So, you need to compare the current year with the date of the album, and keep the matches, discarding the rest...
The current year...
formatdate(now(),yyyy)
And, your album dates...
formatdate([date,0],yyyy)
the compare:
isequal(formatdate(now(),yyyy),formatdate([date,0],yyyy),2)
The above is your basic expression, it returns a 1 for a positive match, and zero for a negative match. What happens next, depends upon how and where you want to use it. As a smartlist rule, wrap it like so...
[=isequal(formatdate(now(),yyyy),formatdate([date,0],yyyy),2)]=1
Press the import/export button on the smartlist editor and paste the following...
[Media Type]=[Audio] [=isequal(formatdate(now(),yyyy),formatdate([date,0],yyyy),2)]=1
OK your way out, and smile
This smartlist will always list results from the current year.
You were poking around in the correct area with the now() function, so, fair to assume you found this page on the wiki?
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Expression_Language#Function_Indexnow() allows us to do some nifty stuff. Some examples are here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,102319.msg709847.html#msg709847The expression is wrapped like so [=
expression]=1 (or 0) for use in searches, which is what a smartlist essentially is, a saved search.
I don't have links for dates, but there are several posts detailing MC's unix date handling. The formatdate() function will not work with a formatted date. By inserting the zero inside the library field reference, we are instructing the evaluator to use the raw date data, [Date,0], returning the date in a readable fashion, formatted as specified.
These little tips are all expanded upon and better knitted together on that wiki page, and the examples linked within it, but repeated here to better assist with understanding what the expression is doing, and spur onwards to explore what more you could come up with
-marko