Pazz and Jop 2010

but some generalist critics will like the odd song by someone they wouldn't normally. And a poppy lead off track from an album whose mp3 was posted to blogs might just satisfy that itch without them hearing a full album. I'm not saying they all do, that would be ridiculous, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few did that.

Sunn O)))'s 'Alice', as mentioned upthread, is much more likely to get me going FUCKKKKKK than Opeth or Cryptopsy, but I suspect Whiney knows this, the fiend

it's pretty goddamn amazing though. iirc The Reverend really liked it!

the rev can rock out occasionally

metal rules, but it's always going to appeal to a smaller audience because of the fact that it's a very very VERY VERY VERY acquired taste, especially when you get more extreme. nothing mindblowing about the concept at all.

(that's my way of saying I'm better than anybody because I like bands that sell 300 records)

OK, this comment from Chuck finally crystalized for me what I don't buy about this whole "singles" thing: Cauldron's "Miss You To Death" will definitely be in the running for my 2011 singles list, if it becomes a single in some manner.

So what we're saying, in this scenario, is that a) the artist has done their job and made a song, and b) the critic has (or will have) done their job and scoured the cosmos and their conscience to pick 10 songs whose greatness they are willing to endorse. Anybody want to step up and call Chuck Eddy lazy? He actually had to listen to a whole album to find this song! (Well, OK, it's track two, but still.) As far as I'm concerned, we're done here. Artist -> Critic -> Poll -> Reader -> Discovery? Cast the vote. Spread the word.

But wait. You're saying that he shouldn't cast that vote unless some record company decides to declare the song a "single"? Who the fuck cares what the record company does? Why on earth should that have any part in this? The word you're looking for here isn't "populism", it's "corporatism".

And back to the National for a second, this speculation is maybe a little silly. It's not like we're trying to imagine what dinosaurs smelled like. There are 15 people who voted for both "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and High Violet, and chances are some of them are reading this. So: Anthony Lombardi, Bret Gladstone, D Patrick Rodgers, David A Cobb, Eric Danton, Glenn Gamboa, Jeremiah McNeil, Jon Solomon, Kelly Dearmore, Matt Fiander, Michael Ayers, Shawn Anderson, Stephen Thompson, Steve Baltin and/or Will Dana to thread. Any of you want to tell us your thinking behind your votes?

And there were 26 who voted for "Bloodbuzz Ohio" but not the album. Paging Amanda Petrusich, Brian Orloff, Chris Molanphy, Christian Hoard, Corey Moss, Daniel Levin Becker, Derk Richardson, Doug Brod, Doug Wallen, Ethan Stanislawski, Fred Mills, Gary Graff, George A Paul, Jim Connelly, Joe Gross, Josh Love, Keith Harris, Marianne Meyer, Michael Pollock, Michael Tedder, Paul Robicheau, Sarah Ventre, Scott Mervis, Steve Klinge, Steve Rosen and Zachary Smith. Do you think of yourselves as lazy indie voters, or did you actually like this song, do you just have something against engaging with popular music?

^^^calling dudes out by their real names

what if after they come they stay

x-post re singles versus tracks:

Chuck is just being old-school and wanting to only highlight songs that are marketed as singles or focus tracks (and that category has long included indie label 7 inch singles and 12 inch singles as well as corporate released ones)

what if after they come they stay

as long as they keep away from our poll

LOL

i expect better from christian hoard and keith harris. aw, i wish keith still posted here. he's awesome.

Keith Harris who voted for the National track but not the album used to post here. His album list includes a jazz one and a North African one and MIA; his top 10 songs include Big Boi, Kanye and Taio Cruz.

Josh Love voted for Taylor Swift.

Yeah, Josh and Keith are the only names I recognize that have posted here.

I know Chris Molanphy via Maura/old-Idolator, and his tastes are pretty much all over the place. Also, he's a cool guy.

So Bret Gladstone who has written for spin.com and rollingstone.com voted for the National album and track, and for the Joanna Newsom album and two Joanna Newsom tracks! His vote for Kanye's album and a Kanye track were his only selections that are not indie-rock.

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2010/686496/

lex will welcome him with open arms to ilm..

did he just vote for his favourite track off his albums picks?

so that dude is pretty much the PRECISE PERSON that shipz has been railing against - and when you see it laid out like that, the railing is QUITE JUSTIFIED

I know I said that voting for a track or 2 off an album was ok if those tracks really did stand out, but he just picked 10 tracks from 8 of the albums he voted for. That's just..... Oh I'll leave it to the lex.

hah xp

so that's one out of 728 or whatever....

OK, this comment from Chuck finally crystalized for me what I don't buy about this whole "singles" thing: Cauldron's "Miss You To Death" will definitely be in the running for my 2011 singles list, if it becomes a single in some manner.

So what we're saying, in this scenario, is that a) the artist has done their job and made a song, and b) the critic has (or will have) done their job and scoured the cosmos and their conscience to pick 10 songs whose greatness they are willing to endorse. Anybody want to step up and call Chuck Eddy lazy? He actually had to listen to a whole album to find this song! (Well, OK, it's track two, but still.) As far as I'm concerned, we're done here. Artist -> Critic -> Poll -> Reader -> Discovery? Cast the vote. Spread the word.

But wait. You're saying that he shouldn't cast that vote unless some record company decides to declare the song a "single"? Who the fuck cares what the record company does? Why on earth should that have any part in this? The word you're looking for here isn't "populism", it's "corporatism".

― glenn mcdonald, Thursday, January 27, 2011 7:27 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

If you're addressing me here, you're gonna have to quote some of my posts because I don't remember making any of the statements you're arguing with.

My goal here has been to observe and document larger trends in voting and find some meaning in them; I thought you of all people understood that, but if you think I've crossed some line into telling people what to like, how to think or what to vote for, I apologize. I'd ask you to re-read my posts and show me where I crossed that line, though, if you really think I have.

I still lurk sometimes. (Hi Scott!)

dirty dirty lurkers. they steal all their good ideas from me. hi!

No, some dude, that wasn't really aimed at you. The "populism"/"corporatism" thing was just too good to pass up. I understand that you're trying to figure out what's going on. I'm backing up and saying that my issue isn't with your distinction between hits and non-hits, but before that: that the idea of letting distribution methods define "single" (regardless of sales or charts) is morally/artistically broken to begin with. Maybe one could justify it by some consumer-guide argument in 1979, when official singles were the only thing cheaper than an album that people could buy, but these days what isn't available streaming or individually? (Says the guy who voted for Triptykon's "The Prolonging", which is album-only on iTunes...)

Yeah...the xhuxk quote you used as an example is interesting to me because I almost come at it from the opposite direction -- you think he shouldn't have to wait to put it on a singles list only after the label has decided it's a single; I would say that since he decided he likes it by listening to it on an album and hasn't heard it in any standalone context, isn't it just part of an album he likes?

A lot of it comes down to not wanting my singles list to be redundant with my albums list, and likewise thinking that the more the P&J singles poll resembles the albums poll, the less it feels like it has a reason to exist. A lot of times one or two deep cuts I really love are what make me champion an album, regardless of whether I dislike or am just indifferent to the rest. If I start putting those songs on a singles list, I'd lower the impetus to include the album in my top 10 and my albums list would be kind of distorted or whittled away. By only listing singles I really heard on their own a lot, outside my iTunes window, the singles list becomes its own distinct thing with relatively little crossover or redundancies. That's my methodology, and I get the sense that methodology was more common before than it is now, but beyond extolling the virtues of voting that way I'm not really trying to tell people their way is wrong and my way is right.

Ha ha, I have fallen behind on this thread (and am too hungry for dinner to catch up.) Anyway, Glenn: If you read some of my posts upthread, you'll note that it's not only record companies that can make something a single for me: There's also DJs, for instance, and whoever curates various artist compilations (or runs certain websites where tracks are singled out regularly, maybe). Maybe even (gasp!) the artists themselves. But yeah, basically, as I told Don upthread, for my own singles ballot, I'm kind of stuck on some bastardization of the old-school definition: I want the singles I vote for to be designated as singles or focus tracks or whatever by somebody other than me. Just seems less solipsistic that way -- Like I'm connecting with the world outside my head. And yeah, that's probably a major delusion. And I don't think less of other folks because they don't share that delusion. But I'm stuck with it (and have been known to bend it now and then, too, to be honest. So let's just say I try to hold myself to it.) On a more practical level, it just keeps my list more manageable -- there are lots and lots of songs I like through the year; somehow, having some fuzzy semblance of a definition for the word "single" reins my list in somewhat; so I know what to compare.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure I've never complained about the placement of "Bloodbuzz, Ohio." (I like Ohio! Used to live in Cincinnatti! But mainly, I've been less engaged with the poll in general this year, than I was last year -- trying to stand on the sidelines, just not always succeeding at.) (Pretty sure I've never argued for "populism," either, for whatever that's worth. I just like the poll results more when they're not boring, is all. And too much of any one thing is a pretty good ticket toward boredom, I'd say.)

Yeah I think "Bloodbuzz" just became an easy go-to example of a song on the singles list that feels a bit like a stand-in for its album/artist -- although you did give it a 4 on Singles Jukebox so I'm sure people could make the assumption you don't think it deserves its placement.

Also, Whiney said, upthread, "Like I'm really into certain rando Rotting Christ and Dillinger and Torche album tracks, but I would exactly call any of them 'singles' by any stretch of the imagination."

To which I cheerfully point out that exactly one voter voted for a Rotting Christ album track, and I am that voter. "Demonon Vrosis". It's a great song, and in my opinion it is more powerful in isolation than Aealo taken as a whole. I spent a fair amount of time and thought selecting this, and at no point during the process did it occur to me to look up whether it was "released" individually in some jurisdiction. You don't know, either. Maybe it sat on top of the South-Eastern Bulgaria chart for three months like a fetid toad. I can't see how it makes the slightest bit of difference.

xp I don't think lots of things deserve placement! So? I've thought certain records were over-rated in Pazz & Jop forever. But I don't expect to agree with the poll; pretty sure I said that in my essay last year, too. If I ever thought Pazz & Jop should coincide with my personal tastes, somebody should lock me up. (I agreed with way more of it 30 years ago, sure. But hey, I'm old!)

I was just joking around; I don't think Glenn was accusing you of expressing any opinion of that song or its placement.

Also, I totally support the idea of personal rules for voting. Mine, which I don't claim anybody else should follow unless they feel like it, are that I do the album list first, thinking of it as "year's greatest achievement at album length", and then I do the song list, thinking of it as "honorable mention for notable achievement at song length". So no duplication of songs from listed albums, and no duplication of artists, but the songs always end up being a mix of standout moments from albums that just missed my album list (but album #11 doesn't necessarily get a song slot), and random songs that blew me away even though their albums didn't (or didn't come from albums).

I rarely get much overlap with other voters this way -- none in 2010 -- but I figure people who wander into my ballot via album votes or trawling around at the bottom of the song list will get this little playlist of suggestions that you might be interested in if you like the kind of thing I vote for...

Idiosyncratic singles ballots that are full of songs that only got one or a few votes are totally cool in my opinion, especially if your tastes run exclusively towards the esoteric or outside any singles charts. Mine don't, personally, so when I'm making my singles ballot I'm kind of rooting for each song to get votes from other people, even as I know some of those songs have a better shot than others. I'm wary about how consensus has formed around some songs and types of songs, but the people that are just total individualists should go for it.

But I mean, the Arcade Fire thing -- they were #3 on the albums list, plus a non-single got to #11 on the singles list. I'm sure every top 3 Pazz & Jop album ever has had some deep cut that everyone who voted for it could agree was great, but what's really the point of voting for that song too? It's not a question of how many of the song's voters also voted for the album, either -- someone might vote for just the song as a 'statement' about how they dislike the album but love the song, but that's not expressed in any meaningful way by the song finishing in the top 20.

maybe they were bewitched by regine's streamers when the arcade fire performed the song on SNL.

It's not a question of how many of the song's voters also voted for the album, either -- someone might vote for just the song as a 'statement' about how they dislike the album but love the song, but that's not expressed in any meaningful way by the song finishing in the top 20.

― williamstevenjames (some dude), Thursday, January 27, 2011 6:44 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think you have to accept that people may have voted for arcade fire jam #7 simply because they love it, love it not exclusively as an inseparable part of an album but as a thing in itself, a thing to be watched on youtube, slotted into playlists, or bought for 99 cents from itunes. voting for an album track needn't be a "statement" about the album as a whole, and it isn't necessarily lazy or incurious. such a vote can be a sincere statement regarding what one honestly believes: that the song in question legitimately deserves to be singled out for individual attention. worrying about it any more than that seems petty.

I accept that, sure. Thinking about how one's vote effects the results of a poll one is participating in beyond the main motivating factors behind how one votes isn't necessary or important -- I don't know if I'd use the word "petty," maybe just neurotic.

yeah, that's fair. "petty" was kinda sharp, no snub intended.

A lot of it comes down to not wanting my singles list to be redundant with my albums list, and likewise thinking that the more the P&J singles poll resembles the albums poll, the less it feels like it has a reason to exist

OTM. The same line of thinking applies to my own ballot -- if I voted for the album then I've already endorsed all the songs on there, so why not use my singles ballot to vote for something different? That was my thinking this year, at least. It helped that there weren't any obvious hit singles on the albums I voted for.

I do a top 50 albums list and a top 50 singles list every year; this year, my singles list this year featured 11 songs that appeared on records on my albums list, and 16 songs from albums I've heard. I know not every critic has the time or inclination or compulsion to do that. But I mean, when people can't come up with 10 songs they loved that weren't on albums they listened to and I was able to think of 34, I'm not calling them "lazy" but I do think they could maybe to treat their singles ballots as more of a unique space to honor music that's not a permanent part of their record collection.

^^ Yes. You've made good arguments here for that.

For another slightly different perspective, I just did a quick calculation to give each P&J year since 1979 a Single/Album Vote Ratio, by taking the average ratio between the corresponding single and album at each chart position from 1-25. So if the two top 25s in a year had the same number of votes all the way down, they'd get a score of 1.0, and the lower the number, the less consensus the singles list represented compared to the albums list.

1979 - 0.54
1980 - 0.614
1981 - 0.921
1982 - 0.872
1983 - 0.969
1984 - 0.839
1985 - 0.886
1986 - 0.719
1987 - 0.799
1988 - 0.755
1989 - 0.855
1990 - 0.719
1991 - 0.835
1992 - 0.654
1993 - 0.708
1994 - 0.722
1995 - 0.8
1996 - 0.659
1997 - 0.676
1998 - 0.599
1999 - 0.55
2000 - 0.693
2001 - 0.642
2002 - 0.644
2003 - 0.84
2004 - 0.742
2005 - 0.656
2006 - 0.622
2007 - 0.53
2008 - 0.537
2009 - 0.581
2010 - 0.551

Interesting that the numbers vary so much. They've been low the last few years, but statistically the overall downward trend is both slight and debatable. If you look only at the top 10s it's even less clear whether there's a trend.

yeah it's interesting to see how the strength of the consensus has varied, that definitely seems like something that's fluctuated independent of any single factor or trend.

...the average ratio between the corresponding single and album at each chart position from 1-25. So if the two top 25s in a year had the same number of votes all the way down, they'd get a score of 1.0

so, where there is track/album correspondence in the top 25s, you compared the number of votes each got, generating a ratio from 0 (statistically impossible) to 1 (both got the same number of votes). is that right?

if so, it's interesting that this sort of consensus, whatever it might indicate, seems to be declining over time. wonder what might be motivating that? might be that participants have, over time, become less inclined to vote for matching albbums and tracks, but it's hard to say.

I'm slow here. So, you're comparing the #25 album to the #25 single (and both #24s, both #23s, both #22, etc.), right? It has nothing to do with whether the same artist places on each list, right? Or does it? (If it does, I'm confused -- wouldn't that just take into account artists who do place on both tallies, whether there's 1 of them or 25, and artists who don't place on both lists wouldn't be a variable at all? But I don't think it does. Still kind of dense about what point it's making! I think part of my confusion is your use of the phrase "corresponding single and album" -- corresponding because they're from the same act, or finish in the same slot?)

If you're doing what I think you're doing (comparing #25 to #25, and so on), seems the biggest factor might just be the number of voters who actually file singles ballots, vs. ones filing album ballots. (Which would explain the low scores in 1979 and 1980, when lots of crusty old cusses were resistant to voting for singles, as I believe Christgau talked about in his essays back then.) Interesting exercise, but I'm not really following what it has to do with there being a "consensus," I guess.

I'm slow here. So, you're comparing the #25 album to the #25 single (and both #24s, both #23s, both #22, etc.), right?

lol, that's what i thought at first, based on the explanation. but i decided i must be wrong, because i couldn't see the utility in measuring that sort of consensus. i guess i don't really get what's being measured there.