Pazz & Jop 2008

Tangari I think has written a few pieces on African music for Pitchfork.

the problem is probably more the electorate than individual voters. And I'm sure Harvilla wants more hip-hop voters (and non-indie voters in general) -- he's said so himself. (But I'm the last person who has a reason to defend the current state of Pazz & Jop, seeing how I, uh, ran the thing for several years.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, January 25, 2009 1:09 AM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I agree. This is the dead horse I've been beating for awhile. But as Chuck and Matos know, you can e-mail hundreds of folks but that does not mean they will respond. I think Ethan tried to get more rap critics to vote in the Idolator poll with little success and I recall Chuck or Christgau complaining about rap and punk critics not responding. Last year I gave Matos some whirled music names and I notified whirled music publicists Rock Paper Scissors that the idolator poll was happening, and very few of those folks responded (despite Matos' efforts). Yet, the fRoots world music critics poll has lots of folks who do not vote in P & J, and I bet a number of US based Global Rhythms and the Beat contributors won't vote in P & J either.

The new Amadou & Marian and the new Rokia Traore were out in Europe in '08 but aren't being released in the US till February I think

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.

but they didn't grow up to vote in pazz & jop, obv. and of course you might be sort of dispirited to see what kind of stuff people who were arguing about nsync vs. backstreet in 9th grade are listening to now. we can all idealize our optimal open-eared voters, but they mostly don't exist, is the problem.

i think more than diversifying the voter pool, there are a lot of things that could be done to make the whole thing more interesting. alongside the p&j (or whatever poll), run a set of "stuff i like" lists compiled from random people of random ages in random places. it wouldn't give you anything more than anecdotes, but it seems like the absence of anecdotes is what's being lamented here -- the tendency toward dull consensus and away from individual enjoyment and obsession. i mean, aggregation is all about the dull consensus; the way around that might not be to change the aggregation, but just to supplement it.

(and believe me, i agree that anything that gives you tvotr and vampire weekend as your 1-2 in any year can use some serious supplementing.)

Another thing they could theoretically do (though they'd never find the time or pages to do it, not these days) is something Xgau tried once (1986 or so?) in the '70s -- namely, run lots of demographic mini-polls from, say, female critics and African American critics and voters over 40 and under 30. (Fuck the thirtysomethings, man. Just kidding.) The one time it was done, the results were really interesting. (Sidebar mini-polls by genre used to look really cool in N.M.E. in the late '80s, too. But again, you're talking man hours it's hard to imagine unless you've actually done of these. And the deadlines just keep getting tighter every year.)

(Contradicted myself. Obv meant he tried it in the '80s.)

tendency toward dull consensus and away from individual enjoyment and obsession.

This is another reason I really can't stand Glenn's pre-poll nomination idea -- which, as far as I can tell, would only make the poll more dull.

couldnt a glenn-type person just go through the results and figure out the gender/race/age breakdowns? or are you talking about something else?
(xpost)

Well, you'd have to get all the demographic information -- which I assume Glenn isn't privy to -- first. (Christgau used to ask for it in the poll letter every year, but I think that's another old tradition that's gone by the wayside. And voters were never all that forthcoming even back then.)

If I had demographic information I could give you poll slices with my pinkie. But I don't. I've spent a little while trying to get some genre information, taking artist lists from the ILM Metal poll and the HipHopCritics Poll, but this is a pretty unreliable method of getting data that's kind of dubious even if you have it.

I can confirm, at least, that there are only a handful of voters whose ballots are more than half rap. Ditto for metal.

I see Q-Tip won that album poll of 25 folks at hiphopcritic.com and 74 people voted in the Nashville Scene country music poll (Jamey Johnson album winner) and Every year fRoots polls a panel of hundreds of experts, in the UK and internationally, to decide the Album Of The Year in the fields covered in the magazine – world folk and roots music.

ordinarily i might be on the side of taking rap-friendly crits to task for not having much rap on their lists, but i don't know if there's any way you can spin this year without admitting that at least as far as official albums with a national profile '08 was pretty barren. i only had the Jeezy album on my list (not counting R&B singers), almost had ABN and Scarface in my top 10 but ultimately gave those spots to more weirdo indie shit. a well done hip hop-only poll would be cool and i'd have a ton of albums to vote for in that, but up against other genres it's whatever. i can't act outraged when i didn't hear any truly exceptional albums that were otherwise ignored by P&J, which happened more in previous years.

Yeah but searching for my favorite rap album of the year led me to its only vote in the poll from my new favorite critic, Jimmy Draper.

I am amused by your fave rapper as a panelist on America's Best Dance Crew 2. I see Draper voted for Latin-pop singer Ximena Sariñana. She reminds me of Julieta Venegas.

Why are you amused by that? She's the best judge on the panel -- Shane Sparks is too sentimental and the other guy just sucks.

nothing Tip did has placed since Midnight Marauders

"Vivrant Thing" was the No. 15 single in '99.

What I think is basically happening is that the Web-generation schism is showing. There was a definite, if subtle, difference between Idolator Poll in '06/'07 and P&J then, and as it is this year: P&J is older, has more rock-entrenched tastes in singles. (They had many long-timers who didn't vote in my poll, and a lot of bloggers only voted in mine.) "Rehab" squeaked a win in P&J and finished fourth in I.P., even with a fifth of its votes carried forth from '06. "Umbrella" sailed to No. 1 in Idolator and finished a close second in P&J. I don't think that's a coincidence; I think it signals the shift to which I'm referring. Similarly, TV on the Radio and LCD Soundsystem were easy victories in I.P. and by noses in P&J. The tastes are essentially the same but the emphases are different. I imagine if I'd done it a couple more years those differences would show more clearly over time, unless maybe P&J went after new voters who'd participated in I.P.

Chuck, I did actually do the demographics in '06. I got the information in '07 but when I asked for it the IT person said, "Here you go, every ballot has the info on it." I said, "I need you to collate that info so I can make charts from it." Crickets.

"Vivrant Thing" was the No. 15 single in '99.

― Matos W.K., Saturday, January 24, 2009 9:34 PM Bookmark

Aye, I was only focusing on albums. The Rennaisance could use a song as fun as "Vivrant Thing" or eight.

I like-not-love the Q-Tip album, though "Gettin' Up" really does grow on me as a single. It's definitely the old-man-rap pick of the year. Recently I picked up, for 49 cents at Value Village, some old music magazines: a 1997 Request w/Portishead cover and four issues (two 1991, two 1994) of Pulse!--both retail giveaways, published by Sam Goody/Musicland and Tower, respectively. I always liked both mags' genre columns--hip-hop, world, blues, whatever. One of Request's was "Geezers." I can't wait to see rap mags, print or web, adopt this.

There are plenty of dudes Tip's age or older who are rapping so much better than him it's ridiculous. I'll even take current-era Common over him when I'm down for some stiffly rapped platitudes.

I just meant consensus pick.

yeah and at least common's releasing albums every 12-16 months or so. if tip's gonna wait 6 years he should really bring it

fuck u dudes i like the tip album & its so much better than the com its not funny

i'm with deej, the Q-Tip album is perfectly nice and he hasn't lost his skills that much. plus you can't say he "waited 6 years" when the guy had albums shelved by like 4 different labels, though i will admit some of my enthusiasm for the album is that one of rap's greatest geniuses finally stopped getting fucked by the industry for a decade. definitely not any worse than nu-Common.

the Web-generation schism is showing. There was a definite, if subtle, difference between Idolator Poll in '06/'07 and P&J then, and as it is this year: P&J is older, has more rock-entrenched tastes in singles. (They had many long-timers who didn't vote in my poll, and a lot of bloggers only voted in mine.) "Rehab" squeaked a win in P&J and finished fourth in I.P., even with a fifth of its votes carried forth from '06. "Umbrella" sailed to No. 1 in Idolator and finished a close second in P&J. I don't think that's a coincidence; I think it signals the shift to which I'm referring. Similarly, TV on the Radio and LCD Soundsystem were easy victories in I.P. and by noses in P&J. The tastes are essentially the same but the emphases are different. I imagine if I'd done it a couple more years those differences would show more clearly over time

Hey Michaelangelo, forgive me, I'm probably being really dense here and missing something obvious, but it's not at all clear to me what "those differences" are. (They're probably so subtle that I can't even see them.) How do you think an Idolator poll would have shaken out differently than P&J this year? Are you saying the higher blogger participation would have prevented people from voting for "Paper Planes" (a la "Rehab" last year), since they would have considered it old news? And if so, why would that be a good thing? Or maybe that's not what you're suggesting, unless you somehow think "Paper Planes" signifies "rock-entrenched tastes" like you apparently (rightly? because people compare Winehouse to an old soul singer?) "Rehab" did. (I guess it's rockier than "Umbrella," anyway.) Also not following how you think the album tally would have wound up differently -- as I said above, geezer acts already didn't score too well (compared to their past record) in P&J, as far as I can tell; by now, I'd say having a couple old farts like Escovedo on there makes the list more inclusive, not less. If the rolls skewed more indie, the list would only be more monochromatic. Maybe you're saying Idolator's electorate would have helped hip-hop, metal, etc? If so, I guess I don't get how TVOTR's and LCD's decisive showing supports that conclusion.

some old music magazines: a 1997 Request w/Portishead cover and four issues (two 1991, two 1994) of Pulse!--both retail giveaways, published by Sam Goody/Musicland and Tower, respectively. I always liked both mags' genre columns--hip-hop, world, blues, whatever. One of Request's was "Geezers."

Ha ha, I am so old that music magazines from '97 and '94 definitely are not what I'd think of as "old" ones, but yeah, I used to write for Request; totally remember that section. The Rhapsody blog I write for (currently being somewhat overhauled) includes a genre category tag they call "Old Man Rocking," which is similar. Though I never know whether to put old women there, too.

Only one vote for Paavoharju?

― M.V., Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:20 AM

I just got back from vacation, so missed most of the discussion. I'm surprised I'm the only one who voted for it. I thought it was kind of popular around here.

Following up on Matos's point about the differences between Idolator and P&J, I did some number-crunching with the 2006 polls to see which albums were disproportionately favored on each poll. Of the eight albums that got >50% more points on P&J (after weighting for the discrepancy of total voters), six were by artists over the age of 50.

Okay, well, it's obviously impossible to miss the difference with those stats. But that was two years ago, and assuming I'm eyeballing the results accurately, the P&J's geezer-leaning problem seems to have self-corrected since. A younger, bloggier Idolator electorate might have pushed Gang Gang Dance and Jeezy and maybe Blitzen Trapper or the Vivian Girls or Ne-Yo into the Top 40, and pushed Fucked Up up several spaces, but it would have been at the expense of who? Escovedo, obviously. And maybe Metallica, Walkmen, Kings of Leon, Byrne/Eno, even Drive By Truckers. Wouldn't have helped Al Green, either. (Jamey Johnson? Taylor Swift? I dunno.) Not sure if that's an improvement or not.

Metallica, Walkmen, Kings of Leon, Byrne/Eno

Okay, these do like dead weight, I admit. (As does R.E.M. way up at #25, and a lot of the aging indie standbys between 41-50: Beck, Malkmus, Magnetic Fields.) And I bet the Idolator electorate would push up T.I. and Torche (though maybe not Roots or Q-Tip) too. So I guess that's a little better.

"do look like dead weight"

Not directed to anyone in particular, just as a general thought, but as said upthread, there's always the possibility that a large number of P&J voters don't really care about it very much and dash their ballots off quickly to be sure to get it done on time. Sure, on one hand it's lazy, to scan some lists of big records this year and slap something together. But maybe writers feel that the 50,000 or 100,000 or however many words they've written through the year are more important and meaningful than contributing a top 10 to P&J.

I guess what I'm saying is, it seems like there's an assumption by some that voters define themselves as critics by what they submit to P&J. It's not necessarily important to everyone involved that these lists are "accurate" or "interesting" or what have you. If you want to know what Jon Caramanica thought about rap in 2008, you could read some of his pieces rather than drawing conclusions based on his P&J ballot.

And, like Glenn says as far as expanding the album list to 20, I think there are quite a few albums that: 1) tons of critics agree are good; and 2) despite the agreement that these album are good, not one of said critics thinks the album was one of the 10 best of the year. And those albums wind up with 0 votes.

oh boy, room for even more mid-level indie acts. just what the poll needs.

How many UK critics get a vote in P&J?

other than Simon...maybe zero?

Oh so it's just USA & Canada? I didn't realise that. I thought with the internet that there would be writers from all over the place.

It started as American but has expanded a tad. As noted upthread, there are some Canadians, there's Tim Finney from Australia, and I saw a comment from someone in Germany.

Writers from everywhere have to contact the P & J editor and tell them who they write for, to get included. Many folks have not done that.

Only one vote for Paavoharju?

― M.V., Thursday, January 22, 2009 11:20 AM

I just got back from vacation, so missed most of the discussion. I'm surprised I'm the only one who voted for it. I thought it was kind of popular around here.

Not only that, it showed up in a few end-of-year lists, I think.

found two 50%+-country album ballots (at least if alt-country counts); suspect there might be more:

Randy Lewis

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2008/685482

Bobby Reed

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2008/685428

man i will defend the heck out of some lucinda, but the best thing i can say about little honey is that it's better than the last two.

Not heard Little Honey yet. Need to rectify that.

West turned out to be a pretty great record once i got over my initial "what the fuck is wrong with you, Lucinda? are you really trying to annoy me unto death by way of obnoxiously overwrought vocalisms?!!" reaction. took a while, granted.

I'm gonna skip it.

I accidentally left the exclamation mark off of my singles vote for Los Campesinos, "DEATH TO LOS CAMPESINOS" so it is not showing up with Christgau and the other voters for that song.

think there are quite a few albums that: 1) tons of critics agree are good; and 2) despite the agreement that these album are good, not one of said critics thinks the album was one of the 10 best of the year. And those albums wind up with 0 votes.

I always assumed that this was mostly offset by the size of P&J, i.e. if you poll enough people, then you're bound to find *some* critics who will like those albums enough to put them in their top ten. Conversely, if you poll a much smaller number of people (Pitchfork, for example, or virtually any website/mag with maybe a few dozen writers on staff) then everybody needs to submit a larger list (e.g. top 25 at least) to have those great-but-nobody's-favourite albums represented in the poll.

But with longer lists, actual rankings, as opposed to just "mentions", really start to matter -- I'm infinitely more likely to check out an album that was ranked #1 by five people than an album that was ranked #18 by twenty people. This is why I'm surprised that so many people on this thread would prefer un-ranked lists (and is the reason why I always take care to favourably weight the top few albums on my P&J ballot.)

not one of said critics thinks the album was one of the 10 best of the year. And those albums wind up with 0 votes...I always assumed that this was mostly offset by the size of P&J

Not if you are Katy Perry, apparently.

OK, one more stat thing. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but having calculated Voter Centricity, I can then turn around and retabulate the whole poll weighting votes by centricity. Or, for more amusement, inversely weighting by centricity. I.e., the farther from consensus a voter was, the more their votes were worth. Comparing these weighted scores as percentages of the albums' vote-counts then gives us a measure not of popularity but of cultishness! Ignore the albums that got very few votes (5 or fewer, for example) and this starts getting pretty interesting.

Most Cultish Albums
Cultishness Rank - Cultishness - Normal Rank - Votes - Artist - Album

1 - 0.942 - 143 - 7 - Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer
2 - 0.927 - 166 - 6 - Enslaved - Vertebrae
3 - 0.893 - 166 - 6 - Rodriguez - Cold Fact
4 - 0.873 - 143 - 7 - Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun
4 - 0.873 - 143 - 7 - Sic Alps - U.S. EZ
6 - 0.859 - 143 - 7 - AC/DC - Black Ice
7 - 0.857 - 143 - 7 - Rodney Crowell - Sex and Gasoline
8 - 0.852 - 115 - 9 - Opeth - Watershed
9 - 0.85 - 128 - 8 - Joe Jackson - Rain
10 - 0.847 - 143 - 7 - Sloan - Parallel Play

Least Cultish Albums

191 - 0.507 - 1 - 154 - TV on the Radio - Dear Science
190 - 0.536 - 2 - 105 - Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
189 - 0.549 - 105 - 10 - Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
188 - 0.557 - 82 - 12 - Robyn - Robyn
187 - 0.558 - 7 - 78 - Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
186 - 0.561 - 128 - 8 - Okkervil River - Stand Ins
185 - 0.563 - 8 - 73 - Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
184 - 0.564 - 62 - 15 - Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
183 - 0.566 - 6 - 79 - Santogold - Santogold
182 - 0.567 - 4 - 87 - Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

The full list is at http://www.furia.com/all-idols/2008/kvltosis.html

9 - 0.85 - 128 - 8 - Joe Jackson - Rain

A Joe Jackson album got 8 votes in 2008??? Wacky!

oh cultish albums ...

could someone post the most TRV KVLT albums that made the list?

haha

Glenn posted more stats on the metal poll thread btw m@tt