Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

i wish boldy's record had gotten at least a lil love but it seems like it didn't have the impact of the 1st one and that one was completely slept on

people are REALLY riding with this action bronson thing

Stereogum couldn't find room for Ka's Grief Pedigree in its top 40 rap albums list:

Or a single woman

Nicki is on there

maybe she's got a boyfriend?

she's got a lot of sons. Not sure about her relationship status

Oh I thought the list was only what was c/ped

One woman isn't any better, any rap list that doesn't include Angel Haze is ridiculous to me

i swear i would never have even heard of Angel Haze if you didn't post here

after tirelessly stanning for the entire year i think i can count the number of critics who voted for her on the fingers of both hands :(

and fucking...other artists just sweep up votes like it's nothing

― lex pretend, Friday, December 21, 2012 12:55 PM (5 hours ago)

Your Dawn Richard is my Niki & The Dove. The difference being that I recognize my favorite thing is sort of a niche release, just like Dawn's ep.

Angel Haze has actually had quite a bit of buzz over here, I mean significantly more than a lot of rappers. She might well be higher profile in Britain than in the US.

what as opposed to new star soccer and craft beers music? come on i thought we were above this shite

Call of Duty and wanking are both enormously popular pastimes! I mean the music is mostly execrable but there's a serious point in there that you overlook the favourite music of yr suburban teenage boy at your peril but at the same time I don't want to live in a world where we can't be cunts when it comes to Zane Lowe.

I like Call of Duty and wanking. ¯\(°_o)/¯

"Angel Haze has actually had quite a bit of buzz over here, I mean significantly more than a lot of rappers. She might well be higher profile in Britain than in the US."

god this makes so much sense

how so?

/what as opposed to new star soccer and craft beers music? come on i thought we were above this shite/

low blow aside, tis the season etc, radio 1's success is based on a very, very tight strategy in terms of who it's aimed at. as cynical as any comment upthread. plus I hardly think you're repping for the zane list, note I didn't comment on the music anyway, just his audience.

What makes Armor On a niche release? It feels p epochal. I have not heard Niki and the Dove tho either...

What makes Armor On a niche release? It feels p epochal. I have not heard Niki and the Dove tho either...

Nothing in particular, other than it being popular music that has obstacles in its path to actually being popular. I mean, who knows why Florence + The Machine made that transition when a whole group of other similar (and better) artists couldn't?

good publicists, good marketing

dawn has a team of 5, she literally can't compete in terms of PR

Or, like, Ellie Goulding—the weakest singer with the weakest material who gets all the buzz her peers don't get. It doesn't make me furious or anything. I just don't get it.

Ah come on, saying x band I dislike is successful cos of "marketing" is straight up indie bullshit.

ellie goulding has a formidable pr team too, yes

xp ok PR and marketing departments have *no* effect on any artist's critical or commercial success, tbh i don't understand why they haven't all been fired to cut costs

How do you deduce that others are affected and not yourself?

did i say that? can you read? why are you talking to me again?

Ah come on, saying x band I dislike is successful cos of "marketing" is straight up indie bullshit.

This situation is best observed on a case-by-case basis.

Let's go back to the early aughts and look at Good Charlotte. I can't explain their sudden rise to prominence through any other means besides killer PR. They came from nowhere, looked like a bunch of other bands and had an indistinguishable sound, but trounced their peers. It's either PR, or it's the fact there's a guy in the band named Benji. People love the name Benji.

Not commenting on personal problems, just remember the whole "it's marketing" defence mechanism from arguing with indie friends about pop, when I was about 15. I guess don't mention rockism again.

Where's Tom Ewing when you need some popism/actual understanding of marketing?

i am fairly sure tom ewing would acknowledge that when you have a canny major label marketing strategy behind one artist, and an amateur self-taught team of 5 behind the other, this will have an effect on how well the music does

Let's go back to the early aughts and look at Good Charlotte. I can't explain their sudden rise to prominence through any other means besides killer PR a bunch of hooky, memorable singles.

I agree with Lex that PR clearly makes a difference to the likelihood an artist will find a large fanbase, but I don't accept Johnny Fever's more ambitious argument that certain acts only succeed because of marketing.

Even with Ellie Goulding there's a reason that Kate Bush ish "doo doo doo dooooo" single is all over the radio.

I can't explain their sudden rise to prominence through any other means besides killer PR a bunch of hooky, memorable singles their residence almost daily on TRL.

Sorry but Good Charlotte were a great singles band, you gots to deal.

I like "The River", but they were already in decline by that point.

I don't accept Johnny Fever's more ambitious argument that certain acts only succeed because of marketing.

yes, i'm not arguing this, it's a pretty old chestnut that is admittedly easier to target if one doesn't want to engage with what i am arguing

it is honestly pretty easy to see when other critics are being affected by PR when everyone begins tweeting about an artist, who has been around for a while beforehand, on THE DAY that you get the first PR mailout w/buzz track etc

and as far as me being affected by PR - sure, there are def certain PRs whose new artists i'll make more of an effort to listen to, whether because i trust that PR's taste or because they're a nice person or whatever

Yeah, okay...maybe I just have an axe to grind with Good Charlotte.

I CAN tell you, though, that when Kings of Leon sprung up from nowhere talking about how they paid their Nashville dues that it was a load of shite. They never played the Nashville circuit and nobody in the music community there had a clue who they were. P.R.

but if they had paid their Nashville dues would it have made them a better band or better looking?

No. I was just pointing out that the PR story that got passed around at the time was a bunch of hooey.

"Lights" is a good song

Somewhat related, but ASFAIK, the disparity in reception of iamamiwhoami's Kin between consumers (its #6 on rateyourmusic) and critics (only the US blog Pretty Much Amazing and Spanish blog Jenesaispop rated it at year end) seems to stem from a marketing strategy that entirely bypassed critical filters. Were there no promos?

Oops, it actually ranked #55 amongst all RYM users in all genres (I forgot my usual filters to tame the metal/prog slant of RYM's demographic). Still, huge disparity with the #640 rank from the acclaimed poll of polls.

yeah you could probably make all sorts of observations about various artists if you just compared Rate Your Music rankings to Acclaimed Music rankings

XXP: Razorlight being taken seriously in the UK as front cover stars/fit to play above Slayer on the main stage of Reading Festival, is entirely down to the preternaturally persuasive campaign launched by a husband wife/ manager PR team, so it's skill rather than size I think.

Also with Florence I can confirm her PR team was formidable. We got bollocked by them. One of their own team got threatened with the axe after he publicly endorsed our (slightly snide and misjudged by me) article on her. The whole experience felt like abseiling into a volcano.

PR people in America can be quite bracing especially if you're talking about classic rock but that said, Ken Weinstein at Q Prime for Metallica was a sweetheart. Nothing compares to some German metal labels however, who in past have made anonymous phone calls to me with voice disguising technology in the middle of the night to tell me that my career was over because of a mocking review.

Also, see Django Django, Crystal Castles, Alt J, Everything Everything etc etc. The horse trading you're supposed to indulge in to even get near to these bands is deeply unpleasant.

The majority of PR people in the UK are ace though. I'm sure I've got more social friends who are PRs than journalists. A really good PR is better for the artist than a mediocre writer. IMHO.

haha the multiple stories about florence's heavy-handed PR. i guess editors are on the receiving end of that more than writers, worst i've had to deal with are a few overly stern ones

being nice is a way more effective PR strategy ime (though it's still a PR strategy! i have thought, well, that act that a lot of critics seem to like inexplicably, their PR is a really genuinely lovely guy, hmmm)

Yeah, I don't cover bands if the PR tries to play hardball with us or indulge in horsetrading as a matter of principle but if the PR person is nice/ funny/ whatever, that can persuade me to go back for an extra few listens.

You've got to know what you're doing though. PR is a dark art. A one man, neo nazi punk rock band sent me a fiver with his cassette. I wrote back thanking him and said that I'd passed his details on to the police and a prominent Anti Nazi magazine. He then self released two singles, 'We Hate You John Doran' and 'Why Don't You Stick This Album Up Your Arse You Sarcastic Creep'. When I gave them bad reviews in Metal Hammer he went mad and attacked his neighbour with a Samurai sword, breaking his arm. He remains, to this day in a secure psychiatric ward unfit to plead. But he had phone privileges for the first year. Which is why Metal Hammer received a death threat for me at 9pm every night for over 300 days.

I think it's good to have an exit strategy when you decide to take a more unorthodox angry PR style with people.

I realize Germany and Japan were allies and all, but is a samurai sword really an appropriate weapon for a neo-nazi?

He didn't strike me as particularly bright - or like a man who had aesthetic criteria when it came to choosing weaponry. I kept some of the death threats he sent to me on cassette... he raps on some of them. I found them dead funny until the sword business. Then it was like, 'Right then Mr Fancy Pants media guy in Chattering Class London, taking on the authentic voice of the streets of Portsmouth are we? Not on my watch.'

how so?

tbh it seems like britishers are always the most vocal to boost female rappers like that lately. i was in england for a couple months earlier this year and it seemed like folks were way more jazzed about, like, azealia banks there than here, even years ago trina's singles seemed to pop more over there than america. feel free to prove me wrong on this, i don't know shit

america is pretty sexist about female rappers

yup