Pazz and Jop 2010

and i guess it makes me sad cuz most of the stuff i vote for is tiny label freakshow stuff that will always be exactly that and i know that and i'm fine with it, but when i vote for something totally normal that could be a modest success commercially it STILL ends up being something that 99.99% of the world is unaware of.

The Jewel album is a country record, and decent, but my vote is for the bonus disc with her solo acoustic versions of all the songs. No matter what over-produced weirdness she consents to, she's still a truly great singer.

The Jimmy Eat World album would belong on the list for its drum sounds alone.

And the MSP album is them back in shameless radio-anthem mode, and there are few bands better at that.

The Frightened Rabbit vote needs an asterisk: I HATE the single "Swim Until You Can't See Land", so my version of the album drops that and adds the later b-side cover "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". Much, much better flow that way.

Glenn, you made me seek out "Distractions," which is indeed a good track, better than most of the album it didn't make it onto.

Oh, and all the b-sides are better-mixed than the album itself!

lex lex i've got u this time!!!

what abt when princess nyah says "u see the legs & the back but no arse out" out on her pass out freestyle? u think that's funny right? ok bad example that's not that funny but what abt when na'tee is ripping some wasteman a new one, that's p fuckin funny right? for profit!

What was missing from the commentary for me this year... was (by choice or otherwise) Rob Sheffield, Chuck Eddy, Frank Kogan, people like that

Flattered. And while I can't speak for those other two guys, for me, not submitting comments in recent years is definitely "by choice" -- I'm just not inspired to do it the way I was back in the Christgau era, at least partly because the Pazz & Jop section really doesn't strike me as a conversation anymore; Xgau's essay, whatever one thought of it (there was a lot to agree or disagree with, which is part of my point!) always served as a center in the old days, and there's just no equivalent in the new regime. This is in no way a knock on Harvilla (I'm not sure I could have centered the conversation without Christgau's help, either), but it's maybe a sign of the times: Also the fact that Pazz & Jop seems to have so much competition these days, and follows such a deluge of best-of polls now. Also, maybe I've just become lazy.

That said, I'm still curious about what people think of the essays that supplemented this year's poll. I only skimmed most of them, but I actually liked my old intern Tom Breihan's piece about Wiz/Yelawolf/Lil B/Curren$y/etc. a lot -- though that may be because my listening is so outside of that world (and even so, I still don't understand how Drake is "weird" in any interesting way, and I think it's a stretch to say "rap is a safer place for weirdos than it's ever been"; haven't there always been Divine Stylers and Rammellzees and Baseheads and Sensationals out there? Though I suppose they never got to rap for Pittsburgh Steelers fans like Wiz, but I'm not really convinced yet that he's as strange as them, either.) Also learned things from Simon Reynolds' Altered Zones/chillwave essay, though he lost me a few graphs in.

On other issues mentioned here in the past couple days, fwiw, here's what I said in my own essay last year:

Just as disconcerting, there's this year's Top 10 P&J singles, seven of which come off indie-identified albums that also finished in the Top 10. Unheard of--as a point of comparison, perennial P&J album high-charters Sleater-Kinney never placed a single above #35. In the three decades since singles tabulating started, only once before have seven Top 10s emerged from Top 10 albums: 1987, and it took three verifiable hits by Prince and two by Bruce (along with one each from R.E.M. and Los Lobos) to pull it off. The last time even five singles turned the trick was 2000, and none of those—two OutKasts, two Eminems, one U2—had indie cred...
I've got theories. First off: Lazy indie voters turning a fun exercise into a dutiful one by listing random "singles" off albums they also voted for are the new version of lazy AOR voters who used to vote for perfunctory tracks off albums they also voted for. Only the genre and technology have changed, and the fact that the AOR squares--back before our newfangled, allegedly singles-oriented, iTunes-through-shitty-speakers era began--almost always got marginalized by radio-imbibing pop and dance and hip-hop fans.

Yeah tbh I probably have not given you fair credit for influencing the stuff I've written and the stats I've compiled about the singles poll this year, I definitely read your essay last year but had not gone back to it more recently or remembered how spot-on it was.

I still don't understand how Drake is "weird" in any interesting way

don't worry, no one else on ILX does, either

It's appealing to think the album/single convergence is a result of lazy indie voters, of course. Hey, any time you can feel smugly superior to any majority, however local, right?

But see this ranking of artists by the percentage of their ballots (2008-10) that include both an album and a song:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Duplicate+Artist+Votes

#1 is Kanye, and Janelle Monáe is almost tied with Animal Collective. This isn't the only way to do this analysis, but it suggests that laziness, if that's what it is, isn't a purely indie failing.

If I can ever persuade the Voice to give me historical data, it would be interesting to see this table of artists per ballot, by year, for the whole history:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=Artists+per+Ballot

Well, I was referring to the 2009 poll (when the Top 10 albums and singles list were both more overwhelmingly indie, and both overlapped more overwhelmingly with each other), not the 2010 one. And I never suggested that critics voting for indie music were the only lazy people out there. (In fact, I use the word "lazy" to describe myself in the very same post above where I quote my 2009 essay!)

And I do realize that chart is for 2008-to-2010, too...But as far as I can tell, outside of Kanye, Janelle, and Robyn, acts generally identified as indie pretty much have a lock on the chart's Top 14.

But there's indie stuff towards the bottom of that list, too, including 2008 winner TV on the Radio. You might still be right, but the numbers could have dramatically confirmed your hypothesis, and don't. Maybe those people aren't lazy, they just really liked those songs. Or maybe they're no lazier than hip hop voters or R&B voters or any other large subset...

Kanye/Janelle are big indie-crit institutions in 2010 I thought...?

Right, "indie voters" inasmuch as they exist, don't only vote for indie rock. (I'm sure quite a few cast ballots for Robyn, as well.) And if the tally doesn't confirm my hypothesis (not sure how such figures could confirm "laziness"), it doesn't disprove my hypothesis, either -- and the plethora of indie toward the top of the list supports my theory more than it argues against it, I'd think. But sure, I have no doubt that the voters "really liked those songs," too -- in fact, I said so in my essay last year. And 2009 may well have been a blip that will never be repeated, and no doubt there are some indie acts (say, maybe TV On The Radio) who aren't perceived even by their supporters as great singles bands. But the one thing that's inarguable is that, in 2009 at least, for whatever reason -- probably not a coincidence -- there was a convergence of albums and singles by the same acts at the top of the lists that had no remote precedent, in Pazz & Jop history, and those acts generally happen to be classified by most people as indie rock. And to me, that still seems noteworthy.

"No remote precedent" except maybe all those Bruce/Prince/etc. hit singles in 1984, I guess, if you want to get technical. (Though again, those were hit singles, which makes them different than most of what placed high in 2009 by definition. But to be honest I was all argued out about stuff this a year ago -- and people argued it to death upthread here a few days ago, too -- and I didn't really plan to dredge it back up now.)

(1987, I meant, not 1984.)

I'm perfectly fine with using "indie" as a pejorative to describe people if the only R&B album on their ballot featured Of Montreal and/or the only rap album on their ballot featured Bon Iver.

power post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siiNiX5-zAk

I'm perfectly fine with using "indie" as a pejorative to describe people if the only R&B album on their ballot featured Of Montreal and/or the only rap album on their ballot featured Bon Iver.

I guess I don't have to worry. I have no rap or R&B albums at all.

Nor did I vote. Ha!

I could count all the voters who DO fit that description to counter the "strawman" thing but I'm not trying to turn this into a witch-hunt or anything, I'm just saying.

Dunno while the Singles side is still such a hot topic, but personally I try never to list a track from any of my Albums, they're just the most or only compelling tracks from albums that didn't quite make or may not have come anywhere near the Top Ten. Or they might be tracks that weren't on albums, like Olof Arnalds' B-side, "Close My Eyes." It's early Arthur Russell folkie reverie, so blissful it kids itself, as Arnalds wickedly slips her sensitive blonde Scandinavian art movie date night appeal all around the cornfed stars.

this line of argument troubles me. i guess i don't get what the beef might be. so, certain people nominate tracks off their favorite albums as their favorite songs of the year. so what? how is this any less valid than any other approach? if someone genuinely loved the arcade fire and national albums and spent months listening to them alone in their room, why shouldn't they call their favorite tracks off those albums the best of the year? how is this inferior to separating the two lists out by what one considers "singles artists" and "album artists?"

It isn't inferior. I'm just describing what I do.

And I do it that way to make room for a few more deserving tracks. But no charity slots--if the most compelling tracks of the year were all on my Albums, those tracks would be my Singles.

oh yeah, sorry. wasn't aiming that at you, dow, though i can see as how it might have seemed that way. was taking aim at an attitude i've seen expressed several times over this last few days, both itt and outside it. strikes me as odd.

this line of argument troubles me. i guess i don't get what the beef might be. so, certain people nominate tracks off their favorite albums as their favorite songs of the year. so what? how is this any less valid than any other approach? if someone genuinely loved the arcade fire and national albums and spent months listening to them alone in their room, why shouldn't they call their favorite tracks off those albums the best of the year? how is this inferior to separating the two lists out by what one considers "singles artists" and "album artists?"

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 10:24 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its redundant?

Maybe it's not "inferior" but it seems narrow and limiting to me.

In essence because it asymmetrically privileges album-oriented music. It goes without saying that if you like an album you like the songs on it. By someone listing an album in their top ten it should be pretty obvious that they also think the songs on it are awesome. OTOH the fact that they like the album so much suggests that it's likely (not definite, but likely) that they enjoy those songs in the context of listening to the album.

But there's lots of songs that are listened to in absence of an album - either because they're big hits, or because there isn't an album, or because there is an album but it's bad, or it's in a genre from which the listener checks out songs but rarely buys albums. When we think of songs that shine as songs (outside the context of an album) it is usually stuff in these categories we think of.

If critics simply replay their albums lists in their songs list it marginalises these categories (except possibly "big hits", which might also be from a high-rating album), and fills the list with stuff that is really enjoyed in an album context anyway (for, if it was not, if it really was listened to as a standalone, the critic wouldn't have voted for the album as well).

Also, this gets lost in the shuffle of everyone doing "tracks" lists, but Pazz & Jop still calls its singles list a "singles" list. And it is a long-standing institution so we can see how people are going about their voting differently than 10-20-30 years ago, which was the point of my putting together those stats and having Glenn put them into handy charts, so you can trace back to when the P&J singles list actually kind of represented the best of what was on the pop charts at the time, and you didn't have non-singles off a top 10 album beating the most highly regarded #1 hit of the year.

that's starting to sound like the 'you're changing the definition of "marriage"' quote-unquote-argument.

yeah, putting Arcade Fire deep cuts on a singles list is pretty gay

serious lol at that

i prefer "tracks" rather than "singles" because so many standalone tracks these days aren't officially released singles - eg the fives' "it's what you do", i've no idea what the status of that is. it's not available (on itunes) to buy, but they put it on their soundcloud and made a video for it (and given how widely available online it was earlier this year, i suspect they gave it away free).

but yeah, listing tracks off an album you've voted for is SUPER LAME - for all the reasons tim listed, but also because i feel like these ballots are a chance to rep to the wider world for all the music i loved this year, and as much of it as possible. i had over 100 tracks on my longlist - any professional critic who can't find at least 50 tracks they love in a year isn't doing their job properly imo - and every slot i give to an artist already covered in my albums ballot is a slot taken away from another artist who i want to rep for.

its redundant?

― challopian youtubes (deej), Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Maybe it's not "inferior" but it seems narrow and limiting to me.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

let me say up front that i'm not defending the way i vote. i tend not to have much crossover between albums and singles/tracks in my own poll ballots. but i wouldn't be at all annoyed by someone who did. it doesn't strike me as redundant, because the questions being asked are different. for example, two people who both loved the taylor swift album might differ on which single off the album is best.

nor does it seem particularly narrow or limiting. in fact, the attempt to enforce a clear distinction between singles and album artists seems far more limiting to me. if we do this, the tracks poll generates not a straightforward list of our favorite singles of the year, but rather a summary of our favorite singles by artists whose albums we didn't vote for, which strikes me as an odd skew to force upon the results. especially given the power of popular singles to seize the public imagination without the assistance of this kind of forced diversity policy. especially given the fact that we increasingly live in a post-album age.

especially given the power of popular singles to seize the public imagination without the assistance of this kind of forced diversity policy

well that's kind of at issue isn't it

are ppl really paying attention to singles if they privilege albums over them

In essence because it asymmetrically privileges album-oriented music. It goes without saying that if you like an album you like the songs on it. By someone listing an album in their top ten it should be pretty obvious that they also think the songs on it are awesome. OTOH the fact that they like the album so much suggests that it's likely (not definite, but likely) that they enjoy those songs in the context of listening to the album.

But there's lots of songs that are listened to in absence of an album - either because they're big hits, or because there isn't an album, or because there is an album but it's bad, or it's in a genre from which the listener checks out songs but rarely buys albums. When we think of songs that shine as songs (outside the context of an album) it is usually stuff in these categories we think of.

If critics simply replay their albums lists in their songs list it marginalises these categories (except possibly "big hits", which might also be from a high-rating album), and fills the list with stuff that is really enjoyed in an album context anyway (for, if it was not, if it really was listened to as a standalone, the critic wouldn't have voted for the album as well).

― Tim F, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 8:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i'd agree that ballots featuring heavy album/single crossover might privilege album-oriented music, and probably would tend to exclude certain categories of singles (as you suggest above). but i'm not sure that there's anything particularly wrong with privileging album-oriented music, if that happens to be what one genuinely likes. and less popular singles by non-album-oriented artists will only be marginalized relative to a ballot by someone with differing tastes. i mean, it's not like there won't be at least a few voters who specialize in non-album-oriented singles to take up the slack.

that said, i understand the basic inequality built into the system. popular albums will always contain a slew of at least moderately popular tracks, but popular singles aren't necessarily associated with a parent album. as you suggest, this means that there's a built-in tendency for tracks from popular albums to sweep aside some of the weird minor hits that keep the singles poll interesting. that's a sound argument, imo. i'm somewhat suspicious of the assumed need for this protective umbrella, however, because i don't think people would vote so very differently if we were less insistent about the need for it. nevertheless, i'll grant that it probably has some benefit in this regard.

my deep-down objection to the "albums here, singles there" policy is that it seems intended to arbitrarily diminish the presence of certain types of music in the singles list. not just "album-oriented music," but specific strains of it. i hear a lot of complaining about the strawman indie voter (a character i've invoked before) who threatens to gunk up the singles list with arcade fire and the national cuts, but everyone's cool with the appearance of taylor swift, kanye, and lady gaga in the albums list, when we know that these artists will also dominate the singles poll. i would say that it is the ubiquity in ballots of hugely successful pop artists like this, more than anything else, that leads to homogeneity in the two lists. but perhaps that's unavoidable. a giant hit is hard to deny.

i guess i come out of this conflicted. i like the idea that the singles list could be a haven for secret stars and would be bummed if it simply regurgitated tracks from the albums list. but i'm philosophically okay with imaginary arcade fire fan voting his/her heart.

No-one's arguing for a protective umbrella, they're just saying it's an unfortunate trend.

but everyone's cool with the appearance of taylor swift, kanye, and lady gaga in the albums list.

As chuck's comment upthread indicated, artists with absolutely massive singles and albums have always crossed over both lists. But lots of pop artists with big singles don't cross over to the albums list. Which is fine. But it's not like The National have been promoted as a singles band.

Taio Cruz ending up with an album in the top 10 would be equiv of The National ending up with a single in the top 10, but that would never happen.

Or maybe a better comparison is Katy Perry: number 11 in singles, number 158 in albums.

Whereas every single artist with an album in the P&J Top 20 also had a "single" in the P&J Top 40.

xpost:

yeah, i get that, but the way those songs and albums fall out in the rankings probably reflects the underlying realities fairly accurately. "dynamite" gets lots of love, but very few P&J voters rate rockstarr overall. a bunch of them probably only know the song as a stand-alone single. meanwhile, it's likely that tons of "bloodbuzz ohio" fans love the national album all the way through (can't fucking stand that song/band, btw).

however the national have been promoted, the distinctions between "album artist" and "single artist" aren't as clear in the itunes/youtube age as they might once have seemed. "dynamite" is obviously a much more popular song, but i'm sure we can agree that gross popularity isn't the only or even the best measure of a song's right to do well in a poll such as this.

No, but is it really likely that fans of The National enjoyed "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a song in any sense meaningfully distinct from the album as a whole?

Katy Perry: number 11 in singles, number 158 in albums.

Whereas every single artist with an album in the P&J Top 20 also had a "single" in the P&J Top 40.

i don't want to argue this too aggressively because your point makes sense to me, and i'm conflicted by my own. but i can easily see why all those top 20 album artists would also have songs in the top 40. albums are nothing but collections of songs. we therefore perhaps mislead ourselves in thinking of certain artists as "album-oriented." these artists are popular among voters only because their albums contain songs the voters love. there are very few albums i'd number among my personal favorites that fail to include at least one or two of my favorite songs. i wouldn't say that albums and album-oriented artists are superior to singles and singles artists, but i do put all songs on an equal footing. in this sense, maybe albums are just singles with really long b-sides.

No, but is it really likely that fans of The National enjoyed "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as a song in any sense meaningfully distinct from the album as a whole?

― Tim F, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 4:08 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

that's a really tough question that i'm not going to go off on. i want to say "yes," but need to think it through first. plays into what i just said about albums being singles with long b-sides.

on reflection and on a functional level, i guess i have to agree with you and the lex. the best strategy is that which encourages maximum broadness in the lists, representation for as many different artists and musical approaches as possible. with that in mind, album-oriented critics should speak to the album-oriented audience primarily through the albums list.

i'd insert the the caveat that there must be the occasional non-hit song on a critically-respected album that so clearly rises above the rest of the material that it deserves mention on a singles ballot (caribou's "odessa" springs to mind atm). but maybe that's just me.

No actually contenderizer I agree with your last point entirely. And I think insisting on absolute separation across the board is extreme.

This is one of those things where one person doing something in isolation is fine but a large number of people doing it has unfortunate (mostly unintended) consequences.

And yeah albums aren't superior to singles or vice versa - but the two lists being a bit different from one another does make for more interesting reading.

Hey all I'm saying is that in 2002 or 1997 or 1991 or 1985 or 1979, the top 10 of the P&J singles list was basically "here are 8-10 of the best hit songs everybody heard this year, with maybe one or two songs that only critics and music nerds know about but generally agree on." The last couple years it's been "here are 3-5 hit songs everybody knows but not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly, and the rest are things we heard on the Forkcast."

I think "not necessarily the best, just the most critic-friendly" is not really a supportable accusation. The P&J was always the list of the most "critic-friendly" songs, whatever their sales, by definition: It's a poll of critics. I don't see how "Bloodbuzz Ohio" making the top 10 is materially different than "Stop Your Sobbing" in 1979, or "O Superman" in 1981, or "Eight Miles High" in 1984. Nor how the Forkcast is any less valid a source of exposure than KZEW or Billboard or however "critics" were hearing (about) new music 30 years ago.

A poll can be (at least) two things: the aggregated trip reports from year-long voyages of musical discovery, or the judgment of a panel of experts on the artistic merits of popular material. If you want the latter, you need a constrained set of choices. Arguably radio and the professional demands of a print-based electorate implicitly provided enough constraint in the early days. Now, not so much, for many many reasons.

But who cares? Why should popularity be the first filter? Why should the Pazz & Jop be the post-amateur division of American Idol? To me the trip-report idea is hugely, overwhelmingly more compelling. The "results" are the least of the poll, to me (and currently I'm the one providing them...). The much deeper value is in the network of associations and connections and commonalities. I'd love to see the poll pushed, in both electorate and structure, towards more diversity, more-varied specialization, more conscious and comprehensive embrace of this role of thoughtful exploration.

well put

Cool discussion - the proper distinction seems to be between good and bad critics/voters rather than admissible and inadmissible tracks. If a voter listens to a wide range of music over the year (Glenn's voyage of musical discovery) then I'd trust whatever he/she lists as his/her favourite tracks. Someone who restricts themselves to a small number of critically-acclaimed albums and votes for six Vampire Weekend tracks probably shouldn't be voting.