Year-End Critics' Polls '07

Say Anything keeps growing on me. Not enough to make my list, but I do like it.

The album looked long and intimidating! And also, um, emo. So I never got around to it (assuming I ever actually saw a copy in the first place.)

t any decent external reason for disqualification makes it easier to narrow the field

Yeah, I kind of agree with this actually. But my own reasons for disqualification are totally inconsistent from year to year. (I.e., some years I'll include collections of never-before-compiled '70s stuff by Cleveland proto-punk bands or Taylor Swift albums technically released in the previous year, and sometimes I won't. Depends how much I like them, I guess, and what their competition is.)

I think it's kind of a disappointment compared to Is A Real Boy, personally.

Yeah, I keep listening to stuff on my list so I can hear a boring track and consign that album / song to the "close but no cigar" list. AL I FEEL YR PAIN.

And I can only remember one (1) song from Is a Real Boy, which is kind of a bummer considering how many times I listened to it. I love the epic scope of the new one, but I love lines like "Toss my caustic salad" even more.

I'm pretty sure that once again everyone's 11-20 list will be more "interesting" than their top ten.

Thrice AFAIK isn't Christian at all... but maybe they're more metal than emo.

I'm pretty sure that once again everyone's 11-20 list will be more "interesting" than their top ten.

I know that's always the case for me.

Time will tell with In Defense since it's newer, but it's got twice as many songs as Is A Real Boy and at most half as many that hit me upside the head in the same way.

Nothing on it is as good as Alive With the Glory of Love.

Mordy, Thrice is all about coded language -- might not be as obvious to you (or my kids). Maybe the new one is less Xian than that last record, which was still pretty and hooky.

I'm letting my kids fill out my singles ballot by the way. "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" will therefore be quite high on the list, as it deserves to be.

Nothing on it is as good as Alive With the Glory of Love.

-- Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:34 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Omg. I forgot about Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. Greatest song since Dick in a Box.

Oh, I think "Retarded in Love" and "Baby Girl, I'm a Blur" are easily as good. However, I'm pretty sure nothing touches "Hey, I Can Get Sexual Too."

Re: Thrice
I don't remember the last one... (Vizchau or something?), but the one that had Stare at the Sun on it? (Two ago maybe) I don't remember ANY Christian references on it... coded or not.

Well, okay then. I haven't listened to it since.

I love this quote:

Let's get this party started quickly. Journey sucks. They sucked in 1981, they'll suck in 2033, and they suck now. Who gives a fuck what Tony Soprano thinks?

-- Mordechai Shinefield, Monday, December 17, 2007 4:53 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, Jody R0sen must be all like "Oh, my ass. Thanks for handing it to me."

-- Dimension 5ive, Monday, December 17, 2007 5:08 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

no not really.

"not really" wot?

xgau is a fucking choad, to spell it out.

I think you meant to post that in the RONG thread.

Although it really doesn't matter if someone is a choad or not -- some of my nicest friends have crap taste in music.

But attempting to zing Xgau for hating Journey...no.

About voting for stuff from the previous year: On the one hand, I'm in favour of what people call the "personal impact" vote and damn-the-release-date technicalities. On the other hand, I do sometimes draw the line at stuff that I simply came late to, end of story. Stuff, in other words, that may have impacted ME in 2007, but which already impacted everyone else in 2006. My most-listened-to (and favourite) album of 2007 is the Clipse record from last year. But I simply got on the boat really late, so I don't see the point in voting for it. If it's something that I missed in 2006 and I feel that lots of other people missed it as well--those kinds of things feel more legit in a way. Maybe this is just silly, but that's kind of how I handle these ones. (And then you have cases like "Irreplacable," which I think you can make valid arguments for in both directions--had its strongest impact with critics last year, but radio played the shit out of it for the first few months in '07. For whatever reasons, I've decided to ignore it, in part, as someone else said above, because doing so makes it that much easier to whittle down my final 10.)

One of my top ten records is something I kind of dismissed this summer (I had a lot on my mind then) and came back to in the last few days. Got completely bowled over.

patting Xgau on the back for hating Journey isn't really any better, is the thing.

BTW, good for you, Matt. Always vote for what you love; who cares what some dorky indie fans may think? And now I'm curious about that Fefe record, too--see, da system works.

xp to Matt, obviously.

I'm too OCD to vote/list anything that first came out the previous year (unless it wasn't issued in the U.S. until this year or something like that), which is one reason why I wait until the last possible moment to "finish" my list, especially for the annual 4th quarter rush where the number of notable rap albums just about doubles in the space of a month. A lot of those albums get lost in the critical shuffle, and I try to at least see if they're worth acknowledging right away, since I know they'll be a distant memory a year later.

I AM NOT SALUTING XGAU FOR HATING JOURNEY. I JUST MADE A COMMENT ABOUT HOW HE COMPLETELY SLAMMED J.ROSEN FOR ASSUMING THAT A 25 YEAR OLD SONG IS SOMEHOW SONG OF THE YEAR BECAUSE IT WAS IN THE SOPRANOS. I don't even know if I agree with him -- it was just a good burn. That is all.

Always vote for what you love; who cares what some dorky indie fans may think?

Rather. My number one album, head and shoulders above anything else, is VNV Nation's Judgement, which I think *nobody* talked about anywhere outside the band's preexisting fanbase.

Ned, thanks for the recommendation. I'm listening to Illusion at the moment. AMAZING.

yeah i never heard of these guys, now i have. THAT is what year-end lists are about, for me.

Amen.

I am going to have to make room for the new Lupe Fiasco album on my list, could very well be my favorite hip-hop album of the year. "Little Weaon" is absolutely fantastic, and produced by Patrick Stump no less!

yeah i never heard of these guys, now i have. THAT is what year-end lists are about, for me.

yes!

I'm kind of with Scott on previous-year releases, actually -- i.e., I wasn't kidding, this year I'm voting for Taylor Swift, whose album I believe came out in late Oct '06, but which experienced most of its hit radio action and sales in '07. (Which means I'm far from the only person with whom it had its greatest impact in '07.) I also considered voting for Lily Allen, which came out in the UK (and placed in both P&J and Idolator polls, I believe) in '06 but didn't come out in the U.S. until '07; ultimately decided it sounded a little too thin to belong on my top ten, but I also think the fact that lots of critics had already latched on to it last year, putting me behind the curve, was at least partially a consideration for me not putting it on my ballot. (On the other hand, I won't be surprised if finishes on the big lists again this year -- And Amy Winehouse, whose album also came out in the UK in '06 if I'm not mistaken, will definitely get a lot more votes this year than last.) (I have no use for her myself, but that's besides the point.)

Still, as the deadline for these polls get earlier and earlier (as Xgau said in the same Slate screed where he wrongly if entertainingly dismissed Journey, it's impossible by definition to name your favorite '07 albums when '07 hasn't even ended yet), I really think late-year releases get the shaft if you don't let yourself include them the next year. Plus, I have this weird idea that albums are meant to be lived with, a little; sometimes it takes more than a few months (and maybe a couple hit singles) to figure out how good an album is. (But that idea seems to be stupidly going by the wayside, now that publications are all anal-compulsively committed to running reviews on release dates, and now that albums leak months in advance so often.)

Plus, I have this weird idea that albums are meant to be lived with, a little; sometimes it takes more than a few months (and maybe a couple hit singles) to figure out how good an album is.

Yeah, and I even think this applies to singles sometimes. It's not always that obvious how good (or bad) a song is in the first few weeks or even months.

I don't totally get why the Idolator cutoff is Dec. 21. I guess it's because they feel the need to publish not too late in the new year, which is understandable. From a purely practical (and selfish) perspective, it's a thousand times easier to pull comments together in the week between Christmas and New Years (even tho' I'm working pretty much the entire week---just having the impending Christmas day out of the way makes a world of difference). I'm glad eye weekly in Canada kept their due date in early Jan.

I don't totally get why the Idolator cutoff is Dec. 21

The "first equals best" fallacy, I assume? In Idolator's first year, it wanted to gain visibility by beating P&J to the web, which is I guess understandable. Only problem is, this year, P&J seems to have moved up its ballot deadline to match Idolator. So what happens next year? Ballots due by Thanksgiving??

ballots for iowa voters due by february.

I'll vote for stuff released in the U.S. in 2007, if it impacted me most in 2007, even if it came out elsewhere in the world in 2006. Like, for instance, Fujiya and Miyagi. Or, in 2005, Feist's Let It Die.

I AM NOT SALUTING XGAU FOR HATING JOURNEY. I JUST MADE A COMMENT ABOUT HOW HE COMPLETELY SLAMMED J.ROSEN FOR ASSUMING THAT A 25 YEAR OLD SONG IS SOMEHOW SONG OF THE YEAR BECAUSE IT WAS IN THE SOPRANOS. I don't even know if I agree with him -- it was just a good burn. That is all

While it was spectacularly grumpy, I didn't find Xgau's comeback to be all that devastating. Rosen actually offered more reasons why Journey is still relevant in '07 than just the fact it appeared in the Sopranos. I don't think anyone can doubt Rosen's point, which is that the song has survived in the popular consciousness much better than other songs which received more critical laudits that year. The song is still played frequently by DJs and cover bands, and young crowds seem to love it, from what I've seen.

Staying in the public conciousness can't be the test. Lots of ireally bad songs linger in the public's mind.

Having said that, I love Journey's singles. Not even ashamed of it. The harmonies draw me in, S. Perry has a great voice (which -- in 80s style -- he uses to wail without a hint of irony or self-consiousness) and they knew how to write disposable pop/rock songs with real drama to them.

Also, hearing Journey reminds me of being young. Fewer and fewer things do. And I'm only a little ashamed of that being one of the reasons I like Journey.

I think that a song that is still widely played, covered, and downloaded some 25 years later must have something going for it. Sure a critic is still entitled to consider it a bad song, but even then, there must be something that differentiates it from all the other bad songs that fade quickly from memory.

xp

Well, that was part of Xgau's point -- that hearing the drama in Journey songs reminds Tony Soprano of being young too, and that's not enough. (And I say that as somebody who has defended Journey -- including reviews of four reissues in Rolling Stone last year -- as much as anybody. And somebody who still thinks "Don't Stop Believin'" is an even better single than either "O Superman" or "Start Me Up," though Xgau did present good arguments about why both of those '81 songs still matter, too.)

Yeah, I get that. I'm just being candid about the (somewhat flimsy) basis for my liking Journey.

I loved Journey ("Wheel in the Sky," etc.) when I was in junior high and hated them by high school -- any lingering "awwwww" moments I might have are all negated by watching my friend Amy dissolve into bitter tears every time Journey came on the radio because it reminded her of being dumped by this guy Danny. And Journey came on the radio, like, A LOT.

Not that that adds to the discourse at all. Just saying.

Hey, I was in High School when Journey was popular. My name is ''Danny.'' I knew an Amy in school.

I might have been the villian in your story, except for the fact that I couldn't get a date in High School if I waltzed into a women's prison with a fistful of furlows.

Well you had about as much chance with Amy as I did then! JOURNEY YOU COCKBLOCKING BASTARDS I HATE YOU, even though it probably wasn't your fault.

Much better memories of "Oh Sherry" though! That shouty opening!

"Our love....HOOOOOOOOOOOLDS ON!"

(And thanks for the comments upthread, all -- sorry, kept forgetting to check back in on this thread, it got busy here at work!)

I played this wedding recently, and these drunk 19 yr old girls bum-rushed the stage and started singing "Don't Stop Believin'"! I was not believin' it. It was fuckin' relevant.

I just think it's funny how post-Sopranos "Believin'" is being treated as if it wasn't an evergreen radio staple the whole time. it's not like "Tiny Dancer" or something where suddenly pop culture elevates it from minor hit status to one of the artist's most popular songs.