Jackson Free Press

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba has announced two more town hall meetings to discuss the need for the city to pass a 1-percent sales tax hike.

The first is set for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 10, at the E-Center on the campus of Jackson State University at 1230 Raymond Road. The second is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 19, at Word and Worship Church at 6286 Hanging Moss Rd.

The mayor has already hosted two such meetings in the past week, and called them "very well-attended and informative" at Tuesday's meeting of the City Council.

Jacksonians will vote on the referendum on Jan. 14, 2014.

Hello readers. You might remember me from my time at the JFP as the writer of the bi-monthly column “The Key of G,” where I covered local and national music, as well as just musing about different topics related to music in general.

One of the things I liked to do was to make top 10 release lists at the end of the given year. While I did enjoy that, I always felt a little disingenuous, because I don’t listen to that much new music; I spend most of my time digging for and listening to old records. Hence, my top 10 lists would barely be made, as I squeezed in a few listens right at the end of the year to go with the few albums from artists that I always check for. Further, I never kept a running list, so my top 10 would have omissions, on top of my already poor sample size. (For instance, I somehow left Robert Glasper’s “Black Radio” off of last year’s list).

But this year has been different. I made it my mission to listen to as many new releases as possible, and to document them. What I have now is a list of 60 new albums that I have listened to and ranked in order. Mind you, this list is not meant to be definitive; there is a lot that I didn’t listen to for several reasons, mainly just because there isn’t enough time in the day to hear everything. I did listen to almost everything from artists that I am a fan of, which is something I have done a poor job of over the years. I also branched out to some artists I never was a fan of before, even though I knew who they were and ignored them on purpose. The results are fairly predictable. I also discovered some new artists I had never heard of at all, which was quite nice in most instances.

So, over the next several weeks, I am going to present you all with a ranked list of the 60 albums I listened to this year. Again, this list is not intended to be definitive at all; it is just a list of what I listened to, ranked solely by my opinions. I am sure there will be some disagreement and head scratching, but some of you might also see some new things that interest you that you go check out. And that’s what it’s all about anyway. Thanks for reading and indulging my opinions.

Click HERE for 60-51

Click HERE for 50-41

40) Disclosure “Settle” If I were making a list of most impressive debut albums of 2013, “Settle” would probably be at the very top. These two guys, brothers from Surrey who are only 21 and 18 years old, came out swinging hard. Many reviewers have given “Settle” the title of best dance album of the year (or a close second to Daft Punk). In my estimation, …