Kristian Knutsen
The B-Side Best of the Year serves as a timely marketing tool for the record shop, one of a pair remaining on State Street and among only a handful of independents left in the city.
'Tis the season for year end list-making, as folks compile their favorites of just about anything one can imagine released over the course of 2007. When it comes to music, the online best-ofs I check out are pretty standard: KEXP, Metacritic, Pop Matters, Pitchfork and so on. Taking my top spot in this little list of lists, though, is a local creation, the B-Side Best of the Year.
The list can be found at Like previous years, the list consists of multiple lists of new releases, and in a few cases concerts, that were submitted to Manley by the shop's current staff and a handful of alumni. There is also an annual guest contributor, who this year is "Citizen Kane," a long-time B-Side customer and Madison cab driver. Manley explains how he pulls the zine together. "Personally, I just keep notes as I go through the year," he says, "which is why my list is so long." (Indeed, his list of albums tops out above 100 while another counting shows reaches to nearly 50.) Then in November, he solicits staff and alumni to send in their lists, following which he manually assembles the product at a copy shop and prints out the finished product. The complete list also includes a compilation of those musicians noted in multiple lists. "We don't judge the quality of a release depending upon how high it gets on our chart, it just means a lot of people thought it was good," says Manley. Unlike previous years where there were usually two or three topping the list, there were no "breakout favorites" in 2007, with 11 releases getting five nods apiece from the B-Side crew. A fairly representative contribution to the Best Of was made by Alex Fulton, a long-time B-Side employee who plays drums in The Grizzlies and The Runners-Up. Here are her picks for the year:
In a league of its own:
She also points to "any and all shows involving" The Midwest Beat, Aunt Goodness, The Arge, Digibot, The Low Czars, MaeRae, Shakey, The Wisconsin Pop Explosion, etc.
Super special favorites:
Other favorites:
Shows:
One local release that was picked by Fulton, Manley, and Pete Kaesberg was the self-titled EP released by The Midwest Beat. Produced by Kyle Motor of The Motorz, the six song release features old-school garage pop created by the quartet of Matt Joyce (vocals and guitar), Ryan Adams (vocals and guitar), Logan Kayne (bass), and Chris Capelle (drums) and was released back in May.
"It's simply a solid bunch of songs," says Manley. "There are only six tunes, but there are three songwriters in the band, and it is really well recorded for a low budget recording. They're just catchy." These nods to The Midwest Beat are an example of the unexpected gems that can be found amongst the familiar favorites in the B-Side Best of the Year.
This seventeenth annual list also serves as a timely marketing tool for the record shop, one of a pair remaining on State Street and among only a handful of independents left in the city. "We're basically just hanging in there," says Manley about B-Side. "It's not booming any more, but we're hanging on."
So if you're looking online year-end lists this December, be sure to check out B-Side's hard copy suggestions. The shop will carry them until they run out of copies in the new year. "I'll have them for at least the next couple of months," says Manley. "Then they'll always be up online."
