Year-End Critics' Polls '07

another good 'un last year was Tim Hecker's Harmony in Ultraviolet at, what?, 13, 14 or something? such a great record.

I don't think I would like Andy Palacio's sound, either. I wish I had a name for that general style, but there is a sort of very sweet, light-sounding, acoustic roots music that I am really not into. (It's definitely not just about acoustic, or even quiet acoustic, since I'm quite happy to listen to solo oud, for instance.)

Bachata - Roja

I don't understand what this is. There is a group just called Bachata? Something is wrong.

More likely, it's this compilation, which looks awesome, actually:

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7521513

I would like to see more historical compilations of bachata and merengue. (Maybe merengue even more because it's gone through such radical changes in instrumentation over the years.)

Pitchfork's best tracks of 2007.

List: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47681-staff-list-top-100-tracks-of-2007/page_1

Individual staff lists: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/47485-staff-list-2007-individual-tracks-lists

From Jody Rosen's list in Slate:

23. Mickey Avalon, "Jane Fonda"

I no longer feel alone.

To expand on that last post: Jody Rosen , Ann Powers and Christgau are discussing the year over at Slate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2179977/entry/2179978/

I love the fact that Christgau has an 80GB iPod.

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?

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

Metacritic cobbling most/all '07 lists together here.

"Most/All," I do not think so. from their site: Since its inception, Metacritic has provided a cross-section of reviews from a carefully-screened group of the most respected critics

Simon Reynolds' year-end thoughts.

here's the more exact link.

How did I miss the fact that Kevin Ayers has a new record out?

is it just me or is everyone putting the paper planes remix w/ bun b and rich boy on their lists and not the original? and if so why?????

http://www.grounduphiphop.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/bunb3.jpg

its such a boring/lazy verse tho.

because crits are still desperate for links between M.I.A. and US rap to help fill out their thesis papers about here.

here=her

"Most/All," I do not think so. from their site: Since its inception, Metacritic has provided a cross-section of reviews from a carefully-screened group of the most respected critics

-- curmudgeon, Monday, December 17, 2007 6:34 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

from a stars of the lid review they used:
"I think that there are to many strange instruments in each song"
"It’s not like Stars of the Lid’s previous efforts where filled with booming dynamics and a wide variety of sounds"

"Most/All," I do not think so.

When you have a moment, kindly direct your exacting attention to Metacritic's 2006 aggregator and you'll see that the 2007 list, like those before it, will reflect "critic top ten lists...as they appear."

Furthermore, I said cobbling, not cobbled. In other words, ongoing process, not finished product.

eRading is fudnamental.

x-post

Ha. I am sure they very carefully selected that review. The idea of Metacritic has always seemed better to me than the actual thing. They never incorporate a wide enough musical spectrum for me.

Frieze magazine has a Jace Clayton year in review essay and a conversation between Simon Reynolds and Ann Powers

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/music_3/

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/music_2/

ilx will have its own poll this year, won't it?

-- Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, December 4, 2007

yeah, it should. someone always puts something together...

-- Bee OK, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 04:07 (1 week ago) Link

I was thinking about starting one soon, since no one has done it yet...maybe even starting it before 2008 is half over. I might make it top 25 instead of top 50, though.

Metacritic never incorporates a wide enough musical spectrum for me.

Example of what they miss(ed)?

Oh come on, the biases are obvious in the resulting list.

That's not an answer.

There is a ton of international music that doesn't have a chance--because it's not good, obviously.

Do you want genres or artists or what? When I look at that list I mostly see indie rock, metal, some other rock, electronic/"dance" music, hip-hop I guess (though I imagine hip-hop fans would complain about their selection there), and a smattering of jazz. Go read some jazz or world music or better yet, region-specific or "world" music genre specific, end of the year lists. Has all that stuff been considered and found inferior inferior to Feist or Radiohead or whomever? I don't think so.

(Or modern classical. . .)

They only scratch the surface of metal - the Dillinger Escape Plan for instance. Most of the major metal releases of the year aren't in there.

A lot of the ratings and rankings on Metacritic are horseshit, but I'm not entirely convinced that that has more to do with Metacritic's selection of publications and critics than the opinions of the publications and critics available for them to select from.

the opinions of the publications and critics available for them to select from.

I know that some newspapers reviews can be found via Lexis/Nexis and not google and vice/versa. I bet, even in this day and age, you can also find some reviews in printed form that are not online and provided to Metacritic. But it also appears that Metacritic does not reach out and try to include non-indie rock reviews.

I'd be more ineterested in what Metacritics users top of 2007 are than seeing a list where Rolling Stone voted. Rolling Stone gave a higher score to Blackout than they did Strawberry Jam, haha!

their scores on moves & games usually seem pretty accurate, books and music seem totally random/arbitrary.

Rolling Stone gave a higher score to Blackout than they did Strawberry Jam

So?

A lot of the ratings and rankings on Metacritic are horseshit,

Agreed. Not so sure I agree with the rest of Alex's post, though, or even what it means -- so, they're horseshit because the critics have the wrong opinions? I don't get that. (To me, their main limitation has always seemed to be in the kinds of albums they decide to include on their site -- and also, their tendency to subjectively, and often seemingly arbitrarily, translate non-numerical reviews into numerical scores, which doesn't always work.)

Anyway, Billboard Critic Picks (and top ten):

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

x-post

If someone can point us to something from Metacritic that is taken from a Latin Beat magazine review, or a Rio De Janeiro newspaper review, I would like to see it.

Respectfully, Rockist, your argument is at best specious: what list aggregator gives international music (whatever that means) its due?

As a counterpoint: the Village Voice surveyed approximately 500 critics and its '06 list closely resembles the list of many other publications (as well as the Metacritic Aggregate). But! BUT! If one digs a little deeper and cross-references the data from which the Voice culls its list, won't one find the critics that practice their love of international music. Can't one create their own aggregate list with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-P and a spreadsheet? Too much heavy lifting?

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)?

Are you (and curmudgeon or Simon H) honestly disappointed that something like Fabric 36 (or the modern classical or metal you dug this past year) didn't make the "big list"? If it had, doesn't that selection make the ranked music that much more likely to finds its way into the background of your local Starbucks? I, for (and likely not the only) one, am glad I only hear "my music" at my choosing and not someone else's. That I read about in certain places and not everywhere.

But let's have at it, let's make all music we individually cherish popular (i.e., well-ranked, because that's important at the end of the day) and see if we don't end up somewhere like this:

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/elitistdiagram740black.gif

PopMatters top 60 albums of the year:
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/52152/the-best-albums-of-2007

Village Voice surveyed approximately 500 critics and its '06 list closely resembles... the Metacritic Aggregate).

Is this even true, though? I haven't looked at Metacritic much this year, so maybe it's opened up somewhat, but when I was running the Voice poll, Metacritic's site always skewed way more indie-rock than Pazz & Jop. Which is why I always found it laughable when people based predictions for Pazz & Jop placements on Metacritic placements -- there were way too many records that Metacritic ignored, or charted way too high based on a limited, insular number of reviews, or whatever. If that's changed, though, more power to them.

I don't like the idea that people think Metacritic is a reliable list aggregator when it clearly is not. This also ties in with what Deej was calling the priveleging of indie-rock in a posting on the SFJ thread. While I recognize that some artists may never make the "big list" (whatever that is) it still dissapoints me. I would love to hear a wide variety of sounds at my local Starbucks and on commercial radio stations and on MTV and wherever. As noted upthread, I have pestered M. Matos at Idolator this year and others (the Voice) in prior years to offer a wider spectrum.

If someone can point us to something from Metacritic that is taken from a Latin Beat magazine review, or a Rio De Janeiro newspaper review, I would like to see it.

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.

xpost - I hope Ali Farka Toure topping Metacritic's '06 list isn't lost on Rockist, or anyone else, for that matter.

The major flaw with Metacritic is that it treats the ratings for, let's say, "Untrue" (91 with 13 reviews) and "In Rainbows" (88 with 40 reviews) without the quantity of reviews as a consideration.

major systemic flaw, that is, not taking into account the other stuff

I don't like the idea that people think Metacritic is a reliable list aggregator when it clearly is not. This also ties in with what Deej was calling the priveleging of indie-rock in a posting on the SFJ thread. While I recognize that some artists may never make the "big list" (whatever that is) it still dissapoints me. I would love to hear a wide variety of sounds at my local Starbucks and on commercial radio stations and on MTV and wherever. As noted upthread, I have pestered M. Matos at Idolator this year and others (the Voice) in prior years to offer a wider spectrum.

-- curmudgeon, Monday, December 17, 2007 4:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I agree. It annoys the shit out of me that Jay-Z's second worst album is the only hip hop album with "universal acclaim" on Metacritic's music page right now. But my beef is first with the many many critics who are wrong, and second with the aggregator that only slightly exaggerates the unanimity of their wrong opinions.

ilx will have its own poll this year, won't it?

-- Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, December 4, 2007

yeah, it should. someone always puts something together...

-- Bee OK, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 04:07 (1 week ago) Link

I was thinking about starting one soon, since no one has done it yet...maybe even starting it before 2008 is half over. I might make it top 25 instead of top 50, though.

-- musically, Monday, December 17, 2007 8:11 PM (57 minutes ago)

yeah, do it please! we need one on this board and for it not to come out in March 2008.

xpost - I hope Ali Farka Toure topping Metacritic's '06 list isn't lost on Rockist, or anyone else, for that matter.

It's not lost on me, and he's very much an exceptional crossover "world music" release. (See Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on Spin's best albums of the 90s list, for another example.)

I have to continue this later.

It annoys the shit out of me that Jay-Z's second worst album is the only hip hop album with "universal acclaim" on Metacritic's music page right now. But my beef is first with the many many critics who are wrong, and second with the aggregator that only slightly exaggerates the unanimity of their wrong opinions.

But again, if metacritic included more hip-hop critics and publications with the (cough, cough) "right" opinions, wouldn't that go a ways toward solving the problem? Why let the aggregator off the hook?

Not letting them off the hook, just said that ultimately I care more about the data they're drawing from, not how they're drawing it. And I was being mostly tongue in cheeck about the "wrong" thing (although American Gangster really is not that good).

Because xhuxk might break a nail...

Metacritic Aggregate '06

02. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits
03. Modern Times by Bob Dylan
04. Hell Hath No Fury by Clipse
05. Return To Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio
07. Fishscale by Ghostface Killah
14. Boys And Girls In America by The Hold Steady
15. Ys by Joanna Newsom
20. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case

The Voice P&J '06

01. Modern Times by Bob Dylan
02. Return To Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio
03. Fishscale by Ghostface Killah
04. Boys And Girls In America by The Hold Steady
05. St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley
06. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not by Arctic Monkeys
07. Hell Hath No Fury by Clipse
08. Fox Confessor Brings The Flood by Neko Case
09. Ys by Joanna Newsom
10. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits