Pazz and Jop 2010

quick note: jaymc's test says people who vote for national singles aren't necessarily folks who voted for the album they came from, but it's probably worth remembering another thought process for album-focused people -- say, the one where an album like that isn't QUITE in someone's top 10, so they perhaps use the singles ballot to toss a vote toward the act in general. almost as if a 'single' is some baby or seed that didn't manage to grow up into a good enough adult LP. this is a poor approach to a singles ballot -- i'm sure many of you will consider it something that calls for bloodshed or a UN tribunal -- but i can certainly imagine some voters (esp younger ones with narrow purviews ... and/or grind-it-out specialists in album-oriented genres!) operating a little along those lines, you know? where singles are just standout cuts from albums that didn't make your ballot as a whole -- i.e. 'songs you liked.'

^^ if it's not clear, um, i'm not supporting that, just saying jaymc's test might miss something

otm. now on your way, u. ;')

nabisco otm

I.e., singles poll = Europa League.

good point, nabisco. that's why i didn't really take that into account in my theories about indie-heavy singles ballots -- i'm sure there are people that are just using their singles ballots to vote for up to 20 indie artists instead of rubberstamping the 10 from their albums list.

"indie artists"

indie...bands?

Yeah, Nabs, that's a good point and one that I did consider as I was glancing at every ballot on which the National appeared.

maybe one thing i can bug glenn about trying to do, whether this year or for next year's poll, is crossover between artists on both the albums and singles poll and what artists appeared on both of a critic's lists, i imagine that's changed a bit in recent years as well.

i'm sure many of you will consider it something that calls for bloodshed or a UN tribunal

not the tribunal, we don't need that if we KILL THEM ALL FIRST

the bloodshed, yes.

seriously, looking at some of the people who got to submit ballots is enraging. how do those people have careers in music journalism with their incuriosity and ignorance.

yeah, man. righteous! so, how does the latest Agalloch CD strike you, lex?

seriously, looking at some of the people who got to submit ballots is enraging. how do those people have careers in music journalism with their incuriosity and ignorance.

Pretty sure I would fall into this group. (Or maybe, not having a career in music journalism, I'm exempt.) It sure has been a long time since I was enraged by anything concerning a year-end poll, though.

some dude: like this?

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Duplicate+Artist+Votes

how do those people have careers in music journalism with their incuriosity and ignorance.

How can you tell that they're incurious/ignorant?

cuz they voted for the wrong stuff obv

i can tell you that not all 700 of those people don't exactly have thriving "careers"

some dude: like this?

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Duplicate+Artist+Votes

― glenn mcdonald, Sunday, January 23, 2011 9:59 AM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark

i was thinking more something that shows the single list for a given year w/ a number of percentage of its votes that came from people that voted for albums by the same artist, although that's cool too.

Oh, I did those earlier: look for "20xx Non-Album Song Ranking" in each year.

oh right duh, i saw that at one point and then forgot it already existed when i thought about the idea later. very interesting that "Monster" drops way less than the other Kanye singles in that version.

so, how does the latest Agalloch CD strike you, lex?

pffft lex doesn't like agalloch. isnt he more of a sun city girls type iirc?

my girl pointed out that a CONSIDERABLE percentage of those polled are so far out on the periphery of "music journalism" or the bidness that she takes these results with a grain of salt.

I mean, the results would be way more interesting if the poll was back to like it's roots of having like 200 people. Never understood that horserace between the Voice and Jackin' Pop to get the most people involved so the results can be even more homogenous?

If you vote once you're grandfathered into to like every subsequent poll iirc. There's like names of dudes on that list who haven't logged a valid clip in years.

It could be worse, they could have voters who aren't even critics like in all the ILM polls.

Welll--dunno about "critics" (big word!) but some of us are reviewers--meaning money involved, publisher's getting some even if writers aren't. I won't usually do it for free, and never a freebie for a publisher, meaning I see ads. Which makes you a publisher, not a blogger. Even if you claim the ads just keep the site going. Might not follow such a rule forever, but I won't do away with it. Fewer and fewer publicists care about such distinctions--they may say "Please do not share this download" --of a track, vs. watermarked EPs or albums, but those tracks are meant to go viral as possible, and the "please" just makes it more enticing, of course. Up front "Do share" is becoming more common, especially for embeds. So, the distinction between approved bloggers and real journos is becoming less significant, at least in terms of legit access. Plus, you maybe could not let the intern out til he's checked the latest filing of everybody on the mailing list, but that wouldn't nec be accurate either. For instance, a couple of my own regional outlets keep reviews and previews print-editon only (so you can't google past those giant glossy-ass ads)

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/singles/2010/RW1waXJlIFN0YXRlIG9mIE1pbmR8fHxKYXktWiAoZnQuIEFsaWNpYSBLZXlzKQ==/

Never understood that horserace between the Voice and Jackin' Pop to get the most people involved so the results can be even more homogenous?

Not sure what you're talking about ... didn't P&J participation peak in the years before the turnover at the Voice, i.e. before Jackin' Pop (which only ran for like two years) even got started?

lol good find kev -- dude voted for 3 09 singles

Again, speaking as someone far out on the periphery of music journalism who hasn't logged a valid clip in years and who aren't even a critic anymore, a big high-five to all the other voters who fit that description too. To me, the only criterion that matters is whether you have anything interesting to say about the records you vote for. It doesn't matter whether you get paid to write or not, doesn't matter whether you have a popular blog or not, and it doesn't matter whether you heard 1,000 albums last year or whether you heard 25. Someone who votes for all the right records but has nothing interesting or (even better) funny to say about them, that kind of voter holds no interest for me. If you're an old guy with your own voice, a bit of perspective, and a good joke or two, that's much more valuable to me. What was missing from the commentary for me this year wasn't somebody explaining to me the importance of LCD Soundsystem; it was (by choice or otherwise) Rob Sheffield, Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, people like that (I still miss Marcus, who doesn't even vote anymore). Those are the people I want to read. Does Billy Altman still write about music? Probably--I don't know. I know he still writes about baseball. But who cares? He should be allowed to vote forever. He's Billy Altman.

I accidentally voted for an '09 song too--May of '09! The world continued function as before.

I may criticize the results of the poll or theorize about the thought process of voters, but imo the electorate is what it is and there's not much point in hand-wringing about who gets let into the treehouse and who doesn't. you can't turn back time to before blogs and everything swelled the ranks, and trying to sort out who's famous or experienced or cool enough to deserve a ballot is suuuuuch a bad direction to take the conversation. really there are a good number of retired or lapsed critics (including some here: jaymc, da croupier, haikunym) that don't vote in P&J anymore because they don't write professionally about music much anymore that i wish did still vote. and any attempt to narrow the votership down to make the results 'better' would be a total folly.

OK, I only just noticed that applegirl002 got no votes. Burn the thing down.

Alao, what's necessarily so wrong with "music as a tool to jack up your credibility" (Caution: may not be exact phrase)? Musicians do that too. The music gets raised a little higher for scrutiny's sake, if you do it right.

For the record, the non-metal ballot I would have cast if I were allowed to cast 2:

Albums

BUMP OF CHICKEN: COSMONAUT (15)
Fefe Dobson: Joy (14)
Manic Street Preachers: Postcards From a Young Man (13)
Juliana Hatfield: Peace & Love (12)
Jewel: Sweet and Wild (Acoustic) (11)
Jimmy Eat World: Invented (9)
Frightened Rabbit: The Winter Of Mixed Drinks (8)
Shakira: Sale El Sol (7)
Shearwater: The Golden Archipelago (6)
Jónsi: Go (5)

Songs

Editors: "Bricks and Mortar"
Delays: "The Lost Estate"
Belle & Sebastian: "Suicide Girl"
Manic Street Preachers: "Distractions"
Goldfrapp: "Head First"
School of Seven Bells: "Heart Is Strange"
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: "New Babies; New Toys"
Killing Joke: "Honour the Fire"
Kim Yeo Hee: "My Music"
HIM: "Love, the Hardest Way (Tiësto Remix)"

There were 3 other votes for the Manic Street Preachers, 10 for Frightened Rabbit, 4 for Shakira and 25 for Jonsi; the other 6 albums I'd have been alone on. Of my singles, "Heart Is Strange" got 1 vote and "Bricks and Mortar" got 1 last year; the other 8 got nothing. Not even "Head First", which I really thought was my pop crossover for the year.

Weirdly, my centricity score for this ballot would have been exactly the same as the one for my real (metal) ballot. My highest-placing metal album was Agalloch at 48; my highest-placing non-metal album would have been Jonsi at 49. In fact, these 5 points for Jonsi would have been enough to swap their positions.

well, now i know that Jewel had an album out in 2010. Jewel, really? Jimmy Eat World, really? Manic Street...okay, i'll stop.

Bump Of Chicken -vs- Frightened Rabbit

i was sad that i was the only person to vote for the watson twins album. i love that album. but i think i might have been the only person on earth who ever heard it. vanguard records should be thrown in jail. i kinda wonder if the label is some sort of tax shelter these days. they put out some good stuff, but unless npr picks up on it or someone ends up on prairie home companion it disappears without a trace. i'm glad they send me actual promos though. once or twice a year i get a great record. that nobody hears...

and i guess it makes me sad cuz most of the stuff i vote for is tiny label freakshow stuff that will always be exactly that and i know that and i'm fine with it, but when i vote for something totally normal that could be a modest success commercially it STILL ends up being something that 99.99% of the world is unaware of.

The Jewel album is a country record, and decent, but my vote is for the bonus disc with her solo acoustic versions of all the songs. No matter what over-produced weirdness she consents to, she's still a truly great singer.

The Jimmy Eat World album would belong on the list for its drum sounds alone.

And the MSP album is them back in shameless radio-anthem mode, and there are few bands better at that.

The Frightened Rabbit vote needs an asterisk: I HATE the single "Swim Until You Can't See Land", so my version of the album drops that and adds the later b-side cover "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". Much, much better flow that way.

Glenn, you made me seek out "Distractions," which is indeed a good track, better than most of the album it didn't make it onto.

Oh, and all the b-sides are better-mixed than the album itself!

lex lex i've got u this time!!!

what abt when princess nyah says "u see the legs & the back but no arse out" out on her pass out freestyle? u think that's funny right? ok bad example that's not that funny but what abt when na'tee is ripping some wasteman a new one, that's p fuckin funny right? for profit!

What was missing from the commentary for me this year... was (by choice or otherwise) Rob Sheffield, Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, people like that

Flattered. And while I can't speak for those other two guys, for me, not submitting comments in recent years is definitely "by choice" -- I'm just not inspired to do it the way I was back in the Christgau era, at least partly because the Pazz & Jop section really doesn't strike me as a conversation anymore; Xgau's essay, whatever one thought of it (there was a lot to agree or disagree with, which is part of my point!) always served as a center in the old days, and there's just no equivalent in the new regime. This is in no way a knock on Harvilla (I'm not sure I could have centered the conversation without Christgau's help, either), but it's maybe a sign of the times: Also the fact that Pazz & Jop seems to have so much competition these days, and follows such a deluge of best-of polls now. Also, maybe I've just become lazy.

That said, I'm still curious about what people think of the essays that supplemented this year's poll. I only skimmed most of them, but I actually liked my old intern Tom Breihan's piece about Wiz/Yelawolf/Lil B/Curren$y/etc. a lot -- though that may be because my listening is so outside of that world (and even so, I still don't understand how Drake is "weird" in any interesting way, and I think it's a stretch to say "rap is a safer place for weirdos than it's ever been"; haven't there always been Divine Stylers and Rammellzees and Baseheads and Sensationals out there? Though I suppose they never got to rap for Pittsburgh Steelers fans like Wiz, but I'm not really convinced yet that he's as strange as them, either.) Also learned things from Simon Reynolds' Altered Zones/chillwave essay, though he lost me a few graphs in.

On other issues mentioned here in the past couple days, fwiw, here's what I said in my own essay last year:

Just as disconcerting, there's this year's Top 10 P&J singles, seven of which come off indie-identified albums that also finished in the Top 10. Unheard of--as a point of comparison, perennial P&J album high-charters Sleater-Kinney never placed a single above #35. In the three decades since singles tabulating started, only once before have seven Top 10s emerged from Top 10 albums: 1987, and it took three verifiable hits by Prince and two by Bruce (along with one each from R.E.M. and Los Lobos) to pull it off. The last time even five singles turned the trick was 2000, and none of those—two OutKasts, two Eminems, one U2—had indie cred...
I've got theories. First off: Lazy indie voters turning a fun exercise into a dutiful one by listing random "singles" off albums they also voted for are the new version of lazy AOR voters who used to vote for perfunctory tracks off albums they also voted for. Only the genre and technology have changed, and the fact that the AOR squares--back before our newfangled, allegedly singles-oriented, iTunes-through-shitty-speakers era began--almost always got marginalized by radio-imbibing pop and dance and hip-hop fans.

Yeah tbh I probably have not given you fair credit for influencing the stuff I've written and the stats I've compiled about the singles poll this year, I definitely read your essay last year but had not gone back to it more recently or remembered how spot-on it was.

I still don't understand how Drake is "weird" in any interesting way

don't worry, no one else on ILX does, either

It's appealing to think the album/single convergence is a result of lazy indie voters, of course. Hey, any time you can feel smugly superior to any majority, however local, right?

But see this ranking of artists by the percentage of their ballots (2008-10) that include both an album and a song:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Duplicate+Artist+Votes

#1 is Kanye, and Janelle Monáe is almost tied with Animal Collective. This isn't the only way to do this analysis, but it suggests that laziness, if that's what it is, isn't a purely indie failing.

If I can ever persuade the Voice to give me historical data, it would be interesting to see this table of artists per ballot, by year, for the whole history:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Artists+per+Ballot

Well, I was referring to the 2009 poll (when the Top 10 albums and singles list were both more overwhelmingly indie, and both overlapped more overwhelmingly with each other), not the 2010 one. And I never suggested that critics voting for indie music were the only lazy people out there. (In fact, I use the word "lazy" to describe myself in the very same post above where I quote my 2009 essay!)

And I do realize that chart is for 2008-to-2010, too...But as far as I can tell, outside of Kanye, Janelle, and Robyn, acts generally identified as indie pretty much have a lock on the chart's Top 14.

But there's indie stuff towards the bottom of that list, too, including 2008 winner TV on the Radio. You might still be right, but the numbers could have dramatically confirmed your hypothesis, and don't. Maybe those people aren't lazy, they just really liked those songs. Or maybe they're no lazier than hip hop voters or R&B voters or any other large subset...

Kanye/Janelle are big indie-crit institutions in 2010 I thought...?

Right, "indie voters" inasmuch as they exist, don't only vote for indie rock. (I'm sure quite a few cast ballots for Robyn, as well.) And if the tally doesn't confirm my hypothesis (not sure how such figures could confirm "laziness"), it doesn't disprove my hypothesis, either -- and the plethora of indie toward the top of the list supports my theory more than it argues against it, I'd think. But sure, I have no doubt that the voters "really liked those songs," too -- in fact, I said so in my essay last year. And 2009 may well have been a blip that will never be repeated, and no doubt there are some indie acts (say, maybe TV On The Radio) who aren't perceived even by their supporters as great singles bands. But the one thing that's inarguable is that, in 2009 at least, for whatever reason -- probably not a coincidence -- there was a convergence of albums and singles by the same acts at the top of the lists that had no remote precedent, in Pazz & Jop history, and those acts generally happen to be classified by most people as indie rock. And to me, that still seems noteworthy.

"No remote precedent" except maybe all those Bruce/Prince/etc. hit singles in 1984, I guess, if you want to get technical. (Though again, those were hit singles, which makes them different than most of what placed high in 2009 by definition. But to be honest I was all argued out about stuff this a year ago -- and people argued it to death upthread here a few days ago, too -- and I didn't really plan to dredge it back up now.)

(1987, I meant, not 1984.)

I'm perfectly fine with using "indie" as a pejorative to describe people if the only R&B album on their ballot featured Of Montreal and/or the only rap album on their ballot featured Bon Iver.

power post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siiNiX5-zAk

I'm perfectly fine with using "indie" as a pejorative to describe people if the only R&B album on their ballot featured Of Montreal and/or the only rap album on their ballot featured Bon Iver.

I guess I don't have to worry. I have no rap or R&B albums at all.

Nor did I vote. Ha!

I could count all the voters who DO fit that description to counter the "strawman" thing but I'm not trying to turn this into a witch-hunt or anything, I'm just saying.

Dunno while the Singles side is still such a hot topic, but personally I try never to list a track from any of my Albums, they're just the most or only compelling tracks from albums that didn't quite make or may not have come anywhere near the Top Ten. Or they might be tracks that weren't on albums, like Olof Arnalds' B-side, "Close My Eyes." It's early Arthur Russell folkie reverie, so blissful it kids itself, as Arnalds wickedly slips her sensitive blonde Scandinavian art movie date night appeal all around the cornfed stars.

this line of argument troubles me. i guess i don't get what the beef might be. so, certain people nominate tracks off their favorite albums as their favorite songs of the year. so what? how is this any less valid than any other approach? if someone genuinely loved the arcade fire and national albums and spent months listening to them alone in their room, why shouldn't they call their favorite tracks off those albums the best of the year? how is this inferior to separating the two lists out by what one considers "singles artists" and "album artists?"

It isn't inferior. I'm just describing what I do.

And I do it that way to make room for a few more deserving tracks. But no charity slots--if the most compelling tracks of the year were all on my Albums, those tracks would be my Singles.

oh yeah, sorry. wasn't aiming that at you, dow, though i can see as how it might have seemed that way. was taking aim at an attitude i've seen expressed several times over this last few days, both itt and outside it. strikes me as odd.

this line of argument troubles me. i guess i don't get what the beef might be. so, certain people nominate tracks off their favorite albums as their favorite songs of the year. so what? how is this any less valid than any other approach? if someone genuinely loved the arcade fire and national albums and spent months listening to them alone in their room, why shouldn't they call their favorite tracks off those albums the best of the year? how is this inferior to separating the two lists out by what one considers "singles artists" and "album artists?"

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 10:24 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its redundant?

Maybe it's not "inferior" but it seems narrow and limiting to me.

In essence because it asymmetrically privileges album-oriented music. It goes without saying that if you like an album you like the songs on it. By someone listing an album in their top ten it should be pretty obvious that they also think the songs on it are awesome. OTOH the fact that they like the album so much suggests that it's likely (not definite, but likely) that they enjoy those songs in the context of listening to the album.

But there's lots of songs that are listened to in absence of an album - either because they're big hits, or because there isn't an album, or because there is an album but it's bad, or it's in a genre from which the listener checks out songs but rarely buys albums. When we think of songs that shine as songs (outside the context of an album) it is usually stuff in these categories we think of.

If critics simply replay their albums lists in their songs list it marginalises these categories (except possibly "big hits", which might also be from a high-rating album), and fills the list with stuff that is really enjoyed in an album context anyway (for, if it was not, if it really was listened to as a standalone, the critic wouldn't have voted for the album as well).

Also, this gets lost in the shuffle of everyone doing "tracks" lists, but Pazz & Jop still calls its singles list a "singles" list. And it is a long-standing institution so we can see how people are going about their voting differently than 10-20-30 years ago, which was the point of my putting together those stats and having Glenn put them into handy charts, so you can trace back to when the P&J singles list actually kind of represented the best of what was on the pop charts at the time, and you didn't have non-singles off a top 10 album beating the most highly regarded #1 hit of the year.

that's starting to sound like the 'you're changing the definition of "marriage"' quote-unquote-argument.

yeah, putting Arcade Fire deep cuts on a singles list is pretty gay

serious lol at that

i prefer "tracks" rather than "singles" because so many standalone tracks these days aren't officially released singles - eg the fives' "it's what you do", i've no idea what the status of that is. it's not available (on itunes) to buy, but they put it on their soundcloud and made a video for it (and given how widely available online it was earlier this year, i suspect they gave it away free).

but yeah, listing tracks off an album you've voted for is SUPER LAME - for all the reasons tim listed, but also because i feel like these ballots are a chance to rep to the wider world for all the music i loved this year, and as much of it as possible. i had over 100 tracks on my longlist - any professional critic who can't find at least 50 tracks they love in a year isn't doing their job properly imo - and every slot i give to an artist already covered in my albums ballot is a slot taken away from another artist who i want to rep for.

its redundant?

― challopian youtubes (deej), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Maybe it's not "inferior" but it seems narrow and limiting to me.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

let me say up front that i'm not defending the way i vote. i tend not to have much crossover between albums and singles/tracks in my own poll ballots. but i wouldn't be at all annoyed by someone who did. it doesn't strike me as redundant, because the questions being asked are different. for example, two people who both loved the taylor swift album might differ on which single off the album is best.

nor does it seem particularly narrow or limiting. in fact, the attempt to enforce a clear distinction between singles and album artists seems far more limiting to me. if we do this, the tracks poll generates not a straightforward list of our favorite singles of the year, but rather a summary of our favorite singles by artists whose albums we didn't vote for, which strikes me as an odd skew to force upon the results. especially given the power of popular singles to seize the public imagination without the assistance of this kind of forced diversity policy. especially given the fact that we increasingly live in a post-album age.

especially given the power of popular singles to seize the public imagination without the assistance of this kind of forced diversity policy

well that's kind of at issue isn't it

are ppl really paying attention to singles if they privilege albums over them

In essence because it asymmetrically privileges album-oriented music. It goes without saying that if you like an album you like the songs on it. By someone listing an album in their top ten it should be pretty obvious that they also think the songs on it are awesome. OTOH the fact that they like the album so much suggests that it's likely (not definite, but likely) that they enjoy those songs in the context of listening to the album.

But there's lots of songs that are listened to in absence of an album - either because they're big hits, or because there isn't an album, or because there is an album but it's bad, or it's in a genre from which the listener checks out songs but rarely buys albums. When we think of songs that shine as songs (outside the context of an album) it is usually stuff in these categories we think of.

If critics simply replay their albums lists in their songs list it marginalises these categories (except possibly "big hits", which might also be from a high-rating album), and fills the list with stuff that is really enjoyed in an album context anyway (for, if it was not, if it really was listened to as a standalone, the critic wouldn't have voted for the album as well).

― Tim F, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i'd agree that ballots featuring heavy album/single crossover might privilege album-oriented music, and probably would tend to exclude certain categories of singles (as you suggest above). but i'm not sure that there's anything particularly wrong with privileging album-oriented music, if that happens to be what one genuinely likes. and less popular singles by non-album-oriented artists will only be marginalized relative to a ballot by someone with differing tastes. i mean, it's not like there won't be at least a few voters who specialize in non-album-oriented singles to take up the slack.

that said, i understand the basic inequality built into the system. popular albums will always contain a slew of at least moderately popular tracks, but popular singles aren't necessarily associated with a parent album. as you suggest, this means that there's a built-in tendency for tracks from popular albums to sweep aside some of the weird minor hits that keep the singles poll interesting. that's a sound argument, imo. i'm somewhat suspicious of the assumed need for this protective umbrella, however, because i don't think people would vote so very differently if we were less insistent about the need for it. nevertheless, i'll grant that it probably has some benefit in this regard.

my deep-down objection to the "albums here, singles there" policy is that it seems intended to arbitrarily diminish the presence of certain types of music in the singles list. not just "album-oriented music," but specific strains of it. i hear a lot of complaining about the strawman indie voter (a character i've invoked before) who threatens to gunk up the singles list with arcade fire and the national cuts, but everyone's cool with the appearance of taylor swift, kanye, and lady gaga in the albums list, when we know that these artists will also dominate the singles poll. i would say that it is the ubiquity in ballots of hugely successful pop artists like this, more than anything else, that leads to homogeneity in the two lists. but perhaps that's unavoidable. a giant hit is hard to deny.

i guess i come out of this conflicted. i like the idea that the singles list could be a haven for secret stars and would be bummed if it simply regurgitated tracks from the albums list. but i'm philosophically okay with imaginary arcade fire fan voting his/her heart.

No-one's arguing for a protective umbrella, they're just saying it's an unfortunate trend.

but everyone's cool with the appearance of taylor swift, kanye, and lady gaga in the albums list.

As chuck's comment upthread indicated, artists with absolutely massive singles and albums have always crossed over both lists. But lots of pop artists with big singles don't cross over to the albums list. Which is fine. But it's not like The National have been promoted as a singles band.

Taio Cruz ending up with an album in the top 10 would be equiv of The National ending up with a single in the top 10, but that would never happen.

Or maybe a better comparison is Katy Perry: number 11 in singles, number 158 in albums.

Whereas every single artist with an album in the P&J Top 20 also had a "single" in the P&J Top 40.

xpost:

yeah, i get that, but the way those songs and albums fall out in the rankings probably reflects the underlying realities fairly accurately. "dynamite" gets lots of love, but very few P&J voters rate rockstarr overall. a bunch of them probably only know the song as a stand-alone single. meanwhile, it's likely that tons of "bloodbuzz ohio" fans love the national album all the way through (can't fucking stand that song/band, btw).

however the national have been promoted, the distinctions between "album artist" and "single artist" aren't as clear in the itunes/youtube age as they might once have seemed. "dynamite" is obviously a much more popular song, but i'm sure we can agree that gross popularity isn't the only or even the best measure of a song's right to do well in a poll such as this.

No, but is it really likely that fans of The National enjoyed "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a song in any sense meaningfully distinct from the album as a whole?

Katy Perry: number 11 in singles, number 158 in albums.

Whereas every single artist with an album in the P&J Top 20 also had a "single" in the P&J Top 40.

i don't want to argue this too aggressively because your point makes sense to me, and i'm conflicted by my own. but i can easily see why all those top 20 album artists would also have songs in the top 40. albums are nothing but collections of songs. we therefore perhaps mislead ourselves in thinking of certain artists as "album-oriented." these artists are popular among voters only because their albums contain songs the voters love. there are very few albums i'd number among my personal favorites that fail to include at least one or two of my favorite songs. i wouldn't say that albums and album-oriented artists are superior to singles and singles artists, but i do put all songs on an equal footing. in this sense, maybe albums are just singles with really long b-sides.

No, but is it really likely that fans of The National enjoyed "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a song in any sense meaningfully distinct from the album as a whole?

― Tim F, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 4:08 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

that's a really tough question that i'm not going to go off on. i want to say "yes," but need to think it through first. plays into what i just said about albums being singles with long b-sides.

on reflection and on a functional level, i guess i have to agree with you and the lex. the best strategy is that which encourages maximum broadness in the lists, representation for as many different artists and musical approaches as possible. with that in mind, album-oriented critics should speak to the album-oriented audience primarily through the albums list.

i'd insert the the caveat that there must be the occasional non-hit song on a critically-respected album that so clearly rises above the rest of the material that it deserves mention on a singles ballot (caribou's "odessa" springs to mind atm). but maybe that's just me.

No actually contenderizer I agree with your last point entirely. And I think insisting on absolute separation across the board is extreme.

This is one of those things where one person doing something in isolation is fine but a large number of people doing it has unfortunate (mostly unintended) consequences.

And yeah albums aren't superior to singles or vice versa - but the two lists being a bit different from one another does make for more interesting reading.

Hey all I'm saying is that in 2002 or 1997 or 1991 or 1985 or 1979, the top 10 of the P&J singles list was basically "here are 8-10 of the best hit songs everybody heard this year, with maybe one or two songs that only critics and music nerds know about but generally agree on." The last couple years it's been "here are 3-5 hit songs everybody knows but not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly, and the rest are things we heard on the Forkcast."

I think "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" is not really a supportable accusation. The P&J was always the list of the most "critic-friendly" songs, whatever their sales, by definition: It's a poll of critics. I don't see how "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making the top 10 is materially different than "Stop Your Sobbing" in 1979, or "O Superman" in 1981, or "Eight Miles High" in 1984. Nor how the Forkcast is any less valid a source of exposure than KZEW or Billboard or however "critics" were hearing (about) new music 30 years ago.

A poll can be (at least) two things: the aggregated trip reports from year-long voyages of musical discovery, or the judgment of a panel of experts on the artistic merits of popular material. If you want the latter, you need a constrained set of choices. Arguably radio and the professional demands of a print-based electorate implicitly provided enough constraint in the early days. Now, not so much, for many many reasons.

But who cares? Why should popularity be the first filter? Why should the Pazz & Jop be the post-amateur division of American Idol? To me the trip-report idea is hugely, overwhelmingly more compelling. The "results" are the least of the poll, to me (and currently I'm the one providing them...). The much deeper value is in the network of associations and connections and commonalities. I'd love to see the poll pushed, in both electorate and structure, towards more diversity, more-varied specialization, more conscious and comprehensive embrace of this role of thoughtful exploration.

well put

Cool discussion - the proper distinction seems to be between good and bad critics/voters rather than admissible and inadmissible tracks. If a voter listens to a wide range of music over the year (Glenn's voyage of musical discovery) then I'd trust whatever he/she lists as his/her favourite tracks. Someone who restricts themselves to a small number of critically-acclaimed albums and votes for six Vampire Weekend tracks probably shouldn't be voting.

my single votes in the pazz & jop weren't singles. i just used that list as an excuse to vote for ten more albums that i liked. you can sue me if you want. i'm not the only one doing that now either. in other words, nine albums that never would have been a part of the poll are now a part of the poll. (voted for the books and other people actually did vote for that as a single.)

very well put. but i think some dude's point has merit, and it's echoed in glenn's closing paragraph:

To me the trip-report idea is hugely, overwhelmingly more compelling. [...] I'd love to see the poll pushed, in both electorate and structure, towards more diversity, more-varied specialization, more conscious and comprehensive embrace of this role of thoughtful exploration.

it's hard not to be disappointed when the aggregate trip-report reflects the fact that everybody took the same guided tour.

But it's not like The National have been promoted as a singles band.

http://stereogum.com/314001/the-national-bloodbuzz-ohio/mp3s/
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/11866-bloodbuzz-ohio/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodbuzz_Ohio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K779pqvYQds
http://www.4ad.com/thenational/news/~download-free-mp/

lol auto-embed

okay, make that 8 albums. cuz i put a swans song on my list and they were a part of the poll album-wise.

that last "very well put" went to glenn xp

yeesh that national song. yuck. for when you want to get bored by interpol AND coldplay at the same time, i guess. and the video is just as boring as the song. maybe that was the point.

No, but is it really likely that fans of The National enjoyed "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a song in any sense meaningfully distinct from the album as a whole?

I don't see why this is implausible.

In 2004 P&J I voted for Phoenix's Alphabetical album and also the song "Everything Is Everything," which I heard before the rest of the album and which I found to be clearly the standout track, even as I frequently listened to the whole album. It's the song I put on mixes or put on randomly when I wanted to dance or whatever. It's also the first track on the album, so sometimes I'd get the urge to listen just to the song but then find myself listening to and enjoying the rest of the album, too.

Certainly "Everything Is Everything" wasn't any more of a single than "Bloodbuzz Ohio" -- both were promoted as singles by the label and had videos, but didn't receive radio play or anything.

I think "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" is not really a supportable accusation. The P&J was always the list of the most "critic-friendly" songs, whatever their sales, by definition: It's a poll of critics. I don't see how "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making the top 10 is materially different than "Stop Your Sobbing" in 1979, or "O Superman" in 1981, or "Eight Miles High" in 1984. Nor how the Forkcast is any less valid a source of exposure than KZEW or Billboard or however "critics" were hearing (about) new music 30 years ago.

My point is that "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is the rule, the songs you point out used to be the exception. Moreover, "O Superman" and "Stop Your Sobbing" were UK chart hits (which, even if the P&J voters were American, they were probably big enough anglophiles to be aware of), and "Eight Miles High" is a cover of a very famous song, so all three of those signal an engagement with popular music that voting for "Bloodbuzz Ohio" does not.

"Fuck You!" and "Runaway," the 2 biggest songs in this year's top 10, were relatively moderate hits and code as way more "critic-friendly" than previous high P&J placers as such Kris Kross or Hanson. It used to be that a high ranking single from a high ranking album signified kind of a big deal, like Nevermind and "Teen Spirit" or Thriller and "Billie Jean." Now it's everyone's 3rd favorite album from journeyman indie band #4742 and the mp3 you got off Stereogum a couple weeks before the album leaked. I think that represents a bigger shift than you're giving credit for.

This year I decided that I wouldn't vote for any singles by the artists on my albums ballot, not because I wanted to enforce a strict separation between "albums" and "singles" artists, but because I didn't want to have any "automatic" choices on my singles ballot. IOW, I felt that by voting for singles from my favourite albums, I'd be making somewhat safe and lazy choices, without really thinking about which other songs and artists I liked last year. It felt necessary, at least for this year, even though my ballots hadn't contained much overlap in the past (never more than two or three artists in common, I think).

for when you want to get bored by interpol AND coldplay at the same time

the most otm thing i've ever read about the national ^^

Ha, I kinda like both Interpol and Coldplay selectively.

I don't see why this is implausible. [see jaymc xpost for details]

yeah, i'd agree with that. the objection has to be that non-smash singles by indie artists are somehow categorically illegitimate relative to "real singles" by non-indie artists and/or that indies get enough love in albums world and thus should keep their grubby pink fingers out of the singles poll.

those are the only arguments i can see, because there's no way to say with any real authority which songs are or aren't meaningfully distinct from the albums that contain them. better to stick with the fact that it's disappointing to see such a narrow and timid range of [redacted]-approved choices passing itself off as the P&J singles list.

Now it's everyone's 3rd favorite album from journeyman indie band #4742 and the mp3 you got off Stereogum a couple weeks before the album leaked. I think that represents a bigger shift than you're giving credit for.

― trv kvnt (some dude), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:48 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

truthbomb

How are people gonna know about "Hey Soul Sister" if critics don't put it on their pazz'n'jop ballots?

Why should the Pazz & Jop be the post-amateur division of American Idol?

the proper distinction seems to be between good and bad critics/voters rather than admissible and inadmissible tracks

enforce a strict separation between "albums" and "singles" artists

non-smash singles by indie artists are somehow categorically illegitimate relative to "real singles" by non-indie artists and/or that indies get enough love in albums world and thus should keep their grubby pink fingers out of the singles poll

I would like to point out for the record that none of these in any way accurately describe the position I'm taking here. And if anyone reads my posts carefully and still doesn't see the difference, I would be happy to explain why.

How are people gonna know about "Hey Soul Sister" if critics don't put it on their pazz'n'jop ballots?

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 10:15 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

never said that voting for Train was an evangelical move, just that I don't think it's that different from people voting for "Tubthumping" in the '90s. and I think voting for that song if I actually like it is different from and more defensible than your "lol let's vote for Hinder" stunt.

haha ok now who's projecting meaning onto posts

so were you just making a general zing and didn't know that I had personally voted for "Hey, Soul Sister"?

Oh I knew, but I didn't meant to suggest it was in bad faith (and my Hinder vote has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here). I totally agree that this was not a year of critical/commercial consensus on singles, but if you're gonna complain that back in the day people used to vote for "jump" and "mmmbop," it's worth looking at what the "jump"s and "mmmbop"s of 2010 were. I for one think Justin Bieber's "Baby" was robbed, but with all the gaga and "empire state of mind" in last year's poll, I'm not sold that this is a sign of blinkered indiedom.

jeezuz a battle between a train fan and a hinder fan. i can't look...

i love the idea that trying to punk the pazz'n'jop after a media conglomerate fired its creator isn't "defensible"

I didn't perceive or respond to any implication of bad faith, I perceived and responded to the joking suggestion that I or anyone else voting for pop hits is trying to educate people about the existence of hugely popular songs they've probably already heard and made up their minds about.

It's defensible as a protest move, I'm just saying voting for uncool pop facetiously and mocking people who do it sincerely just makes it seem like you'd rather throw sarcastic asides into the discussion (the discussion being both the poll and this discussion about the poll) than engage with it.

I guess you forgot my own history of sincere uncool pop promotion

Anyhoo, to ask the question I probably should have from the get-go, what are the great pop artists who are being slighted by this indie blinkerdom? From your own list, it would sound like Train is one.

sorry, I should say "great pop songs" not artists

I would like to point out for the record that none of these in any way accurately describe the position I'm taking here. And if anyone reads my posts carefully and still doesn't see the difference, I would be happy to explain why.

― trv kvnt (some dude), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 7:17 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

hey, some dude, the quote of mine you're griping at had nothing to do with you. it was me responding to jaymc responding to tim f responding to me. understand how these chains of communication can get fuzzy, but believe me when i say that i'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

My standard complaint--While it might not impact the top of the poll, I still wish more of the folks who do write for publications and blogs about genres other than indie-rock would choose to submit ballots. It might distract me some from looking at the albums and songs chosen by the indie-rock only participants.

I guess you forgot my own history of sincere uncool pop promotion

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 10:38 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I haven't. That's why I, if not expect you to have my back on this, then at least don't understand why you seem so eager to take cheap shots at my argument.

contenderizer: I didn't mean to imply you were purposefully misrepresenting me. But since I seem to be the only person ITT standing roughly on the side of the argument you were describing, I wanted to draw a distinction before I got grandfathered into the gray area.

That's why I, if not expect you to have my back on this, then at least don't understand why you seem so eager to take cheap shots at my argument.

Because I think it's a pretty pious one! It's one thing to notice a lack of enthusiasm for pop wares among the critic pool, it's another to be critical of it without suggesting what they're ignoring. It should probably be noted that the national's last album went Silver in the UK.

"I wanted to draw a distinction before I got grandfathered into the gray area."

that's what she said!

I did a year-end list of my favorite singles of the year and I did stats on Glenn's site that show what hits would've ranked higher if they hadn't been outvoted by non-hits, so you can look at either of those depending on whether you're asking for what I like best or what well-liked hits theoretically would've done better. But either way, I kind of feel like any song I point out is going to met with snorts of derision of "of course that's not as good as the 5th best song on the LCD Soundsystem album!" and I don't really feel like the burden of proof is on me to explain why someone might actually enjoy a multi-platinum pop hit more than an indie album track.

I didn't mean to imply you were purposefully misrepresenting me. But since I seem to be the only person ITT standing roughly on the side of the argument you were describing...

gotcha, and fwiw, i'm more-or-less in yr corner here. what i was trying to do with that post was to come up with a good, defensible way to object to lazy pfork cluster-selection on ballots. in the process, i clowned some less defensible arguments i've seen tossed around but that no one was actually making ITT.

right, it's all good. I'm glad we can sort that out without screaming "STRAWMAN!" :)

Well, as I mentioned earlier, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" goes from #9 to #7 when you eliminate singles votes from people who also voted for the corresponding albums, whereas all Kanye's singles plummet, so while I'm definitely not arguing that the music-critical world hasn't changed, I don't think singling out the National this way is helping us understand how.

Just for another bit of information, I added the P&J top 100 albums to this dataset I happened to have of 39 other year-end polls:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Album-of-the-Year&query=Pazz+%26+Jop

The National appear on 33 of those 39 (including Rolling Stone and Spin), and in the top 10s of 20 of them (including last.fm and Amazon).

eg the fives' "it's what you do", i've no idea what the status of that is. it's not available (on itunes) to buy, but they put it on their soundcloud and made a video for it

The way I construct my ballot, if a video was made to promote it separately from the album, I'd probably let myself consider it a single for Pazz & Jop purposes. (I try to limit myself to actual "singles," but how I define the word might not make sense to anybody else. Like, when I got an email yesterday that "Midnight America," my favorite track on the spotty 2010 album by Texas country band Rosehill, now has a video, that automatically put it in the running for consideration as a single in 2011. If I get a press release singling out a track I like a lot as a focus track, that counts too, even if I never hear the song on the radio or it never charts or I never see the single in a physical format.)

I don't see how "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making the top 10 is materially different than "Stop Your Sobbing" in 1979, or "O Superman" in 1981, or "Eight Miles High" in 1984.

Well, for one thing, when those three earlier songs charted in Pazz & Jop, none of them existed as part of an album, did they? "Eight Miles High" wasn't on Zen Arcade; Anderson's debut album didn't come out until 1982 (and didn't have "Walk The Dog" on it even when it did -- the single scored with both sides in Pazz & Jop.) The Pretenders album technically came out at the tail-end of 1979, but iirc didn't show up on Pazz & Jop until 1980, which is the year critics actually heard and connected with it. So that's a huge difference, right there.

The way I construct my ballot, if a video was made to promote it separately from the album, I'd probably let myself consider it a single for Pazz & Jop purposes. (I try to limit myself to actual "singles," but how I define the word might not make sense to anybody else. Like, when I got an email yesterday that "Midnight America," my favorite track on the spotty 2010 album by Texas country band Rosehill, now has a video, that automatically put it in the running for consideration as a single in 2011. If I get a press release singling out a track I like a lot as a focus track, that counts too, even if I never hear the song on the radio or it never charts or I never see the single in a physical format.)

yeah i assumed this as well, which is why i voted for a 2 yr old max b mixtape track & a year old boosie mixtape track

"I don't really feel like the burden of proof is on me to explain why someone might actually enjoy a multi-platinum pop hit more than an indie album track."

the burden of proof kinda is on you if you are the one saying that one thing is better than another. does that make sense?

i think whiney had a problem w/ that logic or something tho? xp

"I don't really feel like the burden of proof is on me to explain why someone might actually enjoy a multi-platinum pop hit more than an indie album track."

the burden of proof kinda is on you if you are the one saying that one thing is better than another. does that make sense?

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:03 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Saying one is better than the other isn't what I've done, though. That's one of the misconceptions I strained to clarify upthread.

okay must have missed that.

The way I construct my ballot, if a video was made to promote it separately from the album, I'd probably let myself consider it a single for Pazz & Jop purposes.

makes sense - but if there's a free-floating track around, unattached to album/mixtape, there may well not be a video, but i may well still want to rep for it. some of them are just personal faves, like rich boy & yelawolf's "go crazy" or shawnna's "nappy boy" this year - but they can still take on lives of their own despite never being available to buy and never being promoted as a single (or at all), eg ms dynamite's "bad gyal" in 2009, which was definitely a club anthem in itself.

(which is why i put no stock in "singles" vs "tracks".)

I think when you say people are choosing songs that are "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" you are saying the songs they're picking are not as good as other pop songs.

Just for another bit of information, I added the P&J top 100 albums to this dataset I happened to have of 39 other year-end polls:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Album-of-the-Year&query=Pazz+%26+Jop

That's a nice resource, Glenn. I'll have the ILM poll results spreadsheet link up with your AoY and P/J databases.

Oh yeah Lex, "free floating tracks" (which don't otherwise exist on an album), leaked or not, would definitely count for me, too, if I liked them enough. If they're not on an album, they're a single by definition; what else could they be? (I also figure that any track that shows up on, say, a compilation of dancehall or South African house tracks by various artists must be considered a single by somebody somewhere, and if it shows up on a mix CD curated by a DJ, it must be getting played as a single in some club somewhere, even if I don't go to clubs. So my definition definitely has a real wide scope, but it still has to hinge on something less solipsistic than "a random track I liked a lot.")

I think when you say people are choosing songs that are "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" you are saying the songs they're picking are not as good as other pop songs.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:18 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

don't know what the word "necessarily" means, huh

part of the problem in this debate is that we don't really know what we want out of these things. i mean, we want to see our favorite tracks and albums at the top of the ballot results, mixed in with some awesome stuff we've never heard, but beyond that, i don't think there's any clearly defined ideal process or result that things are falling short of.

can anyone honestly say with a straight face that there are certain tracks or albums that are absolutely more or less deserving of high placement in the results than others? i'd hope not, but you never know... for my part i'll happily say that certain artists, due to their popularity and critical respect, will very likely top the polls. but i don't think there's any more to it. people have their tastes, and that's that.

since we can't appeal to absolute artistic virtue, we're left with the wan hope that some sort of wholesome diversity can be obtained. diversity is inherently interesting, and would reassure us that we're not unfairly excluding anyone or anything. it's comforting, like when everyone gets a cookie. we therefore become distressed when evidence of herdlike homogeneity expresses itself, especially when that homogeneity can't be written off as the will of the invisible populist hand.

it's okay when pop artists win, after all, because everyone knows that everyone loves pop artists. being loved by everyone is the job of the pop artist. it's less okay when flaccid indie schmutz blots the landscape, because that sort of homogeneity carries with it a number of uncomfortable implications regarding the voting body. hell, they might even be middle-class for all we know. and they're hoarding all the cookies!

anyway I gotta go do some stuff, maybe later I'll have the energy to spoonfeed my relatively simple point some more

ive been enjoying more contenderizer posts in the past few months but once in awhile you still write long paragraphs of things establishing issues not in question & im like 'man i just read that'

I think when you say people are choosing songs that are "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" you are saying the songs they're picking are not as good as other pop songs.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:18 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

don't know what the word "necessarily" means, huh

― trv kvnt (some dude), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 4:26 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

dude, you know that's a cop-out. otherwise you're saying the p'n'j placers COULD the best songs, but you're concerned about how critic-friendly they are.

and if your point is simple, why don't you just repeat it once, short and sweet, instead of whining about how no one gets it.

I'm just saying that I don't buy the idea that "Bloodbuzz Ohio" represents a failure to engage with popular music any more than anything else on the poll. I think we can probably all agree that the new ways in which music circulates have different dynamics than the old ones, but I suspect that has just as much of an effect on Kanye and Janelle as it does on the Arcade Fire. That is, I suspect you're actually understating the situation, and the disconnect between "popular" and "critical", or between "people who just listen to music" and "people who read and write about music", is actually much deeper than it seems in your chart lists, and the intersections of the sets is increasingly the result of coincidence and second/third-order reactions against reactions...

ive been enjoying more contenderizer posts in the past few months but once in awhile you still write long paragraphs of things establishing issues not in question & im like 'man i just read that'

― tuomascratch beat (deej), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 8:28 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i was peripherally aware i was doing just that, but kept at it anyway.

need to get better at hearing the little voice...

"need to get better at hearing the little voice..."

http://www.mydisguises.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/noid.gif

thanks for the board descrip, scott

still has to hinge on something less solipsistic than "a random track I liked a lot"
So, if it's on an original-release album or EP, rather than a comp (or offical single, video, free-floater, focus track, your other exceptions), then it can't be in Singles? Is choosing such a track (especially if it's not from an Albums album) *necessarily* solipsistic and random?

Not judging what other folks do in that situation, Don. But yeah, for me, I wouldn't consider a mere album track like that a single. (One reason I didn't vote for Flynnville Train's "Sandman" as a single last year -- though, since they made my albums ballot, it would've been redundant, despite definitely being good enough to make my singles ballot.) (Actually, though, I can see how, uh, Track #1 on an EP might count as a single. If it was a real short EP, and it was clearly the main track, so the other songs were just basically B-sides: Think "Never Say Never" by Romeo Void, or "Ghosttown" by the Specials, say. Which were probably real singles otherwise, anyway.

I think when you say people are choosing songs that are "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" you are saying the songs they're picking are not as good as other pop songs.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:18 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

don't know what the word "necessarily" means, huh

― trv kvnt (some dude), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 4:26 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

dude, you know that's a cop-out. otherwise you're saying the p'n'j placers COULD the best songs, but you're concerned about how critic-friendly they are.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:30 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

What I'm saying is that the list feels more 'filtered' through a critical sensibility, in the broadest most stereotypical "this is what critics like more than the average music listener" way, than it used to be. The critics that put Quad City DJs and Donna Summer and Naughty By Nature and Van Halen and Cameo and Chumbawumba in the top 5 in years past don't seem too cool for school to me like the voters this year and last year. I'm not saying those artists' songs are better than "Fuck You!" or "Runaway," just that they don't easily fulfill a similar kind of predictable critical calculus (Kanye/guy from Gnarls Barkley + expletive-filled chorus = song of the year).

and if your point is simple, why don't you just repeat it once, short and sweet, instead of whining about how no one gets it.

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:31 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

1) In its first 20-odd years of existence, the P&J singles poll was markedly more populist and unpredictable than the albums poll, which made for an interesting counterpoint and went against the grain of a lot of stereotypes about the snobbishness or tunnel vision of music critics.
2) That has changed dramatically in the last few years, with non-singles and minor hits, usually by the same artists that dominate the albums poll, beating out even the most critically well regarded major hits.
3) As a result, the singles poll now feels more predictable and redundant, and P&J's ability to sum up a year in music or contribute to the dialogue about it feels hampered or more limited.

btw I just looked at the VV site and realized that the singles list has changed pretty substantially since I wrote my essay a week ago, I guess Glenn's been pretty busy triple-checking the numbers. I should reevaluate my stats before I continue mouthing off!

When I looked at the album list a couple days ago, the Bob Seger bootleg was up to #93! But then I noticed how that happened: Placements (on both lists, I think) had been altered to acknowledge ties, but instead of say, two albums tied for #32 followed by an album at #34 (which would be the proper way to do it), they're now followed by an album at #33. And so on, increasingly, down the chart. So the placements now don't really give you an accurate point of departure with which to compare with charts in recent years -- Top 40 or 100 now means something different than Top 40 or 100 used to, since suddenly way more than 40 or 100 albums can fit within those charts, if that makes any sense to anybody.

"Charts in previous years," I mean -- specifically, ones that ran in the VV P&J print versions. (For all I know, that same situation with numbering "tied" albums eventually happened in the past few years in the website version, and I just never noticed. Possibly a software glitch?)

(And of course only the Top 40, not Top 100, would have ever run in print. But Christgau's essay regularly mentioned where other finishers placed, almost always down to #50, and sporadically down to 100 or even lower.)

woah yeah the tie thing explains all the changes -- is that a glitch or a deliberate change of approach?

was looking at the P&J top 20 albums to see what they had in common. though some of these distinctions are quite arbitrary, this is what it looks like to me:

pitchfork best new music - 15/20
indie - 13/20
rock (all indie) - 12/20
chart topping (US top 20 albums) - 10/20
club pop (rap, r&b, dance) - 7/20
rap and r&b - 4/20
electronic - 4/20
billboard #1 - 3/20
country and americana - 2/20
progressive - 2/20
punk - 2/20

I don't control the Voice's site, although I will continue my attempts to get them to get it right. At the moment the numbering there is wrong in two ways: not skipping numbers properly, as Chuck noted, and on the album side, not respecting the number-of-votes tiebreaker for albums tied on points. Both of these are right in the Needle version.

Also, if you'd checked the Voice's version of the singles results during the first 24-ish hours after they came out, you might have seen them before they included remix and carryover votes, so several things shifted around once that data was added.

yeah i think i updated my stuff after the first couple days, i was just confused by the more recent changes.

good orig. research cntndrzr--that's quite depressing.

to amuse myself, P&J top 20 singles broken down by similar categories (21, actually, through the two #16s):

would-be chartpop (billboard top 100, or close to it) - 15/21
appeared on the pitchfork playlist - 14/21
rated "best new music" on the playlist - 13/21
appeared on an album rated "best new music" - 13/21 (16/21 in either of these 2 categories)
appeared on an album in the P&J top 20 - 12/21
club pop (rap, r&b, dance) - 12/21
indie - 8/21
rap and r&b - 8/21
US top 40 - 7/21
electronic (excludes most rap and r&b) - 6/21
rock - 5/21 (4/5 indie)
US #1 - 2/21

Metal - 0/21

apparently no-one should vote for metal because it isn't popular enough and has only had 3 hit singles in 15 years, Glenn.

it would be pretty hilarious if Immortal won this one year

maybe if someone does a novelty ambient version? or the benny hill version somehow gets big

it's a shame that just trying to have any kind of conversation about larger trends in the way the electorate votes instantly gets people all defensive like you're trying to tell them what they shouldn't vote for or that they like the wrong things.

people vote for what they like, its no big deal really.

and its not really surprising that people vote for an album then vote for their favourite track or 2 from it if that is their fave songs of the year. It's just for some reason that the past year or 2 its beem one genre that is different from before. Plus songs can now be huge in certain circles without getting mainstream play, kinda how Country music has sold shitloads over the years without mainstream play. Eventually some other genre will do it instead of the current corporate "indie"

then of course the fans of current indie will get pissy about it.

i couldn't personally care less whether any of my fav metal albums win a Pazz and Jop poll. it's always annoyed me how so many metalheads simultaneously decry the mainstream ignoring the genre while also complaining when underground acts gain mainstream acceptance (granted I'm not talking about anybody here in ILX, more or less in other walks of life with fellow metalheads).

people vote for what they like, its no big deal really.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Wednesday, January 26, 2011

this is a pretty stupid thing to say when one thing p&j does is give critics an overview of american criticism for them to look at and wonder abt

This was mentioned up thread, but it seems like it comes down to, "What is each individual person trying to accomplish with his or her ballot?"

1) "People should check out what I like" - trying to get songs or albums on the ballot that you think are important but underheard, i.e., more people need to hear these songs and albums b/c they are good and the cosmic balance would be righted if they are more widely appreciated

2) "We need to figure out the best music of the year-- this is what I think it is"

3) This list provides a corrective to "the best-selling songs/albums of the year"; those metrics represented what everyone liked, this is what is actually good. Same way (x) author will never sell as well as Danielle Steele.

4) We need to comb through what "sold and/or was heard by millions of people" and find out what among that pool was actually good"; I think this is what some dude wants

5) We need to comb through what was "hyped" by indie-oriented sites and figure out what was good;

6) We need to make an "interesting" list of what the man in the street has never heard of. To turn some stones and find music that will be new to most people.

All of these things-- and there are easily a dozen more-- are legitimate reasons for making a list. The question is: WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR LIST? And that motivation, when extrapolated to 700 people, becomes P&J.

I'm down with 1, 2 and 6

but the man in the street wont have heard of P&J
xp

ahh yes let's have a man on the street P&J so afroman can take it year in and out, even if he releases nothing

like the best male/female awards at The Brits? ;)

Annie Lennox walks P&J top album & singles for the 30th year in a row

1) In its first 20-odd years of existence, the P&J singles poll was markedly more populist and unpredictable than the albums poll, which made for an interesting counterpoint and went against the grain of a lot of stereotypes about the snobbishness or tunnel vision of music critics.

While I totally see how you could see it this way (and appreciate you spelling out exactly what your point as), you could also look at the 1997 poll and say it takes until #20 for a song to appear on the singles chart that wasn't a really big MTV hit. That's a less snobby tunnel, but if you're going to complain that songs are just indie album artists and songs from pitchfork/stereogum, you could say the wild populist unpredictability of earlier years is still well within a tunnel of its own.

Ehhh, I think the problem with that line of thought is that MTV in those days was open to lots of fairly marginal things that weren't exactly blowing up radio or the Hot 100.

Well, "the tunnel vision of music critics" was a reference to the stereotype of critics turning their noses up at things like MTV so yeah, I don't really see it that way. Besides, while MTV was still pretty central to pop culture in 1997, around the mid-'90s they stopped really breaking many new songs/artists and were mainly following radio's lead at that point in terms of what they were playing. And if I'm talking about critics listening to music outside the internet nerd bubble then it kind of goes without saying that MTV doesn't present problems for me as a primary music source the way Stereogum does (even if MTV in any era is obviously not without its own problems).

xpost - I dunno, Rev, what was in MTV rotation back then that wasn't on the radio too?

4) We need to comb through what "sold and/or was heard by millions of people" and find out what among that pool was actually good"; I think this is what some dude wants

If you're referring to the albums poll, you're absolutely wrong. If you're referring to the singles poll... you're still wrong.

you can even look back at the pre-mtv era and see a real shift as the network gained weight (Ian Dury had the #1 single of 1979, you know).

Well, "the tunnel vision of music critics" was a reference to the stereotype of critics turning their noses up at things like MTV so yeah, I don't really see it that way.

I wonder how much of this stereotype is generational - the fact that the critics weren't turning their noses up at it would suggest that.

you can even look back at the pre-mtv era and see a real shift as the network gained weight (Ian Dury had the #1 single of 1979, you know).

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:29 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

he also had a #1 on the UK pop charts with the same song

i really don't get why you think American critics liking UK hits with zero recognition here is somehow more "populist" than digging songs from bands that make the top 10 album charts in the US

like, Brit-popular new wave stuff would 100% be the Stereogum material of that time

Yeah, agree to disagree there, I guess. Voting for "Common People" is more populist than voting for an Arcade Fire song that wasn't even one of the 3 charting singles off their album, in my opinion.

"Bloodbuzz, Ohio" went top 20 in Belgium! Game changer.

xp Dury also hit with a two-sided single not from any album. (The 45 was included as a freebie inside certain copies of Do It Yourself, which unlike Dury's predecessor New Boots And Panties didn't place in the poll, but neither song was on the album itself.) And the song that got the most votes in 1979, M's "Pop Muzik," was a #1 pop single from an album that may well have received zero votes. (Xgau's essay: "In the end we decided not only to add all versions of a song together, but--as a tribute to the ancient concept of the two-sided single--to combine the votes for two songs that appeared on the same record. This is how Ian Dury beat out Robin Scott (a/k/a M), whose 'Pop Muzik' was certainly our song of the year.") And -- though this is maybe subjective -- it's not hard to see how both the Dury and M singles were major formal innovations -- i.e., new wave meets disco (meets early rap, in "Reasons To Be Cheerful"'s case) in pop form. And the top 10 that year also had big chart hits (Sister Sledge, the Knack), small chart hits (Flying Lizards), an indie rock hit (Brains), and Brit hits (Specials, Pretenders) from bands who either didn't have an album out yet or, if they did, didn't score on the album chart. (Fleetwood Mac did way better with "Tusk" the single than Tusk the album that year too. And Donna Summer did well on both charts, but had blown up the pop chart too -- both "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" were multiple-week #1s.)

Brains not an indie rock "hit" i guess. (An actual single, though.) Anyway, that is one excellent Top 10 -- really varied, too.

yeah I wasn't saying it was a bad one, just noting the contrast to the MTV era

Also worth nothing you only needed 29 votes to top it in 1979 - if you broadened the polling base back then I think you'd probably see more laziness in some direction, be it "populist" (what you heard on casey kasem) or "indie" (trouser press stuff)

though obv its before my time so I dunno if just the popularity of 7-inches played a big stake in keeping things more single-y and less push track-y.

all I'm really saying, to reiterate a point from the article I linked upthread, is that we can make fun of the group of critics that named Imperial Bedroom the album of the year, but they could've put "Man Out Of Time" or something in the singles poll, and instead they chose "The Message" and "Sexual Healing."

xp Yeah, 7-inches were clearly part of it -- 12-inches (disco discs) too, in some cases. Something critics could hold in their hands.

But my point is that, with both the Trouser Press cult items and the legit pop hits, lots of what seemed to score high then seemed to be songs off albums that critics didn't particularly otherwise care about (or albums that didn't exist). I'd have to look over this year's chart (can somebody else, please? I'm busy), but who is scoring high these days with singles off albums that Pazz&Jop placings seem to agree are definite drop-offs from the band's previous albums? M.I.A.? Hold Steady? (Didn't they put a single in or near the Top 40?) That's what Dury sort of did in 1979 (albeit with a technically non-album single), and Fleetwood Mac, and I think Funkadelic further down the chart (which I also don't have time to actually look at right now.) Get the idea that happens less these days too, but I could be wrong.

Metal - 0/21

― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

apparently no-one should vote for metal because it isn't popular enough and has only had 3 hit singles in 15 years, Glenn.

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Dude, I am a HUGE metalhead (and one of the "vote more metal, critics" choir) and even I can see that it's not exactly a singles genre right now. I had Deftones "Rocket Skates" on my ballot, but like I couldn't even think of 10 legitimate, commercially released SINGLES I could put on an awesome metal ballot

Like I'm really into certain rando Rotting Christ and Dillinger and Torche album tracks, but I would exactly call any of them "singles" by any stretch of the imigination.

what i'm saying is, pick your battles

Would die a happy man hearing Casey Kasem introduce Rotting Christ

is that we can make fun of the group of critics that named Imperial Bedroom the album of the year, but they could've put "Man Out Of Time" or something in the singles poll, and instead they chose "The Message" and "Sexual Healing."

Fair enough, but I think this would hold a little more weight with me if if I felt like the p'n'j critics today were ignoring "The Message" and "Sexual Healing."

The "pop needs to be as good now as it was then for this argument to hold water" thing is like...is indie/college rock so much better now than it was then?

I'd put Imperial Bedroom and High Violet pretty even in my estimation

Fair enough, but I think this would hold a little more weight with me if if I felt like the p'n'j critics today were ignoring "The Message" and "Sexual Healing."

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 8:35 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think they do ignore much better songs all the time??

I never doubted you did??

i meant much better than the ones they vote for, on par w/ the message & sexual healing, not that there are tons of songs better than those

I'd put Imperial Bedroom and High Violet pretty even in my estimation

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:14 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if we're gonna have a convenient-comparison-point-off, High Violet finished at #8, the same spot previously occupied by Zen Arcade, Life's Rich Pageant, and Bee Thousand.

i guess i take rock critics rating/overrating indie as more of a given than rock critics remembering to give a shout-out to this year's "tubthumping"

again, i'm not really denying this isn't a trend or noteworthy, but reducing it to "people used to be cool with pop and now they just read stereogum" ignores the stranglehold of MTV - you didn't have to go out of your way to hear that shit. If people don't wanna let "OMG" get its hooks in them, or god forbid prefer some indie jam, I don't think this is a major crime on their part.

that's kind of been my point this entire time? i mean i haven't really bitched about the albums results because it's Chinatown, but the singles results used to go against my more pessimistic expectations of critics and they don't as much anymore. (xpost)

Would die a happy man hearing Casey Kasem introduce Rotting Christ

― eep opp ork ah ah...and that means suck my dick (San Te),

is Casey Kasem still alive?

rotting casey could announce it.

anyway, if you really want to know how the singles list would look differently if all the non-charting songs weren't there and the people voted for singles they way I think they used to --

songs that would move into the top 10*: Window Seat, Teenage Dream, Soldier Of Love, Telephone

songs that would enter the top 25*: California Gurls, Born Free, Rude Boy, Ready To Start (ha), Stylo, Nothin' On You, Airplanes, Dog Days Are Over, Hard In Da Paint, Little Lion Man

*based on what was or wasn't in the top 10 or top 25 on the Voice site last week, not the way it currently is with ties moving a bunch of songs arbitrarily up in rank

to point out what glenn has repeatedly, though

what moves out of the top ten: runaway, monster, power

no, they all charted, so they'd move up from 4-5-6 to 3-4-5. where did Glenn say that?

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=2010+Non-Album+Song+Ranking

that's a completely different set of criteria than what I just described.

oh woops, i thought you were talking about if you removed the people who voted for albums and singles from the same artist xpost

got confused because i assumed your complaint was with those lazy folks, and not those who dared to vote for songs that weren't pop hits

my above post was based on removing the blue-colored songs listed here: https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=P-J-B&query=Pazz+%26+Jop (notice how much more blue 2009 and 2010 are than any previous year)

although I didn't know "Bloodbuzz Ohio" charted in Belgium until you mentioned it, so it erroneously lists that as a non-charting song

I realize that if you didn't imbue my posts with meanings they didn't have by paraphrasing them with words I never used ("lazy" or "daring" not to vote for hits) we wouldn't have much to argue about but...I'd be fine with that, actually.

if you think saying critics are confirming to your pessimistic view of them and aren't "necessarily voting for the best songs, just the most critic-friendly" is too far of a stretch from "lazy," I apologize

Lol Kasems alive, he's 78 and voiced Shaggys dad on Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated last year.

Zoinks Scoob, it's a R-R-R-R-R-R-ROTTING CHRIST!

RUH ROH!

casey kasem comes from the neoplatonistic druze sect of palestine. which is pretty troo and kult.

if you think saying critics are confirming to your pessimistic view of them and aren't "necessarily voting for the best songs, just the most critic-friendly" is too far of a stretch from "lazy," I apologize

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 11:46 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

and if you think my words are damning of my own argument enough on their own, you shouldn't have to introduce new verbiage when summarizing what you think I believe.

do you guys even remember what you're arguing about?

if the difference between a song being blue lined or carrying an asterisk in the "did it chart" thing is that something wasn't thought to be considered a single, I think a outmoded use of "single" is being used there. The vast majority of those 2009-2010 tracks had one or more of the following apply: they had videos, they were released as vinyl singles, they were released as "promo mp3s" (which is basically a modern version of a single...hell, a lot of pop songs in the U.S. don't have physical product singles.)

Not sure what else something needs to do to be a single these days, unless your definition is just purposefully built in order to keep out certain kinds of music. And even then it's all pointless anyway since anything is eligible for the charts regardless of whether some record label took the time to promote it. I guess most of the 100 or so Cast of Glee charting songs magically become singles just because they get purchased digitally. Not sure how that makes them more of a "single" by the pre-digital definition than, say, Girls songs that have actual 12" and 7" single releases, but hey.

and if you think my words are damning of my own argument enough on their own, you shouldn't have to introduce new verbiage when summarizing what you think I believe.

you've known anthony long enough that you should be more accepting of his insightful but often reductive quips! (xpost)

― Magill: a gorilla (some dude), Thursday, January 13, 2011 4:55 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

talking about glenn's work here: https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=P-J-B&query=Pazz+%26+Jop

unless your definition is just purposefully built in order to keep out certain kinds of music.

nail hit on head

I'm not saying non-charting songs aren't singles, shouldn't be considered singles and/or shouldn't be voted for in singles polls fwiw.

xpost lol anthony

do you guys even remember what you're arguing about?

new board decription plz

cosign

btw the "P&J&B" page you just linked, i collected most of that info and decided how it was presented, Glenn mainly helped out with the technical stuff of getting onto Needle and, as evidenced by his posts ITT, doesn't necessarily agree with any of the conclusions I've drawn form it.

and I will take arguing w/ croup at his most glib over most of the butthurt goon squad i end up on the same ILM threads with more often any day of the week. it's just really exasperating that I've a) spent a lot of time compiling this info and thinking about it and b) have thought about almost every counter-argument before it was even brought up here and worded my posts very carefully because of that and c) still get a bunch of defensive zings about how I'm trying to be the thought police or the popism gestapo or something.

Not sure what else something needs to do to be a single these days, unless your definition is just purposefully built in order to keep out certain kinds of music. And even then it's all pointless anyway since anything is eligible for the charts regardless of whether some record label took the time to promote it. I guess most of the 100 or so Cast of Glee charting songs magically become singles just because they get purchased digitally. Not sure how that makes them more of a "single" by the pre-digital definition than, say, Girls songs that have actual 12" and 7" single releases, but hey.

― scottpl, Thursday, January 27, 2011 12:06 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

The fact that pretty much any song is eligible to chart, and that only a small percentage of them do (although still thousands and thousands and thousands every year), is exactly why I compiled the data the way I did and why I think it illustrates the point I'm trying to make. There have ALWAYS been non-charting indie-niche singles on the P&J singles chart, but the number of them in the top 10 or top 25 in any given year has multiplied several times over lately. Obviously there are a lot of new channels for singles and solitary songs to reach an audience now that aren't measured by Billboard, and I've never said that that's a bad thing.

you've said people are living up to negative stereotypes of critics and only liking criticy-stuff because of a lack of big pop hits compared to the MTV era and the fact that there are a lot of schmindie fucks who loved High Violet and a lot of schmindie fucks who loved "Bloodbuzz, Ohio" (and hell, I'M weirded out that the overlap between those two groups isn't larger). you may not be reaching lex levels of bile, but there's definitely some indie-shaming going on here.

are ppl disagreeing with his argument about the general trend, though? is that otm or no?

well, if I offered absolutely no editorial opinion on what the numbers mean then we wouldn't be discussing it because it would probably look to most other people like a bunch of numbers. I had to assemble it into some kind of narrative, and I really think that narrative was value-neutral more often than it wasn't, so I just get concerned about people thinking I'm telling them what to listen to, how to think about it or what to vote for. (xpost)

I could also see most of the groups in the top 20 having more of a chart presence if MTV was around to push them. "Bloodbuzz, Ohio" would SO be a Buzz Clip and then would easily make the Modern Rock top 20.

yeah I don't know all of these songs well enough to make a call on that. but in a world where Arcade Fire and Phoenix DO chart on Modern Rock, I kind of feel like if the National or Sleigh Bells or Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti or LCD Soundsystem or Deerhunter were ever going to appear on that chart, they would've by now.

There have ALWAYS been non-charting indie-niche singles on the P&J singles chart, but the number of them in the top 10 or top 25 in any given year has multiplied several times over lately. Obviously there are a lot of new channels for singles and solitary songs to reach an audience now that aren't measured by Billboard, and I've never said that that's a bad thing.

yeah, but you all are placing way too much importance on "charting." used to be (in the 80s and 90s) that the alt-y "modern rock" stuff would show up on MTV, then break out (if it was gonna) and get picked up by radio. as the 90s wore on, i guess radio didn't need MTV guidance so much, the point was that there as an "official channel" for this stuff, so to speak.

nowadays, that isn't the case. and pitchfork/blogs are just as much "the radio" as they are "magazines." when something blows up in p-fork blogland, it's not just critics & nerds liking it, it's basically a hit. lots and lots of people are getting their music that way, and passing it on to their friends and college radio programmers and w/e. the national being big in that sphere is a lot like john cougar being big on MTV.

I get what you're saying and I think it's true to some extent, but not as far as you're taking it. I think if the proverbial "man on the street" were asked how many songs in this year's top 20 they could hum, it'd be a lot lower than 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, unless that man on the street happened to white and/or college-age and/or pretty 'with it.'

you could be talking about the top 20 singles on billboard too

haha except the "white" part

so a random person you grabbed on the street would be just as likely to know Sleigh Bells or Ariel Pink songs as they would Pitbull or Bruno Mars? really?

why are we all in the 2010 thread?

the Village Voice site refers to the Pazz & Jop poll that surveys the music of 2010 and releases its results in 2011 as "Pazz & Jop 2010," and so this thread does follow suit

so a random person you grabbed on the street would be just as likely to know Sleigh Bells or Ariel Pink songs as they would Pitbull or Bruno Mars? really?

you're misrepresenting what you wrote - think if the proverbial "man on the street" were asked how many songs in this year's top 20 they could hum, it'd be a lot lower than 5 or 10 or 20 or 30 years ago

http://alto.to.free.fr/arcade_room/images/pong.jpg

I know, I know but -- seriously, I count maybe 10, at most 12 songs on this year's P&J top 20 that a person has a good chance of knowing if they're not relatively young and/or spend a good amount of time browsing music sites. most of the Billboard top 20 is either oppressively ubiquitous or probably will be in a few weeks. xpost

what i'd probably hypothesize from all this is, as the music monoculture loses its weight and its easier and easier to focus on your niche (and honestly, harder and harder to not), critics are feeling less of a need to acknowledge/pay respects to what's left of it, though as the kanye singles-albums crossover suggests, they LOVE to when the opportunity arises

Conversely, ask the average person on ilx what Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina's "Stereo Love" sounds like

what i'd probably hypothesize from all this is, as the music monoculture loses its weight and its easier and easier to focus on your niche (and honestly, harder and harder to not), critics are feeling less of a need to acknowledge/pay respects to what's left of it, though as the kanye singles-albums crossover suggests, they LOVE to when the opportunity arises

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 12:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah ive been saying a similar thing w/ rap (and rap singles) as a whole this year, it seemed really noticeable to me -- rap is again an 'underground thing' the way it was in the early 90s

what i'd probably hypothesize from all this is, as the music monoculture loses its weight and its easier and easier to focus on your niche (and honestly, harder and harder to not), critics are feeling less of a need to acknowledge/pay respects to what's left of it, though as the kanye singles-albums crossover suggests, they LOVE to when the opportunity arises

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah totally. Kanye will probably be the placeholder "hey look a chart-topping pop phenomenon on my ballot!" artist for a lot of critics for a long time.

gaga, jay-z, kanye, the "artist" stars are still doing fine on pazz single charts, it's the random earworms that gain their power in part from being inescapable that are falling down the charts because its easier and easier to escape them

in terms of how its treated by critics, i mean, not in terms of popularity per se xxp

gaga, jay-z, kanye, the "artist" stars are still doing fine on pazz single charts, it's the random earworms that gain their power in part from being inescapable that are falling down the charts because its easier and easier to escape them

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:25 PM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark

this is definitely true. says a lot that "Empire" was Jay's first P&J #1.

like i guarantee every time i've heard "OMG" I've enjoyed it just a little more, but fuck you if you think i'm just gonna make myself experience it they way I did a top ten song in the nineties

that song? oh heavens no, no argument there.

haha actually, I hated most pop shit as a teen in the 90s, but judging from p'n'j critics had a little more stockholm syndrome going on back in the day

like i guarantee every time i've heard "OMG" I've enjoyed it just a little more, but fuck you if you think i'm just gonna make myself experience it they way I did a top ten song in the nineties

― da croupier, Thursday, January 27, 2011 12:27 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is a weird song that way. really ingratiating in a way that encourages resistance

I'd like to ask everybody, reviewers (whether you voted or not) and non-reviewers too: in what way do you find P&J to be useful? As a shopping list (and/or list of Musts To Avoid, Subjects For Further Research, like for listening without paying for it)? Or confirming suspicions, unexpected revelations, mildly entertaining means of procrastination, other, none of the above, not at all?

stunting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6qk1AFH9Y4

in years past it was great as a shopping list. lately, for me, it's more of a porthole in what the crithivemind off ILX thinks
also good for finding people with similar tastes and then seeing what they like

I look at it as the closest thing to a complete survey of critical consensus that exists, kind of the final word after all the other mags and sites have done their staff lists representing a smaller piece of the pie. So sometimes it lines up with what those other lists showed, sometimes it's a surprise, but it's always interesting and kind of gives a last chance to look at the year as a whole and make some sense of it before moving onto the next year.

yeah ive been saying a similar thing w/ rap (and rap singles) as a whole this year, it seemed really noticeable to me -- rap is again an 'underground thing' the way it was in the early 90s

― tuomascratch beat (deej), Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:24 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its really has a lot to do with how rock critics GET (or don't get) rap music.

Like I think about 2010 and I had to do ACTUAL WORK to hear shit like E-40, Rick Ross, Roc Marciano, Jacka, Roach Gigz, Yelawolf, etc...

• Major labels aren;t servicing writers these records
• Mixtapes are getting lost in this enormous shuffle of material
• Sites like Pfork/Stereogum/BrooklynVeg that are donimating the inter discourse all marganilize these artists to some extent (exceptions are stuff like Lil B, Odd Future, Big KRIT)

Like I had to download shit, traverse Nah Right's impossible format, read blogs, read ILX. On the other hand The National just showed up in my inbox one day and everyone wouldnt shut up about it after

Part of it is "oh rock critcs, do your fuckin homework", but then like really does anyone expect them to?

ie, I had to actually DO SOMETHING to learn that E-40 made a good record. I didn't have to do anything but press a link in an email we all got when Ariel Pink did something

i get lots & lots of rap emails but its all for garbage

^i'm sayin!

make that point #4

i didnt start getting say DaVinci emails until after i reviewed him lol

& yeah i mean husalah follows the somanyshrimp twitter but i have to do youtube - uploaded in the past week searches to find out if hes got any new releases

so it's like how can we really expect a National fan to be following Husulah on YouTube?

imo this is a failure of major labels to engage w/ rap any more

i think there is a general failure of major labelsto engage with most music genres tbh

yah def

you & I mention it about rap & metal a lot but really just about every genre is in the same boat. I suppose it's no surprise that they value making up for lost revenue by going for a quick buck with idol/xfactor stuff,but you cant tell me there aren't good stuff in every genre that couldn't crossover with a little help. I know there's plenty of good stuff in metal that could do that, but the majors would rather push utter shit like avenged sevenfold rather than letting good bands develop at their own pace like in the old days with say the thrash big 4. I do feel that there's enough good bands that could sell well as well as being actually good bands and critical faves and im pretty sure its the same with rap and other genres. Guy Hands at EMI is perfect example of a guy not having a clue about music.

I've said this before, obviously, but I think the P&J is most interesting because it's the only sizable poll that actually lets you see the votes. The bigger the electorate, the less interesting the "results" necessarily become, but the more other insight you can extract from the data. Even if all you do is wander from album to voter to song to voter to album, like you could do on the Voice's own site long before I had anything to do with it, this is a fascinating associative journey through an assemblage (however arbitrary) of brains that are at least nominally engaged in thinking about music. Sometimes it helps me personally discover music I like, but more often it helps me understand relationships and affinities in music I *don't* necessarily listen to myself.

Algie, I will say that as someone who covers both fairly equally, it's remarkably easier to keep up with metal than rap through critic channels

Although def not as easy as indie rock, which is why like all good metal bands get indie praise on the record AFTER their good one

Algie, I will say that as someone who covers both fairly equally, it's remarkably easier to keep up with metal than rap through critic channels

Probably because metal has really become an albums genre now? (same as indie i guess)

also lol Algie

You're right. But weren't you the one complaining there's no metal in the singles list?

wasn't exactly complaining, Glenn pointed out there was none and i probably spoke a lotta shit as usual :)

Still say Nachtmystium - No Funeral deserved to be top 20, just a shame no sod has heard it. Plus the likes of High On Fire and Torche for example make great songs as well as albums and I find it strange they get ignored by radio as much as critics.

I was thinking about that this morning and wondering about the metal songs (not nu metal) in the 2000s that kind took a life of their own and felt like cult singles in the metal world on the level of Bloodbuzz Ohio

Queens Of The Stone Age - "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer"
Mastodon - "Blood And Thunder"
High On Fire - "Devilution"
Boris - "Farewell"
Dillinger Escape Plan - "Black Bubblegum"

and like that's it?

obv if you include nu-metal bands and emocore theres tons more

i don't know about d.e.p. but it feels kinda telling that the rest of those are opening tracks on their albs

I think we need a rolling thread where we can actually list/post links to youtube for songs like that from the last 10 years to try get ilxors to check stuff out they wouldn't normally. When i see some of the crap rock the goons for example like (sorry guys) i cant help feeling that they might dig some stuff the rolling metal dudes like if they just heard it. Radip etc isn't going to introduce anybody to it but Whiney you are more in tune with those guys so im sure you know what they might dig and they might check out stuff if you do start a thread on it. If I did it then it would just be ignored!

*radio etc

this thread has inspired me to put casey kasem top 40 for 12/20/86 on the turntable. forgot about change of heart by cyndi lauper.

sam fox nipping at cyndi's heels!

oh wait other way around. sam at #36. cyndi at #37.

Maybe I'll just make a mixtape of all the important metal "singles" of 2000-2009 and post it for all the n00bs

Because no case is gonna be made from LJ posting 50 Opeth and Crypopsy YouTubes and going "FUCKKKKKKKKK"

the rap that i think would crossover isnt even traditional crit-rap, its stuff like boosie & max b & jacka (& gucci to a greater degree than he has) -- i do think critics should cover it but part of the problem is that a lot of critics, lets be honest, are relying on approval of someone -- critic peers or popular support -- before they can justify arguing in favor of artists. i mean, it took me a couple yrs of being like "mike jones > common" before i got a handle on how to express aesthetic values w/ a framework that felt true & correct. but imo there's a big populists vs. critic artist challop war that keeps going back & forth that seems to miss how aesthetic developments are actually operating, and regionally popular rap artists are less likely than ever to get critical support since they're neither top-40 popular (thus justifying attention) nor critic-popular (thus grandfathered into discourse)

so the artists i talk about are often falling thru the cracks

a lot of critics, lets be honest, are relying on approval of someone -- critic peers or popular support -- before they can justify arguing in favor of artists.

i mean, that's true of every single genre, not just rap.

isn't it hard to find people who would even want you to write about a lot of new rap music? and i'm guessing its just easier to pitch stuff that people (editors, whoever) have heard of. and i'm guessing its probably just easier for people (writers) to focus on a handful of big albums then to dive into the endless amount of underground/local stuff.

unless they have a blog devoted to underground/local stuff.

Mastodon's "Oblivion" (an album-opener) is the only metal song (unless I missed tagging something) in the last three P&Js to get more than 4 votes. And the only two 4-vote songs were Sunn O)))'s "Alice" and debatably-metal "For Ash" by Marnie Stern. Over that time Marnie Stern has collected 13 total votes for 7 songs (from 13 different voters, interestingly). Mastodon have gotten 13 for 4 songs (again, 13 different voters).

Here's the full list:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Metal+Songs

whineys metal mix would be a great 1st post to the thread, but you still got to let the rest of us post links to some great songs. Someone can just pin LJ to the floor!

Alright, give me a week

wooo

will be curious.

Metal singles I have voted for in the very recent past:

White Wizzard - "High Speed G.T.O." (2009)
Sister Sin - "One Out Of Ten" (2008)

Didn't vote for any in 2010, but would absolutely have considered "Night City" by the Sword, had it been released or promoted as a single or focus track.

i mean, that's true of every single genre, not just rap.

― when the president talks to based god (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:24 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i was just explaining from my perspective

isn't it hard to find people who would even want you to write about a lot of new rap music? and i'm guessing its just easier to pitch stuff that people (editors, whoever) have heard of. and i'm guessing its probably just easier for people (writers) to focus on a handful of big albums then to dive into the endless amount of underground/local stuff.

― scott seward, Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:29 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what they've 'heard of' is a self-perpetuating feedback loop tho

I think we need a rolling thread where we can actually list/post links to youtube for songs like that from the last 10 years to try get ilxors to check stuff out they wouldn't normally. When i see some of the crap rock the goons for example like (sorry guys) i cant help feeling that they might dig some stuff the rolling metal dudes like if they just heard it. Radip etc isn't going to introduce anybody to it but Whiney you are more in tune with those guys so im sure you know what they might dig and they might check out stuff if you do start a thread on it. If I did it then it would just be ignored!

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Thursday, January 27, 2011 3:10 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'll cop to having my head willfully in the sand -- i adore many forms of hard rock but imo the overwhelming majority of post-'80s "real" and/or "underground" metal can suck a dick

I think we've done "Try something new" threads a half dozen times haven't we?

One problem is that I'm just not hearing metal as having great discrete songs, the way it always used to; it strikes me as a "sound" genre nowadays, not a "song" genre. And I don't love the sounds anywhere near as much as I used to. But that may be partly because I'm listening to less and less of the stuff, and not hearing the records I might like. (A little disappointed by Christian Mistress's album, now that I've finally heard it. But Cauldron's "Miss You To Death" will definitely be in the running for my 2011 singles list, if it becomes a single in some manner.)

yeah totally -- what someone pointed out about Whiney's list of breakout songs being track 1 on their respective albums seems to illustrate that either those bands have one really immediate accessible song per album that they frontload, or consensus just gels around the first track of albums people like by default

i'll cop to having my head willfully in the sand -- i adore many forms of hard rock but imo the overwhelming majority of post-'80s "real" and/or "underground" metal can suck a dick

That's why whiney starting it off as a mixtape by him might suit you guys, he is a bit more in tune with you guys than I am. Hopefully by hearing stuff he likes (some of which I will like too) it may mean you can get into other stuff I & others like. Even extreme music can have standout songs and tunes.

yeah totally -- what someone pointed out about Whiney's list of breakout songs being track 1 on their respective albums seems to illustrate that either those bands have one really immediate accessible song per album that they frontload, or consensus just gels around the first track of albums people like by default

― williamstevenjames (some dude),

or critics only listen to that 1 song..

you think that's the case? they turn on the album, hear and like that first song, and just turn it off or put that one on repeat? or they hear about the record and get that one sample mp3, love it and then explore the rest no further? seems odd to me.

algie, you seem to have remarkably little faith in people

who knows, im not a journalist/critic/writer so I have no idea how their minds work but i would not be surprised if some (not the actual metal critics but the generalists) only listened to the 1st song. It just hits the spot they want and they dont have a need to hear anything else from the album.
the sample mp3 point is a good one. Clearly that is the metal single these days.

If you like the first song, why wouldn't you want to hear the rest? That doesn't make sense. (If you hate the first song and don't go any further, though, I completely understand. Hell, I do that all the time. Well, maybe the first two songs. Or half of each, or something.)

maybe some people just need to hear 1 song and that's all they need?

critics? rockist album-privileging critics?

heh, i get your point but a lot of rock critics hate metal.

they hate metal but still listen to that one song? this is a wild catch 21 you've dreamed up here.

but some generalist critics will like the odd song by someone they wouldn't normally. And a poppy lead off track from an album whose mp3 was posted to blogs might just satisfy that itch without them hearing a full album. I'm not saying they all do, that would be ridiculous, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few did that.

Sunn O)))'s 'Alice', as mentioned upthread, is much more likely to get me going FUCKKKKKK than Opeth or Cryptopsy, but I suspect Whiney knows this, the fiend

it's pretty goddamn amazing though. iirc The Reverend really liked it!

the rev can rock out occasionally

metal rules, but it's always going to appeal to a smaller audience because of the fact that it's a very very VERY VERY VERY acquired taste, especially when you get more extreme. nothing mindblowing about the concept at all.

(that's my way of saying I'm better than anybody because I like bands that sell 300 records)

OK, this comment from Chuck finally crystalized for me what I don't buy about this whole "singles" thing: Cauldron's "Miss You To Death" will definitely be in the running for my 2011 singles list, if it becomes a single in some manner.

So what we're saying, in this scenario, is that a) the artist has done their job and made a song, and b) the critic has (or will have) done their job and scoured the cosmos and their conscience to pick 10 songs whose greatness they are willing to endorse. Anybody want to step up and call Chuck Eddy lazy? He actually had to listen to a whole album to find this song! (Well, OK, it's track two, but still.) As far as I'm concerned, we're done here. Artist -> Critic -> Poll -> Reader -> Discovery? Cast the vote. Spread the word.

But wait. You're saying that he shouldn't cast that vote unless some record company decides to declare the song a "single"? Who the fuck cares what the record company does? Why on earth should that have any part in this? The word you're looking for here isn't "populism", it's "corporatism".

And back to the National for a second, this speculation is maybe a little silly. It's not like we're trying to imagine what dinosaurs smelled like. There are 15 people who voted for both "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and High Violet, and chances are some of them are reading this. So: Anthony Lombardi, Bret Gladstone, D Patrick Rodgers, David A Cobb, Eric Danton, Glenn Gamboa, Jeremiah McNeil, Jon Solomon, Kelly Dearmore, Matt Fiander, Michael Ayers, Shawn Anderson, Stephen Thompson, Steve Baltin and/or Will Dana to thread. Any of you want to tell us your thinking behind your votes?

And there were 26 who voted for "Bloodbuzz Ohio" but not the album. Paging Amanda Petrusich, Brian Orloff, Chris Molanphy, Christian Hoard, Corey Moss, Daniel Levin Becker, Derk Richardson, Doug Brod, Doug Wallen, Ethan Stanislawski, Fred Mills, Gary Graff, George A Paul, Jim Connelly, Joe Gross, Josh Love, Keith Harris, Marianne Meyer, Michael Pollock, Michael Tedder, Paul Robicheau, Sarah Ventre, Scott Mervis, Steve Klinge, Steve Rosen and Zachary Smith. Do you think of yourselves as lazy indie voters, or did you actually like this song, do you just have something against engaging with popular music?

^^^calling dudes out by their real names

what if after they come they stay

x-post re singles versus tracks:

Chuck is just being old-school and wanting to only highlight songs that are marketed as singles or focus tracks (and that category has long included indie label 7 inch singles and 12 inch singles as well as corporate released ones)

what if after they come they stay

as long as they keep away from our poll

LOL

i expect better from christian hoard and keith harris. aw, i wish keith still posted here. he's awesome.

Keith Harris who voted for the National track but not the album used to post here. His album list includes a jazz one and a North African one and MIA; his top 10 songs include Big Boi, Kanye and Taio Cruz.

Josh Love voted for Taylor Swift.

Yeah, Josh and Keith are the only names I recognize that have posted here.

I know Chris Molanphy via Maura/old-Idolator, and his tastes are pretty much all over the place. Also, he's a cool guy.

So Bret Gladstone who has written for spin.com and rollingstone.com voted for the National album and track, and for the Joanna Newsom album and two Joanna Newsom tracks! His vote for Kanye's album and a Kanye track were his only selections that are not indie-rock.

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2010/686496/

lex will welcome him with open arms to ilm..

did he just vote for his favourite track off his albums picks?

so that dude is pretty much the PRECISE PERSON that shipz has been railing against - and when you see it laid out like that, the railing is QUITE JUSTIFIED

I know I said that voting for a track or 2 off an album was ok if those tracks really did stand out, but he just picked 10 tracks from 8 of the albums he voted for. That's just..... Oh I'll leave it to the lex.

hah xp

so that's one out of 728 or whatever....

OK, this comment from Chuck finally crystalized for me what I don't buy about this whole "singles" thing: Cauldron's "Miss You To Death" will definitely be in the running for my 2011 singles list, if it becomes a single in some manner.

So what we're saying, in this scenario, is that a) the artist has done their job and made a song, and b) the critic has (or will have) done their job and scoured the cosmos and their conscience to pick 10 songs whose greatness they are willing to endorse. Anybody want to step up and call Chuck Eddy lazy? He actually had to listen to a whole album to find this song! (Well, OK, it's track two, but still.) As far as I'm concerned, we're done here. Artist -> Critic -> Poll -> Reader -> Discovery? Cast the vote. Spread the word.

But wait. You're saying that he shouldn't cast that vote unless some record company decides to declare the song a "single"? Who the fuck cares what the record company does? Why on earth should that have any part in this? The word you're looking for here isn't "populism", it's "corporatism".

― glenn mcdonald, Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:27 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

If you're addressing me here, you're gonna have to quote some of my posts because I don't remember making any of the statements you're arguing with.

My goal here has been to observe and document larger trends in voting and find some meaning in them; I thought you of all people understood that, but if you think I've crossed some line into telling people what to like, how to think or what to vote for, I apologize. I'd ask you to re-read my posts and show me where I crossed that line, though, if you really think I have.

I still lurk sometimes. (Hi Scott!)

dirty dirty lurkers. they steal all their good ideas from me. hi!

No, some dude, that wasn't really aimed at you. The "populism"/"corporatism" thing was just too good to pass up. I understand that you're trying to figure out what's going on. I'm backing up and saying that my issue isn't with your distinction between hits and non-hits, but before that: that the idea of letting distribution methods define "single" (regardless of sales or charts) is morally/artistically broken to begin with. Maybe one could justify it by some consumer-guide argument in 1979, when official singles were the only thing cheaper than an album that people could buy, but these days what isn't available streaming or individually? (Says the guy who voted for Triptykon's "The Prolonging", which is album-only on iTunes...)

Yeah...the xhuxk quote you used as an example is interesting to me because I almost come at it from the opposite direction -- you think he shouldn't have to wait to put it on a singles list only after the label has decided it's a single; I would say that since he decided he likes it by listening to it on an album and hasn't heard it in any standalone context, isn't it just part of an album he likes?

A lot of it comes down to not wanting my singles list to be redundant with my albums list, and likewise thinking that the more the P&J singles poll resembles the albums poll, the less it feels like it has a reason to exist. A lot of times one or two deep cuts I really love are what make me champion an album, regardless of whether I dislike or am just indifferent to the rest. If I start putting those songs on a singles list, I'd lower the impetus to include the album in my top 10 and my albums list would be kind of distorted or whittled away. By only listing singles I really heard on their own a lot, outside my iTunes window, the singles list becomes its own distinct thing with relatively little crossover or redundancies. That's my methodology, and I get the sense that methodology was more common before than it is now, but beyond extolling the virtues of voting that way I'm not really trying to tell people their way is wrong and my way is right.

Ha ha, I have fallen behind on this thread (and am too hungry for dinner to catch up.) Anyway, Glenn: If you read some of my posts upthread, you'll note that it's not only record companies that can make something a single for me: There's also DJs, for instance, and whoever curates various artist compilations (or runs certain websites where tracks are singled out regularly, maybe). Maybe even (gasp!) the artists themselves. But yeah, basically, as I told Don upthread, for my own singles ballot, I'm kind of stuck on some bastardization of the old-school definition: I want the singles I vote for to be designated as singles or focus tracks or whatever by somebody other than me. Just seems less solipsistic that way -- Like I'm connecting with the world outside my head. And yeah, that's probably a major delusion. And I don't think less of other folks because they don't share that delusion. But I'm stuck with it (and have been known to bend it now and then, too, to be honest. So let's just say I try to hold myself to it.) On a more practical level, it just keeps my list more manageable -- there are lots and lots of songs I like through the year; somehow, having some fuzzy semblance of a definition for the word "single" reins my list in somewhat; so I know what to compare.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure I've never complained about the placement of "Bloodbuzz, Ohio." (I like Ohio! Used to live in Cincinnatti! But mainly, I've been less engaged with the poll in general this year, than I was last year -- trying to stand on the sidelines, just not always succeeding at.) (Pretty sure I've never argued for "populism," either, for whatever that's worth. I just like the poll results more when they're not boring, is all. And too much of any one thing is a pretty good ticket toward boredom, I'd say.)

Yeah I think "Bloodbuzz" just became an easy go-to example of a song on the singles list that feels a bit like a stand-in for its album/artist -- although you did give it a 4 on Singles Jukebox so I'm sure people could make the assumption you don't think it deserves its placement.

Also, Whiney said, upthread, "Like I'm really into certain rando Rotting Christ and Dillinger and Torche album tracks, but I would exactly call any of them 'singles' by any stretch of the imagination."

To which I cheerfully point out that exactly one voter voted for a Rotting Christ album track, and I am that voter. "Demonon Vrosis". It's a great song, and in my opinion it is more powerful in isolation than Aealo taken as a whole. I spent a fair amount of time and thought selecting this, and at no point during the process did it occur to me to look up whether it was "released" individually in some jurisdiction. You don't know, either. Maybe it sat on top of the South-Eastern Bulgaria chart for three months like a fetid toad. I can't see how it makes the slightest bit of difference.

xp I don't think lots of things deserve placement! So? I've thought certain records were over-rated in Pazz & Jop forever. But I don't expect to agree with the poll; pretty sure I said that in my essay last year, too. If I ever thought Pazz & Jop should coincide with my personal tastes, somebody should lock me up. (I agreed with way more of it 30 years ago, sure. But hey, I'm old!)

I was just joking around; I don't think Glenn was accusing you of expressing any opinion of that song or its placement.

Also, I totally support the idea of personal rules for voting. Mine, which I don't claim anybody else should follow unless they feel like it, are that I do the album list first, thinking of it as "year's greatest achievement at album length", and then I do the song list, thinking of it as "honorable mention for notable achievement at song length". So no duplication of songs from listed albums, and no duplication of artists, but the songs always end up being a mix of standout moments from albums that just missed my album list (but album #11 doesn't necessarily get a song slot), and random songs that blew me away even though their albums didn't (or didn't come from albums).

I rarely get much overlap with other voters this way -- none in 2010 -- but I figure people who wander into my ballot via album votes or trawling around at the bottom of the song list will get this little playlist of suggestions that you might be interested in if you like the kind of thing I vote for...

Idiosyncratic singles ballots that are full of songs that only got one or a few votes are totally cool in my opinion, especially if your tastes run exclusively towards the esoteric or outside any singles charts. Mine don't, personally, so when I'm making my singles ballot I'm kind of rooting for each song to get votes from other people, even as I know some of those songs have a better shot than others. I'm wary about how consensus has formed around some songs and types of songs, but the people that are just total individualists should go for it.

But I mean, the Arcade Fire thing -- they were #3 on the albums list, plus a non-single got to #11 on the singles list. I'm sure every top 3 Pazz & Jop album ever has had some deep cut that everyone who voted for it could agree was great, but what's really the point of voting for that song too? It's not a question of how many of the song's voters also voted for the album, either -- someone might vote for just the song as a 'statement' about how they dislike the album but love the song, but that's not expressed in any meaningful way by the song finishing in the top 20.

maybe they were bewitched by regine's streamers when the arcade fire performed the song on SNL.

It's not a question of how many of the song's voters also voted for the album, either -- someone might vote for just the song as a 'statement' about how they dislike the album but love the song, but that's not expressed in any meaningful way by the song finishing in the top 20.

― williamstevenjames (some dude), Thursday, January 27, 2011 6:44 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think you have to accept that people may have voted for arcade fire jam #7 simply because they love it, love it not exclusively as an inseparable part of an album but as a thing in itself, a thing to be watched on youtube, slotted into playlists, or bought for 99 cents from itunes. voting for an album track needn't be a "statement" about the album as a whole, and it isn't necessarily lazy or incurious. such a vote can be a sincere statement regarding what one honestly believes: that the song in question legitimately deserves to be singled out for individual attention. worrying about it any more than that seems petty.

I accept that, sure. Thinking about how one's vote effects the results of a poll one is participating in beyond the main motivating factors behind how one votes isn't necessary or important -- I don't know if I'd use the word "petty," maybe just neurotic.

yeah, that's fair. "petty" was kinda sharp, no snub intended.

A lot of it comes down to not wanting my singles list to be redundant with my albums list, and likewise thinking that the more the P&J singles poll resembles the albums poll, the less it feels like it has a reason to exist

OTM. The same line of thinking applies to my own ballot -- if I voted for the album then I've already endorsed all the songs on there, so why not use my singles ballot to vote for something different? That was my thinking this year, at least. It helped that there weren't any obvious hit singles on the albums I voted for.

I do a top 50 albums list and a top 50 singles list every year; this year, my singles list this year featured 11 songs that appeared on records on my albums list, and 16 songs from albums I've heard. I know not every critic has the time or inclination or compulsion to do that. But I mean, when people can't come up with 10 songs they loved that weren't on albums they listened to and I was able to think of 34, I'm not calling them "lazy" but I do think they could maybe to treat their singles ballots as more of a unique space to honor music that's not a permanent part of their record collection.

^^ Yes. You've made good arguments here for that.

For another slightly different perspective, I just did a quick calculation to give each P&J year since 1979 a Single/Album Vote Ratio, by taking the average ratio between the corresponding single and album at each chart position from 1-25. So if the two top 25s in a year had the same number of votes all the way down, they'd get a score of 1.0, and the lower the number, the less consensus the singles list represented compared to the albums list.

1979 - 0.54
1980 - 0.614
1981 - 0.921
1982 - 0.872
1983 - 0.969
1984 - 0.839
1985 - 0.886
1986 - 0.719
1987 - 0.799
1988 - 0.755
1989 - 0.855
1990 - 0.719
1991 - 0.835
1992 - 0.654
1993 - 0.708
1994 - 0.722
1995 - 0.8
1996 - 0.659
1997 - 0.676
1998 - 0.599
1999 - 0.55
2000 - 0.693
2001 - 0.642
2002 - 0.644
2003 - 0.84
2004 - 0.742
2005 - 0.656
2006 - 0.622
2007 - 0.53
2008 - 0.537
2009 - 0.581
2010 - 0.551

Interesting that the numbers vary so much. They've been low the last few years, but statistically the overall downward trend is both slight and debatable. If you look only at the top 10s it's even less clear whether there's a trend.

yeah it's interesting to see how the strength of the consensus has varied, that definitely seems like something that's fluctuated independent of any single factor or trend.

...the average ratio between the corresponding single and album at each chart position from 1-25. So if the two top 25s in a year had the same number of votes all the way down, they'd get a score of 1.0

so, where there is track/album correspondence in the top 25s, you compared the number of votes each got, generating a ratio from 0 (statistically impossible) to 1 (both got the same number of votes). is that right?

if so, it's interesting that this sort of consensus, whatever it might indicate, seems to be declining over time. wonder what might be motivating that? might be that participants have, over time, become less inclined to vote for matching albbums and tracks, but it's hard to say.

I'm slow here. So, you're comparing the #25 album to the #25 single (and both #24s, both #23s, both #22, etc.), right? It has nothing to do with whether the same artist places on each list, right? Or does it? (If it does, I'm confused -- wouldn't that just take into account artists who do place on both tallies, whether there's 1 of them or 25, and artists who don't place on both lists wouldn't be a variable at all? But I don't think it does. Still kind of dense about what point it's making! I think part of my confusion is your use of the phrase "corresponding single and album" -- corresponding because they're from the same act, or finish in the same slot?)

If you're doing what I think you're doing (comparing #25 to #25, and so on), seems the biggest factor might just be the number of voters who actually file singles ballots, vs. ones filing album ballots. (Which would explain the low scores in 1979 and 1980, when lots of crusty old cusses were resistant to voting for singles, as I believe Christgau talked about in his essays back then.) Interesting exercise, but I'm not really following what it has to do with there being a "consensus," I guess.

I'm slow here. So, you're comparing the #25 album to the #25 single (and both #24s, both #23s, both #22, etc.), right?

lol, that's what i thought at first, based on the explanation. but i decided i must be wrong, because i couldn't see the utility in measuring that sort of consensus. i guess i don't really get what's being measured there.

Idiosyncratic singles ballots that are full of songs that only got one or a few votes are totally cool in my opinion, especially if your tastes run exclusively towards the esoteric or outside any singles charts.

lol are you really trying to claim ud b any less of a crybaby if ppl started voting for noise cassingles & chillwave 7" instead of the shitty malltrash stuff u like? werent you mad last year when forx was repping for youtube only synth experiments & videogame dlc trax or w/e hes into?

i mean i admire that u have such a consistent aesthetic but itt it just comes across like your mad more ppl didnt give mumford & sons a vote & i dont really get why its remotely valuable or admirable that some 36 yo critic votes for a ke$ha track instead of the national or if someone uses the singles list as an 'honorable mention' type of thing or just to rep for specific trax from their albums list

LAMPOTMUS

No, Chuck's right, this is just averages the differences between album #1 and single #1, album #2 and single #2, etc. It's just one way of measuring how much less clustery the singles votes are than the albums in a given year. Adjusting for the numbers of album vs single *votes* in a given year would be better, but I don't have that historical data on hand.

lol are you really trying to claim ud b any less of a crybaby if ppl started voting for noise cassingles & chillwave 7" instead of the shitty malltrash stuff u like? werent you mad last year when forx was repping for youtube only synth experiments & videogame dlc trax or w/e hes into?

My giving forks a hard time about putting "so-and-so's YouTube output" on an albums ballot was about my pious reverence for the sanctity of the Album. This is a whole different type of pedantry. If you think I don't want people to vote for anything obscure or unloved check my centricity score on Glenn's site, dogg, I was the sole voter for at least 3 album son my ballot.

*albums on my ballot

haha fair enough. again fwiw i respect your taste a lot even if (mb bcuz!) its so different from mine. also i think only one of the albums in my top ten had another person repping it :-/

i guess it just feels like the way you use the singles ballot is valid but any more than the person using it to single out a particularly great beach house deep cut. the only value p&j has is as a reflection of what a specific group of ppl liked that year its not historically impt or definitive in any way imo so let ppl vote what they like & not what you want them to like

I guess I should stop the injunction I filed with the state of New York to block the Village Voice from holding next year's poll until they fulfill my demanded changes to the voting policy, huh.

It'll take 3-5 years to work through the courts, anyway.

Do we know how many of the contributors to the Nashville Scene newspaper Country music poll voted as well in P & J?

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/country-music-critics-poll-voters/Content?oid=2191637

hold on, I'll correlate

37 of those 75 voted in P&J this year, 38 didn't.

38 actually, after I fixed one stray name. And here's what we get from looking at those 38 as a subset of the P&J:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=A+World+Centered+in+Nashville

interesting:

Janelle Monáe · The ArchAndroid
Jamey Johnson · The Guitar Song
Kanye West · My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Arcade Fire · The Suburbs
Elizabeth Cook · Welder
Taylor Swift · Speak Now
Black Keys · Brothers
Robert Plant · Band of Joy
Mavis Staples · You Are Not Alone
Neil Young · Le Noise
Chely Wright · Lifted Off the Ground
Robyn · Body Talk

remove kanye from that list on the theory that everyone voted for kanye this year so he doesn't mean anything particular for any specific subgrouping, and you're left with a list that suggests, not too surprisingly, that (a) nashville (and nashville-esque) voters like real music played real people who have real roots, and (b) they're probably older than the average voter. that's what that list says to me. except for robyn. not sure how robyn fits in there. but everything else, including janelle, makes complete sense.

robyn is pretty 'real music played by real people' for her style of music

probably not any less so than janelle monae, anyway

well, the inclusion of kanye does mean something. it supports the argument that nashville critics are engaged with the same overarching pop cultural narratives that vibe and pitchfork (etc) are. it isn't a balkanized territory.

i like a number of things about that list, not least that it includes several recordings by older artists where P&J includes none. it's pretty diverse, really. subtract, say, two of the three telegenic country pop idols, and you've got a surprisingly broad view of the american pop landscape in just 10 records. you've got young & old, club music and rock, indie and rap, black and white, homegrown americana and songs from other lands. not bad.

i don't know, just looks like a paste magazine playlist to me.

who are the three telegenic country pop idols?

there's only one artist on the list who fits that description, i'm a dick to have suggested otherwise and should be shot. leave it at that.

what i should have said: there are four artists in that top 12 that code straight country (johnson, cook, swift and wright). drop a couple of those and you have a top 10 that...

dunno from paste playlists, but their published 2010 top 10 is much narrower. it's almost all indie, it's whiter, it makes no room for older artists, allows for nothing from outside the US/UK, etc.

The Paste I knew almost definitely wouldn't have had room for Taylor Swift or Chely Wright. (Too, uh, "telegenic" or something. Even if one of them did come out of the closet this year.)

Also, it's kind of a misnomer to call Michaelangelo Matos, Mikael Wood, Frank Kogan, Carol Cooper, Robert Christgau, Kandia Crazy Horse, Anthony Easton, myself, and several other critics whose votes would've figured into that tally "Nashville critics."

Yeah...that group probably votes for more non-country in P&J than, say, the people from ILM's metal poll voted for non-metal or the goons voted for non-rap (or maybe I'm wrong? I dunno).

Also, it's kind of a misnomer to call Michaelangelo Matos, Mikael Wood, Frank Kogan, Carol Cooper, Robert Christgau, Kandia Crazy Horse, Anthony Easton, myself, and several other critics whose votes would've figured into that tally "Nashville critics."

ulp, gotcha. was making the ridiculous/ignorant assumption that contributors to the nashville scene newspaper country music poll would mostly = industry insiders and people who write exclusively about country musicc.

"forx was repping for youtube only synth experiments & videogame dlc trax or w/e hes into?"
pfffft youtube only synth experiments and videogame dlc trax are SO 2009

One last (maybe) note about Kanye's margin of victory. Measuring margin by the ratio of votes for #1 over #2, this was only the 3rd most decisive victory: Arrested Development beat Pavement 97-50 in 1992, and Beck beat the Fugees 110-58 in 1996. If we do a weighted average by taking twice the #2 album's votes plus the #3 album's, and dividing by 3, and then comparing the #1's votes to that, Kanye's win drops to 4th, after Beck over the Fugees and Sleater-Kinney, PJ Harvey over Tricky and Moby 120-71-44 (1995), and Arrested Development over Pavement and REM.

The lowest such-weighted ratios, of course, went to Dylan in 2006 and LCD Soundsystemin 2007, both of whom won on points but were 3rd on votes...