Year-End Critics' Polls 2011

OK, deej's point is a fair one, and it reminds me of the problems with "round tables" in general: it's impossible to control the ebb and flow once it starts.

yeah i mean you can't really gripe that a multi-perspective 'year in review' is too broad and centrist, that's the whole point

there has to be a common ground to talk about but i'd rather it be about interesting corners of the music world than the pop charts entirely

i'm sure all of them were very interested in talking about the weeknd, that's more 'interesting' than katy perry, right

well no, but one of nitsuh's fav rap records was kendrick lamar, and i think it would be really interesting to see ann powers tackle that, and i'm much more interested in reading a person that smart engaging w/ something i find interesting (and i just used that example b/c its in my wheelhouse but this could easily apply to stuff i haven't heard as well)

i mean, i guess it could easily be katy perry too, if ann felt very strongly about katy perry; i just didn't get the feeling we were reading about what the critics really liked, just what they were obligated to cover

yes it would be very fascinating if everyone talked about blog rap mo- zzzzzzzzzzz

kendrick is 'blog rap' to you, really?

everything is blog rap now -- i just mean rap that isn't fully in mainstream pop culture

im just saying i'd rather get the feeling that the critics were talking about something they were really interested in instead of centering around this idea of 'pop' as if pop music right now is the only music a big smart critic would talk about

of course in the real world this would likely end up w/ them just covering indie instead i guess so maybe ur right

but in my world, it's like, one dude suggests a jazz cd, someone suggests a hip-hop one, another a mainstream pop etc. and they all discuss those. i dunno, just thought it'd be more interesting to me than, like, well, let's tackle the pop charts.

a lot of stuff in that slate series is not very 'pop' or popular, and i don't get much of a sense that anybody is writing about pop music more than before because it's the thing to do. lots of critics still write exclusively about underground/niche stuff and always will, and people that can write about top 40 without being completely dismissive and condescending will save the others the trouble of coming down off their perches.

in one of them, powers writes about azealia banks and shabazz palaces, if you're dying to see her engage with rap that isn't on the pop charts that she's enthusiastic about

those arent rap lol

Though that whole Slate music critics' roundtable presents such a narrow idea of what's going on in the world that reading it drives me kinda batshit

haha srsly although as some dude points out the format tends to make discussions both disjointed and scleratic and so its hard to find a way to engage with the discussion, its this uncomfortable feeling of hearing someone talking abt a book you just read on the subway or s.thing

oh i didn't realise deej was getting at, like, a referendum on ann powers specifically. i love her writing and think she's easily one of the smartest critics out there, and i actually get way more of a sense of her own character and tastes than i usually do. how is her generalism any more "fronting" than, say, nitsuh's relentless reasonableness and unwillingness to really go in on an act you can tell he dislikes?

this ann powers piece on "authenticity" and "character" in pop is one of the smartest things i read last year, gonna submit it to the da capo book - http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/10/26/141735626/whos-still-jenny-from-the-block-an-examination-of-autobiography-in-pop - and it's definitely not a bland, generalist move to just go ahead and use jennifer lopez and tom waits as your examples in the same column w/o justifying yourself to r*ckist readers.

i wish more writers used quotidian anecdotes tbh (even though whole foods sucks) - it helps root your assessments in your own personal listening experience, which is how it should be, rather than pretending they exist in some vacuum of objectivity. kat stevens does this really well on the jukebox.

maybe i get more of a sense of her tastes b/c i know she's a massive tori amos stan? there aren't many of us left. (taking notice of tori amos in 2012 is itself hardly a pandering move.)

im just saying i'd rather get the feeling that the critics were talking about something they were really interested in instead of centering around this idea of 'pop' as if pop music right now is the only music a big smart critic would talk about

oh LOL at this, this is exactly what happens but the critics who centre around "pop" are few and far between. compared to the legion of critics who blindly follow ~buzz~ (whether indie or otherwise tbh, cf your own "critics must talk about x because it's in The Conversation), powers comes off like a total maverick.

how is her generalism any more "fronting" than, say, nitsuh's relentless reasonableness and unwillingness to really go in on an act you can tell he dislikes?

haha. i can't say i haven't seen this sometimes from him too -- i never claimed ann powers was the only critic i've disagreed with!

thanks for the links tho i'll check it out

oh LOL at this, this is exactly what happens but the critics who centre around "pop" are few and far between. compared to the legion of critics who blindly follow ~buzz~ (whether indie or otherwise tbh, cf your own "critics must talk about x because it's in The Conversation), powers comes off like a total maverick.

― all i see is angels in my eyes (lex pretend), Thursday, January 5, 2012 2:51 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i feel like she's just shifting the buzz towards yet another received wisdom, though, this time in favor of crowds rather than critics, so I don't really see it as an 'improvement' on people who only follow buzz at the end of the day, even if my particularly tastes are closer on that spectrum

i'd rather see how someone contrasts with a system, where the rough edges are as much as where they go with the flow; to me it's the tension between those two that makes writing exciting (& I certainly don't think Ann doesn't do that ever, or something; I guess I really just meant that sometimes I wish there was a little less "ahh genial acceptance of what is popular" & a lil more ... fight. or like, that her taste didnt seem quite as tied to pop

this is a criticism only as it relates to my relationship to her writing; it doesn't mean i think she's doing a bad job, it's just that it limits my level of interest

and again this is on a small scale, because I still read her stuff, and I think she's a great critic the same way I do Nitsuh

i don't see any genial acceptance of anything in her writing - she was one of the few critics to go against the odd future buzz early on, and she quite obviously highlights acts she's fond of within her generalist remit, so i do get a sense of her own taste constellation. (she's great on female singer-songwriters, for instance.) why is her taste being tied to pop any better or worse than if it was tied to rap or indie?

this is something that all outlets' lead writers have to do to an extent - they have to cover the biggest albums/artists out. what i hate is when they do that while obviously holding their nose, and just end up regurgitating snark at easy targets (or withholding vitriol from hyped acts). with powers i get the impression she genuinely enjoys what she bigs up, and doesn't really follow any received wisdom. if you've got examples that demonstrate otherwise feel free to link, i don't religiously read her work (though she ranks high on "writers whose links i'll click on twitter if i see them")

odd future aren't a charting pop act so that's not really what I'm talking about.

why is her taste being tied to pop any better or worse than if it was tied to rap or indie?

And clearly it's got to be one of the three, because pop, rap and indie make up all the music in the world.

I understand the emphasis on covering pop, rap, and indie, but yes it was kinda frustrating reading this roundtable and not seeing any token outliers mentioned (and I would be ok with one of them saying "hey this is not as buzzed about but i like...) --metal, afropop, mainstream rock, regional thug rap, southern soul, jazz...Nabisco mentioned briefly Austra but that's kinda Pitchforky

"hey this is not as buzzed about but i like...)"

exactly

The Voice had a similar interesting roundtable but with the same problem. One writer mentioned liking Korean pop but then went back to talking about Drake on and on and on.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/columns/sotc_roundtable/

http://www.frootsmag.com/content/critpoll/

1. June Tabor & Oysterband Ragged Kingdom (Topic)
2. Fatoumata Diawara Fatou (World Circuit)
3. Ry Cooder Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down (Nonesuch)
4. Juju (Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara) In Trance (Real World)
5. Gillian Welch The Harrow And The Harvest (Acony/Warner Bros)
6. Jackie Oates Saturnine (ECC)
7= Aurelio Laru Beya (Real World)
Mary Hampton Folly (Teaspoon)
Aziz Sahmaoui University Of Gnawa (General Pattern)
10= Tinariwen Tassili (V2/Anti)
Abigail Washburn City Of Refuge (Rounder)

The title of that Ry Cooder album always makes me think it's a Captain Beefheart tribute compilation.

my top 50 :

http://falcaodanoite.blogspot.com/2011/12/compras-2.html

^^ introduction blurb in portuguese, but it's not that important all in all.

http://africasacountry.com/2011/12/22/10-albums/#more-39216

Weird list of last.fm most listened to:
http://www.last.fm/bestof/2011/artists?limit=100

Peter Gabriel! Alkaline Trio! Mogwai!

where's New Order? Don't tell me ILM is out of touch with the real world?????

Wow, I've heard of barely any of the 'most listened to artists first scrobbled in 2011'.

lol @ Wugazi

20. Mange Makers

comedy, avant-garde, derp

11,332 listeners

^ please let me never hear this ever

He posts quite a bit here iirc

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/126s/61692077.gif

Nyan Cat

nyan cat, brutal black metal, nyan

lol http://www.last.fm/tag/brutal%20black%20metal

For posterity:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7142/6680059147_5bff4966b1.jpg

This list is amazing. Britain's answer to Smoove B:
http://www.last.fm/music/Starboy+Nathan

2011: the year nu-crabcore broke:
http://www.last.fm/music/Design+The+Skyline

is there a rolling last.fm thread this year?

pop, fun fun fun fun, legend

I've never even heard of Natalia Kills or Christina Perri.

is there a thread for best mix/ mixtape/mix album in general of 2011? couln't find one

christina perri had the song about the jar of hearts that 'broke' on so you think you can dance

very musical-theatric

"jar of hearts" is seriously one of the worst songs i've ever heard but the follow-up was surprisingly tolerable. she's definitely not so famous that anyone should worry about not having heard of her, though.

So how do they end up in the Last.fm top 10 then? (Which I guess is a way of asking, what are Last.fm's biases?)

I don't know if there are biases, just the number of times people listen to these songs on a device that scrobbles (or tracks) each listen.

"Jar Of Hearts" was a big adult contempo hit, was #55 on the year-end Hot 100 list, so i mean...it was a popular mainstream song, it just i guess had a bigger impact on whatever lastfm's demo is than w/ other audiences. (xpost)

xp Right: but do Last.fm users skew to a particular demographic? (I'm guessing they're disproportionately young and British.)

well i mean there HAS to be some demographic skewing, whether we can summarize it in 2 or 3 words or not.