as I should
The Format
There will only be one winner for each category, then as many unranked honorable mentions as I please
The Prize
I do this radio show for free, you get an image with your name on it and some pride. And you're gonna love it.
I'm all ears
I'm going to try to refresh my memory, but if there's something YOU think deserves a Gremmy, I wanna know! Influence me! If you think there's another category I should judge them by, I wanna know that too! Leave a comment!