Pazz and Jop.

well also voting Hotline fucking Bling as the top song of 2015

that and just, journalistic criticism is so beaten down that there's no drama or conflict to its consensus-finding process. or no conflict about the records themselves. like, i like courtney barnett, but i feel there was hardly anything at stake as to whether or not her or hop along did better 'in the polls'.

hotline bling huh

― nomar

I think all of our excitement has been reserved for ILM's own Year End Poll, because it's the only one that truly matters.

I'm not even excited for that poll, tbh

I think part of it is the massive proliferation of EOY lists and consensus trackers, so that by the time P&J rolls out in January, the results are fairly anticlimactic.

well, and like...I can already see the poll results of Hundreds of Writers, in real time, daily. it's just what's getting coverage. if the poll was 30 critics, it's interesting. somewhere between 30 and 500 I stop caring

as every year, a *massive* thank you to glenn for powering this thing.

i notice the voice picked up a new music editor about a year ago, who seems... pretty ok?

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/hilary-hughes-to-join-village-voice-as-music-editor-6647178

glad to see the roundtable with xgau etc p&j, certainly a sign of goodwill as well.

and now we have a management who might not be terrible to the music section. but i completely trained myself out of caring about the voice through the very lean years, so i really haven't been paying attention to anything with it, tho i'm a bit optimistic for a change.

Do they not do the critics-send-in-little-comment-blurbs thing anymore?

I'm getting the impression that a significant amount of people just forgot to do a ballot

There are about 100 less critics voting this year...That's a lot of "I forgots"

was christgau re-hired by the voice under its new ownership??

in the past the VV was one of the few venues that both had the clout and resources to even do a massive poll of music critics (or really mostly 'rock' critics, don't want to conflate the two), now everyone can basically be their own aggregator. unless they are going really far afield to, say, ask a bunch of musicians what music /they/ liked, or poll people outside of the usual USA/UK cohort, i'm afraid their aren't going to be any revelations or really much that's unexpected given what we already know.

Re Christgau rehire--Not that I've read. They did invite him for that roundtable of former Voice music staffers.

In some years past, NY Times main critics would participate, but I don't see them this year. No Washington Post pop critic but there's a Washington Post editor who did participate...

Last year southern soul blogger Daddy B. Nice participated, but not this year. No Lindsay Zoladz from Vulture/New York Magazine, and previously w/ Pitchfork

i like when they ask people whose "beat" and/or tastes don't conform to the consensus. that's the only way i actually learn about stuff! i don't need 75 more critics to tell me i need to listen to courtney barnett or whatever. but if someone recommends something i've never heard of, now we're cooking...

Dawn Richard -23 album votes
Jazmine Sullivan --18 album votes.... Was hoping for more votes for both.

if you've heard neither, amateurist, get to it!

Sullivan was my #1

i've heard all these records! well, most of 'em. i don't really care what pazz and jop says, never really have.

Sorry to be "that guy", but Grimes' REALiTi placed 26th, while the demo is at #74. The REALiti at #26 however seems to have incorporated the votes for the demo.

There are long-standing P&J rules for how votes for remixes or alternate versions, and previous-year votes, are applied to the canonical versions of songs in the current year. "Canonical" is a human matter, in principle, but in practice it has rarely seemed even vaguely controversial in the last few years.

Oh ok, if that's how it works then fair enough. I just thought it was odd that effectively a handful of votes were being counted twice.

this is the first i've heard of courtney barnett lol i am so out of it

It's okay, you haven't missed that much

i hear its one of the top albums of the year

it's a good record but you would probably be bored by it

I haven't heard the album but I saw her play two songs on TV and she was awful. We already had one Sheryl Crow, we don't need a new one.

breaking down some Future stats...

Future tracks that got votes: 15
People who voted for all 3 Future albums: 1

singles top 40 is full of nice surprises: "what do you mean" not being nearly as high as its ridiculous placement on some of the year-end lists would have suggested, "sorry" sneaking its way in there (both of them rightly well below "where are ü now" tho), "cool for the summer" and "here" and "coffee" doing well despite not being outright smashes as commercial/radio often has to be in order for critics to rate them highly/see them as 'significant', "realiti" also not being nearly as overrated as it could have been (and likely will be on ilm's poll), etc.

but then in the top 10 are several embarrassments: "hotline bling" as #1, "trap queen" being present but only seventh, missy elliott's new single being all the way up there O.o (has she graduated to rockist hero, where all she has to do to be showered with praise is release something kinda decent?)

*commercial/radio songs often have to be

yeah i liked "wtf" and its video but it really is just kinda decent

"sorry" >>>>>>>>>> "where are ü now" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "what do you mean"

not that i put any stock in p&j generally but the tracks list just seems like a total crapshoot given the tiny ballot, 10 songs are just not representative of anyone's year or taste

some very minor tabulation questions/quibbles:

- tswift's "style": clicking on it shows that 10 voters this year cast a vote for it. the asterisked note says that an additional 12 are carried over from 2014 (which can be verified from looking at its entry on the 2014 page). then why is its total listed as 20 rather than 22 (10 + 12)? and none of the voters from this year seem to be repeat-voters from last year.

- miguel's "coffee" received one vote last year. should it not be carried over to this year's total? (the 2014 voters page for the song shows several others as well, but that's because it accidentally combines voters for sylvan esso's "coffee" as well; if you check the listed voters individually, you'll see that the "coffee" 2014 voter was ross scarano.)

wait, Sheryl Crow?

Sheryl Crow singing Nirvana unplugged--Courtney Barnett

29 album votes for Leon Bridges retro-soul is more than the votes for r'n'b singers doing current styles (Dawn Richard got 23 album votes). Pazz & Jop electorate.

dyl: Yes, it looks like the Voice site is combining all songs with a given title. I could swear they fixed this last year, but I'll point it out again. In the case of "Style", 2 of those 10 are votes for Ryan Adams' version, so 8+12=20 is the right total for Taylor's.

You're correct that I missed the 2014 vote for Miguel's "Coffee" (because of "Miguel" vs "Miguel (ft. Coffee)"). I'll fix that, because I hate wrongness, but thankfully it doesn't change the order.

20 album votes for Congolese act Mbongwana Star at 34th, yes! Wonder what the highest ranking African album vote has been?

As for afropop, I cast the sole track vote for Nigerian Wizkid's "Ojuelegba " ...I haven't looked to see what other afropop cuts or albums made it

two votes for South African track-- Heavy K (ft. Tresor), Give Me Luv

Wonder what the highest ranking African album vote has been?

Probably Fela or King Sunny Ade in the '80s. Maybe Konono No. 1 a few years ago.

Yes....I feel like "the Indestructible Beat of Soweto" comp back in the 80s might have also done well.

The Mbongwana Star vote probably includes a number of Konono No. 1 supporters

I am never going to hear Sheryl Crow in Courtney Barnett no matter how many times people say it. I'm not doubting that other people hear it, it's just never made sense as a reference point to me. I wonder if those comparisons mostly come from people who started with this album rather than the EPs? Anyway, even though I like her a lot, #2 is absurdly high. But as indie-rock-consensus AOTY I'll definitely take it over Father John Misty ...

Also, hat tip to those who got Miguel, Dawn and Jazmine as high as they did. I still get PnJ ballots but I haven't submitted one since I stopped writing about music four years ago. Now I'm just a guy who likes music and listens to some of it, so a ballot would feel illegitimate. But this was the first year I was tempted anyway, mostly to vote those three as high as I could.

could someone explain how you use the poll or McDonald list to find new music or critics to follow?

1. Read poll results
2. Click on entries you like
3. Click on the names of the people who voted for the things you like
4. Check out the other things they voted for that you don't know
5. Remember the names of the new things you found that you liked
5. Remember the names of the people who voted for things you didn't know but liked after you listened to them

i just wrote more or less the exact same thing and missed it by five seconds

it would be nice if they had bios, step 3 can turn into a dead end.

http://lmgtfy.com/

i just click on the first blue writing i see and hope that eventually music will start playing

the conversation

2012: "maybe don't vote in this, guys"
2013: "don't fucking vote in this, you amoral fucks"
2014: "if you vote in this or give it any attention you are literally satan"
2015: "why is no one talking about this???"

touche. seriously, that works great if it's say Annie Zaleski, but kind of a black hole if it's James Bradley.
plus I gotta check and make sure they didn't vote for FJM.