In an extreme example: If the seeding is wrong, then the two best albums of the year could face each other in the first round, which would lead to the second best album of the year getting left in the dust of round one!

As a veteran of the People's Pop polls I am very sickos.jpeg about this prospect!

I mean this happens anyway. The seeding is more a representation of which albums most people have listened to and liked than a measure of quality. There's no guarantee people have actually familiarized themselves with the album than the voting round