Year-End Critics' Polls '07

If someone can point us something from Metacritic (a US-based publication) that suggests it's reached out to, or has been approached by Latin Beat or a Rio De Janeiro daily (in English, mind you...this isn't, after all, Metacritic.com.br), or where Metacritic promises something (such as an international perspective) that it doesn't deliver, I would like to see it.

On the Metacritic homepage it says: "Metacritic® compiles reviews from respected critics and publications for film, video/dvd, books, music, television and games." It does not say ""Metacritic® AN AMERICAN BASED SITE compiles reviews THAT AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES HAVE SENT US from respected critics and publications for film, video/dvd, books, music, television and games." Again, why let Metacritic off the hook? I guess dblcheeksneek answered this for himself earlier when he said he did not want his music to played in Starbucks (oh my) but he keeps defending Metacritics limitations anyway.

And Chuck, Xgau and Matos all have recognized limitations of polls and have tried to increase the number of contributors.

So that would be a "no" on the Rio/Latin Beat front.

And I guess when I said "I'm not defending Metacritic as the Alpha and Omega of music criticism (far from it!), but isn't it at least a decent place to start (even if it is, admittedly, demonstrably limited in scope, as Alex in Baltimore aptly points out)?" I was, to my surprise, in fact "defending its limitations anyway."

from an indie rap dude on a local blog that i write for sometimes:

1. El-P: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

It’s pretty amazing to me how slept-on this album was. I mean, it got recognition, I’m sure it sold well, it may even make it into some critics’ end-of-year lists. But I feel like this should have been a paradigm-shifter, an “oh shit” moment, hip hop’s “OK Computer.” It’s really that good. I’d never been much of a Def Jux or El-P fan before listening to this album, but I definitely am now. From the adventurous production to the creative song structure to the brilliant bar-by-bar poetry to the overall vibe—this is a damn near perfect forward-looking hip hop album, by far the most interesting thing I’ve listened to in years. Then again, I have a soft spot for vitriol, and “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” supplies it by the truckload.

2. K-OS: Atlantis—Hymns for Disco

K-OS is a perfect example of a artist who makes up for his technical deficiencies by writing amazing songs. He’s not a powerful singer in the traditional sense, nor is he a great emcee by any stretch of the imagination, but he flat out makes beautiful music. Pop-oriented, funky and organic, the songs on “Atlantis,” particularly “The Rain” and “Sunday Morning,” are tremendously catchy; pop music that isn’t saccharine. Unlike a lot of artists I really respect, I actually ENJOY listening to K-OS. Indie-rappers could learn a lot from K-OS. It’s not all about five syllable rhyme schemes and airtight flows; a little melody and some creativity can go a long way.

3. Nine Inch Nails’ “Year Zero” Marketing Campaign

I liked the album, especially the single “Survivalism,” but what I’ll really remember about NIN’s 2007 exploits will be how Reznor and his team marketed the album. Short films, a bunch of weird and unsettling websites, phone numbers with recorded messages, flash drives left in bathrooms at concerts—it all added up to a multimedia multiplayer mystery that ended up being just as entertaining as the music itself. I think that this is the path music is going to take in the next decade (and movies too, if you look at how the next Batman film is being marketed). In order to really stand out, artists are going to have be creative with their marketing and promotion, building buzz in new ways. “Year Zero” represented an alignment of music, visual art, technology and hype that really pushed it into new territory.

4. Saul Williams: “The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust”

Speaking of Trent Reznor, he lent his production skills to the bulk of this album, Williams’ third and most cohesive to date. I may be one of about a dozen people in the world who likes Williams the punk vocalist as much as I like Williams the slam poet, but I think he really killed it here, sonically as well as lyrically. His nasal snarl works really well over Reznor’s production. I even liked the “Sunday Bloody Sunday” cover that everyone hates. Again, this is future music, mixing industrial with hip hop with spoken-word with punk in ways that most people probably aren’t ready for.

5. Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson

Is she a drug addict? Is she a culture vulture? Does she deserve or can she handle her success? While the media this year focused on Winehouse’s extracurricular activities, “Back to Black” is a pretty monstrously good album on a purely musical level. Some of the credit has to go to Winehouse’s smoky voice and unique songwriting skills, but a lot has to go to Mark Ronson, a still underappreciated producer who’s done incredible work with a wide variety of artists, from Rhymefest to Lily Allen to Mos Def to the guy from Weezer to many others. His best work to date might be on this album, as he recreates the vibe of classic ‘60s soul. Salaam Remi, another talented and underappreciated beatsmith, produced a couple tracks on the album too, but the best moments are undoubtedly Ronson’s.

6. People I Know Part One: Buss One and Child of the Black Madonna

Yeah, we’re signed to the same label; I’m not an objective observer. Call shenanigans all you want, but this rock/funk/punk/rap band is something special. Buss, formerly of award-winning hip hop band Leroy Smokes, is a passionate, charismatic frontman, moving effortlessly between rapping, wailing, singing and just bouncing all around the stage. The band is one of the loudest, hardest hip hop-oriented ensembles ever assembled, though I guess I’d hesitate before calling CotBM a hip hop band. Yes, Buss is best-known as a rapper, but he’s a rapper who can actually pull off covering Nirvana, James Brown and the White Stripes, on top of a whole lot of engaging, hard-hitting original material. And the live show is a mess, in the absolute best, most positive sense of the word.

7. People I Know Part Two: The Figureheads Debut Album

More shenanigans—I actually have a guest verse on this group’s debut, self-titled LP, so again, I’m not objective here. But the Figureheads are out-of-this-world talented. Mixing glitchy, futuristic beats with thought-provoking, precise lyrics, this group really dosen’t sound like anyone else out right now. Both emcees in the group can rap their asses off—meaningful content, mind-blowing flows and intricate rhymes, but they never use that as a crutch; they challenge their listeners. The album is surprisingly melodic, and each song transcends the “rapping about rapping” aesthetic that has infected so much of underground hip hop.

8. Radiohead: In Rainbows

Had to include this, but everything that can be written about this band, this distribution method and this album has already been written. Thom Yorke’s voice is what you’d hear if you recorded both God and the Devil into ProTools and then played them back at the same time.

9. Pass

There have been a million albums this past year that I kind of wanted to hear, but when the time came to put up the money, I just couldn’t. They’re either hyped-up mainstream hip hop epics that promise to disappoint (Kanye, Jay-Z, Common, Ghost etc.) or indie hip hop masterpieces that’ll probably leave me bored (Blu and Exile, Little Brother, Kweli, Sage Francis, etc.). I’m not saying any of these albums were bad—after all, I haven’t heard them yet and they could be amazing. I’m just saying that, on a larger level, it’s getting hard to get excited about stuff these days because the standards are so LOW. As hip hop heads, we get overly excited for any mainstream hip hop album that isn’t absolute ringtone trash, or for any underground hip hop album that makes us feel like it’s 1993 again. I’m sure some of the artists I just mentioned parenthetically put out great albums this year—eventually I’ll get around to hearing them. I just wish I could be more excited about it.

10. Assorted Odds and Ends

“International Players’ Anthem” by UGK and Outkast is ridiculous. Definitely can’t get behind the lyrics (which is what knocked this out of its own point) but Andre’s been killing it all year and the beat is bonkers. “Coffee” by Aesop Rock is also great. The guest spot from John Darni3lle of the Mountain Goats really caps it off perfectly—we’re going to see more indie-rap/indie-rock collabos next year I’m sure (Cat Power was on the El-P album too). MIA is the future of pop music. New MC’s solo album was fresh. I have a weakness for melodrama too, and A Fine Frenzy’s “Almost Lover” is the jam in that regard. “Wow” at Prodigy’s “ABC;” best Mobb Deep beat in a long minute. Finally, let me just say that Gogol Bordello is the greatest thing ever in history.

x-post to dblecheeksneek

Perhaps those sources have sent Metacritic their lists but Metacritic does not consider them 'respected.' But even if they have not, you and I have a difference of opinion on whether Metacritic should be excused for not listing a wide variety of "best" lists that are currently out there (on this thread, even) and they could utilize. Also, as I touched on upthread there is the catch 22 syndrome where some publications, websites, etc. will not reach out to Metacritic or whomever themselves, because they think Metacritic does not care about them (rightly or wrongly).

"Had to include this, but everything that can be written about this band, this distribution method and this album has already been written."

hahaha

such a sad lil' sentence for some reason

dissimilar." That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Right. So...where did Los Lobos, Tom Ze, Howe Gelb, Subtle, Sarena-Maneesh, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and the Beatles (all in Metacritic's 2006 Top 25) finish in the Idolator and Pazz & Jop polls again?

(On the other hand, I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised that Alan Jackson was at #26 in Metacritic. Pretty neat -- good album, too. But still not in any way indicative of any kind of consensus, I don't think.)

I think a lot of "specialist" music crits just don't feel like they're part of some global conversation about the state of popular music each year, so would not see the purpose of contributing to Metacritic or J&P etc.

It's not necessarily a question of alienation or disenfranchisement, though that can be involved too.

It's a curiosity of rock critics that they routinely forget their own genre-focused context and assume they are speaking for and about music at large.

The "positive" flipside is that rock crit polls are probably more diverse than, say, dance crit polls, even if it only serves to reinforce a certain vein of token-eclecticism as being "the state of music today".

xp And if you want "intellectual honestly," I'll be honest -- the '06 Metacritic list is slightly more diverse than I would have expected. (And the consensus Alan Jackson's presence is indicative of is that, yeah, most people writing about his album apparently liked it -- though that doesn't necessarily mean it was among their favorites of the year.) But sorry, the only way Howe Gelb can finish that high is with a really insignificant sampling of critics -- if what you're looking for is a list of what most critics are leaning toward, names like his and Subtle's up there seem totally random, and kind of goofy.

Yep to Tim. Look at this posting on a Metacritic forum from a Metacritic Forum moderator in regards to a question about why Metacritic is so indie-rock:

Forum Moderator"
Jedi
Posted 10 April 2007 08:02 PM Hide Post

On top of that, most of us are here because we like different kind of music that people in the mainstream, or on TV, or even in our everyday lives don't listen to. The reason "why Metacritic is so Indie" goathouse, is that the people on here are people who really love good, genuinely solid music. Sometimes that includes some mainstream stuff but for the most part it doesn't. If we go to our local chain store and ask for the new Eluvium, The Twilight Sad, or Blonde Redhead albums they will look at us like we are crazy. Needless to say, all of those albums are terrific albums.

All excellent points, Tim F.

Anyway, it may be true that there aren't enough critics writing about the more specialized things I have in mind for their votes to really make a big difference in a pole like this.

There may also be less consensus among, say, world music critics (or metal critics, or new age critics, or Contemporary Christian critics, or whoever) themselves -- seeing how it's a really big world out there and stuff, (Which is to say that, even if they did participate to a greater extent in more generalist polls, they might not make a significant difference in the ultimate results.)

seeing how it's a really big world out there and stuff

Although it might help boost some things that are liked by some specialists but also have a small crossover critical following. But yeah, I do tend to agree.

did you already see the npr guy's world music top ten:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17249766

That list: zzzzzzz. (Maybe I just like complaining?)

I like that it has actual tracks to listen to (not that that's an original concept or anything).

haven't you been on the internet long enough to know where to go for good year-end shingo ringo countdowns and the like? there must be a list for everything these days.

Not really and not really. (Anyway, that's just one person, smark alek. I'm keeping that typo.)

FROOTS MAGAZINE POLL

http://www.frootsmag.com/content/critpoll/

see i'm already curious about that tinariwen album.

Artists' top ten lists from Billboard (including J. Darnielle, G. Dulli, etc.):

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2007/artists/index.html

"Readers' Choice" top ten from Billboard:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2007/readers/index.html

i like lists like these:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/babarm87/top_50_post_rock_albums_of_2007

i've heard maybe two of the albums and heard OF, like, five or six of the artists. haven't a clue about any of the rest.

Okay, I have to admit to liking some of these NPR tracks more than expected (although not in a must-have-that-album way).

Artists' top ten lists from Billboard (including J. Darnielle, G. Dulli, etc.)

LOL at Tom DeLonge's list

There's a kid who looks like Urkel who was dressed up as Run-DMC for Halloween. It was really cool and different.

I think one interesting thing about "indie" as a self-identifying marker is that, for all that I tend to disapprove of it, it covers a lot of music that doesn't necessarily sound similar - to the extent that M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem are "indie" anyway. The stuff that does well in these sorts of polls often strikes me as stuff which is being taken to heart in different ways by different audiences with different tastes - as Matos was noting upthread, LCD Soundsystem are effectively halfway down a traderoute where indie aesthetic impulses and dance aesthetic impulses meet and swap ideas, and they're received differently depending on which end of the route the trader calls home (which implies that, say, all dance music fans hear LCD Soundsystem the same way, or that people are always plotted on a continuum between indie and dance, or such a continuum is the only way to approach LCD Soundsystem - but lets leave these problems aside for a moment).

I guess one big reason why more obviously "genre" based music (be it dirty south rap or instrumental dance music or different stripes of "world music") is the tyranny of the genre marker itself. It's much harder for these musics to detach themselves from the genre to which they belong and participate in the kind of indie trade fair that treats James Murphy or M.I.A. so well because recognising the genre to which they belong is part of the point. It's much harder to say "I don't hear Daddy Yankee as reggaeton, I hear him as pop" than it is to say the same of M.I.A. vis a vis... well... the fact that it's not clear what would replace "reggaeton" in that phrase w/r/t M.I.A. is part of the point.

Certainly for all the non-guitar-rock stuff that does well within the collective indie critical mindset, it seems a certain aesthetic and stylistic rootlessness and malleability is quite a plus - precisely because it's hard to place M.I.A. or The Knife or the LCD Soundystem or Panda Bear within a milieux, they're much more easily absorbed into indie's self-proclaimed "international language of good music". But, crucially, it's the very vagueness of what this "international language" is or how it works that works in their favour here: you see different critics praising M.I.A. because she's political, because she has inventive "world" influenced beats, because she collaborates with Bun-B, because she's honest, because she's being ironic... Everyone's picking up on different things (some of them, I would argue from my own position, the wrong things) but the result is a consensus "this album is the best album of 2007" statement which seems much less interesting or incoherent.

Whereas when you do get what I'll call "milieux" music breaking through, the critical consensus around it (with regard to why it is good, why it deserves to be listed) always seems much more unanimous. There is a consensus as to the reasons for its quality as opposed to just as to its quality.

Pop Matters
This has perhaps the largest number of unique entries of any list, at least until The Wire comes out. It's refreshing to see Kweli, Monch and El-P get attention rather than Lil Wayne and UGK. However most of the unusual choices inspire doubt rather than excitement that I've discovered something new. An exception might be Alcest - Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde. I'll have to give The Good, the Bad & the Queen a relisten, however, as Reynolds also wrote an interesting take on it. I have to say I've been having much more fun absorbing his top ten than any other list so far (Moon Wiring Club, Focus Group, Sally Shapiro, Black Moth Super Rainbow).

01 Radiohead - In Rainbows
02 Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
03 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
04 Kanye West - Graduation
05 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
06 Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - It's Not Big, It's Large
07 The National - Boxer
08 Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
09 The Fratellis - Costello Music
10 M.I.A. - Kala
11 Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back
12 Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests
13 Mike Farris - Salvation in Lights
14 The Good, the Bad & the Queen
15 Ha Ha Tonka - Buckle in the Bible Belt
16 Talib Kweli - Ear Drum
17 The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism
18 Rahsaan Patterson - Wines and Spirits
19 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
20 Meshell Ndegeocello - The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams
21 Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destoyer?
22 Pharoahe Monch - Desire
23 Patty Griffin - Children Running Through
24 Dwight Yoakam - Dwight Sings Buck
25 SoCalled - Ghettoblaster
26 Feist - The Reminder
27 Bettye LaVette - The Scene of the Crime
28 Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
29 Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
30 The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
31 Shantel - Disko Partizani
32 Panda Bear - Person Pitch
33 Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
34 Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
35 Caribou - Andorra
36 El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
37 Terence Blanchard - A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina)
38 Battles - Mirrored
39 Okkerfil River - The Stage Names
40 Columbiafrica - The Mystic Orchestra - Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land
41 Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted
42 Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
43 Jay-Z - American Gangster
44 The New Pornographers - Challengers
45 The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
46 Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
47 PJ Harvey - White Chalk
48 Alcest - Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde
49 Manic Street Preachers - Send Away the Tigers
50 Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation
51 The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes
52 Liars
53 Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
54 St. Vincent - Marry Me
55 New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom
56 Blu & Exile - Below the Heavens
57 Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
58 Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
59 Eluvium - Copia
60 Gui Boratto - Chromophobia

Wow. Socalled Ghettoblaster? I'm surprised anyone had actually heard this.

i've heard maybe two of the albums and heard OF, like, five or six of the artists. haven't a clue about any of the rest.

yeah, who the fuck are all those bands?!

amazing album covers too.

i'm gonna look them all up.

haha awesome.

I like Omega Massif's slogan: "we would not play faster if we could."

i've been looking stuff up on youtube. some really pretty stuff. spacey stuff. the *Slow Six* video is very cool. the live *PG Lost* stuff is cool.

by the end of the year i am saying "stuff" a lot.

Artists' top ten lists from Billboard (including J. Darnielle, G. Dulli, etc.):

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2007/artists/index.html

lol at jessica simpson dropping "Hvarf/Heim" on her list

meanwhile, here is some of the indie rock i would be digging if i were paying attention. on some random rateyourmusic list i found by accident.

some of the godspeed-ish stuff isn't that hot. i like the sad pretty minimal stuff the best.

tim f. dropping some pretty interesting points

he's like that.

scott, here is my friends' post-rock band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54ZJp5pq9Y

somehow i got led to the shout out louds impossible remix and i am digging it a bunch

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kM69iMNdR60

and i like the original too:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NPQco3-7u5I

(Popmatters) has perhaps the largest number of unique entries of any list

This always seems to be the case. Sometimes, tho, I think they're horribly wrong on their selections. Still, it's nice to see a Year-End list that holds out hope of discovering something new and great.

see i'm already curious about that tinariwen album.

Great disc.

I think one interesting thing about "indie" as a self-identifying marker is that, for all that I tend to disapprove of it, it covers a lot of music that doesn't necessarily sound similar - to the extent that M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem are "indie" anyway.

Yeah. I think of "indie" as an aesthetic or approach to art, not a genre. If it's a genre, I can't imagine how it all fits into one tent.

i like lists like these:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/babarm87/top_50_post_rock_albums_of_2007
i've heard maybe two of the albums and heard OF, like, five or six of the artists. haven't a clue about any of the rest.

Definitely a humbling list. I think I've heard a lot of music, then this. I'll start from the top:

01 Caspian - The Four Trees
02 Scraps of Tape - This Is a Copy, Is This a Copy?
03 The World on Higher Downs - Land Patterns
04 The Six Parts Seven - Casually Smashed to Pieces
05 Grails - Burning Off Impurities
06 Tulsa Drone - Songs from a Mean Season
07 Efterklang - Under Giant Trees EP
08 65daysofstatic - The Destruction of Small Ideas
09 Immánu El - They'll Come, They Come
10 Johnnytwentythree - JXXIII
11 Ours to Alibi - Beacons
12 Joy Wants Eternity - You Who Pretend to Sleep
13 Stars of the Lid - Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline
14 Cue - Wedding Song
15 Holy Fuck - LP
16 Giants - They, The Undeserving
17 Do Make Say Think - You, You're a History in Rust
18 Eluvium - Copia
19 Battles - Mirrored
20 Balmorhea

Nice to see 65daysofstatic come out ahead of Battles for once.

"Yeah. I think of "indie" as an aesthetic or approach to art, not a genre. If it's a genre, I can't imagine how it all fits into one tent."

Is it even coherent enough to be an "aesthetic or approach to art" in a singular fashion?

In the sense that "indie" can apply to M.I.A., does it systematically stand for much more now than the claim "it has transcended genre"? (Thinking back momentarily to the M.I.A. wars, the anti-M.I.A. position was based in the (correct) anticipation that she would be embraced as transcending genre)

This is the interesting part about the term, which is its contradictory nature: it is a claim against genre which nonetheless contains a genre as its most pure expression (certain strains of guitar rock) (it is in this sense that indie as an organising principle is rockism par excellence).

despite its Southall-prompted production I found the 65dos album deadly boring

also, sotl = post-rock? I don't think so.

I still haven't figured out what the hell "post-rock" means.

post-rock is the rock that's happened since older rockers stopped paying attention and don't like it anymore. The line varies. Post-rock probably started in 1968 when Richard Meltzer started getting antsy but usually is meant for post-Sex Pistols / Clash stuff, since they, too , were the only bands that mattered...and then it goes from there...I think.

It's rock that doesn't want to associate with other rock because other rock has been mean to it...or thinks it wiil be mean to it if it meets.