Do we have a PAZZ AND JOB 2009 thread yet?

Pretty sure people's favorite albums have always been made up of songs they like a lot. But I do agree the blurring definition of the single has something to do with this. But that definition has been blurring for at least a decade now; it doesn't explain the gigantic leap this year to seven top 10 singles (all "indie"-ish) from Top 10 albums.

xp Weird. The one I printed out from the site just a couple weeks ago had Cave #9 (687 votes, 61 mentions); Kanye #10 (603, 57); Deerhunter #11 (585, 55). Guess that's a question for the Voice tech folks.

same as 2007, 2006, and 2005

And 2004, oops.

And it's hard to imagine a more creamcheesey singles Top 10 than the one we got, to my eyes.

Can I just say: I listened to Phoenix a bunch and I totally didn't get the big deal. And I've read all this critical stuff about the album and I still have no idea why people like it. Unrelated, but I wanted to say this somewhere. I don't hate the album, but I really do not get the big deal at all.
― Mordy, Thursday, January 21, 2010 6:23 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

mordy, this is scottpl's perfectly sensible explanation from another thread:

This Phoenix record was a bigger deal than the others because it was the first one released into an environment in which most indie listeners and sites/blogs "agreed" that Phoenix were a relatively big deal. Like a 2009 example of why Elephant was a major release the week it came out but White Blood Cells wasn't.

The band had pulled in fans from different spheres over the course of the decade, released records that were mostly slow burns but eventually beloved to some extent (esp the one prior to WAP w/in the U.S.), but this time around it was a hotly anticipated record. The early two tracks, the singles, were then two of the only things people sort of stopped and made time for immediately last year. It didn't hurt that the consensus was then "wow, this is really good."

― scottpl, Friday, December 11, 2009 1:27 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It might be interesting to see which of the top tracks was widely disseminated as a free and legal mp3 by the label. Those songs are very, very easy to hear for people who spend all day listening to music on their computers. The other songs you have to work just a *little* bit harder, like 5 clicks instead of 2, and it's much harder to repeat those listens if you can't download them or don't take the time to do so. In this way, releasing free and legal mp3s is sort of like pushing a song on radio, b/c it has an easier time becoming ubiquitous for this segment of listeners.

it sounds really good in shops too

x-post

saw no love anywhere for the VERY Phoenix-like Das Pop album finally released last year - don't suppose it got a US release tho

One thing I've been curious about the past few years is how many voters simply vote for the ten singles (tracks, whatever) that their computer tells them they played the most through the year. Which to me seems weirdly clinical (part of what I meant about turning a fun exercise dutiful), not to mention not a even a very dependable guage of what songs somebody heard (let alone loved) most, since it leaves out, say, songs heard in public settings, on other computers, wherever. Maybe no voters do that; maybe hundreds of them do now. I really have no idea.

pretty sure most critics put more thought into in than that. if they didn't want to, why would they be critics?

funny, though - most cases where i've overlapped singles and albums, it's actually the album i might get tired of a few years later, not the song.

I do vote for the singles I played most often, which by definition means the ones I enjoyed most. When my computer starts telling me what to do, though, I'll start to pray that it hooks me up with a date on Saturday night.

one problem there is that songs that came out earlier in the year would likely have more plays. but releases from the first six months probably fare better generally anyway. what was the last P&J winner to have been released AFTER say, September? i see 'Modern Times' and 'Late Registration' both came out at the very end of August but would've been leaked a while before that anyway.

It might be interesting to see which of the top tracks was widely disseminated as a free and legal mp3 by the label.

A very unscientific survey reveals:

"Empire," no.
"1901," yes.
"My Girls," no.
"Two Weeks," no.
"Stillness," limited-release
"Zero," no.
"Bad Romance," no. (Although if you wanted the uncensored version you had to find a contraband version of it.)
"Lust For Life," yes.
"Lisztomania," no.
"You Belong With Me," no.

All these songs did have videos, which I think at least denotes them as "emphasis tracks."

people that rubber stamp their singles ballots w/ the same artists as their albums ballots are the worst imo, even moreso than people that don't bother to list any singles. i mean i usually end up having 1 or 2 singles that are from albums on my top 10, but those usually feel like big undeniable singles i'd feel dishonest not including. if you look at P&J singles lists in the 80s and 90s, they were full of big shameless pop hits that don't seem particularly "critic-friendly" in retrospect, no matter how predictable the albums lists look. how critics eventually started treating enjoying popular hit songs like eating their vegetables, I have no idea.

I just crunched some numbers to see what would happen to the results if all the votes from current Pitchfork staffers (I counted 29 on PFM's masthead) were dropped.

The answer: not much. At least within the top 20, which is all I looked at.

The only changes in ranking are that Girls and Mos Def trade places at #10 and #11, ditto Fever Ray and Maxwell at #13 and #14, and Baroness and Sonic Youth at #19 and #20.

Otherwise, it's like: Animal Collective wins by only 259 points, instead of 331.

Interesting, But I don't think anybody has suggested that Pitchfork staffers are a major part of the problem.

scottpl,

no one is denying that pfork has more sway than any blogger or music mag, and i'm sorry if i made it seem like Pop Tarts Suck Toasted or whatever is calling the shots. What I'm trying to say that NO ONE is calling the shots. Most bands that break big are part of some echo chamber fueled by the internet. Critics listen to bloggers, bloggers listen to critics, people listen to a Forkcast track, people see them when they open for the big band--its a big swirling snowball effect that you cannot credit one person or website to. Just because Pfork has the biggest, widest-reaching platform to write about this doesn't mean that they are calling the shots. I think it's really kind of condescending to think that the majority of the 696 biggest music nerds on the planet are just cribbing from the pfork list.

the fact is that a lot of the records that ppl give pfork credit for, anyone who works in the industry and does a modest amount of due dilligence could have seen coming a mile a way. I mean, I remember the lead-ups to Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, Dirty Projjies and AnCo09. None of those records were "pfork plants a review, world changes course." They were slow builds that anyone who writes about music and goes to punk shows saw coming. I remember TWO WEEKS (no pun intended) of people creaming all over MPP before pfork said the word boo.

People think I have a problem with pitchfork and I assuredly do not--hell i love pfork and read the damn thing all the time. But I have a problem with "the myth of pitchfork," that they're shaping the lives of 20/30somethings the world over with their nutrageous tastemaking, when they're really making a lot of incredibly smart decisions based on things people are talking about already, and using their enormous circulation to blast them out into the red states and starbucks dilletantes.

what happened to black kids who pitchfork hyped and then turned against btw?

think i prefer the former approach in all honesty xp

what happened to black kids who pitchfork hyped and then turned against btw?

― call all destroyer, Thursday, January 21, 2010 9:59 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they still sell plenty of records.

Also, I remember even having dinner with Maura and Jess @CMJ the year of Black Kids, and we all saw Black Kids coming because it was all ANYONE was talking about that week, not just pfork

i thought he was talking about the Clipse

hahah

it's really kind of condescending to think that the majority of the 696 biggest music nerds on the planet are just cribbing from the pfork list.

Just to be clear, this isn't what I've been suggesting, either. (In fact, in my essay, I talked about the exact snowball effect that Whiney names, in regards to Animal Collective -- even used that same word.) I think earlier end-of-year lists in general affect Pazz & Jop now, and Pitchfork is a very visible part of that. But it's one piece a much bigger picture. (Plus, not to play devil's advocate, but December is a really busy month for people! Maybe people need a crutch to help them fill out their ballot -- which, let's face it, is just one more than to do, amidst last minute holiday shopping or whatever. So it's not like I don't understand people looking at other lists to remind them what came out that year, or using their iTunes numbers to remind them what songs they played a lot. Just think it's kinda sad.)

i mean, if i'll credit anything on pazz and jop to pfork it's maybe exposing incredibly lazy indie-fied critics to particular dubstep records or metal records, but any internet-savvy person who writes about music in any capacity doesn't need a hand-holding to like Grizzly Bear and Phoenix

xp "one piece of a much bigger picture...one more thing to do...."

Totally agree with some dude about the vegetable-eating thing, though. I wonder how many critics regularly listen to the radio these days, compared to in years past. I assume way less, which I think is also sad. And I'm not saying all critics necessarily should listen to the radio -- I know lots of good ones who don't, and I didn't listen to it much myself when I lived in New York and didn't have a car -- but it's definitely one way to help expose critics to singles that might not be in their personal comfort zone. (And there were plenty of excellent singles on the radio in 2009, no matter what anybody thinks. So I don't buy the "it was just a bad year for hit singles" claim.)

Say what you will about the critics who made Imperial Bedroom the #1 album in 1982, but at least they didn't feel the need to put "Man Out Of Time" or "Beyond Belief" on their singles ballots, they voted for stuff like "The Message" and "Sexual Healing."

tbf I probably would have voted for "Party In The USA" and "Birthday Sex" had I voted

assume they're not "party in the usa" and "birthday sex," what were 2009's slighted "the message" and "sexual healing"?

could you frame that question in a way that doesn't set up any possible answer for easy dismissal and ridicule?

fwiw, Bon Iver was ineligible for our 2008 list because he was already on our 2007 list. So if you're counting there was a 5/10 not a 4/10 top 10 crossover last year but one of the non-crossovers wasn't even in play. Even if you want to extend it to the top 10 records eligible in both polls, it stays at 5/10 since the p&j #11 (nick cave) made our top 20 or 25 but not our top 10.

Two of the other four records not shared last year in the top 10s were just outside ours at 11 and 13. So in 2008, p4k and P&j shared seven of the top 12 records that were eligible for both polls. This year they shared 11 of the top 13.

Looks like in 2006 five of our top seven records were also in the P&J top 10, so the count of 4/10 was wrong there too.

In 2005, it was indeed a 4/10 crossover; the P&J top three were all in our top four, so they nearly matched up across the top.

As I said, I think the similarities though are more striking as you break down by genre and extend past the top 10 to the top 40. If you were to set aside pretty much any baby boomer music-- and I am cherrypicking stats here like crazy point at this point, but if you're trying to figure out what sort of shit people under 40 or so want from a music press it's instructive-- they would become even more pronounced.

Again, I am in no way saying there is a casual effect but they match up quite well. At the same time, Pitchfork has thrived as a music magazine the past five years in a v difficult climate first for media and music, then for internet advertising, then for everybody. And I would guess being pretty ok at sniffing out what people who want to write, read, and think about music in this country tend to like is part of the reason.

//

sure. whiney, I agree with that. It is impossible for one thing to take a seedling of something totally in a vacuum and throw it onto the world these days. Someone was always there first, which is why, as I said above, it's a fool's errand to claim being there first as your badge of honor. So, no, the world doesn't change course; but I think the world accelerates course to some degree. The jump in audience that these "slow builds anyone can see coming" gets from us is a fast track that you are underestimating. There used to be a hell of a lot of more steps between "punk shows" and some of the places these bands have gone lately.

Again, I'm not saying "We did it" but we helped way more than you think. Unless there was some other platform as large as ours in which to broadcast all of this "creaming" people were doing (radio; no; tv: maybe one late-night appearance; RS: no). Or you think the rest of the world is in tune to all these small indie outlets (they are not). The odd sort of third-tier death cab-y stuff that gets into gossip girl and satellite radio does well w/o us, but it's the established channels of radio and tv selling those records, not the internet/bklyn types that you think would get AnCo09 all this attention w/o us.

If your theory holds, we haven't mattered since 2004 or whatever you said, then all this shit would presumably exist the same w/o us then it would follow that there would be popular indie bands from the past 5-6 years that Pitchfork doesn't like: So who do you think those are? Which indie bands are making the top 40 of p&j or doing very well in indie circles based solely on the "creaming" of the masses and w/o our signing off on them? I want to see some names.

could you frame that question in a way that doesn't set up any possible answer for easy dismissal and ridicule?

you're the one who made the "they didn't praise costello twice, they praised grandmaster flash and marvin gaye" as well - so yeah, what are the obvious pop picks like "the message" and "sexual healing" in 2009 that should have top tenned and didn't? I'm actually being honest when I say "Party In The USA" and "Birthday Sex" are as close as I can get.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13478-i-and-love-and-you/

fwiw I was pretty surprised to see my #1, "Blame It," only get as high as 55, and my #2, "Pretty Wings," did pretty well but really shoulda been top 10.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12662-its-not-me-its-you/

xp Ha ha, actually some dude just reminded me of the year that Greil Marcus put three different Costello Punch The Clock singles on his ballot. ("Shipbuilding," "Pills And Soap," and uh, whatever that other one was.) (But Greil also had no problem voting for Blue Oyster Cult's "In Thee," Moon Martin's "Rolene," Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff," Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy," and an Esssential Logic EP in 1979, so no complaints here.)

any internet-savvy person who writes about music in any capacity doesn't need a hand-holding to like Grizzly Bear and Phoenix

doesn't need a hand-holding to hear grizzly bear and phoenix -- why so many people like them, enough to put on a 10-best-of-the-year list, that's a whole other issue. i think chuck's real root question is, what is this sensibility (which he largely does not share), where did it come from, what is shaping it? pfork is the most visible manifestation of it, but it's still just a manifestation, not a root cause. why such a seeming homogeneity of taste among music tastemakers at a time of such profligate musical diversity? when everybody (and especially people who really care about and write about music) can allegedly hear everything and anything they want to, why do so many of them gravitate to a seemingly narrow part of the spectrum? that's the real thing i think some people are scratching their heads at here, much more than the relative degree and importance of pitchfork's influence. (and obv. i know that in fact animal collective don't sound anything like phoenix and neither sounds like the yeah yeah yeahs, but i do think it's fair to group them as part of a sensibility if not a genre per se.)

I think either of the two Black Eyed Peas megahits from 2009 would've finished higher in a late '90s P&J poll.

does pop have to be "Sexual Healing"-level great to justifiably outperform a promo mp3 from Domino or Warp Records, I guess is my question now. (xpost)

I mean, Smash Mouth finished in the P&J top 10 singles TWICE.

Amid all this hand-wringing, 2009 wasn't exactly a vintage year for mega-selling pop music. I'm not really going to bang the drum for La Roux, the Black Eyed Peas or Flo Rida.

nobody said mega-selling, I'm just talking about singles that charted on any singles chart anywhere in the US.

what a disaster for 2009

xpost nah, and I'll definitely take "birthday sex" over "hyph myngo" or girls or whatever, I just can't get indignant that Jamie Foxx doesn't make the top ten singles or that Roseanne Cash, Green Day and that Sparklehorse/Dangermouse collabo didn't take their rightful place in the upper reaches of the album chart. There's an obvious nerd bias to this stuff, but I feel like people are just demanding indie guilt in the face of indie solipsism, and these criticisms are actually demanding young crits fulfill a duty than that they're missing out on fun.

typos galore there (and the disaster crack was re: BEPs).

I have a problem with "the myth of pitchfork," that they're shaping the lives of 20/30somethings the world over with their nutrageous tastemaking, when they're really making a lot of incredibly smart decisions based on things people are talking about already, and using their enormous circulation to blast them out into the red states and starbucks dilletantes.

I think this is 100% otm.

why would indie guilt be the #1 reason to pay attention to music that isn't indie rock, or want other people to? once again, we're not talking about catchy popular ubiquitous hit songs, not brussel sprouts.

er strike that first "not" obviously

you're not talking about "paying attention to catchy popular ubiquitous hit songs," you're talking about finding them to be among the ten best songs they heard this year. and as much as I've enjoyed a few of the year's declarations of sexual prowess and fashion-line themes, I didn't enjoy them so much that I'm going to demand ambitious collegiates put the dirty projectors down to give them love or whatever.

and I would have totally gone to bat for smashmouth

P&J runs a "singles" list, not a "songs" or "tracks" list. I just think that should still count for something.

Ah, another iteration of the old Lloyd Cole post-collegiate fanbase vs girls wearing Madonna gummy bracelets divide, in other words.

some dude otm, i still only vote for songs that are actual singles

And again, the singles ballots are optional, and many have and still do just leave them blank. Maybe the only difference is that a lot of the people that used to leave them blank aren't anymore.