I think I consumed more content this year (with the sole exception of books; I’m embarrassed by how far from my goal I am closing out the year) than I have in a very long time. I figured instead of doing just books or just albums, which is what I’ve done in the few years I’ve done a year-end recommendation, I’d do the top five albums, books, and TV shows of this year. The albums all came out in 2024, the TV shows all had one season come out in 2024, and the books have all come out before 2024 but I read them all in 2024 and I make the rules so it counts.

One Direction was hands down the most influential musical act of the early 2010s, and I will quite literally fight anyone who says otherwise. I actually wrote a review of the band and why they were so influential, not only in general but specifically for the queer community and a whole generation of lesbians and queer women. With such a short stint of hardly six years, I fear they will, if they haven’t already, become one of those brief fads that you just had to be there for. SO, in order to pay homage to the greatest musical group of the 21st century, without further ado, I present to you an objectively factual ranking of One Direction’s discography.

To the amusement of many people in my life, U2 has become one of my all time favorite bands over the course of the last two years. Before I listened to The Joshua Tree, I just thought they were the cheesy band who made everyone download their album and unable to delete it in 2014—a topic I’ve been pitching to online venues and hope to explore in an essay in the coming months. Before that, however, I wanted to rank the U2 studio albums from the perspective of a fan who was not alive during their peak.

This was a great year for music in terms of my personal taste. I spent a lot less time listening to my favorites (Pink Floyd, Third Eye Blind, U2, Quinn XCII, Snail Mail, etc.) and a lot more time listening to some new discoveries. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still devoted my fair share of listening time to those I already knew I loved, but I divided my time pretty evenly between old and new as far as my music repertoire goes.

I was thinking about how I could continue to make use of my domain in ways other than just to promote my published writing. My dad utilizes his domain for a number of things as well, one of which being a column entitled ‘Doug’s Music Snobbery.’ I figured I would start up with something similar, combining my love of writing and music, and lists. So while I don’t have a fun name for it like he does, I am going to start devoting this page to various lists pertaining to music! So without further ado, I am very excited to present the first installation in this new little series of mine: a ranking of blink-182’s discography!