jop jop jop pazz and jop 2011

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/

I LOST MY BET

JUSTIN WEPT

the albums top 10 is more or less an unmitigated disaster, but the singles top 10 is pretty acceptable

wow that top 10

this list is totally batshit and i'm ecstatic no one from pitchfork can run up in this thread this year and pretend that music critics take all their cues from them

chooooooooooooon (yards)

surely the best placement for female artists in p&j history?

i bet i'm the only goofball on here who had to click on the singles results first

shame the sandbox thread w/ all our predictions isn't available

You weren't.

j0rdan was totally wrong about "I'm On One" but i greatly overestimated how much critics would be willing to vote for a Chris Brown song so we're even i guess

"I'm On One" was a ridiculous notion.

I've literally heard the song ONCE, so i can't imagine why he thinks Bon Iver rock critic nation is bumpin it from their Priuses

This may be the first time I've never even heard of the album poll winner. I knew I was getting out of touch but wow.

WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF POPTIMIST

albums list is fucking awful lol hope the singles one is better

Nine votes for Lulu: http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2011/THVsdXx8fExvdSBSZWVkICYgTWV0YWxsaWNh/

im in no doubt the ilm eoy poll will be better than this.

whiney "i'm on one" was basically the biggest or 2nd biggest rap song on urban radio the whole year -- j0rdan was overestimating its critical rep but if you never heard it that's kinda on you

Ha, I was pretty focused on Bach and Mozart and 20s blues singers.

xposts to Alfred

how many of the LULU voters are on ilx? just me and marcello and brad?

huh

best album winner since 2000 at least, fuiud

Who does this?
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2011/U29tZSBHaXJscyAoRGVsdXhlIFJlaXNzdWUpfHx8Um9sbGluZyBTdG9uZXM=/

Rebecca Black, #51
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/singles/2011/RnJpZGF5fHx8UmViZWNjYSBCbGFjaw==/

Those are Stones aliases iirc

xpost

Gustavo Turner, the man who voted for Lulu AND "Friday," god bless him:
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/2266645/

tuneyards? didn't see that one coming

did boring people pick album tracks from albums they voted for too this year?

I've literally heard the song ONCE, so i can't imagine why he thinks Bon Iver rock critic nation is bumpin it from their Priuses

― somebody sh1pley the brinks truck (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 8:14 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well first of all drake & lil wayne are two of the most popular rappers to prius driving bon iver fans and second of all it was on any urban radio station once every five minutes so i have no idea what your listening to metal albums no one will ever care about while riding the subway ass is talking about

i'm digging into the stats on that at the moment -- on first glance i would say yes but maybe not as much as in the previous couple years (xpost)

lol @ Marchese's singles ballot

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/686347/

"riding the subway ass" is a strange way of describing whiney sitting down

are any of the essays any good? even the ones by the writers i like seem to be about things i don't really care to read about

fuck me. Adele at #1??????

I hope the vv paid alfred for his 30000 comments

haha IT WAS THAT KINDA YEAR

"zan with that lean" beating "look at me now" is a real victory of the chillwave soulja boy generation

are any of the essays any good? even the ones by the writers i like seem to be about things i don't really care to read about

― tebow gotti (k3vin k.), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 8:30 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

#noshots but i'd rather read deej's comment expanded to essay length than any of the actual essays

the entire "zan with that lean" voting block writes or has written for pitchfork, outside of two ppl

Eric Harvey and Maura's intro are first-rate. I'm reading Plagenhoef, St Asaph, and Matos' in a few minutes.

Can someone post the top 10 of each? The Voice website is somehow rejecting my computer any access to it.

1 tUnE-yArDs, w h o k i l l
2 PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
3 Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
4 Wild Flag, Wild Flag
5 Tom Waits, Bad As Me
6 Adele, 21
7 Destroyer, Kaputt
8 Drake, Take Care
9 Bon Iver, Bon Iver
10 Shabazz Palaces, Black Up

1 Adele, "Rolling in the Deep" * **
2 Beyoncé, "Countdown" **
3 Nicki Minaj, "Super Bass"
4 M83, "Midnight City"
5 Jay-Z and Kanye West, "Niggas in Paris"
6 Azealia Banks, "212"
7 Lana Del Rey, "Video Games"
7 Britney Spears, "Till the World Ends" **
9 Adele, "Someone Like You"
10 Foster the People, "Pumped Up Kicks" *
10 Tyler, the Creator, "Yonkers" **

Hm, this album sounds really nice despite the obnoxious spelling.

j0rdan was totally wrong about "I'm On One" but i greatly overestimated how much critics would be willing to vote for a Chris Brown song so we're even i guess

I have the edge on both of you, then, because I thought neither of those songs (which I still have never heard on the radio) had a chance.

sad there's no rich juzwiak essay :(

i had to google wild flag

And you used to live in PDX!

I was gonna say!

Interested in a "what's the highest ranking pazz and jop artist you never heard of"

you know i pay a ton of attention to indie rock. and it looks like they were formed around the time i left.

i wish it was adele
xp

for me:
114. The Vaccines, What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?

Wild Flag's placement is actually my one genuine shock.

The only reason I've heard of the Vaccines is because they were high on the Last.fm year-end chart.

now that "Gucci Gucci" is officially the 7th most acclaimed rap song of 2011 maybe deej can stfu about how critics supposedly all hate Kreayshawn

whiney, trust me, you want to keep it that way.

I'm a bit surprised that Destroyer finished higher than Bon Iver. They were probably neck and neck in the P4K poll, but I'd have thought that Bon Iver (who can sell out pretty large rooms these days) would have done better among a wider pool of critics.

In the end Bon Iver couldn't shake them awake.

i just checked, no one voted for a max b mixtape in 2009

Interested in a "what's the highest ranking pazz and jop artist you never heard of"

49. Charles Bradley

People who voted for Drake -- what drugs are you on? Although to be fair many of the choices on the list make me say whaaa?

downers

have not heard of 'war on drugs' at 49

althoguh my familiarity w/ a lot of other artists only extends as far as "i saw their name on a website (usually ilx) a couple times, couldn't tell you a thing about them"

have not heard of Tunn-yard

have not heard of EMA, but looking at her wiki page i'm thinking i should remedy that

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/2266610/

hahahaha

i've never heard of EMA either. after that, danny brown doesn't ring any bells.

Who the fuck is tUnE-yArDs?

this EMA album is really nice actually

Is Tom Waits the obligatory dad rock vote now?

can't believe wild flag placed so high, that feels really out of left field. had it been getting any widespread or intense critical buzz that i missed?

this poll has reminded me that i need to check the stinky cd store in town for kendrick lamar. i like him.

portlandia fever has boosted wild flag.

portlandia every rock kritic's dream show.

and it contained members of the very adored sleater-kinney

wild flag was like the "rock still rules" album after Black Keys

i thought everyone liked that katy b album more. that it would be closer to the top.

EMA for me too. the others ive not heard i at least have heard of

britney should have been closer to the top too. sad to see her stuck next to the foo fighters. hey, apparently the foo fighters had an album out!

congrats on all the comments, scott!

well, i wrote that long year-end blog thing, so i figured it would be easy enough to cut & paste. i hadn't sent anything in since the xhuxk years.

really loving Tha Carter IV all the way down at #316, that's a sales-to-votes ratio maybe slightly better than Michael Buble

skot, you should check out danny brown, he's from detroit and mostly raps about eating pussy in a squeaky high voice over grimy beats. and also about scrap metal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj0jiEIyT24

ugh tune yards

man i really fuckin' hated music this year

rev you truly have a way with nauseating sales pitches

eating pussy in a squeaky high voice over grimy beats

man I've been hungry for a couple hours. Thanks!

i thought everyone liked that katy b album more. that it would be closer to the top.

― scott seward, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 6:08 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think it's mostly just ilxors and brits who love her

ha al

i dont

stop frontin

mastodon, liturgy, tombs, and wittr are pretty much the only metal albums in the top 200. whiney subway metal.

Great singles ballot:

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/686347/

liturgy was on me ballot no one cares :(

death grips at 165 surprising too! NOT just ilxors and brits liked that album.

really surprised by "til the world ends" in the top ten. didn't realize that many ppl liked that song.

did jeff n glenn not get Turisas (lol) in the top 200?

i never even heard of death grips until it started showing up on year-end lists a few weeks ago

Fairly average year - I was the only voter for 6 of my 10. Some of them didn't surprise me - I wasn't expecting a huge groundswell of support for Emmure, and obviously Lulu was the metal pervert's vote-getter of choice, so I was out there alone in supporting Morbid Angel. But nobody else liked Amon Amarth's album this year? Or Girl in a Coma's? Those were great, catchy records.

oh wait Yob in the top 200 too. 5 metal albums (i don't count ghost). hipster metal is finally dead. i mean they are hipster picks but still, not a big metallic showing. or maybe its always like that? seemed like more a few years back.

Show me the data:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop

And no, I didn't vote for Turisas.

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&thread=%40248444&typeId=9149585060559937602&render=List

i like that philip sherburne voted for blut aus nord.

doesn't ned do pazz & jop? he could have been the 3rd vote for the 5 eps.

and he could have gotten jess to vote for it. he should have pulled a bob seger and gotten it in the top 20.

top 20 rap albums for huge middlebrow lulz
1. Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
2. Drake, Take Care
3. The Roots, Undun
4. Danny Brown, XXX
5. Kendrick Lamar, Section.80
6. Das Racist, Relax
7. Clams Casino, Instrumental Mixtape
8. Big KRIT, Return of 4Eva
9. Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
10. DJ Quik, The Book of David
11. A$AP Rocky, LiveLoveA$AP
12. Tyler, the Creator, Goblin
13. Common, The Dreamer/The Believer
14. Saigon, The Greatest Story Never Told
15. Death Grips, Exmilitary
16. J. Cole, Cole World: The Sideline Story
17. Main Attrakionz, 808s & Dark Grapes II
18. E-40, Revenue Retrievin': Graveyard Shift/Overtime Shift
19. Lil B, I'm Gay (I'm Happy)
20. Action Bronson, Dr. Lecter

i haven't really gotten into asap rocky. i should give him another chance. i dug kendrick right off the bat.

maria loves death grips. that's her fave album of the year, i think.

asap rocky is the worst shit, fucking lana del rap, no one will care by april, don't bother

are any of the essays any good?

tom's essay is so great even though i was like "i never need to read another thing about ldr"

scott look at #2 https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=2011+Metalism

you'd have to pay me a lot of money to listen to the entire jay/kanye album. why didn't they call it JAKaNYeZ?

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=2011+Hipness

also the metal albums i voted for that weren't lulu (goreaphobia and in solitude) didn't do anything in the top 200 :(

PJ's album is a lot more metal than a lot of metal! so i can dig that. she was robbed by TunEleSsYawnzzzz.

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=2011+Voter+Centricity

interesting
Here are the 2011 voters sorted by centricity, which is a measure of how close their album ballots came to matching the critical consensus. In 2010 there were 26 voters with >.7 centricity. In 2011 only 4!

saw there was a new paul simon record that finished pretty high!

anyone heard it? good?

think it was matos' #1 record

Mr. Ratfucker, can you do a "corny indie fuxxor gtfo" list where you throw out every ballot that has tune-yards, destroyer, bon iver, st vincent or fleet foxest?

sounds like the sort of request Nixon would make.

i think you mean glenn. He is the one with those skills. (ie he does it all on metal poll, i just upload a csv file with the ballots)
xps

my pal michael robbins might have voted for the roots and drake, BUT he also voted for one of my very favorite metal albums of recent years! happy to see that.

Rustie, Glass Swords
Warp

Points: 10

2

Pistol Annies, Hell on Heels
Columbia Nashville

Points: 10

3

Drake, Take Care
Cash Money/Young Money/Universal

Points: 10

4

Fucked Up, David Comes to Life
Matador

Points: 10

5

The Weeknd, House of Balloons
XO

Points: 10

6

Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
Def Jam/Roc-a-Fella/Roc Nation

Points: 10

7

The Roots, Undun
Def Jam

Points: 10

8

Wild Flag, Wild Flag
Merge

Points: 10

9

Inquisition, Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm
Hells Headbangers

Points: 10

10

Danny Brown, XXX
Fool's Gold

Points: 10

The essay about tuneyards' sales (lack of) is interesting. At 47,000 copies sold and 135 votes, that means the voters actually equal about 1/3 of 1 percent of the sales. (Not that many of the voters probably actually bought the thing.)

i bought it! but i didn't vote.

one of a kind list, that's for sure:

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/684436/

i know so few of those

i like his #1 and #8

Interested in a "what's the highest ranking pazz and jop artist you never heard of"

Eric Church, Chief. which, i mean hes on emi nashville but realistically most of the records on the list that i havent heard but heard of are bcuz of ilm

did you just call whiney 'chief'?

I kinda liked the Eric Church album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xoyn7zE9Sro
what makes it funnier is look at eric church..i could SOOO see him creepin outside my house..xD
StephanieCosby 1 day ago

never heard of EMA myself

I like 1, 5, 8 and 10 on Chuck's list. And I'm glad to see he and I weren't the only two to put 2NE1's "I Am The Best" on our singles ballots. (Yes, I filed a singles ballot this year, for the first time ever, and it was all composed of actual singles.)

the Church album isn't bad at all -- "Drink in My Hand" is much better than "Red Solo Cup."

i thought it was kool to like that destroyer record? or is that indie fucc now?

i like it

the pj harvey record is really amazing i think, i'm glad it finished high

i know it's not a surprise at this point but a new Radiohead album hitting #33 in this thing is still pretty incredible

I need time to process all of this Drake love.

now that "Gucci Gucci" is officially the 7th most acclaimed rap song of 2011 maybe deej can stfu about how critics supposedly all hate Kreayshawn

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

considering the amount of attention it got, managing to get 20 critics on board for the song isn't exactly an overwhelming victory. There were more pieces written about how she was a shitty rapper than there were voters for her in a poll

Haven't heard of:

57. The Men

P.S. - I voted for Drake.

i just checked, no one voted for a max b mixtape in 2009

― somebody sh1pley the brinks truck (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 7:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and the only ones who voted for gucci were like the 5 of us from ilx + noz. what's your point

there were more pieces about how drake was a shitty rapper than there were voters for him in the poll. that doesn't mean anything.

The critical establishment's dogmatic popism eliminates any consideration of the philosophy surrounding the creative and commercial genesis of music and elevates the aesthetic, so whatever sounds best must be best, and now somehow independent music has wound up in a place where Beyoncé is on the same purely aesthetic playing field that Sharon Van Etten is, because it makes you powerfully, stinkingly uncool to point out that Beyoncé is a meticulously calculated, choreographed, and focus group-approved product of the same system that Sharon Van Etten's forebears in independent music rose up as a direct response to. Suddenly Sharon Van Etten sounds a little thin without the help of a billion-dollar machine. Like Mitt Romney said: "Corporations are people, too, my friend."
David Shapiro

nice terrible comment here

there were more pieces about how drake was a shitty rapper than there were voters for him in the poll. that doesn't mean anything.

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 9:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the fact that 22 critics like kreayshawn doesn't 'prove' that she wasnt overhated either

althoguh my familiarity w/ a lot of other artists only extends as far as "i saw their name on a website (usually ilx) a couple times, couldn't tell you a thing about them"

Same. A few of them (e.g., Danny Brown) I hadn't encountered until they started showing up on year-end lists/blog posts/roundtables.

The critical establishment's dogmatic popism eliminates any consideration of the philosophy surrounding the creative and commercial genesis of music and elevates the aesthetic, so whatever sounds best must be best, and now somehow independent music has wound up in a place where Beyoncé is on the same purely aesthetic playing field that Sharon Van Etten is, because it makes you powerfully, stinkingly uncool to point out that Beyoncé is a meticulously calculated, choreographed, and focus group-approved product of the same system that Sharon Van Etten's forebears in independent music rose up as a direct response to. Suddenly Sharon Van Etten sounds a little thin without the help of a billion-dollar machine. Like Mitt Romney said: "Corporations are people, too, my friend."
David Shapiro

nice terrible comment here

― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 10:57 PM (5 minutes ago)

wow

thnx @ jordan, I really like Scott PL's essay

PRR comin' out swingin'

primarily for putting in perspective music that I don't follow particularly closely. It's hard to give these results shape but he did a really good job of it imo xp to myself

lol two difft people just tweeted at me that they thought scott seward's comment was mine b/c of the formatting. kind of lol to imagine me writing that one

& it looks like alfred wrote my comment

Also, why the kvetching about Drake when "Moves Like Jagger" somehow got 11 votes.

newest tori amos album didn't get a single solitary vote, damn

Ha that David Shapiro comment is sooo close to being an MM post about Lady Gaga and autotune and Satanism

That's what happens when glenn mcdonald does metal-only ballots.

P.S. - Hi, glenn!

xpost

dude, deej, i thought i wrote this when i first saw it and i got scared:

Scott Seward
Greenfield, Massachusetts

Bon Iver, James Blake, M83, and Girls. Why aren't our heroes pissing more people off? Why are they so polite?

good comment tho

wait if maura did pazz and jop, who did jackin' pop this year?

clemenza comments v much in character

https://twitter.com/#!/somanyshrimp/status/159492720224780288

what song are you guys singing the thread title to?

duke of earl innit

robbie and becky, duh

i shit on stereogum from time to time but the two ballots closest to mine were from guys that work there so maybe i should stfu

<3 j0rdan for voting for patrick stump

yes, thankfully p&j ballots are due later than anything

Does the phrase "jazz and pop" sound unnatural to anyone itt?

college - a real hero

seen this song pop up on ballots of three ppl i checked for, never heard of it in my entire life

oh it's from the drive soundtrack, durr

yeah i say "durr" whenever people rep for the drive soundtrack too

spoiler alert: it sounds like m83

for some reason "sure thing" is credited everywhere as miguel ft. j. cole

yeah some kind of mixup with "all i want is you" -- i already pointed that out to glenn to hopefully fix

listened to stump for the first time tonight, i should fuck with this more

whiney why are u posting tweets here?

i was kind of annoyed that it seems like everyone is crediting "zan with that lean" to soulja boy instead of kwony cash

Great comments this year from Alfred.

I really like Scott PL's essay

i think hes p much totally wrong in the way hes interpreting the results tbh. esp in that i dont think underground music has reacted to increased hype cycles/technological immediacy by becoming more homogeneous and conservative and that ppl arent making 'bold and brave' (lol) weirdo music? also my gut feeling is that this poll has never and probably will have much overlap with 'the underground's more discerning ears' (and giving that title to the dude who runs gorilla vs bear is just...). we kinda had this argument in last year's ilm poll but what whiney called 'avant-indie' is by nature marginal and anti-consensus and so is going to fair poorly in these polls.

who's that? i've only seen that song credited to soulja boy and there's no mention of kwony cash in the first page of google results for the song. (xpost)

i was kind of annoyed that it seems like everyone is crediting "zan with that lean" to soulja boy instead of kwony cash

― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:42 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

well you do realize that the songs get formatted so it all says one thing, right? like, no voters for miguel's "sure thing" credited as a j. cole feature, let alone every voter

kwony cash sings the hook -- deej's post just now is worded wrong in that it makes it seem like kwony cash should be credited for the entire song as opposed to just a feature

i read that it was kwony cash's song originally & soulja boy jumped on it & rereleased it

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/zachariahsodmg-zan-lean-feat-kwony-cash-j-money-song.324503.html

Add me to the list of people who had never heard of tUnE-yArDs. I opened the main page for P&J and my first thought was that somebody had hacked the VV's website.

oh nev mind that's just mistitled. idk

that song is wack anyway imo

"my city" and "weed shoes" >>>

damn, there goes hotnewhiphop.com's credibility

& also deej's, but oh well

but seriously wtf was whiney trying to say by posting that tweet? that by writing about it here i cant also mention it on twitter? idgi

& also deej's, but oh well

― tyga mother (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:49 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wtf are you on about?

maybe you should talk to him about this on twitter. just a thought.

i think 'zan w/ that lean' is aite, def preferred 'weed and shoes' too though

maybe you should talk to him about this on twitter. just a thought.

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:50 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hes posting about it here though, not tweeting about ilx, thankfully

just noticed i'm the sole voter for like 75% of my ballot smh lol

anyway jordan, even if that wasn't the case -- although I could swear I read something about the song existing in a pre-Soulja Boy version -- kwony cash is the one who made the hook & the hook is p much the best part of the song

deej getting all WELL ANSWER ME to people who haven't responded yet to his first demand to address something after ten whole minutes is always hilarious

hell yeah chuck eddy was one of two votes for my favourite local metal band

maybe i misread & it was just about kwony cash having a bunch of stuff that sounded like zan w/ the lean, and soulja boy grabbed him for the hook. regardless, not crediting him seemed odd to me

that is all

deej getting all WELL ANSWER ME to people who haven't responded yet to his first demand to address something after ten whole minutes is always hilarious

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:52 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the way you turn everything into attacks on other posters is always hilarious extremely fucking tedious

deej i was making a joke about you getting up in arms over the crediting of "zan with that lean" based on a vague memory and a posting on hotnewhiphop.com

that was just one of the first google results for a kwony cash search -soulja, i but i realized they just had mistagged the mp3

im not 'up in arms' about it! it was a pedantic post -- you and al need to relax on policing everything i post here

since when do big year-end lists credit every person involved in the making of a song instead of just the main artist that most people associate w/ it

Oh, why not.

since when do big year-end lists credit every person involved in the making of a song instead of just the main artist that most people associate w/ it

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:57 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont really know what the policy is, but for a song that was p much about the hook i just thought it seemed unusual, that's all.

i wasn't trying to make a federal case out of it but since the mistaken jcole credit was noted i brought it up

cue whiney posting my similar tweet abt this

(mostly I'm just mad nobody else voted for kimya Dawson)

i was surprised there werent any votes for schoolboy q, but it looks like he might have a good shot in '12

any votes other than mine i mean

im not 'up in arms' about it! it was a pedantic post -- you and al need to relax on policing everything i post here

― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:57 AM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol, granted my username isn't I Love Pedantry, but i don't think one can celebrate their own pedantry while simultaneously getting pissed off when others one-up the same pedantry

just noticed i'm the sole voter for like 75% of my ballot smh lol

― The Brainwasher, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:51 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

i was p surprised that you didn't vote for "shot caller" :-[

there really isn't an equivalency between our posting here. you guys do this to me basically every time i post something xp

"deej said something was 'popular' -- time for an 80 post tangent on what exactly he meant by that"

xp honestly I did my ballot in like 10 mins and forgot a bunch of stuff (including "shot caller")

I didn't even vote for Dreamchasers!

i was kind of shocked i was one of only 2 people to vote for the Lloyd album

Rev OTM on Danny Brown upthread

i was kind of shocked i was one of only 2 people to vote for the Lloyd album

― Reginald "Bono" Dwight (some dude), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 12:06 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i definitely debated this & Surkin's USA. you were my closest match on the stats thing (although not by a huge percentage) but that would have made things a lot closer

lloyd was def in my last 3 albums out

i'm lukewarm on the lloyd album, i mean it's good but compared to his others i wasn't feeling it as much

i did vote for "private dancer" tho

where can I check out the stats btw? curious as to who my closest match is

lloyd was one of my last cuts too

find your match on OK Needlebase: The Return of the WOO!

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=2011+Voter+Centricity

haha lex is my closest match, naturally

still blows my mind how much The Roots can sew this thing up year after year, even if they drop an album 17 days before the voting deadline

u ppl shore seem to like this Joy ForMIDable

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/685468/

nathan rabin, everyone

yo

sup

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/3244515/

This person voted for only kids music: Caspar Babypants, Dan Zanes, Recess Monkey

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/singles/2011/U3VyZSBUaGluZ3x8fE1pZ3VlbCAoZnQuIEouIENvbGUp/

Most of the votes for Miguel (featuring J Cole) "Sure Thing" on the singles ballot came from ilxors

ha who of those are ilxors, besides lex, ship, and soto?

all three votes for "drumz" were unsurprisingly from ilxors

that song is wack anyway imo

"my city" and "weed shoes" >>>

― The Brainwasher, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 9:48 PM Bookmark

otm

u ppl shore seem to like this Joy ForMIDable

― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:31 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

can't even tell what wrinkleballs is trying to say here

ha who of those are ilxors, besides lex, ship, and soto?

― tebow gotti (k3vin k.), Wednesda

Me, and then Maura is sometimes here

NY Times critics back when used to participate in this, but not anymore. So
my vote for Orchestre Poly-Rythmo -Cotonou Club (Strut) is the only one, although Jon Pareles of the Times had it in his top 10 also.

Tim F*nney did not vote this year, I don't think.

haha i hate the tune-yards album but it's such an unexpected winner i can't hate.

surprised the beyoncé album was so low (beneath pistol annies!)

lulz, tom waits is my 2nd fav album in the top 10

it must be so embarrassing to be in the top 10 centricity list

i would have thought twice about voting for 'sure thing" had i known it would be credited with a j cole feature urgh

Tim F*nney did not vote this year, I don't think.

i worked this out when i saw that NO ONE else voted for the dawn richard mixtape ;_;

i don't know how close "countdown" was to "rolling in the deep" but i'm really hoping it wasn't close enough that an extra vote would have enabled it to be no 1 - "countdown" was pretty much my song of the year but i never put artists on my trax ballot that i've put on my albums ballot

so weird to find another critic with whom you share two votes, and one of those is pistol annies and the other is danny daze o_0

1 Adele, "Rolling in the Deep" * **
Columbia/XL Mentions: 116
2 Beyoncé, "Countdown" **
Columbia Mentions: 98

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/singles/2011/

also that miguel thing is an oversight on my part and is being fixed, fret not

Jeremy D. Larson is my new best friend

ok i doubt even a 1st place vote would've been enough to overcome 18 extra voters so my mind is at ease

i think the most annoying thing is how many critics i know didn't bother voting.

"till the world ends" is such a weird pop rallying point. i mean, i like the remix, but...top 10? huh.

yeah singles are counted by mention, not weighted.

and lex help me get those people to vote next year!!

I wish Daddy B Nice, Southern soul guru had voted. I don't think he did

http://www.southernsoulrnb.com/corner2012.cfm

lex - another reason for you to be ok with the tUnE-yArDs win

“tuneyards?!?!?!?! are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! I’m starting to wonder if they only polled female music critics?
Posted by Anonymous | January 17, 2012 10:10 PM”

- Brooklyn Vegan comment thread

lulz

it's a terrible album though

surprised the beyoncé album was so low (beneath pistol annies!)

I was under the impression for months that 4 was generally considered to be a hit-free disappointment. It was only toward the end of the year that I saw people arguing otherwise.

it's been beyonce's least popular album with the masses and most popular album with critics since the moment it was released

^^ otm

But I was in such an ilm bubble that I didn't realize how much the masses didn't like it until I heard the Sound Opinions show where several callers called in to bitch about how awful it was. I was just smh.

that's interesting, i haven't gotten the impression that the pop/R&B fans that DID buy the album disliked it

i know that the "point" of commercial music is to generate hits but it never fails to surprise me that so many people equate an album's quality with how successful its singles are

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/music2/voice_pazz.jpg

what the

4 currently has three songs in the top 20 of the R&B chart so it eventually did generate hits, if not big pop crossover hits

To be fair, the woman that called into Sound Opinions thought it was a bad album because there weren't any songs she could add to her workout mix.

it's pretty lousy by that yardstick, i suppose

Thats how she started out, but then she summed up that the whole thing was a disappointment.

yup it definitely fails on that count

i guess B figured that Michelle Obama-comissioned remix of "Get Me Bodied" covered her workout jam quota for the year (xpost)

I could add "I Care", "Countdown", "Love On Top", "End of Time" and "Girls (Run the World)" to any hypothetical mix

I made a Spotify playlist of tracks receiving two mentions because I thought it might be interesting to listen to while I'm at work and figured I might as well share it here.

Around 200 of the 260 tracks matched when I loaded it up. If I get bored I might see if I can add more manually.

"I Care" is pushing it (xpost)

haha @ the pitchforkreviewsreviews guy:

Bon Iver, James Blake, M83, and Girls. Why aren't our heroes pissing more people off? Why are they so polite?

David Shapiro
Brooklyn, New York

i'm just gonna assume he thought these were gonna be the top 4

To be fair, the woman that called into Sound Opinions thought it was a bad album because there weren't any songs she could add to her workout mix.

Mary Lou Retton could sweat into her leg warmers while jamming to "Love on Top."

"I Care" is the same tempo as "Countdown"!

Bon Iver, James Blake, M83, and Girls. Why aren't our heroes pissing more people off? Why are they so polite?

Our Hero will find adulthood a real chore.

so whoever does @Discographies apparently needs to protect their anonymity and vote under their twitter handle?

"I Care", "Countdown", "End of Time" and "Girls (Run the World)" ARE on my gym mix.

why do we care what someone who called into "sound opinions" had to say about a beyonce album

The only reason I brought it up was because it was the first time I was aware of the public's relative dislike of the album. I was all warm and cozy in the ilm lovefest for the album.

Maybe David Shapiro can start a homage blog called Unsound Onions.

why do we care what someone who called into "sound opinions" had to say about a beyonce album

it was either this or have opinions on Lana Del Rey

ban opinions

NY Times critics back when used to participate in this, but not anymore

They hardly ever filed actual ballots, but we used to be allowed to just pull their votes straight from the Times year-end page, and give the albums 10 points each. Maybe Maura isn't aware of that though.

Anyway, a question for Glenn: How do voters find out their own metalism scores? Mine should be higher than it's ever been no matter what, but I'm curious whether Gentleman's Pistols and Nazareth counted as metal.

And where do we find out which voters were most similar to us? Didn't seem to be in Glenn's ratings last night, but maybe I missed it.

Also curious why Whiney left #10-finishing Shabazz Palaces off his middlebrow rap list way up above. (Are they not considered rap, or did he just miss it? I sort of like that album, but I'm guessing it supports his thesis, either way.)

And finally, does Gunplay live in Ontario, Arizona, or Leeds? "Local" metal bands I voted from all those places each got two votes!

i know that the "point" of commercial music is to generate hits but it never fails to surprise me that so many people equate an album's quality with how successful its singles are

I could not agree with this more, this is such depressing logic.

I made a Spotify playlist of tracks receiving two mentions because I thought it might be interesting to listen to while I'm at work and figured I might as well share it here.

― fffv, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 8:29 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thanks for this

oh cool! i just added.

I always look at Br1an T's ballot for records even you folx haven't heard of.

can't even tell what wrinkleballs is trying to say here

I think you can, wrinkletongue.

i've heard of three of brian's twenty picks!

one of brian's picks is ilx-related too. or xucxk related. i think he used to post here. maybe. didn't he?

you capitalized the letters "MID" in the word "Formidable" -- i know in the brain that created "pundneb" that's considered dazzling wordplay but out here it looks like nonsense

attn #64 we now officially have beef and I hope you sleep light motherfuckers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3chFhCP5mQ

who's the biggest "oh hey i guess they put out an album this year" artist on the list -- for me it was The Decemberists

Also curious why Whiney left #10-finishing Shabazz Palaces off his middlebrow rap list way up above. (Are they not considered rap, or did he just miss it? I sort of like that album, but I'm guessing it supports his thesis, either way.)

Just forgot it! :(

I love that album and #10 is a dope finish

Chuck:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&thread=%40257603&typeId=9149585060559937602&render=List

Of your picks this year, I have Cauldron, Blood Ceremony and Vektor as metal. Sound right?

Joy FormidaBULLSHIT

attn #64 we now officially have beef and I hope you sleep light motherfuckers

lol

I'd like to add "that THAT, REM"

^ let me ghostwrite for u morbz

for me it was the foo fighters. but, in general, i try to forget they exist.

x-post

see how Brits pronounce formidable, sd, and also yr fly

#64 = #1 with me, but then I heard 3 albums last year eh

who's the biggest "oh hey i guess they put out an album this year" artist on the list -- for me it was The Decemberists

I think Ryan Adams for me.

see how Brits pronounce formidable

I actually have no idea how the band pronounces its name. (In fact, ILXor Jenny and I were just wondering about this the other day.)

<em>They hardly ever filed actual ballots, but we used to be allowed to just pull their votes straight from the Times year-end page, and give the albums 10 points each. Maybe Maura isn't aware of that though.</em>

I was not aware of this! Thanks for the heads-up.

wait, does steven tyler of beantown's aerosmith hate my morning jacket or wish that they had done better?

rassa frassa bb code

hey al glad someone threw a vote for that disciplines record

doesn't EVERYONE emphasize the second syllable of "formidable"? i've never heard the word pronounced any other way.

high five, cad!

who in here voted for Cake?

line up to receive your sb

I guess I should be happy that Cinderella's Eyes got two votes, but it should have gotten more.

lol nicole's dn

http://www.answers.com/topic/formidable

doesn't EVERYONE emphasize the second syllable of "formidable"? i've never heard the word pronounced any other way.

Nah, "FOR-mih-duh-bull" is fairly common in English, too. Then there's French ppl.

...who don't vote in P&J.

the more pressing question is, would you put The Joy Formidable on your workout mix

...who don't vote in P&J.

How does this have any bearing on how the band name is pronounced?

the French are socialists, therefore immune to the charms of P&J.

ok morbz now explain why you spelled "sure" as "shore," is that another delightful linguistic puzzle as rewarding as "forMIDable"?

dr. mORBius

dr. MORBiuS

Of your picks this year, I have Cauldron, Blood Ceremony and Vektor as metal. Sound right?

Well, I'd say you missed two (see above), but I'm not gonna quibble about it.

The only thing I didn't get about Dr. M's original post was why an album at #58 and a single at #33 was proof that "u ppl shore like" the JF.

that too

Oh, I see. Yeah, I'd call Nazareth and Gentlemen's Pistols hard rock, not metal. My basic rule is that a band has to either be in EM, or their Wikipedia page has to describe them as metal in the first sentence.

gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised at Raphael Saadiq's Stone Rollin''s placing (#39 with 33 votes), I figured it would get nowhere near the (inferior) The Way I See It (#18 with 45 votes in 2008) but it had a pretty respectable showing.

Much of pop music—with a few exceptions, and God bless Lady Gaga—had a bread and circuses flavor this year, especially as experienced online. As long as we're arguing amongst ourselves about Lana Del Rey or Tyler, the Creator, we're not discussing unemployment, #OWS, or the simple fact that the majority of GOP presidential candidates are certifiably batshit crazy.

Jim Testa
Weehawken, New Jersey

Amazed anyone still seriously uses "bread and circuses" about pop music. Most of the people (ILX mainly) I discussed OWS with were the same people I discussed Tyler and LDR with. Amazing how the human brain can accommodate more than one topic.

think of all the starving children he could have been feeding (or at least TALKING about feeding) at the exact moment he was writing that shitty Pazz & Jop comment instead

I know my biggest concern in the world today is that not enough people have been talking about why Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich are kinda nutty.

think about all the poor children who can't afford circuses.

The only thing I didn't get about Dr. M's original post was why an album at #58 and a single at #33 was proof that "u ppl shore like" the JF.

By 'you people' I meant most of the 8 or so ILXors whose ballots I looked at.

sd, I'd love to explain every little goofy nuance of all my posts to you but zzzzzzzz

at this point the gop presidential race is way more bread+circuses than pop music

for what's its worth, my comments were ALL about the destruction of the human race. but i am thinking about LDR right now...

late to the thread but are you fucking kidding me re: tune-yards??

^^^ woke up to my Facebook feed clogged with these posts.

^^^ sang this post to the tune of "Turn My Swag On"

Whiney, I think you have to give up complaining about mediocre indie rock and middlebrow rap when your cash your first spin paycheck

tbf Spin's top 20 rap albums was superior in every possible way to P&J's top 20 rap albums

who's the biggest "oh hey i guess they put out an album this year" artist on the list -- for me it was The Decemberists

― Whitechocolatespacecase (some dude), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:10 AM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

their album went #1 this year!

US Number 1 Albums Of 2011

Highest artist that I have not heard of on the Albums list:
57 The Men, Leave Home

Highest artist that I have not heard of on the singles list:
44 Blawan, "Getting Me Down"

Still pissed they got rid of the reissues category.

also btw jon/via/chi I'm actually really really impressed by your ballot

i don't really get the passion some people have for year-end reissues lists -- like i think it's great that reissues are consumed and written about but imo it doesn't lend itself to year-end listmaking like new releases.

can't find 'Jon Viachi' on the ballots page...is his real name Jonny Leather?

xpost -- Agreed, and related to that:

doesn't ned do pazz & jop? he could have been the 3rd vote for the 5 eps.

Conflict of interest! And I did submit a ballot for the first time in a while. Full rundown of all choices done last month on my blog.

no singles? BAD ned, bad bad ned ::waves rolled up newspaper::

Fuck a singles list.

can't find 'Jon Viachi' on the ballots page...is his real name Jonny Leather?

He's the fourth Jonathan alphabetically.

(Apologies for using your GOVERNMENT NAME.)

undone - the brah song

Whiney, I think you have to give up complaining about mediocre indie rock and middlebrow rap when your cash your first spin paycheck

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:08 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tbf Spin's top 20 rap albums was superior in every possible way to P&J's top 20 rap albums

― Whitechocolatespacecase (some dude), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:09 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Our top 40 list is better than the Pazz top 40 too....

yeah apologies jvc xxp

http://www.savewesternoh.org/images/Give%20Me%20a%20Break%20Stossel.jpg

xp

well, for better or worse i feel like MOST halfway decent year-end lists compiled by an individual critic or specific publication's staff tend to be "better" than P&J, the latter just holds more weight in the consensus-measuring sense. i was just depending Spin against the 'middlebrow rap' zing because that list was suitably goonish.

i don't really get the passion some people have for year-end reissues lists -- like i think it's great that reissues are consumed and written about but imo it doesn't lend itself to year-end listmaking like new releases.
I just think reissues/compilations should be a separate category — as P&J did in the past — so as not to confuse things or split votes. What’s the point of an old Smashing Pumpkins album or the Beach Boys “Smile” box set competing with new music released in 2011?
In 1991, P&J wisely kept “Nevermind” from going up against “James Brown: Star Time,” “The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1958-1968,” “Ray Charles: The Birth of Soul” or “Phil Spector: Back to Mono (1958-1969).” Similarly, three year’s later Hole’s “Live Through This” didn’t compete with “Louis Armstrong: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 1923-34.”
Plus, I just want to see if I missed anything. Without a separate category, there are fewer reissues mentioned overall IMO.

yeah i definitely agree that reissues being in the main poll clouds things up, i raised an eyebrow earlier today at this ballot that has THREE reissues of very popular well known albums on it:
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/686341/

i guess i'm not sure why someone would do that if not given the option to do a seperate reissues ballot, and even then i confess losing that part of the poll doesn't feel like a huge loss to me. reissues lists are interesting but measuring consensus on them seems so abstract; are you voting for the ALBUM itself primarily or how much value is added by the remastering or bonus material or liner notes? would you a vote for an album you loved for years if it went back in print this year with particular changes or improvements, or only for something that you discovered for the first time as of the reissue? i imagine lots of voters answering these questions differently, which makes the 'results' of such a poll kind of a meaningless mish mash.

*with NO particular changes or improvements

wtf are you listening ro when hella dated Smashing Pumpkins records sound better than anything else in 2011

haha what an unbelievably terrible ballot

the smile sessions are a bit tricky though, because it's not really a reissue, the stuff was never officially released or leaked in that form before.

i mean, if a band's album sits in limbo for 3 years then comes out, it's kinda the same thing imo

haha i found that when i was looking to see if anyone voted for that great Craig Wedren record and was v disappointed when i saw the rest of the ballot

Ned (and everyone else), please vote in the ILM 2011 poll! It's clearly a more worthy enterprise. If you're already maxed out on list-making for the year you can just resubmit your P+J ballot.

yeah Smile is a unique case, although something like that that's such a big deal and in some ways still a 'new' product i feel like it's fair game for the main poll, like Bruce's The Promise the year before.

wtf are you listening ro when hella dated Smashing Pumpkins records sound better than anything else in 2011

Drake and Rick Ross, probably

haha i found that when i was looking to see if anyone voted for that great Craig Wedren record and was v disappointed when i saw the rest of the ballot

that dudes ballot is like inverse case of those ppl whose ballots i checked cuz the voted for like a rad spectrum spools lp and find at least one terrible james blake record or s.thing in the rest of their top ten

are you voting for the ALBUM itself primarily or how much value is added by the remastering or bonus material or liner notes?

Most of the reissues that used to score in the results, when it was its own category, weren't really this kind, though -- They tended more often to be career retrospectives, or box sets, or unearthings of previously obscure stuff by cult acts like Os Mutantes or Shuggie Otis or Esquivel or whoever. (Not saying the category was great -- in fact, mediocre cult acts who got hip cred for a year and bloated boxes by Hall Of Famers were part of what dragged it down. Which is part of why the category wound up seeming like a waste of time to tabulate. Just saying it wasn't dominated by pre-existing old albums with outtakes tacked on.)

Agreed that "Smile" is a special case when it comes to reissues. Similarly, "The Basement Tapes" (1975) and "VU" (1985) were also "new" music.

cover feature on the artist with the #190 album
http://thewire.co.uk/images/artists/lil_b/cover336.jpg

gtfo

shut it all the fuck down

photo is all "thank you based godzilla"

i knew you would be pleased

wanna read that KFW article tbh

haha i was thinking the same thing. p excited for the record he has coming out on editions mego. (i was also happy to see ital on the cover but i doubt youd share that enthusiasm)

I sent them over 5,000 words, and only one line was bitchy. Of course that's what the rat bastards print. "Apparently it's now cool to like fucking Bon Iver but not TV on the Radio." I'm only one of two people who voted for Graveyard and Elder, and one of three for Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats :(

My ballot and positions in the poll:

1 TVOTR, 43
2 Graveyard, 284
3 White Denim, 81
4 Elder, 295
5 Been Obscene, 882
6 At Devil Dirt, 1583
7 Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, 408
8 The Vaccines, 114
9 Mastodon, 47
10 Tom Waits, 5

were all 3 ilxors?

Beats me, I don't know everyone's names.

Jonathan Lundeen
Patrick McNally

Well uh I was one of the Uncle Acid voters so I'm guessing its pretty easy to figure it out from there.

yeah dude your ballot ruled

yeah i think other dude might be an ilxor if its who im thinking of

Anyway, one reason a reissues poll would theoretically make sense is for albums like Matos's #3 this year, which doesn't really make sense to rank up against current music, but which -- if it's as great as he says -- also doesn't make sense to ignore entirely:

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2011/685276/

Only problem is, when there's a reissue poll, albums like that aren't necessarily what most people vote for -- and it might be even worse now, when lots of critics seem to think "reissues" only mean boring expanded remasters of classic albums.

wow, the rapture had an album out this year! who knew?

yeah dude your ballot ruled

Not sure if that was for me or FastnBulbous, but, uh, thanks.

had no idea they were even still a group. i liked that one song that everyone liked. years ago. next thing you'll be telling me the strokes and interpol are still going!

The Strokes in at #164 on P&J was pretty rough even by extremely low standards

gtfo

― 誤 means 訳. 訳 means 侮辱. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:52 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

shut it all the fuck down

― 誤 means 訳. 訳 means 侮辱. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:53 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

*works for magazine that put das racist and odd future wolfgang on consecutive covers*

nah that album blew dick xp

photo is all "thank you based godzilla"

― 誤 means 訳. 訳 means 侮辱. (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:55 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is otm th

of course it blew dick, not what i was saying

had no idea they were even still a group. i liked that one song that everyone liked. years ago.

the first single from that Rapture record is pretty great imo. How Deep is Your Love. indie-dance piano-house track. didn't really like the rest of it

The Men "Leave Home" is cool too. noisy art-punk

dmr otm on both counts

are the new men as good as the old men? i like this one a lot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGWdoJU3HSg

reading the scott pl essay and this caught my eye:

he head-spinning end result is an indie-rock world that feels like a place where fitting in is more valued than standing out. Chillwave and its electro-pop cousins—easily digestible, rooted in collective memory and experiences, lo-fi enough to mask amateurishness—were tailor-made for the job, capturing mood and vibe and, by extension, providing a ready-made soundtrack for listeners. The resulting pattern of looking over one's shoulder for approval while attempting to embrace an artist as early as possible doesn't foster a healthy creative environment but one dominated by conservative choices, where the familiar (or easily understood) trump the bold and the brave. Ruptures in expectations, risks, and singular artists who defy categorization are suppressed if the overarching motivation of the audience is a fear of looking foolish.

as someone not very tapped into this stuff i thought it was kind of the other way around, at least on some superficial level? i feel like the indie crit/blogosphere has gotten very big into valuing the 'bold and the brave' over the 'conservative'? like most of the really hyped acts seem to have some angle of "this isn't your usual white guy/girl with a guitar, and here's why (plus they use the word 'gangsta!')". i mean i'm as much a fan of novelty in the classic sense as anyone, so i'm not trying to be snarky when i say there seems to be a premium on novelty at the moment. am i wrong?

just spitballing but i think you may be right about how these artists are described while scott is right about how they actually function

and apparently i need to read his whole essay because i'm loving that graf

i mean i'm as much a fan of novelty in the classic sense as anyone, so i'm not trying to be snarky when i say there seems to be a premium on I GOT THE SWAG AND ITS PUMPIN OUT MY OVARIES

if he's knowingly and purposefully describing what he sees as the reality beneath the narrative he should've said so at least to be more overt about the 'emperor's new clothes' implications of it (xpost)

yeah makes sense.

ok i'm gonna get some wine and read the whole thing.

to an extent. i posted s.thing abt scott's essay upthread during last nite's excellent 'zan wit that lean' argument but i dont think theres a specific premium on novelty nor do i think theres a refusal to embrace risk or the singular. its not that theres isnt a fair # of underground bands working a similar and similarly tiresome post-anco fugue but the underground is a very diverse very weird place atm and one in which 'approval' has increasingly less meaning

lol man i am shocked by the gorilla vs. bear top 30 and how little of it i know #old

ha i was looking at the bottom of the list and saw "new crayons" by big zach and "king gampo" by prof w/one mention and knew it was pete

as a whole scott's essay was really terrible but hard to argue against vehemently because its framed w/in the context of pazz and jop which i guess is theoretically less interested in underground music. but think its hard to argue that underground music is particularly 'conservative' this year simply because it doesnt have a breakout star and i dont know how much if any this has to do w/the quality of that music or really how much this poll and critics as a whole really 'get' avant/weirdo music. theres always been wide segments of what you could call 'indie' esp the places that border w/ various ill-represented genres like jazz/classical/experimental thats sortof nodded at vaguely by mnstrm indie critics w/o much real engagement regardless of w/e currents and evolutions these microgenres are undergoing.

How can you say P&J is theoretically less interested in underground music when tuneYARDS was #1 this year? It's an aggregate!

because tuneyards isnt underground music.

the underground is a very diverse very weird place atm and one in which 'approval' has increasingly less meaning

as an idea this sounds awesome, but i wonder if it is in practice and/or if it's true. one of my pet theories is as sales not only matter less but don't exist for a lot of free mixtape!/band camp sects of indie, it seems like actual number of fans or even how fanatical that fanbase is matters less than having the right kind of exposure on the right kind of sites, not just for the power of the co-sign but to put you in the category you aspire to be in, subculturally, which means more and more emphasis on bullshit 'approval' from an increasingly lame array of tastemakers

oh Lamp

everyone's a sellout to somebody ::looks on wistfully, wipes a tear::

having read the whole thing i think there's a few ideas happening and he doesn't really tie them to his central which is about the evacuation of a broad swath of indie from the results.

basically he's looking for the new brooklyn and not finding it and my response would be don't hold your breath because logistically and economically no one wants to be in an indie band anymore.

because tuneyards isnt underground music.

haha okay what

I'm curious to know what your metric for "underground" is.

i like this because lamp is right and people questioning lamp are right

pj harvey album is pretty awesome, as is the tom waits. i really like the wild flag lp and destroyer as well. tried to give tuneyards a shot but it wasn't my "thing."

Does he point out any "bold and brave" that WERE, actually, ignored? (Sorry, I'll read it.)

maybe not on 4AD? idk this seemed so self-evident to me that im a little taken aback by it being at all controversial...

basically he's looking for the new brooklyn and not finding it and my response would be don't hold your breath because logistically and economically no one wants to be in an indie band anymore.

my take was that he already heard the new brooklyn and found it wanting. and plenty of ppl want to be in bands? idk. i agree with larges parts of some dude's post and i think scotts right in certain ways abt how everyone is a rush to move fwd to the next thing the whole early-adopter 'i saw them when they played a set in a closed ethopian restaurant' and how that colors the music that gets talked abt. but i think this also drives the rebloggers and the tastemakers and the tumblr whites to chase cool rather than codify it, things are p wide open for any weirdo w/a drum machine rn

I like weirdo underground music as much as the next joe, but it's by design only going to appeal to a small number of people. I think the problem lays squarely on ... music criticism itself!

Anywho, VV, Spin, Stylus, Pfork, etc., are all magazines meant for a wider audience. Don't think they're going for the art snob crowd, and it's hard to blame people for not being interested in one particular permutation of culture.

Tim F*nney did not vote this year, I don't think.

If I'm still receiving invitations it wasn't to an email address that still works. I know that this can be fixed but it's the kind of administrative detail that's beyond my very limited powers of self-organisation.

most indie rock has been pretty conservative since the dawn of the 90's. that's when normal people started making it.

We're constructing all the wrong binaries -- imo this debate isn't "art snob" versus "Britney fans." The metiers of all the magazines you mentioned is, in part, to put the spotlight on an unknown act. Otherwise they're into necromancy, like MOJO.

even arty magazines love their old favorites. okay, there are like TWO arty magazines, one?, but they will write about the red krayola forever.

btw it increases a site's hit count when an Underground Act gets a positive review (ask Pitchfork or Stylus), so you can't separate the mercenary reasons for looking for unknown artists.

Conservative doesn't mean bad, though, of course. I'm interested in why I don't like indie more whether it's conservative or not.

i don't think the conservative nature of indie/undie types means much now. maybe it would have meant something years ago. its just what a lot of that music is now. its what things have become.

Does it not mean much because the alternative is uninteresting?

the alternative to conservative indie music? hell, no, there is a lot of amazing stuff out there. truly amazing and in no way conservative. or maybe you meant some other kind of alternative.

A binary exists in the mind of the creator. Imagine a giant list of all sorts of styles, interests, and approaches ... and picking one amongst those many. That's what I meant.

Journalism serves an audience, so it needs to fulfill that, too, and I'd imagine they hire people who reflect that audience to some degree, and that probably limits the scope covered.

I'd love magazines to cover more interesting and challenging music, even music that's not indie(!), but not sure how much of an audience that serves really. There's no ethical imperative that says it has to be that way.

it doesn't serve a large audience. to write about more challenging stuff. but you can do it anyway.

wtf are you guys talking about

hahah

Maybe that goes into limited scope of audience -> hired writers reflecting audience. Not many o' thems trailblazin' individualists out there anyway, so it's not surprising they don't pop up often. But it's great when they do.

Internet magazines of the last twelve years (at least) have published thousands of words of crap indie bands they've defined as "challenging."

*of = on

most people like non-challenging music. it's cool. life is challenging enough.

Maybe that goes into limited scope of audience -> hired writers reflecting audience. Not many o' thems trailblazin' individualists out there anyway, so it's not surprising they don't pop up often. But it's great when they do.

I'm not sure if you want a cue card with all the anointed trailblazers of the last twelve years or a violin to play.

No Scott, I wondered if you were saying that it didn't matter anymore whether indie was conservative or not because the non-conservative indie archetype of old - scum-rock or whatever - is probably not the way FORWARD from this point out of conservative indie.

and scott, you're an example of someone who's been writing about non-mainstream acts for years!

i honestly don't know what the way forward is, time. or if there is one. i focus my attention on people who intrigue/enlighten/inspire me and i don't worry so much about history/the futute/scenes/genres/etc. i'm older now so maybe i just don't care as much about that stuff. i care a LITTLE still. music has been a big part of my life. i look for individuals now who are doing good work. or work that i enjoy. and i spread the word about them as much as i can.

"tim" not time...

I'm not sure if you want a cue card with all the anointed trailblazers of the last twelve years or a violin to play.

Haw haw, not really my point. More like, people who've charted away from the same ole will cover material away from the same ole. I meant a more simple conclusion, but I appreciate those people, so I put it jokingly romantic.

i just don't worry about "crazy" avant whatever stuff being any more popular than it is. i wish every music magazine devoted a little time to it. like spin did in the 80's. its not ever gonna be popular. like spectrum said. i'm happy to have the 500 words a month that decibel gives me to write about weird shit. i wish more web and print writers would expand their horizons a little bit more (or a lot more), but we all wish for things. most writers on ilx are pretty damn open to new things! wish every music writer was.

I guess I would just say to that point that I like the idea of a "bold vs. not bold" dichotomy instead of a "conservative vs. not conservative" one.

lol man i am shocked by the gorilla vs. bear top 30 and how little of it i know #old

can i also just reiterate while were all still here tht the gvsb dude is like a real life version of one of whiney's indie critic caricatures and the idea that his voice/taste/site shld stand-in for 'underground music' fills me w/despair

Wait, what is "terrible" about scottpl's essay exactly?

Black Up hit us harder than anything since Person Pitch dropped back in ‘07

try 2 remember always just 2 have a good time

This is no time to quote Prince.

btw if someone did whiney's suggested anti-'corny indie fuck' edit of the poll wouldn't the top three be kanye/jay, adele, & paul simon?

crossing my fingers for a TuNeYaRDzzz/PaUl sImOn worldbeat collaboration. shit would be hot.

what is "terrible" about scottpl

I hate lines like: "easily digestible, rooted in collective memory and experiences, lo-fi enough to mask amateurishness", when none of those dismissals are particularly true. There's no shortage of truly bad chillwave, electro-pop, and other blog favorites to demonstrate this.

I'm loving the past few years of music because a lot of vows of chastity that straightjacketed indie music for decades fell off in the last 10 years. I credit the laptop becoming today's pawn shop guitar.

btw if someone did whiney's suggested anti-'corny indie fuck' edit of the poll wouldn't the top three be kanye/jay, adele, & paul simon?

Don't forget about Drake!

Or maybe he counts as a corny indie fuck now.

i think iver and foxes votes correlate more strongly with drake votes than they do with kanye votes (though probably most of the people who voted for the former voted for kanye too)

I hate lines like: "easily digestible, rooted in collective memory and experiences, lo-fi enough to mask amateurishness", when none of those dismissals are particularly true. There's no shortage of truly bad chillwave, electro-pop, and other blog favorites to demonstrate this.

this seems like a fair description of the shit i've heard p much

i mean its not like he hasn't championed stuff that falls into this ~style~ either. but i don't even dig into this music like that either, and i know that describes more than a few things w/in the spectrum

can i also just reiterate while were all still here tht the gvsb dude is like a real life version of one of whiney's indie critic caricatures and the idea that his voice/taste/site shld stand-in for 'underground music' fills me w/despair

― HOOS steen is it anyway? (Lamp), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 8:47 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol duly noted

most indie rock has been pretty conservative since the dawn of the 90's. that's when normal people started making it.

― scott seward, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 8:15 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ugh this post is so gross

oh yay, a spirited debate about indie rock!

hmmmmmmmm

Damn - Jess is the person I'm most empathetic with

"ugh this post is so gross"

no way, you're so gross!

we're all gross

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsG/7089-3908.jpg

i listened to a song from the pj harvey album and why do the background vocals sound like bone thugs n harmony

Where does Mastodon rate at #47 as far as metal albums representing on P&J? Too lazy to look it up... I personally didn't like the record but whatevah.

A minor note for the curious: with the upcoming June 1 shut-down of needlebase.com, my previous stats tool (and former job), I've rebuilt my P&J statistics index in a new standalone form here:

http://furia.com/pjs

There are a lot fewer moving parts than in the Needle version, and less meta-miscellany, but hopefully a) most of the stuff I didn't recreate wasn't actually all that interesting, and b) what's left is easier to navigate and understand.

Sorry about the job, impressed as always with your stats work

(New job is more fun, so that part is good.)

like the look of the new stats page. did the billboard stuff i did for the last 2 polls survive the transition?

The Billboard stuff is in a different database. I've extracted all that data for safekeeping already, but I don't have time to do anything else with it at the moment...

ah ok cool, good to know it's at least saved. when the next poll is approaching i will prob bug you about doing some more w/ it.