Pazz & Jop 2008

xp And duh, Santogold probably counts as dance/ electronic indie too. (She's also the closest thing to any kind of "world music" in the Top 40, unless Byrne/Eno -- which I haven't heard -- is. Or, uh, Vampire Weekend. Though at least Escovedo has a Latin surname.)

strange how badly the Taylor Swift album did.
you didn't vote for it, did you, Chuck?

The better half the TVotR album is all afro-popped out, too.

it's an indie-pop world, guys. we just live in fear of it.

strange how badly the Taylor Swift album did.

She really needs to work on her release schedule -- Pazz and Jop isn't the Oscars! I'm starting to click with Fearless (I don't think I'd have put it in my top ten anyway), but the same thing happened with her first album: heard it in Dec. '06, liked it most in '07 but didn't consider it an '07 album. Although Taylor did very well in Nashville Scene poll, I think.

Pazz and Jop isn't the Oscars!

ah, if only: "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for. drumroll please... and the Xgau for album of the year goes to...TVOTR!!!"

xp Nah, I didn't like Fearless nearly as much as Taylor's debut LP. Too Lillith, not enough obvious hooks for impatient dumbies like me. Put it at #39 on the year-end list I did for Rhapsody.

the thing about metal doing worse than rap on this chart is that rap has been selling gajillions more units than metal for the last decade so one would expect it to probably being doing a bit better, but as per usual the consensus celebrates a couple albums while completely ignoring the overall rap world as a whole. nothing new i know, just sayin

yeah, but rap has always been better represented on the single's list p&j-wise, no?

Glenn posted stats that 5ive, who finished 8th in the ILX Metal Poll, didn't even get 1 vote in P&J.

Rap and Metal are always the losers in general lists. (though yes you can add plenty of other genres in there too as Chuck said)

I ran the metal poll as stuff does get missed out and it deserves more.
For the same reason a hoy hoy is thinking of running a rap poll btw Give him some encouragement Here
I'm sure he will appreciate it. And it will help the non-autogoon cru to check out good stuff that has slipped under the radar.

xp And hip-hop hasn't always sold gajillions more units than chart-pop (which is at least represented on the singles list more nowadays than it used to be.) (Sometimes country's sales can rival hip-hop's, too. And country only placed one single in the Top 40 -- By Hayes Carll, an alt- guy who gets no commercial radio play outside of possible Triple A stations.) (And if sales are the issue, then the real people who should be complaining are Nickelback and Daughtry and Josh Groban fans.) (Also, fwiw, AC/DC had a really kick-ass opening week. And they finished 140th, one spot lower than the Cool Kids.)

(By "chart-pop" I mean "teen-pop-like-stuff," or whatever. Obviously songs from the pop charts have always placed on the P&J singles, back to "Pop Muzik". But it actually seemed kind of unprecedented when "Mmmbop" won in whatever year that was -- no Debbie Gibson or New Kids on the Block single had ever come close. Then the floodgates opened for Britney, Christina, Backstreet, NSync, etc. Not sure who'd fall in that category this year -- both Katy Perry singles? Or maybe not. Pink and Britney seem pretty old by now. And I don't see any equivalents of Britney or Justin on the album chart this year.)

Also remember thinking it was really cool when "Missing You" by John Waite tied with "Jam On It" for the #25 single on a 25-song list in 1984. Journey, Foreigner, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Lynyrd Fucking Skynyrd -- none of those bands ever did anything in Pazz & Jop. So while I empathize and agree with people who point out every year that hip-hop should have done better, I also think it's horseshit to pretend that hip-hop is the main genre being shut out, when it's not being shut out at all.

Once again, I never said that. I said better hip-hop should have placed.

Better everything should have placed!

Well, yeah.

...and, scene.

the only people irl who like girl talk are indie ppl

Frightened Rabbit (my #1 vote!) are not electronic, to put it mildly. They're indie, put broadly, but not coy enough to place higher.

It's hard for me to not conclude that the main emotion driving whatever "consensus" the P&J represents is fear. It certainly never looks like joy.

Also, "Missing You" is a great song.

yah but xhuxk there already exists a rap music canon and substantive rap music discourse whereas that sort of thing w/r/t teenpop/chartpop has been pretty negligible until recently. this is not a judgment about the worth of this music or anything at all but you realize that most teenpop fans arent interested in the canonization of their favorite stars whereas rap & critrock have always had that type of discussion going on (or have for a long long time). the idea of even having those discussions is pretty new and limited to the ilm teenpop threads (RIP) and those livejournal discussion groups right?? whereas there are kids in every town in america who were arguing about whether jay beat nas back in 01 for ex.

rap didn't do well in the P&J in the 90s?

im not saying that in an idealized world everything isnt represented im just pointing out that the continued marginalization of rap music is particularly weird. part of the problem is rap writers themselves ... dudes like caramanica voting for 2 rap albums is wtf

the metal writers (from ilx anyway) didn't exclusively vote for metal either. Do some writers just vote for what they think might get enough votes from others so it places high?

which btw is weird & self defeating. we'll never elect a black president so im not voting for obama in the primary.

i think some ppl do put shit in at the end if they think it will give it a boost as opposed to something that's gonna get 2 or 3 votes

rap writers are just more open minded than indie pop fans ^__^

Maybe (too be naive and uncynical for a moment -- though actually I suspect this is the case) writers (like Caramanica, for instance) just vote for what they like best?* (I mean, I assumed, when Glenn suggested that critics who only put one metal album on their P&J list lacked "courage", he was joking. Now I'm kind of getting the idea he maybe wasn't. But, you know, some of us might just have thought only one metal album -- in my case, one that might not even count as "troo" metal, as if anybody over the age of 12 should give a fuck -- was good enough.) (Also, deej, I do understand your point about chart-pop, though how that applies to the shut-out classic rock bands I also mentioned is sort of beyond me. And country has had a canon for longer than rap has, though I'm not sure whether fans argue about whether Toby could beat up Kenny or not.)

* - I assume Caramanica does, anyway. Why wouldn't he? And why second-guess his motives? He's not just a rap critic, hasn't been for several years.

I do, though, assume a lot of writers much hackier than Jon just follow the bandwagon, for expediency or out of sheer laziness, maybe -- copying down what other writers put on their Top 10s in December, and thinking, "yeah, I kinda liked that, too." So I guess that's what Glenn means about P&J voters lacking fortitude, which may well be the case. (And yeah, I wonder who gutlessly left off Katy Perry.)

Glenn was joking.

there are kids in every town in america who were arguing about whether jay beat nas

I have a feeling there were kids in every town arguing about whether NSync was better than Backstreet, and Christina better than Britney (and Debbie better than Tiffany, and the Monkees better than the Beatles), too. So let's ammend what I just wrote to say I sort of get your point.

yeah but no one is arguing if torche is better than made out of babies

Did anyone say people were?

re carmancia deej is right. ppl obv like tons of stuff but the most high profile p&j voters who are rap critics (fennessey, breihan for instance) voted for tons of non-rap shit, whereas you don't see any david fricke or rob sheffield or david marchese voting for 6 rap albums even tho they work for rock mags

well herman, deej's original post was about why rap does better than metal

Well on metal boards neither torche or made out of babies get considered metal but they will argue about whether dimebag darrell was a better guitarist than kirk hammett or if new Enslaved is a sell out compared to someone else. Kids think Trivium are metter than old Metallica etc. So yes, metal kids do argue about it.

yeah but its not as popular as rap

"Why isnt traditional bagpipe music bigger on pazz n jop??"

all the bagpipe ppl argue about who's better at bagpipes

anyway i don't mean to be condescending - i wasnt saying that metal ppl didn't care enough about the genre to argue just that obv rap has reached a pop scale where "kids in every town" argue about shit whereas metal is not on that plane anymore

basically what deej said

I wouldn't argue with rap being bigger than metal. Was just meaning metal kids can be as anal about their music as any other genre. And there's still going to be metal kids in everytown. Hell, even nu-metal crossed over to 10 year old kids in the uk. You still see 12 year olds in Slipknot tees.

most high profile p&j voters who are rap critics (fennessey, breihan for instance) voted for tons of non-rap shit, whereas you don't see any david fricke or rob sheffield or david marchese voting for 6 rap albums even tho they work for rock mags

Again, I don't get the point here. Breihan, like Caramanica, writes about all different kinds of music. Including, presumably, some albums he likes as much as his favorite rap albums. Both Caramanica and Breihan are also real good country critics, and I'd never suggest they should vote for all (or even mostly) country albums. You're acting like there are only two kinds of music out there -- rap and non-rap.

there are like 3 total critics who voted more than 50% rap albums. dont you think thats weird?

There are like 3 total critics who voted more than 50% rap country albums. don't you think that's weird?

i think it's good that major rap critics and higher ups at major rap mags are into other genres - as opposed to, say, rolling stone - it's just that the commodification of the same rap shit is helped along when the most high profile rap writers - and most vocal supporters on the internet of guys like rich boy and scarface etc - end up voting for bon iver and tv on the radio

xp Pretty sure Glenn said only one critic voted for all metal albums too. (News flash: HUMAN BEINGS LIKE LOTS OF DIFFERENT MUSIC!) (And Rolling Stone covers lots of different kinds too, last time I checked.)

xp no - it seems like country has always been a relative critical blindspot despite its popularity in numbers

especially when compared to rap in terms of crossover w/ rock critics

I was making fun of the....monochromatic inclinations of some of our posters. Carry on.

I wasn't joking, but I'm not sure whether my criticism actually applies to individuals, or is kind of a reaction to the aggregate effect of polling this way. Obviously nobody is required to like Katy Perry, for example. I didn't vote for her myself, not out of a lack of courage but because her album was in my second 10, not my first 10. Maybe everybody simply voted what they liked, and really that many people genuinely like TV on the Radio and the Fleet Foxes. But yeah, like Chuck, I suspect that isn't 100% the case. I think there are some systemic biases and recurrent trends in P&J, and I think two years of Idolator constrast helped demonstrate them. Adding a few more voters, especially voters with different predispositions, wouldn't hurt.

But actually, if I were in charge, I'd make two structural changes to the poll that I think might make it significantly more interesting whatever the electorate:

1. Expand album ballots to 20 or 25. I bet nearly every voter in the poll could fill 20 as easily as 10, and we'd get more diversity and less tokenism from each person.
2. For singles, do a pre-poll nomination round, and then in the poll itself have people pick 10 (or 20) from the hundred or two songs that got nominated most. This would get a little more consensus into the singles voting, which has become pretty scattered recently.

And I'd ditch points, too, or perhaps reduce the points scheme to 2 points for your #1 and 1 point for everything else.

Obviously nobody is required to like Katy Perry

that's a relief