2026 So Far: The Guitar-Band Cut

The 12 lists: Stereogum, Consequence, Exclaim!, Paste, SPIN, The Guardian, Treble, NME, Rolling Stone, The FADER, Slant Magazine, FLOOD.
Scoring (per AOTY): on a ranked list, #1=10, #2=8, #3=6, #4-10=5, #11-25=3, #26+=1. On an unranked (alphabetical) list, every pick scores 5 if the list holds ≤10 albums, 3 if ≤25, 1 if more. Points sum across all 12.
Worked example: Ratboys totals 32 across 8 lists. Ranked placements: #2 Stereogum (8), #2 Consequence (8), #5 Paste (5), #17 Exclaim! (3). Unranked mentions: Slant and FLOOD (3 each, lists of 25 or fewer), Treble and Rolling Stone (1 each, longer lists). That is 8+8+5+3+3+3+1+1 = 32.
Default sort is Lists (breadth): how many of the 12 named it, the least distorted by any one outlet's length. Points is the tiebreak and the second sort. Album titles are AOTY-canonical, so the same release matches across lists.
Core vs Extended: Core = one of the 13 tags (Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock, Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Emo, Post-Rock, Prog Rock, Math Rock, Progressive Pop, Midwest Emo, Emo-Pop, Post-Hardcore). Extended = a guitar record qualifying only through another rock tag; it keeps its true rank and gets an Extended marker.