snoop dogg smh .gif @ empire state of mind
― a hoy hoy, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 09:48 (fourteen years ago) link
I kinda disapprove of any votes for Daniel Merriweather's "Impossible".
― Tim F, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 09:52 (fourteen years ago) link
its forks. what can u say.dap for voting "own step" though, i dig that song
― not a playa but i ilx a lot (deej), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 09:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Lady Gaga had three singles in the top thirteen and scored votes for seventeen (!!) different songs (and nine of those seventeen were received multiple votes). There has to be a P&J record in there somewhere, right?
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 10:54 (fourteen years ago) link
lol I've only just seen these. thanks, australian open, for distracting me. horrendous. get better taste, critics.
btw, i hate it when people justify their love of "empire state of mind" by citing its huge hook, as though a) we didn't already know that it has a huge hook - it doesn't exactly hide this, b) no other songs had huge hooks in 2009. i mean yeah there's a hollow power there but one of the TEN best songs of the year? i mean, no way. even its boosters mostly admit that jay-z is shit on it!
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 11:23 (fourteen years ago) link
and you know, if you want big alicia keys drama, she did "try sleeping with a broken heart" herself in 2009 too.
biffed in the bean by Julian Casablancas's microphone stand
― I think ur a probotector (cozen), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:15 (fourteen years ago) link
i don't think they're doing pazz and jop this year. budget cuts.― scott seward, Friday, November 6, 2009 11:24 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― scott seward, Friday, November 6, 2009 11:24 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
if only
― the not-metal one (Ioannis), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:24 (fourteen years ago) link
hi guys! What's an empire state of mind and how can I buy one?
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:28 (fourteen years ago) link
My annual whine--Not enough critics who listen to stuff other than indie rock participate in the Pazz & Jop poll. The P & J poobahs every year say they reach out to be fully inclusive with the electorate, but it seems some folks who write about non-indie can't be bothered to be part of this or are somehow unaware of the poll. I've tried to encourage fellow writers in the past, but did not do so this year.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:44 (fourteen years ago) link
^^this is becoming my regular whine too.
on the plus side, great essays from maura, chuck and rich juzwiak.
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I think the indie-centric nature of the list has been overstated a bit ... I see a lot of fashionable consensus picks at the top (e.g. Phoenix, Animal Collective) but a fairly wide variety of genres represented on the list overall.
I usually complain about the lack of techno on the list, but I understand that it's a fringe genre when you look at the big picture, and am generally happy to see which two or three other people voted for the albums I picked. This year, the dance music hivemind picked Joy Orbison (#20 on the singles list), and even though I'm ambivalent about that single, I find it more interesting to study the consensus that forms within a fringe genre than the consensus that forms around Phoenix being in the top 10 in every publication.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Glenn's stats mash ups...
All idols 2009http://www.furia.com/all-idols/2009/"All·Idols is an autopsy of the album ballots from the 2009 Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll. For All·Idols purposes all ranking and point-weighting is ignored; a vote is a vote."
Winners · All Albums · Similarity · Kvltosis Voters · Centricity · Similarity
including:
Most Eccentric Voters0.000 Kerry Dexter0.000 Nana Brew-Hammond0.000 Todd Burns0.000 Viva Las Vegas0.000 William Ruhlmann0.001 David Royko0.001 J Poet0.002 Angela Sawyer0.002 Scott Seward0.004 Justin Farrar0.004 Ken Roseman0.004 Nathan Birk0.005 Stewart Voegtlin0.006 Carol Cooper0.006 Glenn McDonald0.007 Miles Marshall Lewis0.008 David M Snyder0.008 Phil Freeman0.009 Mike Wolf0.010 Anthony Mariani0.010 Bryan Reesman0.012 Jace Clayton0.012 Will Romano0.013 Eric Arnold
― djmartian, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I think the indie-centric nature of the list has been overstated
It's not overstated at all, because it's never happened before, not even close. (But yeah, as I said in my essay, the list gets somewhat less Pitchforky -- and slightly less indie -- past the Top 10. But I doubt the Top 40 has ever been near this indiecentric before, either.)
Surprised nobody else has noted that there are three metal albums in the Top 25 -- which is far and away the best showing for metal in Pazz & Jop, ever. I mentioned it in passing in my essay, but I would have thought that would have deserved an essay of its own. I guess not.
Love Scott Seward's ballot -- for all I know, he made all of these albums up -- but I'm kind of sad he didn't vote for Kid Sister!
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2009/685429
And here's one reason Lady Gaga got so many diverse singles votes:
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2009/685630
― xhuxk, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:27 (fourteen years ago) link
was pazz and jop published early this year? as the official Stats Guru/Savior was Glenn McDonald
― djmartian, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:31 (fourteen years ago) link
No, it wasn't published early, I actually did the data-correction and tabulation for real this year, not after the fact. (You can read more about that here if you're interested.)
Matthew Schnipper's ballot originally contained 10 votes for Girls, not just the one.
The-Dream got only 8 votes last year.
Here's a consolidated Gucci Mane report, and a similar one for Lady Gaga.
And as always, I'm happy to try to do any other extractions or calculations that anybody wonders about.
― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:50 (fourteen years ago) link
notice the ilm joke about GAPDY consensus it's statistically proven
GAPDY in order APYDG
http://www.furia.com/all-idols/2009/index.html
# votes album1 154 Animal Collective · Merriweather Post Pavilion2 139 Phoenix · Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix3 114 Yeah Yeah Yeahs · It's Blitz!4 108 Dirty Projectors · Bitte Orca5 106 Grizzly Bear · Veckatimest
― djmartian, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:52 (fourteen years ago) link
The explorable version of the poll data here has several more views on it, including this voter-overlap for the top 10 albums...
― glenn mcdonald, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 13:59 (fourteen years ago) link
btw, i hate it when people justify their love of "empire state of mind" by citing its huge hook, as though a) we didn't already know that it has a huge hook - it doesn't exactly hide this, b) no other songs had huge hooks in 2009.
Obviously everyone knows it has a huge hook. I'm not saying that as a nudge, like "hey did you ever notice this hook?" I'm just saying that that's a big part of why I like the song -- which I thought was worth mentioning in response to people criticizing the song for its lyrics or general attitude. Also, I agree with you that other songs had huge hooks in 2009. Some of those songs I like better than "Empire State of Mind," some of them I don't like as much.
― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:24 (fourteen years ago) link
The poll and comments are boring (Maura's excepted), the way people are down on r & b and think a bad year is sign of a greater trend. TOO NEGATIVE and why would you want all that negativity when you are buying music. Also I personally was underwhelmed by a lot of artists at the tops of these polls.
Seems to me a lot of people are still having trouble wrt internet and music. I don't see why the internet is such an obstacle for some people, back in the old days, most people relied on RADIO to get their music, conceptually the internet isn't much different, it's just that the variety is much greater.
I consume music on the internet in much the same way I consumed it when I was a kid: flipping the dials, if I am sick of one style, I go to another one. This poll seems so press-oriented and out of touch with how most people get their music these days.
― Lawn Cheney (u s steel), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Also, I like unperson's all-Latin ballot, this is the future in the USA, better get used to it.
― Lawn Cheney (u s steel), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:30 (fourteen years ago) link
mike powell's anco essay is typically well-written but (and i'm sure he realizes this) functions just as well as an argument against them as it does an argument for them.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I think what finally made "New York State of Mind" finally click with me was hearing it in a bunch of different settings, it just sounded huge and anthemic - a quality that seems to have been missing from hip-hop for a while now (cue the autogoon crew popping up with dozens of refs to "anthemic" Gucci mixtape moments). I liked how bold and brash it sounded, that's all. Wasn't my single of the year, in fact it wasn't even top five. It just had a quality that a lot of other rap singles have been missing. I mean, all you guys complaining about swag, this isn't Jay's young man swag, this is "fuck you, I run this city" swag.
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:43 (fourteen years ago) link
i have a lot of mixed feelings abt this whole thing; i get why everyone is disappointed in the consensus this year but i really liked several records that made up that consensus and some of them placed high on my own list. part of me thinks it was a uniquely good year for mass-appeal pop/indie and we have to wait for next year to determine if there's any kind of trend.
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I guess what I'm really saying is that I'm not convinced it *means* anything in the long run, I think it's a fluke. There were a handful of indie records that got an insane amount of hype but otherwise (i.e. if you showed me the entire list but removed #1-10) then it doesn't look too different from other years, complete with an inexplicably high showing for U2.
Yeah, that's what I loved about it!
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:48 (fourteen years ago) link
There were a handful of indie records that got an insane amount of hype
There also wasn't a lot of hype for any non-indie rock from old touchstones - Dylan and Springsteen's were pretty much non-starters once the albums were actually out.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:54 (fourteen years ago) link
See, thats kind of what I was wondering. Would people have been more satisfied with the list if perennial faves like Dylan and The Boss had made the top ten? I think that would have disappointed me in a different way.
― you gone float up with it (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Empire State of Mind is awful, the chorus feels like it comes straight out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about hip-hop.
― Space Battle Rothko (Matt DC), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:56 (fourteen years ago) link
any year, you can always say "gee, i wish people checked out this obscure stuff only i liked," but its not like that usually makes the top 10. but as much as I find most of the indie stuff negligible personally, i'd still take people ganging up over it instead of 21st century breakdown or whatever.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:58 (fourteen years ago) link
an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about hip-hop
Now I understand why I love the song.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 14:58 (fourteen years ago) link
it's not a fluke if things have been headed in this direction for the last several years of the poll (xpost)
― aspies like us (some dude), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:00 (fourteen years ago) link
i think the main reason its not an "interesting list" is that there's 700 critics voting in it--of course it's gonna be a bunch of consensus choices. The VV Film Poll is super-interesting--and prolly my fave critic poll anywhere--because they cap it at 94 ppl.
One of my rants to Flavorpill re: critics in 2009 is especially apt: There's so many records coming down the pipeline, and they are all so easy to hear that critics mostly have to heed advice of other critics just to decide what to even LISTEN TO. It's not like the 70s where there was 600 records that come out and you can hear all of them. Everyone has LIMITLESS access to EVERY record released, and "records" are easier than ever to release. The only way to decide what to even spin is to listen to other ppl doing the same thing.
― forksclovetoFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU- (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:00 (fourteen years ago) link
that's not really true, it's possible to listen to a ton of music and still be on your own path and not really care about what other critics are recommending
― aspies like us (some dude), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
well, it makes me not want to see where the wild things are, at any rate. otherwise the constant "white guys in their 30s"..."adults pretending to be kids"...refrain just made me think, oh fuck the fuck OFF you tiresome dudes and your tiresome mid-privileged-life crises, just fuck OFF, these things are not interesting or worthwhile.
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
it's also possible to cover a micro-beat, a very specific genre where you hear everything that comes out and then you can tell everyone else what the stand-outs that year in that genre are
― Mordy, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
it seems like one could strike a balance between listening to your fellow critics and then checking out other, less well-known stuff in whatever genre's one's interested in
― kshighway (ksh), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Would people have been more satisfied with the list if perennial faves like Dylan and The Boss had made the top ten? I think that would have disappointed me in a different way.
I don't know about "more satisfied", but the narrative definitely shifts if you make just one or two (hypothetical) changes. If you bump Bob Dylan off the list in '06 (remove him completely and bump everyone else up one spot) then it's an indie-centric top 15 without the "indie was big this year but in the end, the old guard won out" storyline.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
that the-dream essay is really not v. good at all
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
one thing that struck me about the trax ballot particularly - it only took SEVEN mentions for a track to place in the top 100?? is that unusually low? because it seems so.
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
yay lex we agree on a thing (re: midlife crises etc.)!
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:04 (fourteen years ago) link
:D
― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:05 (fourteen years ago) link
It's possible people aren't - I'm not looking at full ballots of pitchfork types or anything to see what they put between grizzly bear and the xx - but there's no way we'd see that just by looking at the top 40 of pazz'n'jop, where the consensus choices are what would be apparent.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:05 (fourteen years ago) link
I really miss the separate reissue category. Wish they'd bring it back.
― Jazzbo, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
if all critics are just going to vote for the same records that P4k bumps, it seems like what we really need is fewer critics. or at least fewer indie rock critics, because at this point we can pretty much glean everything about a wide swath of critics' tastes just by visiting one website. still, i'd be more interested in reading more ballots from genre specialists. the most interesting ballots were the most idiosyncratic ones.
― kshighway (ksh), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
to be fair (if that's the word) to animal collective, their potsy-dotsy childhood-wonder thing has been part of their dna forever. it's not a midlife crisis, it's just plain old arrested development.
― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:08 (fourteen years ago) link
as a lolindie sidenote, it also seems strange that Animal Collective didn't break with Strawberry Jam, which production and songwriting-wise is much more immediate than Merriweather. it was probably a bootstrap thing whereby SJ got them a much bigger audience from 2007-2008, and then when Merriweather leaked there was a huge group of people waiting to hear from it, and the hype machine pushed it to even more people from there.
― kshighway (ksh), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:09 (fourteen years ago) link
pazz'n'jop always tends to reward cult lifers a little after their peak
― da croupier, Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:10 (fourteen years ago) link
so who's this year's John Hiatt?
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:11 (fourteen years ago) link
kshighway otm
We prolly need more actual "critics" and less "internet people" on this list. I think when the poll opened itself up from just a handful of bloggers to TONS of bloggers, it just started reflecting hype machine--which basically is a pazz and jop-style blogger poll that runs all year.
But then again RSS-ville is maybe better than when P&J reflected the Springsteeny tastes of a bunch of 40+ alt-weekly editors?
― forksclovetoFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU- (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Sure, it's possible. But I think it's far easier to pay attention to your peers. I don't vote in P&J anymore, but I know that a lot of the stuff that I choose to buy or download is a direct result of recommendations from ILXors or ex-Stylusers. I pay attention to those albums in part because I trust the people recommending them, but also because I want to participate in the discourse around the album. Which only leaves a handful of albums each year that exist outside the critical vacuum.
Btw, I wrote about this issue at length in Stylus a couple years ago:http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/soulseeking/life-inside-the-hivemind.htm
― Hoisin Murphy (jaymc), Wednesday, 20 January 2010 15:14 (fourteen years ago) link