Participants

Please leave a comment if you plan to participate. You'll have time to assemble your top 10 once we've finalized the rules.

Rules (for discussion)

Following discussions online and at the Cabins, I propose the following rules:

1. many albums enter, but only one survives
2. reviewers must listen to each album in its entirety in their match up at least once
3. reviewers must post a review in which it is clear who won, though the content of the review is up to the reviewer (here is the other place where I've participated, though you may want to avoid the most recent epic reviews to focus on those from earlier: http://musicdeathmatch2011.blogspot.com/)
4. in the early rounds, each matchup will be decided by only person; lobbying is allowed, though it can backfire; in later rounds, more than one person will be assigned to a matchup
5. each participant enters a list of top 10 albums; the order matters, as it will determine which albums make the cut as well as final seedings
6. any new album that would have been eligible for the '99 Grammy Awards (or later) is eligible (no re-issues)
7. (this one is especially up for discussion) I'd like to reserve the 16 seeds and perhaps the 15 seeds for albums that few people in the group have heard of; this would allow us to rank our albums honestly while also ensuring that we can gain entry for some good bands we'd like to share
8. all participants are encouraged to comment on others' lists and reviewers, provided that there is some love to be found

Am I missing anything? What do you think?