Pazz and Jop.

I'm hoping somebody else will take over. I already told the Voice I would be happy to talk to anybody they could find to be the poll's new statistician. Most of the math I did isn't that complicated, and I can help pass it on. Let me know if you're interested, or know anybody else who might be.

But while I appreciate the notional Kickstarter sentiment, a lot, money is not the issue for me, it's time. And love.

When I started crunching P&J numbers, it was some of the most interesting music data I had. That stopped being the case a while ago.

A part of me is thrilled that the poll might survive, and I did get a ballot and might vote (I didn't last year). But I also spent enough years analyzing this poll, and now analyzing a lot more music data, to realize that the P&J in its honorable and venerable form is not really helping music in any of the ways I care most about. If it didn't exist, I wouldn't be trying to start it. I want some new thing, something far more inclusive and wider-reaching and less arbitrary.

There's an obvious, however partial, sense in which Spotify is that thing: a P&J with 200 million voters and a ballot of unlimited length. You can object, of course, that those 200 million listeners aren't all committed to thinking critically about music, and ballots of unlimited length don't force you to make any hard decisions. And, indeed, just counting streams isn't that interesting, in the same way that just counting P&J votes isn't that interesting, which is how I got involved in the first place. But I basically squeezed as much insight out of the P&J numbers as I could think to. That's nowhere near true of listening data yet.

money is not the issue for me, it's time. And love.

yeah, but ... how much money would make it worth your time

*whiney fans a fistful of washingtons and leers suggestively*

glenn, how do you parse Spotify listening data into conclusions that aren't dulled by this:

those 200 million listeners aren't all committed to thinking critically about music

That's the fun part.

But the key, of course, is that we have all the listening data. We don't have to ask somebody what kind of listener they are, and we don't have to stipulate that an individual listener has only one answer to that question.

xxxpost clemenza, sorry they didn't use more or your or my comments, but either way, I've been blogging mine for the past 15 years, I think (ones before that will have to wait 'til I find an external floppy drive that works, any suggestions?)Reading your own ancient stuff can be educational, if you can stand it.
P&J will prob be the same thing I sent Uproxx or however you spell it---just now asked whether all ballots will be accessible; that was always my main interest. Probably won't, but still hoping.

The Pazz and Jop mailing list never, ever got scrubbed. I remember it used to be in an access database? I'm still getting ballots even though I stopped voting in the mid 2000s.

There's an obvious, however partial, sense in which Spotify is that thing: a P&J with 200 million voters and a ballot of unlimited length. You can object, of course, that those 200 million listeners aren't all committed to thinking critically about music, and ballots of unlimited length don't force you to make any hard decisions. And, indeed, just counting streams isn't that interesting, in the same way that just counting P&J votes isn't that interesting, which is how I got involved in the first place. But I basically squeezed as much insight out of the P&J numbers as I could think to. That's nowhere near true of listening data yet.

― glenn mcdonald

i think my objection would be more that i never thought that the primary goal of p&j was to provide interesting fodder for data analysis.

it's certainly nice to have a user base of 200 million people, particularly when one realizes the leverage one possesses over that userbase (which realization renders questions of simple data analysis relatively insignificant...)

The Pazz and Jop mailing list never, ever got scrubbed.

Well, I didn't get a ballot this time around, but I wouldn't have voted if I had. P&J's moment has passed.

"pazz and jop ballot submitted," a sentence I never thought I'd type ever again

Oh, I wasn't saying data-analysis was the P&J's primary goal, just that my involvement was all about tabulation accuracy and data analysis...

Pazz & Jop is a critics' poll, it's not really comparable with streaming. Spotify is more like Kazaa or something

I'll happily vote, but yeah, it's a missed opportunity to be something bigger and better and different than Uproxx or the results of the AOTY aggregate.

I'd love to see a poll that allowed for up to 100 ballots, and disqualifies anyone who can't list at least 25. Also give them an opportunity to vote for an optional genre category, whatever the voter feels they have enough knowledge of.

i'd love to see a poll that disqualified you, for walking around wishing you could disqualify people

and disqualifies anyone who can't list at least 25

Strongly disagree with this. I really, really like 15-20 songs a year. When people throw lists of their 100 favourite songs of the year at me, I always wonder where "I've heard this and I don't dislike it" kicks in.

Constantly! I generally can pull a thousand tracks I heard and kinda like any year. The 1 or 2 hundred at the top are things that really clicked.
All this comes down to (imo) the fact that we all listen and appreciate differently and it's often hard to cope with other peoples gifts or restrictions when it comes to ability to enjoy.

I honestly find it hard to name 10 songs I really liked this year

“Mo Bamba,” “Big Bank” and four things produced by Kanye West

Good thing you don't work in the music industry or any of its supporting branches!
http://i.imgur.com/Ki8qjpS.jpg
(<3 u whiney)

personally whenever i see ppl write 25-to-50+-deep lists of their favorite albums of the year my first thought is always "idek if i've even listened to that many albums this year". and somehow some of the ppl who can draw up such lists struggle to come up with a similar list of songs? like, do the albums you supposedly love not have songs on them?

It's rare that my singles and album lists overlap. I'm cheating if they do.

never really understood why people like to pretend that none of their favorite albums contain favorite tracks (esp as the concept of the 'single' continues to erode)

For me, as pertains to best of year lists, it's so that I can share the love more effectively. If there's enough great stuff on an album to justify it as one of the best things I heard this year, you can assume several great singles are on there. Inverse isn't always the case.

ever really understood why people like to pretend that none of their favorite albums contain favorite tracks (esp as the concept of the 'single' continues to erode)

― dyl, Sunday, December 23, 2018

Because I love enough singles that I don't need to fill precious spots with tracks from albums that I'll place.

Good thing you don't work in the music industry or any of its supporting branches!
(<3 u whiney)

or should I say, more accurately, last year as a “journalist”

I generally can pull a thousand tracks I heard and kinda like any year.

How many are you hearing total (including the ones you didn’t kinda like)?

Whiney, sorry to hear that or maybe happy for you? Would love to hear what you're up to sometime, drop a fella a line.

Morrisp: Tough question! I can ballpark based on some metrics of what's on my playlists. Figure I think 70/80% of what I hear is worth giving more than a single listen and roughly half sticks. So maybe 3500-4000 tracks a year or so? Generally at least an album a day; on days when I'm traveling or working in the studio, maybe more like four? That doesn't take into account other streams of music and live music and CDs and so forth. This was a year when I made an effort not to do too very much repeat listening.

If you care, here's the current (unorganized and very much incomplete) list of 2018's keepers that are on Spotify. Would be happy to talk about any of these!
https://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5F4O9GGhAEY5zYDDakpCuB

as always, though i'm aware my dilettantism is extreme from a lot of folks perspective, i'm continually aware of the massive amount of well-known, obscure or just unknown-to-me (and often great!) music I'm missing out on. the great thing is that it's not going anywhere and hopefully I will find or be guided to it in good time.

Thx, very interesting! I can’t fathom consuming/processing that much music; it’s really impressive.

Life is easy, albums are hard.

I feel like almost anyone - with the proper handholding - can make a great song, but - to augment your point Al - albums _are_ hard.

Xp Nice of you to say Morris! I consume/process a lot of media, period! Some of it's a function of my pathology, some of it is insatiable curiosity. Even when you hit a run of lousy albums in a row, the payoff high of hearing something new that broadens the soul is almost always worth the investment of time and energy.

Al, how much new music would you say you listen to on a yearly basis?

Singles? Well over 500. Albums are in the 100 range.

Singles Jukebox alone accounts for over 700 tracks a year, so there's that.

At this point, I aim at making two lists every year:

Best 25 Albums
Best 25 Tracks

There was a time not long ago where I was capable of making a list of 50 of each, but those days are gone; I don't listen to quite as much music.

I know there are folks who put tracks from albums on their albums lists, but this has always seemed really weird. That's repetition.

If an album of songs hits me hard enough, that's going on the Albums list. Some folks will say "I love this album so much that I put each of these songs on my Tracks list." Huh? Why? That means you love an album very much; it should be on your Albums list.

If one song on an album outshines the others so brilliantly that the others pale by comparison - and if that one song gets a lot of play from me - that's a sign that it deserves a shot at the Tracks list. The Tracks list is also for songs like "New Light" or "Free Yourself" or "Venice Bitch" where no album exists for consumption yet, and won't for a minute, or something like "Godbody," where the album missed me but I stumbled upon the song very late in the year and was wowed by it.

(Each to his or her own, of course.)

Should read "I know there are folks who put tracks from albums on their albums lists on their tracks lists, but this has always seemed really weird."

As a person who likes the dark arts, I don't do song lists. I do make a Spotify playlist of my favorite songs off my favorite albums but there is no ranking. Actually I often find myself playing it on random. But I only rank albums since that is my preferred format both as a fan and insignificant writer of music criticism.

songs have to really call to me as singles before i put them on a tracks list so there’s not usually much overlap between the two, but yeah i absolutely have “love it if we made it” on my tracks list and a brief inquiry into online relationships on my albums list

i'd love to see a poll that disqualified you, for walking around wishing you could disqualify people

That's a bit dramatic. All I'm suggesting is the form doesn't submit unless at least 25 entries are in there. Pretty standard, but just suggesting 25 instead of 10. It's really not a stretch, that's what our Doom Charts group does. If a person who's job is partly to review and recommend music, can't come up with more then ten albums, then that list probably isn't going to be much good.

that's it, you're disqualified

what my list needed was more boring doom to be counted

If a person who's job is partly to review and recommend music, can't come up with more then ten albums, then that list probably isn't going to be much good.

you like music? name 25 of their albums

l.o.l.

It certainly takes hard work to find good music when many lazy writers can only pick ten good albums out in a year. Yet despite all the shit going on in the world, the amount of surprising, amazing music that's made every year is vast. It's one of humanity's few redeeming qualities. Even if you listen to well over a thousand albums, you'd still miss great stuff. If you think all music is rubbish except for less than 30 albums, then you basically dislike just about ALL THE MUSIC. Last I checked this wasn't the I Hate Music board. And if a person truly believes that the really good stuff can be boiled down to such a small number, I'd be concerned that the lack of ability to enjoy music is a symptom of depression. Try some exercise, sunlight and/or full spectrum light and vitamin D.

you constantly evade the actual point of this conversation because you never get beyond asserting that listing music in volume is equivalent to realizing some other relevant values associated with loving music. you might believe that about yourself, but if your way of articulating that value to others, or even for yourself, is confined to list-picking then i seriously doubt that the exercise would be all that meaningful. i don't know if you are being disingenuous or if you have really been posting here for years without ever understanding the point of genuine music criticism.

if i wanted i could list and 'rank' most of the albums i've heard this year and the list would be impressively long to everyone but healthy vigorous paragons of volumetric music appreciation such as yourself. but it's not hard to recognize that those albums are worthwhile IN SOME BASIC WAY (i'm listening to things that some other relatively experienced or tasteful or differently-situated listeners have liked, too, i'm not just culling shit from the promo bin). that borders on the empty registration of a data point, like capturing biometric data on a fitbit. it's a different matter to form meaningful connections to some of them by experiencing them and reflecting on those experiences.

I guess you're saying that the Pazz and Jop poll is pointless. My argument is longer ballots would result in more varied and interesting results.

The way each person reacts to, processes and interprets music is a very personal, individual thing, which I do appreciate reading about. But to say a poll is completely meaningless without criticism to create context seems pretty patronizing. I think people are fully capable of putting music into their own context. I certainly don't mind blurbs and criticism accompanying lists, but they aren't essential to my using the polls to discover new music.

Christgau was always allowed to list more than 10, but trying to understand why one album is someone's 43rd favorite rather than 44th favorite always seems almost pointless to me.