Brian,

I see your point about new people, but I'm simply wondering how many of these entries are repeat entries every year. Since it costs nothing to submit, maybe there are people submitting everything they have every year. If it didn't win last year, is it really likely to win this year?

On some of the other comments above, I agree that after listening to the 183rd song in the same style, they can start to sound similar. I agree with Ben in that if they don't stick out as better than the rest, then they are simply another run-of-the-mill song and shouldn't be flagged as special. I've done exactly that where I'll only flag one song on 2 or 3 CDs as worthy of more attention since it was the only one that made me sit up and take notice - it moved me. The rest of the songs were simply decent, but not spectacular. The "special" songs WILL move you.

Overall, I do see a pretty high bar for overall production quality in most of my genres...very few really bad cds.