Year in Rock 2015 Coming Soon

Song of the Year Nominees

November 2 - 30

New Artist, Solo, Comeback, Canadian, Heavy Nominees

December 7

Album of the Year Nominees

December 14

Awards Announcements

December 21

As the weather turns cooler and the clocks get set to go back, thoughts of the dreaded winter to come start to materialize. Well, that, and Year in Rock.

As an annual rundown of what happened in rock music, Year in Rock is one of my proudest traditions. From its initial inception as a double CD compilation I'd make for my friends to its current incarnation on this blog, Year in Rock has been my way of recapping rock's history, one year at a time, since 2000. Over the past fifteen years a lot of trends have come and gone, so many bands have formed and run their course, and the state of the music business itself has changed in dramatic ways. Likewise, the way I present Year in Rock has changed; from a kickass mix CD to painstakingly writing out the recaps here, Year in Rock hasn't ever really had a solid formula for how it's supposed to work.

Last year, I made major changes by moving away from the 40-50 song compendium and instead went for more of a basic "awards show" premise. It was certainly a lot easier, but not as much fun, so I knew I wanted to make adjustments for 2015. Before I really had a chance to suss it all out, a monkey wrench was thrown into my plans when Baroness announced the release of their fourth album exactly one week before Christmas. It's not a common practice, and sort of a dick move toward folks like me, who like to have the whole "year in review" well figured out by the time December 18th rolls around (tellingly, last year I announced all of my awards on the 18th). It wouldn't be such an issue for me, except their previous record was 2012's runner-up, and there is a chance they could win (for the record, I'm aware Cage the Elephant is releasing a record on the same day, but my hopes aren't high for them winning).

So, rather than disqualify them for being too late for 2015 (and, unfairly, also by technicality disqualifying them from awards in 2016), I've decided to announce the Album of the Year nominees on December 14th (because surely there will be an advance stream), and hand out the awards on the 21st. Seems only fair to me, and if I'm later in crowning a champ than all of the other blogs so be it.

Which leaves the rest of the categories. I don't see a reason to eliminate the other categories I introduced last year (save for the Video of the Year; I simply haven't cared much about the medium this year). That said, nominations will be made on December 7th for five categories: New Artist of the Year, Solo Recording of the Year, Comeback Recording of the Year, Canadian Recording of the Year and Heavy Recording of the Year. Like last year, there will be five nominees in each category.

As for Song of the Year, that's always been the most tedious category of all, especially in more recent years when I'd attempt to post a nominee every day from early November well into December. This year, that changes... sort of. Last year, by nominating only five songs for the award, I got to forego daily posts but allowed a lot of great songs to go unnoticed. I didn't like that, so for 2015 I'm going back to the broad, sweeping recap that highlights 50 nominees. Like previous years, they'll be presented in chronological order, rather than a countdown. However, unlike previous years, I won't be spamming the blog with daily updates because I don't want that and neither do you. Instead, I'll be presenting them in groups of ten for five consecutive Mondays, beginning on November 2nd. That way, I have no fear of missing a day and you don't have to worry about what day the posts go up because, if you noticed the spacing of all the nominees and awards, each and every post goes up on Monday.

You don't need it broken down, but your eyes might have begun to glaze over from all my jibber jabber, so have this handy schedule:

Monday, November 2: Song of the Year Nominees 1-10

Monday, November 9: Song of the Year Nominees 11-20

Monday, November 16: Song of the Year Nominees 21-30

Monday, November 23: Song of the Year Nominees 31-40

Monday, November 30: Song of the Year Nominees 41-50

Monday, December 7: New Artist/Solo/Comeback/Canadian/Heavy Recording of the Year Nominees

Monday, December 14: Album of the Year Nominees

Monday, December 21: All award winners announced

Monday, December 28: Year in Rock 2016 Preview

So, there it is: nine weeks of (hopefully) top notch Year in Rock content, posted for your entertainment every Monday at 9:00 AM (Atlantic Standard Time). I can't wait to bring it to you!