Hear Nebraska’s album review podcast On The Record is not yet six months old, but with the end of 2013 approaching, we considered a year of Nebraska releases en masse.

My review partner Jacob Zlomke and I agreed (a consensus we came to independently, by the way) on our third best and best album of 2013, but we also created a number of award sub-categories to appropriately recognize things like amphibian voices, beautiful sadness and refuting Nebraska music stereotypes.

Listen here to find out our picks for Album of the Year, Best Sad Bastard Lyric and more:

Table of Contents:

01:44 — No. 3 Album of 2013
10:04 — Best Sad Bastard Lyric Award
12:20 — Earworm of the Year Award
15:57 — Jacob’s No. 2 Album of 2013
18:27 — Chance’s No. 2 Album of 2013
22:50 — Most Interesting Vocal Styling Award
26:35 — Best Record with a Concept (Not Necessarily a Concept Record!) Award
32:50 — “That’s Right, World. This Music was Made in Nebraska” Award
36:14 — No. 1 Album of 2013

Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska’s staff writer. He and Jacob hope to review one more record, Weldon Keys’ first album, before the end of 2013, so ears open for that. Reach Chance at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.