There are a lot of things to celebrate this time of year. But when you spend all day (and some of the night) obsessing about music, naturally your thoughts turn to best-of lists as December dawns. That's why MTV and MTV.com will launch a weeklong celebration of the year in music on December 12 in which our experts will debate the year's best songs, artists and performances.

For the first time ever, MTV is corralling staffers from MTV News, MTV.com and MTV Music and Talent to collaborate on three different year-end lists: EDM (electronic dance artist of the year), song of the year and artist of the year. Beginning Monday, from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET, during MTV's morning music hours on AMTV, editors from MTV News, MTV Music & Talent, and MTV.com will take part in a spirited debate, where they will reveal their collective choices for best EDM (electronic dance artist of the year), joined by MTV Iggy. On Wednesday, we'll unveil the Song of the Year and on Thursday we'll name our Artist of the Year.

During AMTV, the panel will count down their selections from #10 to #3, leaving the audience in limbo to debate the lists and ponder which acts will take the top spots. Each day at 4:59 p.m. ET, MTV News' Sway Calloway will reveal the top choices and present the award to the #1 pick. After the winner is revealed, the acceptance speech will run sporadically throughout our primetime hours. The debates will also be featured on mtvU and MTV Hits, and extensive news stories will be featured on MTV News and various MTV.com sites.

In addition to the panel-selected lists, for the first time, MTV is asking fans to vote on MTV's best live musical performance of the year and support their favorite artist and song by tweeting #MTVBest2011. The nominees span MTV's various award shows and concert series including MTV Video Music Awards, MTV Unplugged, mtvU Woodie Awards, O Music Awards, Live in NYC, Spring Break, mtvU Movies and Music Fest and Buzzworthy Live. Nominees include Adele's "Someone Like You" from the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Odd Future's "Sandwiches" and "Yonkers" from the 2011 mtvU Woodie Awards, 30 Seconds to Mars' "Hurricane" from MTV Unplugged, Robyn's "Dancing on My Own" from the O Music Awards 2 and Two Door Cinema Club's "What You Know" from Live In NYC.

The top-voted performances will be revealed during MTV's AMTV between 8am-9am ET on Tuesday, December 14, with the two top fan selections revealed by Sway later that day at 4:59 p.m. ET.