Fresh from another year of overthinking music (yet somehow under-listening to it), I sat down with my long-time Mix Album buddy Kevin Conaway for our annual deep dive into the sustaining ritual of making year-end mixes.

We talked for so long Kevin ordered a pizza midway through, which should tell you something about the scope. Along the way we got into:

– how we actually listen to music these days

– whether knowing a concert set list ahead of time ruins the magic

– Kevin’s need to catalog and rank everything

– my desire to listen to more music (and my stubborn, slowly-eroding resistance to streaming)

– Karate-in-the-Garage

– my very late arrivals to Tom Petty, Paula Cole, and the Indigo Girls

He’s been making these mixes for 16 years.

I’ve been doing mine for 22.

Neither of us seems interested in stopping.

If you want the full effect of the transitions we keep nerding out about, grab the MP3s from our sites—but streaming options are there too if that’s more your speed.

This one’s for the fellow list-makers, liner-note readers, late adopters, and anyone still counting on music to help make sense of the year. PS: If you'd rather just listen to the chat, you can do so via my Dreaming Out Loud podcast feed.