What is there to regret?! Writing this column has been fucking amazing. My life has expanded in so many ways since I started listening to these records, mainly because

I am finally out of the dork closet and can stop pretending I've heard of things just to save face at parties. People I meet now assume that I don't know anything about music, and it prompts them to tell me all sorts of funny and interesting things, or recommend artists they think I'd like, or sometimes even send me CDs in the mail. It's beyond charming. Thank you so much for inventing it, music-editor- emeritus Grant Brissey.

However, I thought about it, and I have a few regrets...

I sincerely regret all the years I spent feeling embarrassed about what music I liked/didn't like/had never heard of. That was a waste of time, and I learned very little because I was too afraid to ask anybody what they were talking about.

I regret all the times this year that someone wanted to tell me all about a band but I hadn't listened to the album yet and so I had to stop them, and then sometimes we never got around to having that conversation again.

I regret that Grant's original intro to my column said I had "never heard any music aside from Richard Marx and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy," because I'd actually never heard of Richard Marx.

I further regret that time Grant told me that Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica was a result of the band and Frank Zappa doing acid, so I put that in my column, but then it turned out that Frank Zappa is famously straight-edge. I learned to google better.

I regret never responding to online comments on the column in any way, because sometimes it would be fun. For instance: Hey, that one dude, when you commented that a drum machine "is like a drummer except better in pretty much every way," I really wanted to say, "YOU CAN'T FUCK A DRUM MACHINE."

Also, to every commenter who said something about me being a snob and/or that soon I will know too much about music to write this column, I regret not replying, "HAHAHAHA WHAT?!"

I regret that a dumb joke I made about Tony Bennett sharting still makes me laugh out loud every time I think of it, including while I typed this sentence.

I regret that I still haven't listened to any Radiohead albums except for Pablo Honey, which I hated (except for "Creep," obvs).

As a copy editor, I regret how hard it is to proofread a page with a tiny picture of my own face on it.

I regret not using the following invented genres: chip-garde, lo-trance, experiprog, post-ground, electro-wave, thrum and bass, avant-fi, witchswamp. Also that anyone really cares about genres, because they are annoying.

I give this whole magical year of my life a 10 out of 10.