Pazz and Jop 2010

I guess I should stop the injunction I filed with the state of New York to block the Village Voice from holding next year's poll until they fulfill my demanded changes to the voting policy, huh.

It'll take 3-5 years to work through the courts, anyway.

Do we know how many of the contributors to the Nashville Scene newspaper Country music poll voted as well in P & J?

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/country-music-critics-poll-voters/Content?oid=2191637

hold on, I'll correlate

37 of those 75 voted in P&J this year, 38 didn't.

38 actually, after I fixed one stray name. And here's what we get from looking at those 38 as a subset of the P&J:

https://pub.needlebase.com/actions/visualizer/V2Visualizer.do?domain=Pazz-Jop&query=A+World+Centered+in+Nashville

interesting:

Janelle Monáe · The ArchAndroid
Jamey Johnson · The Guitar Song
Kanye West · My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Arcade Fire · The Suburbs
Elizabeth Cook · Welder
Taylor Swift · Speak Now
Black Keys · Brothers
Robert Plant · Band of Joy
Mavis Staples · You Are Not Alone
Neil Young · Le Noise
Chely Wright · Lifted Off the Ground
Robyn · Body Talk

remove kanye from that list on the theory that everyone voted for kanye this year so he doesn't mean anything particular for any specific subgrouping, and you're left with a list that suggests, not too surprisingly, that (a) nashville (and nashville-esque) voters like real music played real people who have real roots, and (b) they're probably older than the average voter. that's what that list says to me. except for robyn. not sure how robyn fits in there. but everything else, including janelle, makes complete sense.

robyn is pretty 'real music played by real people' for her style of music

probably not any less so than janelle monae, anyway

well, the inclusion of kanye does mean something. it supports the argument that nashville critics are engaged with the same overarching pop cultural narratives that vibe and pitchfork (etc) are. it isn't a balkanized territory.

i like a number of things about that list, not least that it includes several recordings by older artists where P&J includes none. it's pretty diverse, really. subtract, say, two of the three telegenic country pop idols, and you've got a surprisingly broad view of the american pop landscape in just 10 records. you've got young & old, club music and rock, indie and rap, black and white, homegrown americana and songs from other lands. not bad.

i don't know, just looks like a paste magazine playlist to me.

who are the three telegenic country pop idols?

there's only one artist on the list who fits that description, i'm a dick to have suggested otherwise and should be shot. leave it at that.

what i should have said: there are four artists in that top 12 that code straight country (johnson, cook, swift and wright). drop a couple of those and you have a top 10 that...

dunno from paste playlists, but their published 2010 top 10 is much narrower. it's almost all indie, it's whiter, it makes no room for older artists, allows for nothing from outside the US/UK, etc.

The Paste I knew almost definitely wouldn't have had room for Taylor Swift or Chely Wright. (Too, uh, "telegenic" or something. Even if one of them did come out of the closet this year.)

Also, it's kind of a misnomer to call Michaelangelo Matos, Mikael Wood, Frank Kogan, Carol Cooper, Robert Christgau, Kandia Crazy Horse, Anthony Easton, myself, and several other critics whose votes would've figured into that tally "Nashville critics."

Yeah...that group probably votes for more non-country in P&J than, say, the people from ILM's metal poll voted for non-metal or the goons voted for non-rap (or maybe I'm wrong? I dunno).

Also, it's kind of a misnomer to call Michaelangelo Matos, Mikael Wood, Frank Kogan, Carol Cooper, Robert Christgau, Kandia Crazy Horse, Anthony Easton, myself, and several other critics whose votes would've figured into that tally "Nashville critics."

ulp, gotcha. was making the ridiculous/ignorant assumption that contributors to the nashville scene newspaper country music poll would mostly = industry insiders and people who write exclusively about country musicc.

"forx was repping for youtube only synth experiments & videogame dlc trax or w/e hes into?"
pfffft youtube only synth experiments and videogame dlc trax are SO 2009

One last (maybe) note about Kanye's margin of victory. Measuring margin by the ratio of votes for #1 over #2, this was only the 3rd most decisive victory: Arrested Development beat Pavement 97-50 in 1992, and Beck beat the Fugees 110-58 in 1996. If we do a weighted average by taking twice the #2 album's votes plus the #3 album's, and dividing by 3, and then comparing the #1's votes to that, Kanye's win drops to 4th, after Beck over the Fugees and Sleater-Kinney, PJ Harvey over Tricky and Moby 120-71-44 (1995), and Arrested Development over Pavement and REM.

The lowest such-weighted ratios, of course, went to Dylan in 2006 and LCD Soundsystemin 2007, both of whom won on points but were 3rd on votes...