Tomatrax Taking a Break

Tomatrax will be taking a break from interviews and reviews over the next few months. However to fill the void there will still be occasional news updates as well as a series of "best of the 2010s" countdowns.

As the 2010s have just ended, we will be looking at the music that has stood out over the past decade through a series of countdowns over the year. The what and when are as follows:

International Women's Day Countdown - Starts 8 March

To celebrate International Women's Day this year we will be counting down songs of the past 10 years performed by solo female artists.

Extended Player Countdown - Starts 12 May

The Extended Player Countdown will begin in Tomatrax Day (the day the first ever issue of TRM later renamed Tomatrax came out). As the title suggests this will involve a countdown of the Top 100 EPs of the past decade as determined by the Tomatrax countdown committee.

What defines a release as an EP has always been a somewhat arbitrary and largely inconsistent matter, however for the purposes of the Tomatrax Extended Player Countdown, here are the rules for what is eligible

* Duration of the release must be more than 10 minutes (any shorter and it's a single) and less than 35 minutes (any longer and it's an album)

* Must have fewer than 9 songs (otherwise it's an album)

Long Player Countdown - Starts 2 July

Next in the list of countdowns will be the Long Player Countdown, which will feature the Top 100 albums of the past decade.

The following rules apply in terms of eligibility

* Must either have 9 or more songs OR be 35 minutes or longer in duration (For example, a 10 song release that goes for under 20 minutes is eligible, as is a one track release that is over 35 minutes)

* Only studio albums are considered (we may also do a a best live albums list of the decade list, we'll see)

* No best of or other complications are eligible (there may be a Best of the best of list at some stage).

Song countdown - Starts 10 September

Next we will look at the Top 100 songs of the past decade.

International men's countdown - Starts 19 November

Finally, we will conclude the festival of countdowns on International Men's Day by counting down the top songs of the past ten years performed by solo male artists

Some additional lists may be squeezed in as well if we feel like it.

Finally we would like to take this opportunity to thank all the artists and marketing people, and of course readers of Tomatrax, for all your support over the years. None of this would have happened without any of you.