We're getting near the final picks of the top records of the decade as voted upon by surf fans around the world, and this partincular chunk has a lot of the heavyweights of today's modern surf scene. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how many newcomers on the scene found their way in! You can see the rest here. 

The downside of assigning strange categories for your end-of-year review process is there's all these other things you want to recognize. So that's what this is for. These categories are completely unstructured. Some categories didn't exist last year, some categories disappeared from last year, and they might come back next year.

For the sake of layout I'm not posting individual Gremmy Awards images for winners, but if you won and you'd like me to send one, let me know.

Trad surf bands will happily fly the banner of being a surf band. Their albums are typically a simple selection of good, upbeat songs and are happy with that humble scope. It's not 100% cut-and-dry, and I'm bending my own rules on a few bands here, but these are records that make me happy to be a surf nut. And a side note: I'm including bands that might not strive for a California 60's sound but are otherwise retro-mimicking.

A new Black Flamingos! Should we expect them to broaden their horizons? Or will they stick to their blue-noted sour surf sound? Yes!

First time it’s a new thing, second time it’s getting official, third time it’s a ritual.

Black Flamingos' name and album art suit them well: fun and exotic, but with a sketchy side. There is a beach party going on for sure, but somebody said they saw a shark. 

This one almost slipped by me until the Coffin Daggers posted about them after playing their release show. After a listen to the soundcloud songs below, it's kinda got the wild, somewhat showy guitar playing of Ramblin' Ambassadors but in more of a spooky horror way. Real tight 3-some, love how it all fits together on "Devil's Punchbowl".