About Listmas

Hosts Jason Jefferies and Reggie Worth met as teenagers at Mother Earth, a coffee shop/chess parlour/restaurant/piercing studio/tarot card dealer in Rock Hill, SC, and quickly bonded over a shared love of music and the live music experience. They traveled to countless record stores in the greater Charlotte, NC area before making a pilgrimage to the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation to see Phish on December 30-31, 1999. They began playing music together soon after. Over the years, they have continued to chase the next big album and the next big show, whether it be Radiohead, Tool, Tame Impala, Big Thief, or any of the other countless acts they have seen and heard. Reggie attended his first Listmas holiday in year 3, and launched the Listmas podcast with Jason in 2024, year 10 of the Listmas-era (LE).

Where To Find Us

How Listmas Works

Listmas is the most magical day of the year.

A core group of music-lovers and voters listen to every single new album that comes out every single week, all in an effort to determine the best albums of the year.

At the end of the year (cutoff December 1), each voter submits their list of the top 30 albums of the year with a song off the album that they might like to hear on Listmas day.

Album number 30 receives 1 point.  Album 29 receives 2 points.  Album number 28 receives 3 points, etc.  The cumulative points from each voter’s list are tabulated, and a master countdown list is created with a chosen song that plays on Listmas night.

For example, voter 1 may have:

  1. OK Computer by Radiohead (Paranoid Android)—30 points

  2. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (Jesus, Etc.)—29 points

  3. Aquemeni by Outkast (Rosa Parks)—28 points

Voter 2 may have:

  1. Prisoner by Ryan Adams (Prisoner)—30 points

  2. 1989 by Taylor Swift (Blank Space)—29 points

  3. OK Computer by Radiohead (Paranoid Android)—28 points

Voter 3 may have:

  1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (Kamera)—30 points

  2. Weathervanes by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit (Miles)—29 points

  3. Aquemeni by Outkast (Aquemeni)—28 points

What this would look and sound like on the Listmas night countdown is:

      5 (tie): 1989 by Taylor Swift (Blank Space)—29 points

      5 (tie): Weathervanes by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit (Miles)—29 points

      4: Prisoner by Ryan Adams (Prisoner)—30 points

      3: Aquemeni by Outkast (Rosa Parks)—56 points

      2: OK Computer by Radiohead (Paranoid Android)—58 points

      1: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco (Kamera)—59 points

A Few Things To Note:

A tie, as occurs here at position 5, always has the album placed at the higher position (#5 vs. #6).

  1. Kamera was chosen as the track to play from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot because it was the chosen song by the voter that had it in the highest position.

  2. Though two voters had Aquemeni by Outkast in the same position, Rosa Parks was chosen as the song to play on Listmas night because it is a more energetic song (this is important when you are listening to a 4 to 6 hour playlist).

The ultimate Listmas countdown is created by a non-voter.  As such, none of the voters know, when the countdown is unveiled, what songs will play, or what order the albums are in.

On Listmas night, voters come together in a rental house or a host’s home and press play on the countdown.  There is an empty board before them similar to the following:

84 (1 point):

80 (2 points):

80 (2 points):

80 (2 points):

80 (2 points):

79 (5 points):

…

…

…

3 (99 points):

2 (105 points):

1 (108 points):

The list is filled in as the night progresses until a champ is crowned.