"Is it rolling, Bob?": aka the 2008 P&J/Idolator trolling thread

hopefully Chinese Democracy will more than make up for the year's deficiencies. ;^)

dr. phil, are you formerly "unperson"?

This is a pretty stinky year for music. Especially disappointing after a very strong 2007.

every fucking year we got this nonsense

Dr. Phil is not Unperson.

ok, thx

Was wondering about token metal/hard rock finishers, too: Harvey Milk? Made Out of Babies? Metallica?? Guns N Roses???

― xhuxk, Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:14 PM (2 days ago) Bookm

I'm betting Made Out of Babies. "Weird" without being too weird, which the others can't really claim. Or maybe I've just heard the Harvey Milk too many times.

I don't get Chuck's "all hipsters like Made Out Of Babies" thread from a while back. The only hipsters I know that like them are, like, me and skot. none of the hip mags or BLOLGS cover them really that i've seen...

My bets for top ten (no order): H&LA, VW, TVotR, Wayne, Badu, Foxes, Portishead, Kanye?, Santogold?, Hold Steady?, Bad Seeds?, Randy Newman in token fogey slot?

kanye won't come out in time

the only competition for wayne are badu and tvotr in albums and maybe "blind" for singles

there isn't a pop song that's going to crossover "umbrella" style more than "a milli" and there isn't an indie song that's going to galvanize like "all my friends"

i don't see how "a milli" doesn't win this year

maybe vampire weekend for albums but i think they are too handicapped by haterz to break out of the 3-5 range

xp Really? I've seen a lot of praise for it on ILX/blogs, I guess, but I don't see what's so special about it, and it certainly doesn't feel like it had as wide a pop-cultural impact as the last couple of P&J winners ("Rehab," "Crazy").

yeah idk about p&j but i think it will certainly take idolator at the very least by default

i just dunno what else is galvanizing tons of people this year besides wayne and that's his best, big single

This has been a great year for metal, relatively boring year (so far) for rap, and a mildly entertaining year for chart pop.

I can't tell how "I Kissed a Girl" will place. It seems like it is that kind of zeitgeisty pop culture song that often get rewarded in year-end polls (it's merited a SNL parody, for instance), but so many people hate it.

I reckon MGMT will do very well indeed. It's probably the closest thing to a consensus pick for people this year, I hear it absolutely everywhere. Much much much more than Vampire Weekend.

iirc crank dat got one vote in idolator last year xp

yeah i forgot about mgmt

I don't really see where Wayne = default #1 for either format, although I'm sure the album and "A Milli" will place top ten and "Lollipop" will place top 20.

"Crank Dat" got 8 votes in Idolator and placed at #51

I reckon MGMT will do very well indeed. It's probably the closest thing to a consensus pick for people this year, I hear it absolutely everywhere. Much much much more than Vampire Weekend.

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― Tim F, Wednesday, October 29, 2008 10:03 PM Bookmark

Is this an Aussie oddity? As far as I know I haven't heard MGMT, where I hear VW about occasionally.

Vampire Weekend plays very well in parts of the critical world that aren't OMG INTERNET STFU NOOB all the time: rockist print guys and newspaper d00ds who are ALWAYS well-represented in P&J

Also, remember that haterz don't really count for anything.

OTM

yeah i guess i meant that i expect that vampire weekend will have lots of 1-5 placements but not a lot of 6-10 ones since most people either really like them or really hate them

ive got nothing to corroborate that assumption obv

Ha ha I hear about Vampire Weekend but never hear them played.

MGMT actually got to number 6 in our national album charts which suggests maybe it is an Oz oddity.

I like Vampire Weekend btw.

I should probably point out here that there won't be another Idolator poll. The last one nearly killed me.

Like a few others here, I'll wager Lil Wayne wins album and "Paper Planes" and "A Milli" photo-finish for single.

kanye won't come out in time

― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Thursday, October 30, 2008 12:39 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it'll be out late November and probably leaked before then, so people will have well over a month to digest it by the time these ballots are due. not that I think it'll make the top 10, Graduation barely did (6 on P&J and 8 on Idolator) and that was much more of a sure thing, but time isn't really the issue.

I don't think "I Kissed A Girl" will do anything, big big hits on that level get met with indifference on these polls all the time and get like just enough votes to crack the top 100.

xpost - bummer to hear no more Idolator poll! I was wondering why I hadn't heard any internal rumblings about it yet.

yeah i forgot kanye got pushed up to november but no one can make an accurate judgment about an album in one month (esp one that will be as divisive as 808s) so it might make the top 10 if people wildly inflate their opinions or it might be embarrassingly low if opinion goes the other way

some people can't make an accurate judgement in one year, myself included sometimes, but fuck it, i'm grabbing albums off the shelves and changing my list on Christmas eve most years. granted, there doesn't seem to be a very strong history of November/December releases placing on P&J but these days big releases run their course much quicker and I think if people feel strongly about something that wouldn't hold it back. the buzz on 808s is pretty damn bad outside of ILM and, like, universecity comments sections, though, I think even the inevitable defenders will be a small group.

u probably right

i'm jealous of your short post, i want to make one too.

MGMT actually got to number 6 in our national album charts which suggests maybe it is an Oz oddity.

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― Tim F, Wednesday, October 29, 2008 10:49 PM Bookmark

Yeah, they only placed at #60 in the US. (VW's album reached #17.)

some dude, u from baltimore?

matos, :^(

i dunno, call me an old fogey but, like Chuck, i just can't see Portishead placing top ten (particularly in light of Matos' unhappy news), and the Hold Steady "love" doesn't seem all that enthusiastic to me. otherwise, all y'all are probably way otm as per usual.

some dude = alex in baltimore

oh boy! right agin'.

I don't get Chuck's "all hipsters like Made Out Of Babies" thread from a while back

Uh, maybe because I never said that (or started a thread to that effect)? Though who know, maybe I did over-estimate their hipster appeal regardless.

i meant rhapsody article (plus I phrased it wrong)

Though admittedly awarded a mere “8” out of “10” in Decibel, The Ruiner – the third album from Brooklyn’s three-guy, one-grrrl Made Out of Babies – seems destined to wind up the '08 metal album of choice for, at very least, self-consciously hip young people who don’t listen to metal a whole lot. Some of them, predictably enough, even deny it’s a metal album at all.

All, I'm saying is, I think 2008 might go without a token hipster-endorsed metal album. Metallica will be the highest ranked metal album for sure, but I think any of the stuff that hipsters will stump for (Harvey Milk, Boris, Genghis Tron) probably won't place at all and none of them saw the heat that Mastodon, SunnO))) and Pig Destroyer saw in their respective years.

though Made Out Of Babies and Torche deserve more love than they get, IMHO

My bets for top ten (no order): H&LA, VW, TVotR, Wayne, Badu, Foxes, Portishead, Kanye?, Santogold?, Hold Steady?, Bad Seeds?, Randy Newman in token fogey slot?

Bad Seeds? Really?? Has Nick Cave ever done that good in P&J? I realize his critic appeal has inexplicably risen as his music has gotten even more boring in recent years (believe me, back in Birthday Party and even Kicking Against The Pricks days, almost no U.S. critics gave a shit, which actually used to bug me back then oddly enough), but Top 10 still seems like an extreme longshot to me.

(Though on the other hand, wasn't the Cave album like a #1 album in England or something? That really surprised me, though maybe his albums always do that well there, and I just never noticed before. Not sure how that would translate to Pazz & Jop votes either way, though.)

I don't think "I Kissed A Girl" will do anything, big big hits on that level get met with indifference on these polls all the time and get like just enough votes to crack the top 100.

Not sure I buy this. I'm not going to go back and do granular research on the issue, but it seems to me that, in the past, similiarly inescpabale new wavey novelty-type hits (whatever you can say about "I Kissed a Girl," you can't say it's generic) have generally picked up enough votes to at least place toward the bottom of the Top 30 or 40. Just like with Vampire Weekend (and maybe Black Kids?), the fact that lots of critics hate Katy Perry won't count against her Pazz & Jop wise. But we'll see.

mgmt was pretty huge here rev, which i can ascertain from the fact that ive heard that song a million times unintentionally which doesnt happen too often w/ indie rock favs

according to metacritic:

1 Steinski: What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective 90
2 The Bug: London Zoo 90
3 Plush: Fed 89
4 Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago 89
5 TV On The Radio: Dear Science, 88
6 Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes 87
7 Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! 87
8 Robyn: Robyn 86
9 Hercules And Love Affair: Hercules And Love Affair 86
10 Protest The Hero: Fortress 86

jeez, i've heard all of two of those.

― THE TOWER OF HUMANOID ANTIBODIES!!! (Ioannis), Sunday, October 26, 2008 11:38 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wtf didnt that plush album come out like 3 years ago???

Re MGMT, "Electric Feel" is an even bigger hit here than "Time To Pretend". And the second song on the album ("Weekend Wars" I think??) has been used in a massive, inescapable ad campaign. It's weird.

new wavey novelty-type hits...have generally picked up enough votes to at least place

A couple Ting Tings singles (not nearly as inescapable as Perry but they actually got modern rock airplay in the States) could benefit from this principle, too. (And maybe even their album, too, though I kinda doubt that.)

The only deserving winner:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/extendedplay/images/2007/11/20/swift300.jpg

Hmmm...so maybe she'll win the Miranda Lambert Memorial Wish I Would Have Voted For Her Superior Debut Album Award after all.