On this day we begin early our road to Album of the Year (AOTY) and Song of the Year (SOTY) for 2006. In the past we’ve privately conducted our nominating procedures and then only published the final results. This year, in combination with a special contest, we’re throwing open our doors. Over the next 3 weeks we’re going to make public transcripts from our nominating sessions in order to show our justification for each submission.The results are in!
mxdwn.com Album of the Year 2006: 20 – 16
mxdwn.com Album of the Year 2006: 15 – 11
mxdwn.com Album of the Year 2006: 10 – 6
mxdwn.com Album of the Year 2006: 5 – 1

mxdwn.com Song of the Year 2006: 40 – 31
mxdwn.com Song of the Year 2006: 30 – 21
mxdwn.com Song of the Year 2006: 20 – 11
mxdwn.com Song of the Year 2006: 10 – 1

View the first transcript here:
Round 1 Group 1: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations
Round 1 Group 2: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations

View the second transcript here:
Round 2 Group 1: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations
Round 2 Group 2: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations

View the third transcript here:
Round 3 Group 1: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations
Round 3 Group 2: mxdwn.com AOTY/SOTY Nominations

Complete Staff AOTY/SOTY Nominations Round 1

Complete Staff AOTY/SOTY Nominations Round 2

Complete Staff AOTY/SOTY Nominations Round 3

The aforementioned contest begins immediately. As a special promotion and to help stir the process of public discussion, we’re allowing our users to submit their own AOTY/SOTY nominations and then vote on what all users are submitting. If the nomination ends up as the User Submitted Album/Song of the Year, that user could win either an iPod Nano or iPod Shuffle or other prizes!

View all the rules and current user nominations here:
AOTY/SOTY User Submitted Contest

Watch this space for updates from now through the end of the year!