Year-End Critics' Polls 2011

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.

Like, it is also kind of amazing to me that someone like James Blake could be in the Last.fm top 20. But maybe it shouldn't be, I dunno.

I guess I just remember looking at Audioscrobbler/Last.fm charts five years ago and it was all Coldplay/Muse/Green Day/RHCP.

Yeah I misread your post jaymc, I think overall it definitely skews young, but afaik its distributed pretty widely around the world - I notice users from lots of different places.

xp OK so I guess that is still essentially true of its weekly chart: Beatles, Radiohead, Adele, Rihanna, etc. So now I'm just confused how some seemingly less-popular acts make the year-end rankings.

E.g., the only artist in this week's Top 100 that I haven't heard of is Avicii, down at #78.

well i mean, the overwhelming majority of people listening to music on earth do not 'scrobble,' so of course you're gonna get statistical hiccups like The Strokes being the 7th most popular artist of 2011. not much we can really do or say about that beyond making the obvious jokes and generalizations.

it's possible that those lesser-known artists on the yearly list each have REALLY dedicated cults that just listen to their favorite acts more consistently over the course of the whole year than people who listen to less music or use lastfm less or something.

well i mean, the overwhelming majority of people listening to music on earth do not 'scrobble,' so of course you're gonna get statistical hiccups like The Strokes being the 7th most popular artist of 2011. not much we can really do or say about that beyond making the obvious jokes and generalizations.

Yeah, I get this. Like I said, I was mostly confused b/c when I've glanced at Last.fm charts in the past (which I guess were just the weekly ones), it was mostly full of mainstream and big indie artists.

Strokes at #7 isn't that shocking to me. James Blake and the Vaccines (whoever they are) in the top 20 is.

it's possible that those lesser-known artists on the yearly list each have REALLY dedicated cults that just listen to their favorite acts more consistently over the course of the whole year than people who listen to less music or use lastfm less or something.

Possibly?

Actually, is it possible that Last.fm's Top Artists of the Year only counts tracks released in 2011? That would explain the absence of some of the classic-rock artists that routinely show up in the weekly charts.

i dunno if you asked me "who had a good year among music fans on the internet in 2011," James Blake's name would come up a LOT faster than The Strokes

i think you're EXACTLY right about that list being only people who released music in 2011 (whether the figures only count their new music or all their music, i have no idea)

James Blake had a bigger year among music critics/nerds on the Internet, but I am not so sure about the broader pool of "fans."

i dunno, this is a worldwide list! he had pop hits in a few countries!

afaict the strokes didn't really have a top 10 hit anywhere last year

he had pop hits in a few countries!

OK, I guess I didn't realize quite how popular he was in the UK/Europe. #1 album in Flanders, huh.

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-Christgau-s-Best-of-2011/ba-p/6657

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/Dad-Rock-Makes-a-Stand/ba-p/6659

Christgau's year-end essay

"sleeper hit" isn't really the right description for an album that debuted at #1 with 300k copies sold, stayed there for a week and then returned a few weeks later

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

― Sébastien, Thursday, 12 January 2012 20:20 (Yesterday) Bookmark

It's this http://dismagazine.com/disco/mixes/14817/nguzunguzu-the-perfect-lullaby/