The Top 50 Albums of the Year

The Top 50 Albums of the Year is a list organized by Pitchfork Media, indicating the site's favorite albums of the year, determined by a vote conducted among the site's editors. The list has been published annually since 1999.

Pitchfork Media was founded in 1995, but the first year-end list was in 1999, when the webzine already had a considerable reputation in indie music scene, and was picked by eleven critics: Chip Chanko, Paul Cooper, Brent DiCrescenzo, Zach Hooker, Samir Khan, Neil Lieberman, Nick Mirov, Mark Richardson, Michael Sandlin, Ryan Schreiber and Brent S. Sirota. It resulted in a Top 10 list, topped by The Dismemberment Plan, with Emergency & I.

In 2000 the list was expanded to a Top 20, stating: "Typically, we end the year with a list of the 10 best records, but this year, even narrowing it down to 20 didn't come easily. There were tons of great bands we wanted to mention-- there just wasn't room.", the same for 2001. In 2002 the list was further expanded to a top 50 and has remained in that format.

In the latest EDition of the list, held in 2012, Kendrick Lamar placed number-one with his album, good kid, m.A.A.d city.

Official title

Number-one albums

External links

• Pitchfork Media