Pazz n Jop vs. Jackin Pop

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uh, I thought there was already a thread about this, but can't find it...

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=2526&catid=107&volume_id=254&issue_id=275&volume_num=41&issue_num=14

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:11 (eighteen years ago)

There's also this NPR story today but I'll be damned if I can get the page to load properly.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:18 (eighteen years ago)

I voted in both. I won't be voting in P&J again, I expect, cos the online-only setup made it impossible to vote for albums the way I wanted. This wasn't a problem with JP, as I didn't vote for any albums.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:20 (eighteen years ago)

so Xgau gets away with voting in both cuz he's no longer a NT employee?

the ironing is delicious

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:21 (eighteen years ago)

That NPR piece was a pretty good overview, I thought. Fair & balanced and all that, snarf snarf. (Thanks for the tip, Ned.) I love that my cousin intro'd that piece, likely not knowning that I'm one of the voters he'd talking about. Hee.

― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

Update: Jackin' Pop still not up.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:43 (eighteen years ago)

Update: Critics Jackin' off

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 5 January 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

ahem.

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

that is the twee-est thing i have ever seen in my life

― ‘•’u (gear), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

:-D

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

(my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone...
well-well, that covers partly my life story as well. i will, however, do y'all the little favour of not telling which part specifically. o no:)

ho-ho -- the magic of cross-posting!

― tiit (tiit), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

Could someone post the highlights here, for those of us whose workplaces say This website "www.idolator.com" is categorized as "Forum/Bulletin Boards" and has been restricted because it contains content and material that violates [redacted]'s Electronic Compliance Policy.? Please?

― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

oh man, no offence Idolator but that is one poorly designed site. no interlinks, weird empty cells...

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:25 (eighteen years ago)

Jackin' Pop Top 100 Albums

1. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (1338 points in 125 votes)
2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (1247 points in 118 votes)
3. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (1073 points in 95 votes)
4. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury (1057 points in 102 votes)
5. Joanna Newsom - Ys (883 points in 84 votes)
6. Bob Dylan - Modern Times (749 points in 70 votes)
7. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere (623 points in 61 votes)
8. The Knife - Silent Shout (607 points in 56 votes)
9. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (588 points in 58 votes)
10. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (586 points in 54 votes)
11. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (571 points in 53 votes)
12. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped (565 points in 57 votes)
13. Hot Chip - The Warning (529 points in 54 votes)
14. Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds (470 points in 44 votes)
15. Cat Power - The Greatest (444 points in 44 votes)
16. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (434 points in 42 votes)
17. Girl Talk - Night Ripper (420 points in 38 votes)
18. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies (395 points in 37 votes)
19. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat (387 points in 38 votes)
20. Jay Dee aka J Dilla - Donuts (384 points in 35 votes)
21. T.I. - King (367 points in 36 votes)
22. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (364 points in 33 votes)
23. Scott Walker - The Drift (350 points in 31 votes)
24. Mastodon - Blood Mountain (342 points in 30 votes)
25. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (341 points in 32 votes)
26. The Roots - Game Theory (326 points in 32 votes)
27. The Thermals - The Body, the Blood, the Machine (315 points in 29 votes)
28. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor (303 points in 33 votes)
29. Band of Horses - Everything All the Time (301 points in 31 votes)
30. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones (293 points in 31 votes)
31. Lily Allen - Alright, Still (291 points in 30 votes)
32. Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope (284 points in 28 votes)
33. The Coup - Pick a Bigger Weapon (276 points in 28 votes)
34. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House (274 points in 29 votes)
35. Dixie Chicks - Taking the Long Way (274 points in 26 votes)
36. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (271 points in 29 votes)
37. Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer (259 points in 23 votes)
38. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar (235 points in 22 votes)
39. Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (228 points in 21 votes)
40. DJ Drama & Lil Wayne - Dedication 2 (226 points in 24 votes)
41. Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song (226 points in 23 votes)
42. Liars - Drum's Not Dead (226 points in 20 votes)
43. Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (218 points in 23 votes)
44. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (208 points in 22 votes)
45. Ornette Coleman - Sound Grammar (206 points in 19 votes)
46. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther (200 points in 20 votes)
47. M. Ward - Post-War (181 points in 17 votes)
48. Peter, Bjorn & John - Writer's Block (175 points in 18 votes)
49. Burial - Burial (175 points in 15 votes)
50. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers (174 points in 18 votes)
51. Ali Farka Toure - Savane (172 points in 17 votes)
52. Califone - Roots and Crowns (172 points in 16 votes)
53. CSS - Cansei De Ser Sexy (164 points in 17 votes)
54. Mission of Burma - The Obliterati (159 points in 15 votes)
55. Beck - The Information (157 points in 17 votes)
56. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light (156 points in 15 votes)
57. Neil Young - Living with War (153 points in 15 votes)
58. Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet (151 points in 15 votes)
59. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country (147 points in 14 votes)
60. Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (140 points in 14 votes)
61. Todd Snider - The Devil You Know (140 points in 13 votes)
62. Boris - Pink (137 points in 14 votes)
63. Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo (136 points in 13 votes)
64. Islands - Return to the Sea (134 points in 14 votes)
65. Tom Ze - Estudando O Pagode (134 points in 12 votes)
66. The Blow - Paper Television (133 points in 14 votes)
67. The Game - Doctor's Advocate (132 points in 15 votes)
68. Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways (130 points in 13 votes)
69. The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth (130 points in 13 votes)
70. Silversun Pickups - Carnavas (122 points in 12 votes)
71. Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll (121 points in 11 votes)
72. Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That (120 points in 13 votes)
73. Herbert - Scale (113 points in 11 votes)
74. Danielson - Ships (111 points in 11 votes)
75. The Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home (111 points in 11 votes)
76. Ellen Allien and Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles (109 points in 12 votes)
77. Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds (108 points in 11 votes)
78. New York Dolls - One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (106 points in 9 votes)
79. Nas - Hip-Hop Is Dead (105 points in 9 votes)
80. The Black Angels - Passover (102 points in 11 votes)
81. Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah (100 points in 11 votes)
82. The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely (98 points in 9 votes)
83. Man Man - Six Demon Bag (97 points in 9 votes)
84. The Ark - State of the Ark (97 points in 8 votes)
85. Rosanne Cash - Black Cadillac (94 points in 9 votes)
86. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming (92 points in 10 votes)
87. Muse - Black Holes & Revelations (92 points in 9 votes)
88. Comets on Fire - Avatar (91 points in 10 votes)
89. Drive-By Truckers - A Blessing and a Cruse (91 points in 10 votes)
90. Kelis - Kelis Was Here (90 points in 9 votes)
91. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium (90 points in 7 votes)
92. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam (89 points in 9 votes)
93. Wolfmother - Wolfmother (89 points in 9 votes)
94. Pernice Brothers - Live a Little (89 points in 8 votes)
95. Booka Shade - Movements (88 points in 9 votes)
96. Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra - Boulevard de l'Independence (87 points in 9 votes)
97. Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet (86 points in 9 votes)
98. Lindsey Buckingham - Under the Skin (86 points in 9 votes)
99. Juana Molina - Son (84 points in 9 votes)
100. The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love (84 points in 9 votes)

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)

Top 20 Reissues

1. Pavement - Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition (61 votes)
2. Karen Dalton - In My Own Time (29 votes)
3. Brian Eno and David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (28 votes)
3. v/a - What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves (28 votes)
5. v/a - Tropicalia! A Brazilian Revolution in Sound (25 votes)
6. The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy (24 votes)
7. Wire - Pink Flag (23 votes)
8. R.E.M. - And I Feel Fine: The Best of the IRS Years (21 votes)
9. Chavez - Better Days Will Haunt You (16 votes)
9. The Clash - The Singles (16 votes)
9. v/a - A Tom Moulton Mix (16 votes)
12. Pretenders - Pretenders (15 votes)
12. The Beatles - Love (15 votes)
14. Dead Moon - Echoes of the Past (14 votes)
14. Gram Parsons - The Complete Reprise Sessions (14 votes)
14. Tortoise - A Lazarus Taxon (14 votes)
16. Delta 5 - Singles & Sessions 1979-1981 (13 votes)
16. Josef K - Entomology (13 votes)
19. Johnny Cash - At San Quentin (Legacy Edition) (12 votes)
19. Sebadoh - Sebadoh III (12 votes)

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

Top 21 Tracks

1. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (169 votes)
2. T.I. - What You Know (89 votes)
3. Justin Timberlake ft. T.I. - My Love (79 votes)
4. Christina Aguilera - Ain't No Other Man (51 votes)
5. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (49 votes)
6. Nelly Furtado ft. Timbaland - Promiscuous (45 votes)
7. Justin Timberlake - SexyBack (35 votes)
7. The Raconteurs - Steady, as She Goes (35 votes)
8. Hot Chip - Over and Over (33 votes) 1 for Solid Groove Remix
10. Lupe Fiasco - Kick, Push (32 votes)
10. Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks (32 votes)
12. The Killers - When You Were Young (29 votes)
13. My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade (28 votes)
14. Beyonce - Irreplaceable (26 votes)
14. Rihanna - SOS (26 votes)
16. Clipse - Wamp Wamp (What It Do) (24 votes)
17. Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken (23 votes)
18. Kelis - Bossy (22 votes) 1 for Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix
19. Band of Horses - The Funeral (21 votes)
19. Chamillionaire ft. Krayzie Bone - Ridin' (21 votes) 1 for NYPD Remix ft. Papoose & Jae Millz
19. Lily Allen - LDN (21 votes)

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:32 (eighteen years ago)

I am so relieved right now you have no idea.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:33 (eighteen years ago)

congratulations matos. great job organising everything!

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:34 (eighteen years ago)

Edward III I KISS YOU!

― Thomas Inskeep (submeat), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

It's too bad more folks did not submit ballots (500 some of the 1,200 invited).

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

ARTISTS

1 Gnarls Barkley 78
2 Timbaland 61
3 The Hold Steady 50
4 TV on the Radio 49
5 Ghostface Killah 47
6 Joanna Newsom 41
7 Bob Dylan 38
8 Lil Wayne 34
9 The Knife 28
10 J Dilla 26
11 Arctic Monkeys 25
11 Dixie Chicks 25
13 Clipse 24
14 Justin Timberlake 22
14 T.I. 22
16 Cat Power 21
17 Lily Allen 19
18 Girl Talk 16
19 Hot Chip 15
20 Sonic Youth 13
20 YouTube 13
22 Beyoncé 12
22 My Chemical Romance 12
22 Neko Case 12
22 The Decemberists 12

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

Congratulations indeed. A lot of work we can't even guess about went into it. 507 out of 1200 is still an amazing number, curmudgeon!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

As I note in the essay, a TON of ballots never arrived in their destinations because of mass-mail/spam filter issues. ("Jackin'" in the subject line didn't help.) But for a first-time poll, I'm very happy with the near-500 we got.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

Great essay, Matos. Also: the Rapture wuz robbed.

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:38 (eighteen years ago)

a well played and tasteful smack at VVM. No commentary or am i missing something?

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

Great essay, Matos.

Yes indeed. All the essays are sharp! I am no TVOTR fan (to kinda put it mildly) but I like reading great cases for bands I'm not fond of.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

I just can't bring myself to buy a record with a title as stupid as "Return to Cookie Mountain"

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

ROFFLE - those are great!

― StanM (StanM), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:41 (eighteen years ago)

No commentary or am i missing something?

if you mean comments from voters, everyone who wrote them has theirs attached to their individual ballots.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

Rod's essay is cool too, except why for hate the Sword? :(

xp King/Count T.I. is great x1000

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

x-post -- Yeah, keep scrolling down if you have to (I noticed that with IE here at work everything was at the very bottom of the page).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:43 (eighteen years ago)

why for hate the Sword? :(

I kinda think they're eh. Mind you, Danava deserve more credit (and John D. agrees with me).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think Rod hates the Sword, though.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

if you mean comments from voters, everyone who wrote them has theirs attached to their individual ballots.

FYI, this is a kind of a pain in the ass. Have you considered a quip gallery?

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha jess nice job

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:47 (eighteen years ago)

the Rapture wuz robbed.

Unfortunately they survived the assault.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:47 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, this made my IE browser freeze -- but in Firefox it works just dandy.

Congrats on all the hard work, Matos.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:47 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think Rod hates the Sword, though.

Putting them under the category of "false/hipster metal" kinda threw me but I'd probably have to ask him, yeah. (How I first found out about 'em: watching Headbangers' Ball on MTV2 waiting for Wonder Showzen to come on)

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:48 (eighteen years ago)

that's a category, not a dis

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:48 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah but I usually see said category preceded by the words "death to". (I figure Rod is probably smarter than that tho.)

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)

oh my

― database update failed (sanskrit), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

It looks great, Matos! Love the Go-Betweens references in your essay.

(For some reason my ballot isn't listed)

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:02 (eighteen years ago)

SHOCKING

― database update failed (sanskrit), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:05 (eighteen years ago)

hahahaha

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

industrial espionage

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

your ballot was blank, Alfred

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

compare and contrast:

matos compiled jackin pop with

stefan's stats: BEST ALBUMS OF 2006 (NOW 129 EOY-LISTS INCLUDED)
http://pub37.bravenet.com/forum/3172289350/show/676337

both have tv on the radio 1 at number 1, i wonder what is the percentage similarity of the top 100

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

v impressed by Harvell illustrations

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

that medium is fuckin' impossible

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

I was just about to post that. I esp. love the Gnarls one. (xpost)

― do i have to draw you a diaphragm (Rock Hardy), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:23 (eighteen years ago)

Reminds me of the godlike "album covers in MSPaint" thread

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:24 (eighteen years ago)

glad matos shouted out rough guide to west african gold. i love that record so much

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:25 (eighteen years ago)

Also the b-ball Hold Steady was great but might've been even better as the Mpls. Lakers since Craig looks like some kinda mini-Mikan

― f. scott baio (nate_patrin), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:27 (eighteen years ago)

Matos, would be willing to post some of the demographic-oriented lists (i.e., age/region/outlet, etc.) beyond what you've already summarized in your essay?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

they're going up soon

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

That best list looks really awful in Explorer (lots of dead space at the top). (Sorry haven't actually gotten to reading the list yet.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

the drawings had their genesis, in a roundabout way, for an illo i did (which wasn't actually supposed to be used, just me jerking around) for when idolator first launched (note i didnt even know what it was called then):

http://img465.imageshack.us/img465/9270/gawkerio8.jpg

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:37 (eighteen years ago)

a tribute to the old ilm floating-gareth-head-of-death meme and the birthplace of the smiley faced sun.

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:37 (eighteen years ago)

I clicked on my ballot and it was blank. Oh, well, I didn't vote for anything Top 20 anyway, I don't think. Maybe next year.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:38 (eighteen years ago)

that's going to be great when the demo breakdowns go up. It will make it much easier to line all the hip hop hatas up against the wall.

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:39 (eighteen years ago)

even now, four months on, that illustration fills me with untold amounts of glee

― maura (maura), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:39 (eighteen years ago)

harvell, those pictures are AMAZING. thanks for making my day.

― mts (theoreticalgirl), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:41 (eighteen years ago)

even in the face of apocalypse and terror, the sun always smiles in jess harvell's world

― ‘•’u (gear), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

love will bring us together

― my teeth are horrible, I'm gaining weight, I don't understand twelve-tone (dubpl, Friday, 5 January 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

Killer Mike lost to Jay-Z on the albums chart :-/

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:51 (eighteen years ago)

i think i like Timbo in his little jim jams and hat the best.

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Friday, 5 January 2007 20:51 (eighteen years ago)

couldn't even find my ballot. lolz.

― blackmail (blackmail.is.my.life), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:10 (eighteen years ago)

perhaps because you DIDN'T PUT YOUR REAL NAME ON IT?

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:34 (eighteen years ago)

nope i did. right at the top actually. thanks though.

― blackmail (blackmail.is.my.life), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)

well, I saw your ballot earlier (and Phil Freeman's), so what's probably happening is that they're redoing that page with voters' real names (whole lotta pseudonyms were used that we've since corrected). check again later.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:43 (eighteen years ago)

That one thing where that one guy did that big chart thingy so you saw which other voters your ballot was most similar to, there will be one: confirm/deny?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 5 January 2007 21:44 (eighteen years ago)

http://ilx.thehold.net/thread.php?msgid=12938#unread

The ILX sandbox thread of 2006 lists for comparison.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

Yay Steve for repping for Michael Start!

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:45 (eighteen years ago)

nice work matos--i like the ability to sort by demographic and the albums that had the most concentrated votes. i was worried that the gawker connection would make it hyper-snarky, but it's really well organized. and, well, it feels good to stick it to the new times man...

― marcg (marcg), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:51 (eighteen years ago)

I'm impressed by how quickly this was pulled together. (I mean, it's well done either way, but that just adds to it.)

― R_S (RSLaRue), Friday, 5 January 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)

I'd like to also say great job, Matos et al!

The illos *are* awesome, enjoyed the essays, and it was swell to not have to wait two months to see results.

Not sure if I agree that 2006 was a dreadful year for music, but I myself was more lost in music from 50-80 years ago than ever, so I can't pretend to've been paying enough attention in the first place. The list itself was kind of a bore, though, which perhaps helps to back that up...

I would like to be able to click on a title and see who-all voted for it, and a round-up of choice quotes would be nice. (Though I think before I wrote my comments I drank Curmudgeon Juice so I'm glad it's not so easy to read those.)

Ohh, and I just realized I misspelled an artist's name! Gahhhh.

― Michael J McGonigal (mike mcgonigal), Friday, 5 January 2007 23:53 (eighteen years ago)

Whoops, well, you're fired, Mike. Oh wait. (So about my article, then...)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 January 2007 00:02 (eighteen years ago)

I'd be happy to do some statistics, but I'll need the normalized ballots, not the raw ones currently shown on the site. Matos, are you guys going to replace the raw ones with normalized ones at some point? If you do, I can just scrape them. Otherwise, maybe you can slip me some data files?

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:34 (eighteen years ago)

Heh... I was gonna get all irate that my vote wasn't there but then I saw I was listed under NYCNative instead...

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:56 (eighteen years ago)

This has to be some kind of personal record as four of my (theoretical) top ten singles (Dondolo, "Dragon (Shit Robot Firebreathing Remix)"; Ne-Yo, "Get Down Like That"*; Quiet Village Project, "Circus of Horror" and P.O.S, "Safety in Speed (Heavy Metal)") didn't make the list, while another two of 'em (Too $hort, "Blow the Whistle" and Termanology, "Watch How it Go Down") showed up with only one vote each.

*technically not a "real" single, but wahtevors

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:30 (eighteen years ago)

A very fun poll. I just wish that Matos would've used my first name one of the two times he mentioned me in his essay. (And I had no idea til I read his essay that Destroyer are considered "trad." Also, I swear I never even heard of Peter, Bjorn & John or Justice or Rhythm & Sound before today. I'm pretty sure I heard of Camera Obscura before, but I had no idea that anybody liked them.) (And, oh yeah, the biggest surprise to me in the album finishers is Belle & Sebastian at #10. I have nothing more against them than I ever did, but I kinda figured even their fans didn't care about them anymore.)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:41 (eighteen years ago)

how did nates two singles get one vote? i voted for òne and ethan voted for the other so that doesnt add up

― deej.. (deej..), Saturday, 6 January 2007 03:22 (eighteen years ago)

One vote each = Too $hort got one; Termanology got one.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Saturday, 6 January 2007 03:52 (eighteen years ago)

haha I just went back to the poll to see the pictures again

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Saturday, 6 January 2007 04:44 (eighteen years ago)

And oh yeah, I never heard of Midlake before today either. Who the heck are they?

― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 6 January 2007 05:16 (eighteen years ago)

Jason Lee's new favorite band, apparently.

― A Radio Picture (Rrrickey), Saturday, 6 January 2007 09:42 (eighteen years ago)

Wow -- who knew that the Decemberists were a real band! I thought they were just an invention of Stephen Colbert's. I bet they suck though :-)

― alext (alext), Saturday, 6 January 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

I just wish that Matos would've used my first name one of the two times he mentioned me in his essay

Do you really? I feel very excluded when critics refer to one another by their first names - it increases the sense that there's some club that the reader hasn't been invited to.

― ampersand, hearts, semicolon (cis), Saturday, 6 January 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

Why is Danger Mouse black?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 6 January 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

Do you really? I feel very excluded when critics refer to one another by their first names - it increases the sense that there's some club that the reader hasn't been invited to.

And using only my last name doesn't??? (I'm not saying he should've just called me by my first name. It's just that, you know, the journalistic convention of reverting to last-name-only on second reference does have a certain logic to it. Last-name-only on first reference is kind of weird. Not that I'm really complaining. I'm just narcisstic enough to wonder if there was an earlier reference that got edited out.) (Heck, even Matos himself gets a first name on the top of that essay! Usually even HE pretends he doesn't have one.)

― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 6 January 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)

rod's essay is good. so is matos's. even if he found out five years after the event that indie-rock is a snore. hahahahahahahahaha!

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 6 January 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)

O xhuxk i misunderstood you, sorry: you're right, last-name-only from the outset kind of implies that you're a household name, you don't need more than a single identifier, and it is a little unexpected.

― ampersand, hearts, semicolon (cis), Saturday, 6 January 2007 14:24 (eighteen years ago)

Why is Danger Mouse black?

Because Ghostface Killah is yellow.

― StanM (StanM), Saturday, 6 January 2007 14:30 (eighteen years ago)

Yeaht, but he's a sponge.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

'us two are the only yellow niggas left in rap, me and danger mouse! ice-t and heavy d retired!!'

― and what (ooo), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

- j-zone

― and what (ooo), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

tuomas i know he doesnt look like the black people you're used to seeing in tintin but i can assure you dangermouse is a black dude

― and what (ooo), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

That was really uncalled for (and I meet black people every day at work). I've actually seen only a few promo pics of him in a white wig or something, which must've confused me. He is kinda light-skinned.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 6 January 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

the Ghostface pic IS more accurate than the Dangermouse pic either way.

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Saturday, 6 January 2007 16:30 (eighteen years ago)

He is kinda light-skinned.

MS Paint only has like 16 colors, so it was either black or white, I assume.

― StanM (StanM), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

can low voter turnout be attributed more to tech glitches like empty ballots, etc. or were there really so few participants?

― blackmail (blackmail.is.my.life), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:58 (eighteen years ago)

Matos and Xhuxk can speak more on this, doubtless, but what you're seeing as a low turnout is actually extremely good for a first time effort; my understanding was that it took many years for P&J to approach 50%, for instance, whereas JP got there first time around.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:59 (eighteen years ago)

I sent the announcement of Jackin Pop to a main e-mail address of the Beat magazine, a 'world' music publication that covers mostly reggae, afropop, caribbean and Brazilian sounds. I also sent it to the e-mail addresses of some individual writers for that publication. I also sent the announcement to Dub MC, an offshoot of the Rock-paper scissors world music publicists (who said they forwarded to a number of writers on their mailing list). I also sent it to some other writers that I know. Alas, most of my 'blind' e-mails must have been considered spam or something, because very few of the folks I urged to get in touch with Matos did according to my quick look at the contributors.

I have not examined the poll real closely but I do not think I see anyone from the salsa and Latin-Jazz magazine Latin Beat, or from fRoots, a Brit 'world' music magazine. Others may know better whether ballots were sent to Kelefah Sannah and others at the NY Times, and to various specialists at rap and techno magazines and to various little newspapers and blogs all over the world. I know it is hard to compile such a broad and varied list and to get people to respond, especially to a first-time effort. I am assuming Matos did not have access to the Voice's list from last year, and I can understand if he would not want to discuss that here as well!

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Saturday, 6 January 2007 18:38 (eighteen years ago)

"And oh yeah, I never heard of Midlake before today either. Who the heck are they?
-- xhuxk (fakemai...), January 6th, 2007."

On that long 2006 publications best-of thread that was on the ILX sandbox thread I kept seeing Midlake on lists by Brits. I keep meaning to google or go to allmusic to find out who they are myself. I guess I must have missed whatever threads they appeared on here, if they did?

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Saturday, 6 January 2007 18:45 (eighteen years ago)

I just wish that Matos would've used my first name one of the two times he mentioned me in his essay

haha that's definitely an oversight. I wrote the essay in pieces over a month and then stitched it together so I probably referred offhandedly to Chuck and Bob Christgau just by last names figuring I'd ID them more thoroughly at the top, then forgetting to. I'll have it fixed.

(And Chuck, most everyone I know calls me "Michael" or "Michaelangelo.")

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Saturday, 6 January 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)

Just for the record, I like the Sword, am extremely fond of Danava, and absolutely love Mogwai, Jesu, and Isis. In fact, I tend to be very pro-hipster/false/contested metal bands in general; in my original draft, I referred to releases by all the above as "good to great." In the course of splicing two drafts, the already swamped Matos somehow made me out to be way more of a purist than I really am, which is not at all.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Saturday, 6 January 2007 23:52 (eighteen years ago)

Also, I used "false/hispter/contested metal" as a category simply to set a group of tendencies and/or background issues that don't occur in trad metal apart in a wiseass way. In Decibal's world, to refer to a band as "false metal" almost invariably means you're making a backhanded anti-purist jab.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:06 (eighteen years ago)

Decibel's world sounds like a good one to hang around in, then.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:39 (eighteen years ago)

nate, you should pick up a copy. it's a good read even if you have little interest in things metallic.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:50 (eighteen years ago)

Somebody mentioned that there ballot link was blank. Mine was too. None of my albums (listed under jetfan) show up with my name in the search. Oh well, first year bugs.

― Tom Lane (jetfan), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:53 (eighteen years ago)

The blank ballots are being looked into, I gather.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:54 (eighteen years ago)

I'm starting to get a bit more interested; Blood Mountain is pretty much my gateway drug. (That and my jazz-binge side-effect of wanting to hear lots of really great Max Roach-caliber drummers.) (I also figure if I don't get into metal before I turn 30 I never will and then I'll feel all left out when I don't get half the jokes in Metalocalypse.)

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)

No Sasha Frere-Jones ballot. Bloggers and critics Jessica Hopper and Julianne Shepherd did not vote either. Oh well.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Sunday, 7 January 2007 03:05 (eighteen years ago)

Give in, Nate. (And yes, Mastodon is a great way to give in -- I also highly recommend the DVD that came out about a year back, The Workhorse Chronicles, because the documentary in that, besides being informative, is seriously the best intentionally funny metal film since Spinal Tap -- unintentionally of course being Some Kind of Monster.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 03:09 (eighteen years ago)

Decibel's world is suffused with the kind of freedom that can make you feel a little bad if you DON'T try to outdo yourself in some capacity. It's a grand thing.

And thanks, Scott! Glad you dug the essay.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Sunday, 7 January 2007 03:21 (eighteen years ago)

I second Ned on the DVD. Also, Nate, you might want to check out Opeth's "Ghost Reveries," especially if you're into chops that make their presence felt without overly teching up the premises. Mikael Åkerfeldt has the creamiest death growls in show business.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Sunday, 7 January 2007 03:56 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe some Amorphis as well? (Slightly blue-skying here.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 03:58 (eighteen years ago)

That's a good idea! Meshuggah!

(Slightly blue-skying here.)

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Sunday, 7 January 2007 04:25 (eighteen years ago)

nate likes 70's stuff. he likes sabbath and hawkwind. he liked the danava album. he should just go for the doom. there is TONS of good doom metal out there. slow and low, that is the tempo. bass in yer face. or at least some hard-rocking sab action like witchcraft.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 7 January 2007 04:41 (eighteen years ago)

No Sasha Frere-Jones ballot. Bloggers and critics Jessica Hopper and Julianne Shepherd did not vote either. Oh well.

I didn't see sfj, but J-Hop and (uh) J-Shep did vote:

http://www.idolator.com/?op=jp_showpoll&user_id=44302
http://www.idolator.com/?op=jp_showpoll&user_id=44688

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 04:54 (eighteen years ago)

Thumbs up to sludge!

Also open to kinda thrashy but kinda Husker Du-ish/Bad Brainical '80sishstuff, like maybe a scuzzy muttering version of Anthrax or something.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 05:14 (eighteen years ago)

And eventually goth. It all goes back to goth.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 05:28 (eighteen years ago)

A theory which will be detailed in your upcoming book Sisters of Misery: The 500 Best Goth Albums in the Universe, no doubt.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 05:33 (eighteen years ago)

Dear god, that would be a beautiful thing were someone to offer me the money to do it. Hell, maybe I should pitch it. I'LL CHANGE LIVES LIKE XHUXK CHANGED MINE WITH HIS BOOK! Perhaps.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 05:45 (eighteen years ago)

The first edition calls for a lavishly produced elephant folio with faux gila monster slipcase lined in crimson velvet. Goths will pay out the urethra for anything monumentally Gothickall. Have you ever noticed that, on prom night--even in smaller towns--only Goth kids seem comfortable dressed up? And Goth kids never rent. Grownups tend to invest even more. When Bauhaus were here in '05 and '06, quite a few Gothic geezers traveled to three or more shows. Some did much larger legs. They call themselves "undeadheads." (I'm not making this up.)Their outlay for transportaion alone is phenomenal, as they often fly.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Sunday, 7 January 2007 11:06 (eighteen years ago)

I appreciate your dream.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 15:10 (eighteen years ago)

the guy from mastadon came to my job a couple weeks ago with his girlfriend to see rudolph the red nosed reindeer

― and what (ooo), Sunday, 7 January 2007 16:03 (eighteen years ago)

i knew cuz all my co-workers were like omg its dude from mastodon just like when i got all excited when ma$e's wife & kids came

― and what (ooo), Sunday, 7 January 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

omg do you work at the north pole??

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 7 January 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

does Mr Matos or anyone have any ideas why no NYTers contributed? I wonder if there's some new policy there about participating in polls or some shit…

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Sunday, 7 January 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

DeRogatis and Kot from the Chicago Tribune didn't vote, either.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 7 January 2007 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

(derogatis works at the sun times)

― maura (maura), Sunday, 7 January 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

If I hadn't screwed up the titles (damn you, darkroom chemistry!) Jandek's Glasgow Monday would have gotten two votes, which might possibly be the most votes a Jandek record has gotten.

They're not Mastodon, but Envy are pretty heavy and great.

― jodi, samurai photographer (burun), Sunday, 7 January 2007 20:23 (eighteen years ago)

(derogatis works at the sun times)

Yeah, sorry, I knew that. Sound Opinions just makes me think of them together.

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 7 January 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)

of course I know why people didn't contribute, because I can read everyone's mind. whether I'll share that private info with you is another matter.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Sunday, 7 January 2007 21:40 (eighteen years ago)

sheesh, man!

Maybe, in light of the pre- coffee time of the morning I wrote that, it was kinda silly for me to ask that question of you, given your responsibilities as the poll co-ordinator. But is there a need for you to be that caustic?

in any case, well done!

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Sunday, 7 January 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)

haha "caustic"

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Sunday, 7 January 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

guys you can't fight in here, this is a music poll thread ; (

― ‘•’u (gear), Sunday, 7 January 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

haha "fight"

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Sunday, 7 January 2007 22:39 (eighteen years ago)

Since Sasha Frere-Jones was critical of New Times VV Media in the NPR story on the ballots, I think I will read his mind and guess that he decided not to submit a ballot to either poll.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)

OK, I realized it wasn't actually that hard to retabulate the whole poll myself, so now I have, and can thus provide this:

2006 Idolator Jackin' Pop Critical Alignment Ratings
http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508b&sortfield=2

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 02:50 (eighteen years ago)

Hey, thanks!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 02:51 (eighteen years ago)

Ethan and Anthony, together at last.

― N.i.c.o.l.e (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:05 (eighteen years ago)

LOL at being 30th from the bottom, but not really surprised

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:12 (eighteen years ago)

JOIN US.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:13 (eighteen years ago)

been down so long it looks like up to me

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:14 (eighteen years ago)

439! I'm lovin' it.

― jodi, samurai photographer (burun), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

I am *just* that slightly more freethinking than you. *preens*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:16 (eighteen years ago)

wow, michael gill, 7th from the end. and he tips baldelli! nice.

― friday on the porch (lfam), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:18 (eighteen years ago)

I'm sorry you weren't able to wait till the point totals and real names of ppl were up to do this, Glenn. I'm also sorry those things aren't up yet, though they will be soon.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

not "point totals," points given per album, sorry

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

But Ned, we both voted for Scott Walker!

That's gotta count for something. Not sure what, though.

― jodi, samurai photographer (burun), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

you both like singers who sound like horses, maybe?

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:28 (eighteen years ago)

Donald Duck, my friend!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:31 (eighteen years ago)

It's a good thing you're a ninja turtle, my friend.

― N.i.c.o.l.e (Ex Leon), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:32 (eighteen years ago)

awwwww

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:34 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, good, I'm glad you're going to put the real names on the ballots. I'll sync up again after you do.

I'm anti-points, myself, and always ignore them for the purposes of my analyses, but if you're also planning to replace the raw ballots with the corrected ones, and link the artists to the list of voters for each, that would definitely be a browsability improvement.

Also, the search engine seems to have a problem finding artists with short names. Try searching for CSS or Mew and you don't find those bands.

(And I emailed you a list of other minor tabulation things I spotted while I was normalizing data for my calculations...)

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:54 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, got the email; thanks.

I forget that points are irrelevant to your stats; they're important to me because I have to calculate the damn thing. (I'm still planning to do a non-singles-voter tabulation once the vote-points are up.)

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 03:57 (eighteen years ago)

Congrats Matos, Maura etc for getting it all running smoothly. Next year I won't have a 2-week old baby to deal with on deadline day so might even get my comments done!

Not that I want to suggest MORE work for anyone doing a poll, but it does irk me a bit that SO much attention is paid to complex points systems for the albums, and voters' singles aren't even ranked. A fresh hott young poll has an ideal opportunity to change this archaic system.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:16 (eighteen years ago)

455, lowest ranked ILXor!

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:18 (eighteen years ago)

Isn't having "albums" and "singles" categories in itself an archaic system?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:20 (eighteen years ago)

Yes! (Actually it was "tracks" in the JP poll.)

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:22 (eighteen years ago)

I've already said this on other threads, but I can't see why Gnarls Barkley gets so much love compared to the two solo Cee-Lo albums. I thought that, not counting "Crazy", the album was rather bland and uncatchy, and both of those previous albums (especially Soul Machine) kick its ass.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:26 (eighteen years ago)

including 'crazy' as well, too

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

455, lowest ranked ILXor!

No, Don A and MFG were ranked lower.

Bottom 9th percentile for me ... I was around the bottom 23rd percentile in P&J last year, so I'm ... improving?.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

well 'crazy' is catchy but it's very bland production-wise! i like it but can't imagine how anyone could love it.

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:30 (eighteen years ago)

ooh i am 318. seems fairly ok - too low down isn't necessarily a sign of free-thinking, it's a sign that no one shares your shit taste for good reason. how embarrassing to be in the top 10 though.

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:32 (eighteen years ago)

455, lowest ranked ILXor!

276, way more conservative than last years P&J equiv. :(

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 10:33 (eighteen years ago)

Here's a quick graph of the critical alignment curves of this year's Idolator poll and last year's Voice poll.

http://www.furia.com/twas/twas0508b1.png

Statistically speaking, I think these are about the same. The red one is the Voice's, and you'd expect it to be a little smoother for having more voters.

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

me & dom hold down the boss hogg voting bloc

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 15:49 (eighteen years ago)

Discography

[edit]Albums
1990: Cold Hands
1995: Boss Hog
2000: Whiteout
[edit]Mini Albums & EP's
1989: Drinkin', Lechin' & Lyin' (mini-album)
1993: Girl Positive (vinyl EP)
1993: Girl Positive + (CD extended EP)
[edit]Singles
1990: Action Box
1996: I Dig You
1996: Winn Coma
2000: Whiteout
2000: Old School
2000: Get It While You Wait
2000: Itchy & Scratchy

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 15:52 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.hotmixx.com/images/bosshogg_allfreestyles2.jpg

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

I assume all three bands are part of a "Wu Syndicate" style spin-off program.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

i have been listening to a lot of killarmy lately

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

The "Wu affiliates" page on Wikipedia is almost as long as Fluxblog's edit history.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:07 (eighteen years ago)

Trife Da God doesn't even merit his own page : (

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:07 (eighteen years ago)

DREDDY KRUGER

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:09 (eighteen years ago)

wasnt 'black & white' really just a 2 hour informercial for american cream team

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

lol i have the 9th prince album that isnt in their discography

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:13 (eighteen years ago)

holy shit dom pachino has 5 solo records

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

Like many Wu affiliates, American Cream Team completed an album but it has never been released

lol

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

ugh i used to have that la the darkman cd but sold it back to the store for like 3 bucks in 2001 and now it goes for like $60 on ebay

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:16 (eighteen years ago)

it was pretty good too! he lives in atlanta now

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:16 (eighteen years ago)

oh man i love that remedy 'muslim and a jew' joint with cilvaringz & rza, remedy raps as an israeli dude and cilvaringz as a palestinian dude and then rza does this jerry springer final thought

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

YSI

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:19 (eighteen years ago)

'my pen is mightier than cnn / right now i teach you how to see, n, n'

^^^ real lyric

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:19 (eighteen years ago)

remedy - muslim and a jew

'instead of tryna take land / yall should shake hands'

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

I can't wait to hear that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

its been my mixtape secret weapon for a minute now

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

should i go see Ra the Rugged Man next week?

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:26 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, just don't take a girl.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

lol rapist

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

fuck yeah

anybody want the song where killarmy samples the mash theme?

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

started gettin coverage round the time steve stoute carried kid n plays luggage

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

Yes please! And thanks for the Remedy track.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

killarmy - 5 stars

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

and what, you can have my La the Darkman for $40 -- slashed to move.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, wait, scratch that.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

Haha where are you guys getting $60 from? I still see that record for $5 (although zshops shows it at $20.) It's actually pretty decent as Wu B-team records go (although not a patch on the Killah Priest record which came out around the same time IIRC.)

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

Here's another bit of number crunching: album similarity clusters, as measured by percentage of voter overlap.

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508c

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

Clipse · Hell Hath No Fury overlaps with Hold Steady · Boys & Girls in America (0.207)

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 20:41 (eighteen years ago)

Nas · Hip-Hop Is Dead overlaps with Lupe Fiasco · Food & Liquor (0.25)

this makes really good sense for some reason

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 20:43 (eighteen years ago)

Cool, that's really interesting.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

haha I'm 244th in critical alignment, right smack in the middle. funny.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 21:47 (eighteen years ago)

I'm 211. I'm guessing that means I had a mix of popular choices and more obscure ones? (Probably putting Thursday at number one dropped me 100 slots on its own.)

― Mordechai Shinefield (Mordy), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 21:50 (eighteen years ago)

I'm in the low 400s

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 21:53 (eighteen years ago)

I also crunched up the various poll results if you counted only the people who voted for one particular record. These mostly turn out to be the record in question at #1, and then some minor reordering of 5 or 6 of the top ten, with 3 or 4 things from slightly farther down the chart moving up. But here are a few interesting anomalies:

- The closest anybody comes to losing their own poll is DJ Drama and Lil Wayne. Of the 24 voters who voted for Dedication 2, 21 of them also voted for Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury. In no other case is this ratio much lower than 2:1.

- The only artists whose subset polls don't have Ghostface Killah in the top 10 are Band of Horses, Midlake, the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen.

- In the top 10 according to the 29 people who voted for Mastodon, Converge comes in tied for 7th. Converge only got 8 votes total, but 6 of those people also voted for Mastodon. Converge shares 7th with Clipse, who got 99 votes total, but only 6 from Mastodon voters. There are only three or four other albums with fewer than 10 total votes that would make the top 10 according to the voters for any album with 20+ votes, and those are all from smaller samples (3 or 4 votes).

- The Dixie Chicks, despite receiving only 26 votes total, came in 3rd among Springsteen voters, 7th among Bob Dylan voters, and 9th among Jenny Lewis voters.

- DJ Drama and Lil Wayne, despite receiving only 24 votes total, came in 4th among Scritti Politti voters, 5th among Justin Timberlake and TI and Clipse voters, 7th among My Chemical Romance voters, and 8th among J Dilla voters.

- The biggest jump into 2nd place is Grizzly Bear, who come in 2nd among Midlake voters. Midlake, however, doesn't even make the top 10 according to Grizzly Bear voters. Presumably this means war.

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:26 (eighteen years ago)

will someone who is smart and good at writing pls send me an 800 wd meditation on one of the following album pairs:

Coup · Pick a Bigger Weapon overlaps with Bob Dylan · Modern Times (0.224)
DJ Drama & Lil Wayne · Dedication 2 overlaps with Scritti Politti · White Bread, Black Beer (0.217)
Joanna Newsom · Ys overlaps with Ghostface Killah · Fishscale (0.241)
My Chemical Romance · The Black Parade overlaps with DJ Drama & Lil Wayne · Dedication 2 (0.235)

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

Coup · Pick a Bigger Weapon overlaps with Bob Dylan · Modern Times (0.224)

"Laugh, Love, and Fuck Alicia Keys"

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

haha

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

ok i'm actually disappointed that the comments don't have their own section -- there doesn't need to be editing or anything, but its irritating to browse each ballot to see which have comments, or am i missing something?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 22:37 (eighteen years ago)

340 Brandon Stosuy 10 165 44475 
340 NYCNative      10 165 44903

We are tied. I do like his ballot - he is apparently in league. I do not know him but know of him. I cannot help but think he posts here; if so, hello Brandon!

― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Tuesday, 9 January 2007 23:29 (eighteen years ago)

any developments on the missing/empty ballot front?

― blackmail (blackmail.is.my.life), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 00:47 (eighteen years ago)

Why yes...

This is the thread where I repost comments from the Jackin' Pop poll...

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 01:17 (eighteen years ago)

I mentioned earlier that I'd run the numbers for the poll results if you only include the ballots of people who voted for some specific album. I thought of some better math for this operation, using the ratio of subset votes to all votes, which turns out to be a lot more revealing. One intriguing small anomaly I didn't catch the other way is that there were two non-trivial cases where all the voters for one album also voted for another:

- Only Ghostface Killah voters voted for E-40's My Ghetto Report Card
- Only Bob Dylan voters voted for Los Lobos' The Town and the City
- (And with only one exception, only Bob Dylan voters voted for Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint.)

The larger picture is that the votes are much more factional than you might guess from the overall tally. We have definitely not reached any kind of melting-pot nirvana where enlightened music critics jump the boundaries between hip-hop/dance/blues/twee/whatever in search of pure greatness...

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:39 (eighteen years ago)

It'll be interesting to see the Pazz n Jop results. It's likely they'll correlate roughly to the Jackin' Pop results (aside from the rash of Hinder nominations) given the large overlapping consituency, which will reinforce the Voice's irrelevance/redundancy. Way to go old media!

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:45 (eighteen years ago)

That melting pot nirvana could only exist in a world where there aren't issues with the vitality of particular genres on the whole at particular points in time anyway, though.

― Tim Ellison = NUMBER ONE ADVOCATE OF YOU-KNOW-WHAT ON NU-ILX!!! (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:51 (eighteen years ago)

Glenn: I voted for Los Lobos but I didn't even hear the Bob Dylan album. DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 21:56 (eighteen years ago)

(M4tt C1bula, that is)

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 10 January 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

The larger picture is that the votes are much more factional than you might guess from the overall tally.

I wouldn't guess any different, and expect this trend to continue in years to come.

We have definitely not reached any kind of melting-pot nirvana where enlightened music critics jump the boundaries between hip-hop/dance/blues/twee/whatever in search of pure greatness...

Anyone expecting this kind of result has had their head in the sand for the past five years or more.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 11 January 2007 01:20 (eighteen years ago)

Matt: Forget?! My software is deeply insulted. This is your ballot, right?

http://www.idolator.com/?op=jp_showpoll&user_id=41639

Loboslessness in, Loboslessness out.

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:06 (eighteen years ago)

OH SHIT, I thought I put 'em in there. They got bumped at the last second. Sorry, Glenn -- just can't trust those H*rv*rd guys, huh?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 11 January 2007 02:10 (eighteen years ago)

Still having trouble accessing anything but Matos' essay, so I've posted my ballot, with a tree of links to my reviews of many listed items (Robert Cray, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Jessi Colter, Fiery Furnaces, John Lee Hooker---are these complete unknowns, untouchables, how'd I end up so far down in Glenn's scale? Ah well.) http://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com

― don (dow), Thursday, 11 January 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

I wonder how much overlap in voters there will be with P & J. JnP seemed to have more bloggers and less print media than P & J.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 12 January 2007 06:49 (eighteen years ago)

That's probably true. But there were also problems with ballots going out. I'm a print media guy, and I didn't receive a ballot until it was essentially D-Day. I had to catch a plane for the holidays, so I didn't wind up voting in Jackin' Pop. I'm guessing there were others with similar situations.

― Mr Deeds (Mr Deeds), Friday, 12 January 2007 07:22 (eighteen years ago)

Wait till next year. I guess Idolator and Michaelangelo Matos are gonna do it again...

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 12 January 2007 14:39 (eighteen years ago)

http://regmedia.co.uk/2004/09/07/fuji_two_fingers.jpg

― ‘•’u (gear), Friday, 12 January 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

Most ballots now have real voter names on them, so I've updated the critical alignment ratings to match.

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508b

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Friday, 12 January 2007 21:52 (eighteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

from idolator, the purported opening essay to this year's pazz & jop:

Pazz and Jop
Bill Jensen

Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of. Oh, and this year, add plenty of piss and moan to the mix, since some people who used to make a living going to shows and writing prose about music traded in their +1s for whiny chain emails and ILM message board posts about how the Village Voice is killing music criticism.

Welcome to the Pazz and Jop poll.

In an era when dailies are cutting arts critics by the dozens, the Village Voice is hiring new arts writers for newly created positions. The paper is owned by Village Voice Media, a company that spends millions of dollars a year paying music journalists across 17 American cities. VVM doesn't like thumbsuckers who sit on their ass and stare into their distended navels while hungrier writers are out in the clubs. It's just a little quirk of ours. Get over it.

Many of our writers, along with hundreds from other media outlets, make up this year's Pazz and Jop poll, the 33rd (or 34th) annual poll in which America's top music critics weigh in on the year's best music. Pazz and Jop is the most important critic's poll of the year. It was only a matter of time before someone tried to copy it.

You may have heard that a local gossip website was going to launch its own music poll. You heard it because mainstream media has had a stick up its ass about the alternative weekly universe since the Voice changed hands a year ago. Michaelangelo Matos is a critic who got his start in the alt-weekly world, collecting some of his first freelance paychecks from Village Voice Media newspapers and even working as music editor of the VVM-owned Seattle Weekly before he quit rather than have to actually speak to the new owners. After fleeing the Weekly, it didn't take long for Matos to tire of blogging snotty remarks about his successor at the paper. So he turned chickenshit into chicken salad by trying to run his own music poll on a three-month old sister blog of Gawker, a website which spent 2006 worrying whether Radar would ever publish another issue again while giving us updates on Tony Danza 's ordering habits at Balducci's.

The Village Voice, even after parting ways with long-time music critic and Pazz and Jop founder Robert Christgau, was still conducting its Pazz and Jop Poll. So who gives a shit about a three-month old blog doing a poll of its own?

No one, other than 55-year-old white guys who spend their nights snapping the rubberband of their ponytail while listening to Yo La Tengo reissues that get sent directly to their apartment (since they don't want that upstart calendar editor making 24k a year sorting through their mail back at the office).

Some of those critics, aided by carefully placed PR calls and some daily-newspaper-editor stroking, started the pile-on, attacking the Village Voice after parent company Village Voice Media decided it would rather have in its employ writers who actually went to shows and did some reporting on the artists they were writing about.

Until now, the Village Voice has not commented on any of these non-stories. But at some point, the bullshit gets so thick that you have to flush the toilet and clear the air.

Although many of the stories referred to Pazz and Jop as a venerable and cherished institution, most of these media outlets had little or nothing to say about the poll in year's past, usually not reporting on it at all. They were only interested in our cultural treasure when someone tried to piss on it and they could add their own stream-of-conscience to the golden shower. NPR--an entity living off the teat of government subsidies and Ray Kroc's widow's transfat-drenched death money--decided there was a national story in a guy with a website doing a music poll just like the Village Voice.

"Many of the country's most prominent critics, including Tom Moon of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Ann Powers of The Los Angeles Times and Jim Derogatis of The Chicago Sun-Times have told NPR that they won't be voting in the [Pazz and Jop] poll this year," said the story. Never mind the fact that two out of three of the critics they mentioned by name have collected paychecks from public radio, one of them an old acquaintance of Matos' from Seattle. Silly NPR, full disclosure is for kids. (NPR, which conducted a circle jerk of former Voice employees in a 2006 story, was good enough to tell the listener that Mr. Christgau is now a paid contributor of NPR.) The New York Times and the LA Times joined the whine parade as well--and if the mainstream media runs with a story, you know the conspiracy theorists at the San Francisco Bay Guardian will be right there to pick it up after a few months.

Gawker sent out its invitations to critics in November. How did they get people to contribute? With a small bribe. "As an added bonus," Matos wrote at the bottom of the ballot he sent to more than 1,200 critics, "once you've accepted the invitation, you'll be able to post comments on all Gawker Media blogs." Translation: the once-powerless music critic who accepted the invitation would now be able to call people "douches" under relative anonymity.

Matos kicked off his cover version of Pazz & Jop with a 5,000 word essay in which he mentioned himself more than 125 times. That's something he likes to do, as anyone who read his pamphlet on Prince's Sign O' the Times can attest to.

"I rooted for the Hold Steady on principle, though I do wish their most acclaimed album wasn't also their weakest," wrote Matos, who must have been really tired by the end of it all. Otherwise he would have never written a sentence that made him sound like such a tool (and would easily have earned "douche chill of the week" honors from Gawker, had they not been paying the guy who wrote it).

We're all dancing about architecture. At the end of the day, you don't want to read Matos' rail on about how so very hard it was to put his Gawker poll together, and how he couldn't have guessed how so many critics would have voted for Gnarl's Barkley's "Crazy" as song of the year" (regardless of the fact that "Crazy" was christened song of the year by every music critic back in June). You don't want to hear how some critics are boycotting this poll, or boycotting the other poll, or voting in both.

No.

You just want to know what the best music is to dance to/drink to/fuck to/live to.

That's what the music sections of Village Voice Media ultimately deliver.

Village Voice kills music criticism? Dewey Defeats Truman, Motherfuckers.

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:06 (eighteen years ago)

So he turned chickenshit into chicken salad by trying to run his own music poll on a three-month old sister blog of Gawker, a website which spent 2006 worrying whether Radar would ever publish another issue again while giving us updates on Tony Danza 's ordering habits at Balducci's.

combined with this

So... the bribe is that we can post comments on "a website which spent 2006 worrying whether Radar would ever publish another issue again while giving us updates on Tony Danza 's ordering habits at Balducci's"?

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)

i'm going to start saying, "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, MOTHERFUCKERS" when i beat people at smash brothers

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

NPR--an entity living off the teat of government subsidies and Ray Kroc's widow's transfat-drenched death money--decided there was a national story in a guy with a website doing a music poll just like the Village Voice.

CUT THE TEAT CUT THE TEAT

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:12 (eighteen years ago)

Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of.
Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of.
Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of.
Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of.
Spit and sweat. Vodka and pills. Chunks of sod, delta mud, lighter fluid and a well-placed red snapper. That's what popular music is made of.

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:12 (eighteen years ago)

they got the part about matos talking about himself a lot right at least. you should hear him after sex.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:14 (eighteen years ago)

...

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)

anyway, who is the hack who wrote this?

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:16 (eighteen years ago)

I hope, for the sake of the NT dudes, those sour grapes don't turn rotten.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:17 (eighteen years ago)

"You just want to know what the best music is to dance to"

I certainly wouldn't be looking at the village voice for that!

― Good Dog (Good Dog), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

BUT THEY SURE AS HELL KNOW WHAT MUSIC TO FUCK TO AMIRITE

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:20 (eighteen years ago)

Wow. Just ... wow.

Right, and Christgau never talked about himself in any of his annual P&J essays.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

i wonder if this essay will cause anyone to regret voting in P&J

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:23 (eighteen years ago)

"while hungrier writers are out in the clubs" = journalistic rockism

i wonder if this essay will cause anyone to regret voting in P&J

If it's real, it makes me all the more glad I didn't vote in it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:25 (eighteen years ago)

Idolator don't really have a history of reporting hoaxes as legit new stories, so you can be guaranteed this is a real leaked intro and not something someone e-mailed them for a laugh.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)

haha

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:29 (eighteen years ago)

oh dompaws

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:29 (eighteen years ago)

you really are a treat

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:30 (eighteen years ago)

"we have no idea if this is real or not. But what the hell."

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:32 (eighteen years ago)

Reading is fun!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:34 (eighteen years ago)

VVM can go fuck themselves.

There's a lot to be said about clubrats having a needed perspective on music. Thing is, those clubrats blog now. The Internet is eating up the fucking Village Voice and devouring its relevance.

That's the pinch here. This isn't a shot across the bow at Matos as much as it is to Gawker media.

In a different day and age, the Voice would see the Internet for what it is.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

and though it's probably fake, most alt-weeklies are taking a dive.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)

race war!

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:41 (eighteen years ago)

actually since bill jensen isn't a music writer, this probably isn't real. plus it's just hard to believe they'd publish this. someone is trying to stir the shitstorm!

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

The writing style closely matches that of other stuff attributed to Bill Jensen. Note esp. the short sentences, short paragraphs and breathless tabloidese. I think it may be real. What then?

― M. V. (M.V.), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:19 (eighteen years ago)

RACE WAR!

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

Stick Figures
Two turntables and a bunch of stickers
By BILL JENSEN
October 4, 2006 3:03:51 PM

Wah!!! Making this album was painful! Wah!!! Try roofing a house, dick.

Yes, Beck claims that Information, released this week, almost broke him. It broke him so much so that he didn’t even bother coming up with cover art.

But that didn’t stop the Thin White Puke from delivering yet another burst of coolness — he’s letting you design the album cover.

The CD comes with a four-page blank insert and four sheets of psychedelic-cum-folk-art stickers designed by artists like Jasper Goodall and Han Leeto. We had thePhoenix.com blogs On The Download (bottom) and Slop Culture (top) take a crack at designing the ultimate Beck album cover.

It was pretty painful.

For the 13 people that bought the album instead of dowloading it, send your cover creations to slopculture@phx.com.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:41 (eighteen years ago)

Also see similar vitriol here:

http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid7852.aspx
http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid10015.aspx

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:45 (eighteen years ago)

So, wait: are they going to release Pazz and Jop or what? I mean, it's February now...

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

it's February now...

-- Forksclovetofu (forksclovetof...), January 31st, 2007

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I would certainly hope they are above publishing this bullshit, especially since most of those reading the essay probably don't follow rockcrit politics.

― The Reverend Rodney J. Greene in a DIE BLIPSTER SCUM! tee (R. J. Greene), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)

love how the writer characterizes the New Times version of P&J and "Village Voice Media" as if it is same thing that it had been for 30+ years, and not two brand names appropriated by people who despise everything that XGau and the VV from 1955-2005 stood for.

"our cultural treasure" pah!

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:16 (eighteen years ago)

the P&J pub date, as has been publicized for months now, is Feb. 8

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:18 (eighteen years ago)

This characterization is kind of weird to me, because the impression that I've gotten is that the people most likely to have boycotted Pazz and Jop were young freelancers who embraced the new digital alternative.

Plus, the new Yo La Tengo album finished #22 on Jackin' Pop, and I'm willing to bet it's higher on P&J, since that's the kind of album that will benefit from presumably fewer votes for the Knife, Hot Chip, etc.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:25 (eighteen years ago)

this piece is baffling. and ugly. and seriously childish.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:31 (eighteen years ago)

Has anybody ever met a 55-year Yo La Tengo fan with a ponytail before? What are they like?

No Ned pics, plz.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:33 (eighteen years ago)

Considering I hate Yo La Tengo completely, no worries there.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:34 (eighteen years ago)

I know a few 35-yo ponytailed Yo La Tengo fans.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:34 (eighteen years ago)

x-post 55-year-old, rather

this piece is awesome, btw. so full of meow!

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:34 (eighteen years ago)

I wish Idolator had waited closer to the actual Pazz'n'Jop to run it, though. I bet it's real, judging by the guy's writing, and they might not run it now! :(

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:37 (eighteen years ago)

Christgau is a (nearly) 65-year-old Yo La Tengo fan. Don't know if he's ever had a ponytail.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:37 (eighteen years ago)

wow. punk rock.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:40 (eighteen years ago)

You have to admire the guy for giving New Times such a thorough blowjob. "Oh, you liked all the dudes who don't work here anymore, who built one of the best weeklies in America? They were LAZY, PONYTAILED ASSHOLES! All hail the new boss!"

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)

While taking pride in owning the creation of one of those lazy, ponytailed assholes, no less.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:48 (eighteen years ago)

Norman Mailer to thread...

― M. V. (M.V.), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

when one says that someone else is performing a "blowjob" in this context, does it typically mean "I am sucking my boss' cock because I crave advancement, and I don't actually believe what I am saying/writing" ? Or can it mean "I love my boss, and I agree with him, so I'm gonna give him/her the most loving, mind-blowing deep throat he/she will ever have?"

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)

DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, MOTHERFUCKERS

― max (maxreax), Thursday, 1 February 2007 00:25 (eighteen years ago)

Dewey Defeats Truman Motherfuckers would be a good band name.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 1 February 2007 00:29 (eighteen years ago)

i don't even know what it means; it's like yelling "GERMANY INVADES POLAND, MOTHERFUCKERS" or "STOCK MARKET CRASHES, MOTHERFUCKERS."

― max (maxreax), Thursday, 1 February 2007 00:36 (eighteen years ago)

It would be presumptive to guess one way or the other, but suffice to say that it can be either, or both! Each blowjob is like a snowflake...

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 1 February 2007 00:37 (eighteen years ago)

i don't even know what it means; it's like yelling "GERMANY INVADES POLAND, MOTHERFUCKERS" or "STOCK MARKET CRASHES, MOTHERFUCKERS."

Wiki: Virtually every prediction... indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way split in his own party.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Deweytruman12.jpg
The Chicago Tribune had gone so far as to print “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” on election night as its headline for the following day. A famous photograph shows Truman grinning and holding up a copy of that newspaper.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:37 (eighteen years ago)

All of which doesn't make a whole ton of sense considering that the exit polls over who would win--P&J or Jn'P--would have probably swung towards the behemoth who's been around 33 (or 34) years.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:39 (eighteen years ago)

I think that was his point, Whiney.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:43 (eighteen years ago)

Max's, I mean.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:43 (eighteen years ago)

Oh.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

It means the Village Voice is planning to send 30,000 Americans to their deaths in a frustrating war on Communism in Korea.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

You forgot the "motherfuckers" part.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Thursday, 1 February 2007 01:50 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.brawl.dk/images/plakater/brawl02-small.jpg

― bobby bedelia (van dover), Thursday, 1 February 2007 04:06 (eighteen years ago)

the P&J pub date, as has been publicized for months now, is Feb. 8

FEBRUARTY 8TH...The Hindercaust

― The Reverend Rodney J. Greene in a DIE BLIPSTER SCUM! tee (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 1 February 2007 06:50 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think the Voice has the political capital to make that war happen.

― A Radio Picture (Rrrickey), Thursday, 1 February 2007 06:54 (eighteen years ago)

ihttp://www.pbs.org/crucible/headlines/headline-7.gif

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 07:32 (eighteen years ago)

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/4940/hindercaustgl5.jpg

― The Reverend Rodney J. Greene in a DIE BLIPSTER SCUM! tee (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 1 February 2007 07:40 (eighteen years ago)

haha

Feb. 7, actually, not 8.

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Thursday, 1 February 2007 08:25 (eighteen years ago)

Gee, Matos quit before he gotta chance to talk to the brass? What a lame-o fuck he is. How could he have such intuition, such integrity?!

That thing has to be one of the most asinine things I've ever read. First off, 80 percent of all music writing/reporting -- even the best of it -- is done sitting on your ass, even for folks out there in the clubs talking to the artists and promoters or working deeper stories. Going out into the field is a significant part of any editorial job, but most of what is done comes from hours spent listening to music, researching music scenes, making and receiving phone calls and writing. The club appearances and the such are as cosmetic as anything ... be out there and observe, talk to players and network and promote your publication.

But most good arts coverage is an accomplishment of mind, not pure sweat ethic, ultimately.

That essay is classic puppet bullshit.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 15:25 (eighteen years ago)

BTW, I'm of the opinion the essay is real. It's totally consistent with a longtime NT tradition of responding in print to opponents amd detractors -- most of which are breathtaking and wonderful (Mike Lacey's volleys against Bruce Brugman are awesome). This one, however, is neither.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

At the Yo La show I attended last night there were no fiftysomethings in ponytails, but there were a couple of them wearing Velcro strap sneakers.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 1 February 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

any patches on the elbows?

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

Also, I usually love the parody cover stories NT does. It'd be nice, though, if this one turns out to be a fake.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)

Does it seem weird to anyone that the essay wasn't actually written by the Voice music editor? I'm guessing that Rob was unwilling to lash out like this.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 1 February 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

are the members of Yo La Tengo in their 50s yet? i bet the bassist has worn his hair in a ponytail at some point.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 1 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

McNew actually looked younger than when I last saw them in 2003. Feedback â€“ the elixir of youth!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 1 February 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

http://idolator.com/tunes/jackin%27-pop/westword-wha-the-village-voice-vitriol-mystery-continues-233082.php

LOL

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

the jackin pop results are pretty much exactly what i would've expected the pazz n jop results to be.

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:21 (eighteen years ago)

I disagree. P n J has alot more older reviewers and more print media reviewers who I think would/will give Dylan more votes.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:26 (eighteen years ago)

how do you know who voted in P&J?

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:27 (eighteen years ago)

He's Batman.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:29 (eighteen years ago)

HES ONE OF THEMS

― If you fuck with Jimmy Mod, you call down the thunder (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

matos, i gotta ask, did you have ANY idea any of this would have resulted from yer lil' ol' poll?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:35 (eighteen years ago)

Funny part -- I'm sure no one outside of rock crit or outside of the NT offices really gives a fuck about all of this.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:38 (eighteen years ago)

why is that funny? and is it even true? people read the new york times and listen to npr and not all of them are rock critics or work for NT. it got play outside da blogs.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

what I mean to say is, I'm not sure anyone really cares about the back and forth between the two parties. They care about the poll and about what's happened to a New York insitution, but Jensen's article and whatever responses arise are pretty dang inside baseball.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

Just because people pick up a newspaper doesn't meant they give a fuck about everything in it.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

ha ... good point.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

yeah i get it and really my question to matos was about the voice's/management reaction to the poll anyway so i don't know why i'm arguing the inside baseball point. i understand that most normal people don't follow this stuff.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

Scott: no, I didn't

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Thursday, 1 February 2007 17:59 (eighteen years ago)

>how do you know who voted in P&J?
-- Make a Beck Song #1 (michaelangelomato...), February 1st, 2007

Oh, I'm just guessing that Dylan will get more votes in P n J. That is why I said "I think." If I had real insider knowledge of actual tabulated P & J votes, New Times/VV Media would uh, take care of me, before I could leak them!

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 1 February 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

gotcha, scott. NT, best I can figure, really does want to be seen as an authority on music coverage. Makes them easy to rankle.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Thursday, 1 February 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

I have vague recollections of Bono saying something about not winning P N J on the Grammys one year when he was getting an award (when P n J was published on that same day). I think most viewers were like "what is he talking about," while I felt worthy!

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 1 February 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

obviously I missed "I think" in there--sorry about that

― Make a Beck Song #1 (M Matos), Thursday, 1 February 2007 18:48 (eighteen years ago)

To answer an earlier question: Yes, that insipid essay makes me regret voting in PnJ, though I already sort of regretted it.

― chris herrington (chris herrington), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

http://idolator.com/tunes/jackin%27-pop/rollerhockeying-voice-editors-attempt-at-a-verbal-crosscheck-deserves-a-penalty-233229.php

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 1 February 2007 19:44 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, that insipid essay makes me regret voting in PnJ

While it would be much smarter for me to stay out of this, comments like this demand that I clarify: The writer speaks only for the writer and maybe one or two malcontents in Phoenix; that piece is NOT running in the Voice. I am seriously saddened that that ill-thought and ill-targeted essay has succeeded in undermining the work done by Rob and everyone who contributed to the poll. "Village Voice Media" =/= Village Voice.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 1 February 2007 21:12 (eighteen years ago)

I'm more intrigued by the idea of "critic's poll regret."

Most of people who "refuse to vote" or "regret" voting in Pazz & Jop have no problem giving their opinions to people who AREN'T asking for it all day long.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 21:59 (eighteen years ago)

i in no way regret voting in pnj.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)

it gave me the opportunity to refine my ballot.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:04 (eighteen years ago)

i didn't vote in pnj cuz i forgot

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:05 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, to be honest, I kinda forgot, too. Or at least I was putting off deciding whether I should contribute or not, and then on New Years Day, I realized that the deadline had passed and that my decision had basically been made for me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)

Most of people who "refuse to vote" or "regret" voting in Pazz & Jop have no problem giving their opinions to people who AREN'T asking for it all day long.

yeah yr all opinion sluts, that's why i'll never put a ring on yr fingers....why buy the cow when you can get the blog for free?

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

"Village Voice Media" =/= Village Voice

"Hard Rock Cafe" =/= Hard Rock Cafe NYC

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:11 (eighteen years ago)

Any editor who's worked for publisher they don't necessarily agree with will tell you that you are assuredly not OTM on that one.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:15 (eighteen years ago)

All I said was that each Hard Rock Cafe has its own identity, seperate from the company that owns them all.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)

that essay plays like baldwin's glengarry pep talk, a hired gun sending a message.

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:19 (eighteen years ago)

yeah the NYC Hard Rock is definitely the most independent-minded of them all, it is HARDCORE

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:20 (eighteen years ago)

JOHNNY RAMONE'S LEATHER JACKET, MOTHERFUCKERS

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

the minneapolis one has some prince clothes! they look like doll clothes! he is sooo small.

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 1 February 2007 22:24 (eighteen years ago)

O god o god o god i hope they print this.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Friday, 2 February 2007 00:48 (eighteen years ago)

>i in no way regret voting in pnj.
-- acid waffle house (wt...), February 1st, 2007.

Is this because you believe that lots of publishers are less than noble and therefore contributing to the New Times/VV Media poll is not an endorsement of their methods of doing business; or is it because Christgau is contributing a ballot even though they fired him; or it's like buying gas from Exxon--you know it's a company that's done bad things, but your car is running low on gas and your boycott of them won't change things; or something else (wanting to show your 'refined' ballot, even if it's in a publication with less than nice owners).

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 2 February 2007 05:43 (eighteen years ago)

I think it's more "let's see if they let me get away with voting for The Lexicon of Love"

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 2 February 2007 05:53 (eighteen years ago)

I have no regrets because I think it's totally insane to takes sides over the "purity" of how one place tabulates the opinions of 500 critics vs. the way ANOTHER place tabulates near-indentical data.

I honestly didn't think twice about voting in either. They both seem like nice enough polls to me.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 2 February 2007 06:00 (eighteen years ago)

So you never even thought about the "purity" of the new Voice and the firing of the folks who did the editing and tabulating?

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 2 February 2007 06:15 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I totally miss Bob and Chuck. They are total heroes to an obsessive geek like myself. But THIS poll run by some dudes who aren't Bob and Chuck seems just as legit as ANOTHER poll run by some dudes who aren't Bob and Chuck.

The more I think about it, your first guess was dead on:

"because you believe that lots of publishers are less than noble and therefore contributing to the New Times/VV Media poll is not an endorsement of their methods of doing business."

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 2 February 2007 06:23 (eighteen years ago)

Plus Harvilla and Matos are both swell guys!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 2 February 2007 06:24 (eighteen years ago)

I hope that doesn't make me Cap'n Save-A-Poll.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 2 February 2007 06:25 (eighteen years ago)

>i in no way regret voting in pnj.
-- acid waffle house (wt...), February 1st, 2007.

Is this because you believe that lots of publishers are less than noble and therefore contributing to the New Times/VV Media poll is not an endorsement of their methods of doing business; or is it because Christgau is contributing a ballot even though they fired him; or it's like buying gas from Exxon--you know it's a company that's done bad things, but your car is running low on gas and your boycott of them won't change things; or something else (wanting to show your 'refined' ballot, even if it's in a publication with less than nice owners).

-- curmudgeon (curmudgeo...), February 1st, 2007.

it's because the punchline was the next line down.

― Welcome to the Pazz and Jop poll. (M Matos), Friday, 2 February 2007 08:59 (eighteen years ago)

bump

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 21:52 (eighteen years ago)

Pazz & Jop 2006
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/

albums
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/winners.php?type=album
The albums poll combines ballots from 494 critics, who divided 100 points among 10 2006 titles.

singles
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/winners.php?type=single

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 21:59 (eighteen years ago)

Ballots
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/ballots.php

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:00 (eighteen years ago)

so close...

Jackin' Pop = 497 ballots [Idolator / Gawker]
PazzandJop = 494 ballots [Village Voice / New Times]

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)

1 Dylan, Bob - Modern Times 1123(95)
2 TV on the Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain 1109(99)
3 Ghostface Killah - Fishscale 1031(96)
4 Hold Steady, The - Boys and Girls in America 983(81)
5 Gnarls Barkley - St Elsewhere 791(71)
6 Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not 718(63)
7 Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury 673(63)
8 Case, Neko - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood 645(64)
9 Newsom, Joanna - Ys 626(59)
10 Waits, Tom - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards 608(51)
11 Cat Power - The Greatest 566(57)
12 Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped 500(49)
13 Decemberists, The - The Crane Wife 440(42)
14 Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit 423(38)
15 Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat 366(37)

― roger goodell (gear), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

vive la différence

― roger goodell (gear), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

I bet Neko Case feels pretty ashamed of herself now.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:14 (eighteen years ago)

Hinder rocks! Go Hinder!
Anthony Miccio Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:20 (eighteen years ago)

Hinder
(placed # 148)
Extreme Behavior
Universal/Motown

Clover, Sterling
Miccio, Anthony

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

Hinder
(placed # 153)
Lips of an Angel
Universal

Harvell, Jess
Miccio, Anthony
Wood, Mikael

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

still not 100% happy with my ballot.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

Same stuff, different order.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

I have a question for everyone who put the Clipse, T.I., Lil' Wayne and the Game on top of their lists. Are you embarrassed to play it around your girlfriends, wives, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, and friends? Yeah? Then WTF are you thinking?
A.S. Van Dorston
Chicago, Illinois

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)

Kelefeh Sanneh and other NY Times critics as well as Sasha Frere-Jones from the New Yorker skipped both polls

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)

New Media [Idolator / Gawker] Matos & co gets it completed by January 5th

Old Media [Village Voice / New Times] took over and 4 and half weeks later to publish results on February 6th

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:27 (eighteen years ago)

Idolator employs systems thinking, shitty logo.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:28 (eighteen years ago)

This is the exact same ballot I would have submitted to Jackin' Pop, but the computer didn't accept it.

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

actually...
Idolator employs effective project management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

wow this thread is actually gayer than either poll. kudos.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:30 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/0706,various,75727,22.html

A few unkind words for us with regards to Pazz & Jop's patriarch

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

Idolator employs systems thinking, shitty logo.

yeah but where's pazz & jop's AWESOME MS PAINT DRAWINGS

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

harvilla calls me out for artistic racial insensitivity in his essay

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:32 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, you still get lone loonies claiming merit for Paris Hilton's CD...

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:33 (eighteen years ago)

the fact that i even had to type that sentence makes me want to escape from rock criticism more than ever

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:33 (eighteen years ago)

stop bein one microsoftian artistico-racialist

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)

IT'S ONLY GOT 16 COLORS ROB

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:35 (eighteen years ago)

And a pair of flagrantly deranged movie buffs (whose skin tones are awfully difficult to recreate in MS Paint)

JESS GOT SONNED IN A POLL BEEF

― max (maxreax), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:36 (eighteen years ago)

STAY GOLD PONYBOY

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:36 (eighteen years ago)

Simon pushing his new rockism:

but overall there's been a return to a default-mode rockism that prizes substance, complexity, edge. If TV on the Radio and Joanna Newsom represent the beguiling, easy-on-the-ear version of those values, those looking for a harder hit are turning to metal, dubstep, noise.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:43 (eighteen years ago)

huh

― Eppy (Eppy), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:47 (eighteen years ago)

so is he covering music, or covering music coverage

― deej.. (deej..), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:49 (eighteen years ago)

Kelefeh Sanneh and other NY Times critics as well as Sasha Frere-Jones from the New Yorker skipped both polls

So did Jim DeRogatis.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:54 (eighteen years ago)

harvilla calls me out for artistic racial insensitivity in his essay

wonder if this was before or after their artist drew a black dude getting run over by a white dude

― a.b. (alanbanana), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:56 (eighteen years ago)

yeah pretty amazing lynching cartoon. really gets at the old timey confederate poetry angle too.

― fukasaku bloodbath (blackmail.is.my.life), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)

pretty happy with my ballot still. one stupid typo that unsurprisingly survived intact, and apparently the tilde over the a in PopoZão didn't render right in their software, which is i guess evidence of their overwhelming anglo-chauvinist bias. aside from miccio, harvell and myself, anyone find any other "interesting" ballots?

also i note that xgau voted but eddy didn't. i forget if he posted that he just forgot the deadline and didn't give a damn or something.

also omg that ott essay.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:25 (eighteen years ago)

the ott essay is gold

― roger goodell (gear), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:26 (eighteen years ago)

Idolator in particular was pathologically obsessed with vilifying this paper on behalf of Robert Christgau, who didn't ask them to, and continues, incidentally, to write frequently for Rolling Stone.

this is, uh... not true?

― fuck yr face blogger (a_p), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:28 (eighteen years ago)

What is Ott even talking about?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:30 (eighteen years ago)

anyway perry owes at least a few people 10$ next time he sees them. and tate tho, ok i'd read him even if he were published in like The Household Budget Gardening Newsletter.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:31 (eighteen years ago)

I'd say a whole lot of people are intent on vilifying VVM because it's a shitty organization run by jerks, since they were doing it long before Christgau lost his job.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:32 (eighteen years ago)

ok also haha phil dellio's ballot. (no j. clo/jane dark either + is it me or is the comments pool hella limited this year?)

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)

Oh please tell me the "sheep" headline was Ott's own creation, it would cause such mirth.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:53 (eighteen years ago)

We should all pitch and buy him a copy of Siddhartha.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:55 (eighteen years ago)

No Hindercaust?

= [

― The Reverend Rodney J. Greene (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:57 (eighteen years ago)

also what happened to "34th (or 35th)"?

this is the biggest betrayal YET.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 6 February 2007 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

Why does Ted Cox get a ballot? He's the sports columnist for the Chicago Reader.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:01 (eighteen years ago)

cox talks a mean game in the comments section, but his ballot is... totally dull.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:03 (eighteen years ago)

that timbuk 3 album was pretty good, really.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)

no tim finney :O

― deej.. (deej..), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:12 (eighteen years ago)

Why does Ted Cox get a ballot? He's the sports columnist for the Chicago Reader.

Ask Roger Ebert about Richard Roeper.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:31 (eighteen years ago)

DID BETTER ON JACKIN' POP

+73 Peter Bjorn & John
+44 Love is All
+36 Beirut
+35 DJ Drama/Lil Wayne
+35 Liars
+22 Girl Talk
+20 Mastodon
+18 Grizzly Bear
+18 Junior Boys
+17 Destroyer
+14 The Thermals
+14 Justin Timberlake
+10 J. Dilla
+9 Hot Chip

DID BETTER ON PAZZ & JOP

+74 Elvis Costello/Allen Toussaint
+58 Roseanne Cash
+47 Pernice Brothers
+35 New York Dolls
+24 Ornette Coleman
+24 The Raconteurs
+23 Johnny Cash
+22 Beck
+20 Bruce Springsteen
+19 My Chemical Romance
+15 The Dixie Chicks
+15 Tom Waits
+12 Todd Snider
+9 Neil Young

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

(I own 8 from the first list and 1 from the second.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:44 (eighteen years ago)

The singles list is pretty much identical, no?

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:51 (eighteen years ago)

sort of shocked that villalobos' "fizheuer zieheuer" placed 49th on p&j. (actually, it should have place higher: it's also ranked at #246, listed as a playhouse edition, while the #49th place goes to a frisbee tracks edition that, ironically enough, does not exist...)

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)

What is Ott even talking about?

A sampling:

1. "self-absorption, editorial and intellectual laziness, and an overt susceptibility to peer pressure that's led to a disdainful homogeneity of opinion"

2. "Everyone who's telling you to listen to the same 50 records is caught in a closed loop of incestuous self-assurance, and you owe it to yourselves to leave them behind."

3. "Pop music criticism is mired in a virulent, unrepentant triumphalism these days, and I don't know that readers are sufficiently aware of it. Critics are cripplingly invested in breaking bands and generating buzz, a careerist formalization of the childish desire to snort, 'Oh my God, you haven't heard this yet?'"

4. "By and large, what we read online amounts to the overexcited gushing of groupies, presented in a format that looks professional and therefore feels like a publication."

5. "Coverage of pop music—the "noise of pop," as Paul Morley might put it—isn't limited by issue dates or printing costs anymore, so the idea of stamping records with a rank relative to their temporal peer group is more and more reductive, and arguably pointless. What does Sonic Youth have to do with Joanna Newsom or Belle & Sebastian, apart from the fact that they all released records in 2006?"

6. "Who is evaluating music on its own terms, against its obvious stylistic lineage, rather than by its ability to blend or contrast with—or in only the best cases, change—the pop culture of its day? The answer is that critics are chasing novelty, which leads to the celebration of the obvious, of "Weird Al" singles and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," one of the most perplexingly inconsequential one-hook jingles ever to storm the charts."

7. "Today, we've lost independent points of view, thanks to the oppressive consensus effect of the Internet. A lazy reliance on just a few websites assures critics they're covering the "right" records and are still on top of things. That's why all of our year-end lists look exactly the same: We're constantly looking over our shoulders lest we miss out on a scoop that might generate traffic."

8. "We rank and file music all year long on our blogs and web magazines, in the list-drenched advertorial press, and even on our iPods. If everyone's a critic, do we still need a critics' poll?"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:00 (eighteen years ago)

why does the pazz & jop logo make me feel like i have accidentally picked up a copy of GUITAR ENTHUSIAST? pro gear, pro attitude.

i dont know if whiney yoinked this from me yet, but also, what's up with the cover image looking like something out of "the pj's"?

― mts (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:01 (eighteen years ago)

Fucking hell, I shoulda known the Siddhartha ref was gonna bring YOU out of the wordwork, Ellison.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:06 (eighteen years ago)

really gets at the old timey confederate poetry angle too.

dont you really mean southern strategy/literary fascism? oh now we're just splitting hairs.

― mts (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:06 (eighteen years ago)

ott otm

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:07 (eighteen years ago)

Actually, I didn't know what you were referring to, Daddino - sorry. Merely responding to Alex in SF's question!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:09 (eighteen years ago)

ALAN TATE WUZ RIGHT

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:10 (eighteen years ago)

It was a joke related to your fondness for Hesse -- mention him on ILx and you'll be irresistibly and unconsciously pulled towards that thread.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:16 (eighteen years ago)

Siddhartha didn't just want to be a sheep, amirite??

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:21 (eighteen years ago)

To become religious men by the standards of their own community, Siddhartha feels he and Govinda would have to become like sheep in a large herd, following predetermined rituals and patterns without ever questioning those methods or exploring methods beyond the ones they know. Siddhartha is deeply unhappy at this prospect. Though he loves his father and respects the people of his village, he cannot imagine himself existing in this way. Siddhartha has followed his father’s example with conviction, but still he longs for something more.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:22 (eighteen years ago)

Why haven't you been stabbed in the eyes yet?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:22 (eighteen years ago)

right back at you, fool.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:31 (eighteen years ago)

You haven't answered my question.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:41 (eighteen years ago)

Crossed wires with you, I guess! I have no idea. I do my best. I was actually trying to have fun and play along with the Siddhartha theme a bit there. Unpack it, as it were. For fun.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 01:45 (eighteen years ago)

Durchholz, Daniel; Hermes, Will; Kiviat, Steve.-Pazz & Jop votes for Toumani Diabete's Symmetric Orchestra-Boulevard De L’Independence. Some other African artists likely got a few more votes, but not many more.

I do not get why folks who write about afropop for magazines like the Beat; Global Rhythms; and fRoots; and various folks who write about afropop online do not bother to vote in these polls.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:31 (eighteen years ago)

Here's some trivia: had Matos voted in Pazz & Jop, Dylan's margin of victory over TVOTR would've been larger.

― M. V. (M.V.), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:33 (eighteen years ago)

here's more trivia: my vote in pnj gave dylan his margin of victory. (i gave him 14 points exactly.) without me, it was tie! they would've needed a whole different illustration.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:36 (eighteen years ago)

hey curmo: i write about afropop for global rhythms but i didn't put any african records on my jp poll OH THAT'S RIGHT I DID NEVER MIND

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

Awwww, no ballot from Ott to confirm his place in his internet consensus.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

I submitted the same poll to J'nP and P&J, and somehow my vote for QPE's Gentrifried, got changed to...The Coup's Gentrifried,.

Hmmm.

I still feel normal, though, because about half the records I voted for only recieved one vote. Dammit, why can't more people love the STNNNG?

― jodi, samurai photographer (burun), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 02:59 (eighteen years ago)

About that illustration: Not only is the central image entirely offensive--it's a strange editorial staff that looks at a picture of a white man running over a black man with a tractor, and apparently says, "Yep, looks good to me. Kinda edgy!" But add to that the fact fact the cartoon gives Dylan a Shylock nose! Seriously, I've seen subtler noses from Third Reich cartoonists.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 03:12 (eighteen years ago)

Okay, it's not a tractor--I get the old guy joke, now. But still!!

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 03:13 (eighteen years ago)

Greetings from the Magic City, Dylan!

― M. V. (M.V.), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 03:34 (eighteen years ago)

The illustration's by David O'Keefe, the same guy who did the VV cover with Dylan for P&J back in '02. '07 Dylan looks pretty identical to the '02 one, and though his hair's poofier, the nose is the same.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 03:48 (eighteen years ago)

I'll trust you on that, Michael, and I'm sure the cartoonist isn't in fact an anti-Semite.

Nose still seems kind of unseemly, though, in context.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:04 (eighteen years ago)

RE: Ott essay.

Ott writes that " anyone out to lionize P&J as a Top 40 poll or an arbiter of taste has their work cut out for them from about the mid '80s forward." I don't know why he thinks the poll was so unimpeachable before the mid-'80s--there are all sorts of shitty records in those '70s and early '80s polls!

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:05 (eighteen years ago)

Curious. Not sure P&J ever really functioned as an "arbiter of taste" so much as an echo-chamber for critical trends. And yeah, there's plenny of urgh huh WHAT selections from back in the day, Imperial Bedroom being maybe the most obvious.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:12 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, sure, I treated the poll as an arbiter of taste...back when I was fifteen. Then a year or two later I realized no poll was ever going to get me to want to listen to a Robbie Robertson solo record.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:15 (eighteen years ago)

Exactly, though I like "Imperial Bedroom." I gueess his basic point, and it's a mighty astute and iconoclastic one, is that a broad and inclusive survey of professional and amateur pop critics, despite being put together by a publication associated with New York City bohemians, has historically failed to be a perfect predictor of future preferences and has often favored the work of established and perhaps tired acts over younger, exciting ones (such as Seal), or even favored short-lived acts over enduring and infallible hall of fame acts (such as Seal and the Cure). He knocked that essential point out of the park.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:16 (eighteen years ago)

And I don't see what's so "comic" about all those "gaffes." For example:

1986: Timbuk 3 over the "The Queen Is Dead" and "I Against I" sounds right to me, even if that's why I have so few friends and no one asks me to make the party mix. I like the Smiths quite a lot, but not that album so much, and Bad Brains I really only pretended to like. I can admit that now. Besides, if I turn my back on Timbuk 3 now just 'cause the kids like "The Queen Is Dead" ain't that just succumbing to " rock-critic hegemony," which Ott says is bad?

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:18 (eighteen years ago)

he shouldna been so mean about timbuk 3. i wonder if i still have that cassette.

http://image.listen.com/img/356x237/3/5/2/6/506253_356x237.jpg

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:19 (eighteen years ago)

They even look cool.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

'88: He's write about GNR, but it's not like Brian Wilson's often transcendent full-length solo debut and Randy Newman's slick but mostly top-form "Land of Dreams" and Hiatt's career-best "Slow Turning" and Chapman's sometimes moving debut don't deserve to "tower" over Talking Heads' fucking "Naked." Everyone knows it's their worst record. A few of those records I even like more than Jane's Addiction, but I'm a sucker for singer songwriters. Besides, P.E. and Sonic Youth took top honors. That's pretty arbiter-y, and correct. Of the '88 top rankers, Midnight Oil seems like the real lemon to me.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

'89: "Raw Like Sushi" fucking eviscerates "Disintegration"! Also, that NRBQ record isn't bad. Not one of their seven or eight best, but some good stuff there. I'd have to go back to the D'Arby follow-up album. Some of my friends love it, but I never got to know it.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)

'89: "Raw Like Sushi" fucking eviscerates "Disintegration"!

No. (And I like Neneh just fine, thanks.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:24 (eighteen years ago)

ZOMG A TWIST

Dylan, brace yrself re: that TTD joint - it's a move-in-with-me-NOW or never-call-me-again sort of deal.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:31 (eighteen years ago)

What's TTD?

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:34 (eighteen years ago)

'91: Well of course P.M. Dawn shoulda beat Seal. And I guess I can't get too worked up about them being nine spots over My Bloody Valentine, with whom I have painful associations that I don't care to discuss. The real crime is that My Bloody Valentine edged out Sonny Sharrock.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)

ZOMG A TWIST

Nobody expects etc.

it's a move-in-with-me-NOW or never-call-me-again sort of deal.

That's about right! (Admittedly for me it's more like a houseguest but it seems like everyone divides pretty fiercely into one camp or the other.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:35 (eighteen years ago)

TTD = Terence Trent D'Arby

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:37 (eighteen years ago)

Imperial Bedroom is three beguiling singles surrounded by impressive meaninglessness, a gorgeous 3'x2' canvas with a 5'-thick gilded rococo frame.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:39 (eighteen years ago)

that's bullshit, it's an album by elvis costello

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:41 (eighteen years ago)

Ah, D'Arby. Well, I think I'll get a used copy tomorrow. I liked his first one. I was working at a record store back then and one of my co-workers used to play it, but it never sunk in. I remember how ambitious it was and all that.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:41 (eighteen years ago)

jeezus simon can really bug the crap out of me sometimes. i shouldn't have read that thing. some people really know how to push my buttons. usually i forget i even have buttons!

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:42 (eighteen years ago)

Well, I think you're right that "Imperial"'s "Pepper"-y thing helped folks overrate it, and I don't like it nearly as much as "Shoot Out the Lights," "Marshall Crenshaw," "JuJu Music," "Nebraska," "Thriller," "Watch Your Step," "Sundown," and a bunch of others from the list that year. But I still like it.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:46 (eighteen years ago)

'95: I like some of that Matt Sweet record pretty well and sort of liked the Elastica single, but his '95 beefs are pretty much the ones I had back then.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:47 (eighteen years ago)

'05: I guess he's right that both Nenah Cherry and M.I.A. are both non-white women who were born in some foreign place and then moved to England.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:49 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, and we can only have one of those around. It's the law.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:51 (eighteen years ago)

from reynolds' thing:

But something is going on when "hipster metal" faves Mastodon enter the Top 50 out of nowhere,

"nowhere" being the Top 60 in 2004. (leviathan, #60)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:52 (eighteen years ago)

mastodon is the first metal band i haev liked w/o considering them thru a lens of camp masculinity, i have no idea what this means

― pinkmoose (jacklove), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:55 (eighteen years ago)

actually mastodon got more points and votes in '04 (218 points on 21 votes) than this year (199 points on 16 votes).

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:55 (eighteen years ago)

Hi Dylan!

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 04:59 (eighteen years ago)

also in reynolds, this

All low-frequency drone and trudge-tempo sludge, doom metal is a sort of visceral mood music, midway between assault and ambience.

would maybe be ok if he weren't talking about pink, which mostly doesn't sound like that at all.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:06 (eighteen years ago)

please don't get me started. i have to go to bed...

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:11 (eighteen years ago)

oh bullshit, Dylan, everybody knows True Stories is Talking Heads' worst album

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:17 (eighteen years ago)

mastodon is the first metal band i haev liked w/o considering them thru a lens of camp masculinity, i have no idea what this means

anthony i wish this was a pazz and jop comment so much.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:18 (eighteen years ago)

Sterling OTM

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:19 (eighteen years ago)

chris ottm re: t1mbuk 3

― timmy tannin (pompous), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 05:34 (eighteen years ago)

Hey Scott, hey y'all. Put on "Naked" a bit ago, Matos. Sounded not too far off from how I remember it, and I'm pretty sure I still prefer "True Stories." I reckon "Naked" does have a better reputation, though. Took off "Naked" so I could put on "Greetings from Timbuk 3." Currently grooving to "Hairstyles and Attitudes."

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 06:10 (eighteen years ago)

there's nothing on naked i like as much as dream operator.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 06:37 (eighteen years ago)

Hi everybody! I just woke up. Those damn kids nailed my coffin shut again. Naked? My Bloody Valentine? Sonny Sharrock? What year is this?

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 06:46 (eighteen years ago)

One of those cosmic years in the Mayan calendar that doesn't end.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 06:53 (eighteen years ago)

Thanks, Ned. That explains how Dylan won.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 06:59 (eighteen years ago)

I'd also like to publicly thank Simon Reynolds for sneaking me into Pazz & Jop. (I'm the "buddy" he mentions in the first graf of his essay.)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 07:02 (eighteen years ago)

I'm inclined to agree with Phile Freeman. There's a lot more to metal than Mastodon and doom. Fine to truncate the range and all, but reality still trumps.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 07:20 (eighteen years ago)

SECURITY!!!

xp, yeah

― The Reverend (R. J. Greene), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 07:22 (eighteen years ago)

Oops, I mean Phil. Sorry.

― Rod Smith (Biggie Stardust), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 07:28 (eighteen years ago)

except what Freeman said was: "Folks gotta stop expecting US and UK mainstream pop to give them everything they need. That's pure laziness." yes, and who is a bigger booster of mainstream pop than Simon Reynolds?

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 07:30 (eighteen years ago)

Simon Reynolds always seems to want to make everything an either/or set of choices, when you can have both. Remember when for him it was "post-rock" or nothing. But then Tortoise turned out to be kinda dull and Long Thin Killie or whomever broke up and he had had to concoct a new theory. Where'd grime go, anyway.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 10:49 (eighteen years ago)

I actually had fun reading Simon's essay, even though there's plenty in it I completely disagree with. What I don't get at all though was, who are all these "genre-ists" who are listening to dubstep and doom metal and avoiding Justin Timberlake and Top 10 pop (both of which did way better in the poll than any dubstep or metal, and Justin did better with his new album than his previous one, and the Top 10 singles list was loaded with pop hits this year)? I mean, I know people who prefer noisy stuff to what's on the radio are out there (hell, I'm one myself a lot of the time), but when the heck weren't they? The poll results, as far as I can tell, don't give any evidence whatsoever that anything has shifted. (Not gonna go back and check, but didn't the previous Wolf Eyes album do way better than the new one, too? It should've--It was a better record!)

Ott's essay was ridiculous. That Timbuk 3 album is better than plenty of records that placed thus year; Raw Like Sushi is better than almost every record that placed this year (and better than any Cure album after Boys Don't Cry). Ditto M.I.A. And Seal and, yeah, Naked suck as much now as they did then. And even beyond all that, what exactly was his point? That sometimes albums finish higher in Pazz&Jop than better albums? How is that remotely a revelation? So why not just list every album that ever placed in the poll, period? Which ones wouldn't apply?

― xhuxk (xhuck), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:08 (eighteen years ago)

Yet he stops short of calling out my peers—his apprentices in many cases—for a host of critical deficiencies. Chiefly: self-absorption, editorial and intellectual laziness, and an overt susceptibility to peer pressure that's led to a disdainful homogeneity of opinion.

The irony of participating in a poll seems to have escaped him.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

And waitwait - Guns 'N' Roses are "aging beatniks"?.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:17 (eighteen years ago)

And the Traveling Wilburys are aging beatniks?

Ugh. MIA-Neneh Cherry jokes are sO 2005.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:20 (eighteen years ago)

xp(Wait -- Did Ott actually mention Seal? I just searched his essay and he didn't seem to, so maybe Dylan was joking upthread when he called Seal "exciting" and "enduring". I hope so, come to think of it. But Timbuk 3 were no worse than I Against I, really.)

I think he's saying GnR were beat by aging beatniks, actually. Though originally I read that line the same way Alfred did. (And how is Tracy Chapman more an aging beatnik than Robert Smith or Perry Farrel?) (Though I guess he means people who liked Chapman?)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:23 (eighteen years ago)

"On July 17, 2005, I officially gave up drinking. And since then, I have made it through approximately 450 nights out at bars, 235 Boston Red Sox games, 35 business trips, five weddings, two MTV Video Music Awards ceremonies, and one high school reunion, all without even wanting as much as a sip of the sauce. But nothing—and I mean nothing—has made me want to hit the bottle like repeated exposure to the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America.
Ray Cummings
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania"

hahaha this wasn't me at all!

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:42 (eighteen years ago)

i don't even like the hold steady!

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:44 (eighteen years ago)

The same comment was posted in "james montgomery"'s Idolator ballot, so it's probably him:

http://www.idolator.com/?op=jp_showpoll&user_id=43514

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 12:51 (eighteen years ago)

>who are all these "genre-ists" who are listening to dubstep and doom metal and avoiding Justin Timberlake and Top 10 pop (both of which did way better in the poll than any dubstep or metal, and Justin did better with his new album than his previous one, and the Top 10 singles list was loaded with pop hits this year)?

I think they all post on Dissensus.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

But oops, I skipped over this Reynolds bit:

"And there's much to admire about those renegade genres: the seriousness, the earnest aspiration to innovate and overwhelm, the sheer strenuousness and commitment entailed in being a fan. Yet personally I'm ambivalent about all three. (Most of my 2006 faves have a pop tinge: Scritti, Hot Chip, Lady Sovereign.)"

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:32 (eighteen years ago)

ott seems right in his larger point that polls probably don't matter than much anymore.

both these polls seem about the same to me. typical stuff i would expect to be on a year end poll. (in my non-professional opinion)

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

did anyone else think at first glance that the guy in the cartoon was Kramer, not Bob Dylan? for a full minute or so I was thinking "hmm, that's an odd integration of current events into the music poll."

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

Yea. Al, did you make it to the essay that has the below quote?

>"St. Elsewhere and The Information were as innovative in their ways as De La Soul Is Dead or Check Your Head, but staunch hiphop sticklers didn't notice, too married to ideas of what the form is and ain't allowed to be. They'll let it die before they'll let it evolve." -Miles Marshall Lewis from his essay "Insanity and other Mutations-Hiphop's future is cloudier, but not necessarily darker

Hmmmmm, let me think about this.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:01 (eighteen years ago)

hip hop is dead because we didn't listen to Beck!

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:05 (eighteen years ago)

xhuxk,

He really did mention Seal.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:14 (eighteen years ago)

That Timbuk 3 album was a snooze.

Ott's essay doesn't read that well; he's trying to have it both ways when he tries to cut down music critics at the knees. The sheep have always been sheep and it's only alarming to those who were too blind to previously notice. Not to mention that he decries independent points of view when it's more obvious than ever that a) anyone can publish an "independent" POV and b) our culture gravitates towards a meeting table.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

is st.elsewhere even a hip-hop album?

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:26 (eighteen years ago)

wait when did beck start making hip-hop albums?

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

after grunge/before electronica...hey remember electronica?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:32 (eighteen years ago)

RE: Lewis re: St. Elsewhere:

Yeah, those stickling purists will kill hip hop rather than let it evolve--into R&B and Violent Femmes covers.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:33 (eighteen years ago)

Timeless complaint really but why so much complaining about hip-hop from people who don't listen to it.

― deej.. (deej..), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:45 (eighteen years ago)

Rap is always evolving, just not maturing (and Beck & Gnarls Barkley aren't really examples of either)

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:48 (eighteen years ago)

not that I know why I responded to that, anyway

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:51 (eighteen years ago)

Rap is always evolving, just not maturing

cryingchuckd.jpg

― vita susicivus (blueski), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:53 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, it's a stupid comment anyway, since its not like any other pop genre "matures" anyway. And rock is just as in-a-rut as rap right now, but the problem isn't evolution.

― Zwan (miccio), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

Enjoyed the essays for the most part. My take when Reynolds writes a piece like this is that he's going more from intuition than facts and I think he makes a lot of good points. It sounded true, based on people I know who are returning to this new metal. But probably pretty subjective. My problem with Ott's piece, and it also had good points, is that he rails against consensus, wanting a thousand flowers to bloom, but at the same time he talks about records like we're all on the same page re how good or bad they are (Smiths are better than Timbuk3, etc.)

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:59 (eighteen years ago)

the new metal isn't new. why couldn't he just talk about how sucky indie rock is and leave metal alone.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:05 (eighteen years ago)

The metal may not be new, but the number of people interested in it, I believe, has grown a lot in the last year or two. Even if the actual poll doesn't reflect it!

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:07 (eighteen years ago)

they are only listening to it cuz indie rock is so sucky. so write about why it's so sucky instead of dragging a perfectly healthy genre into yer suckitude!

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:08 (eighteen years ago)

I thought it was funny that Reynolds said everyone he knows agreed that 2006 was a terrible year for music. It makes his world seem pretty constrained (and I'm sure his social circle is actually a whole lot less constrained than mine), considering the number of people around here who I think would disagree with the dismissal of 2006. I can kind of see how if you stick to one genre, 2006 could have seemed weak. His essay annoyed me, but it was the only one that made me want to read on.

Also the tossed off comment about country--Imagine critics encouraging people to pay attention to a major American genre! (Not that I have more than the tiniest bit of interest in it myself.)

― Rockist Scientist, Hippopoptimist (RSLaRue), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

I didn't vote in either poll (I missed the Idolator deadline, and I wasn't about to signal any allegiance solely to VVM), but it's just as well that I didn't. The tone and tenor of the comments is pretty depressing ... popular music is being stripped of its larger meaning, thanks to digitalization and the consolidation of the majors. It's not as fun to contemplate and embrace artists as a writer if you aren't sure if anyone else cares about them. More than that, can't say I much cared for the albums near the top of the pool I took the time to listen to, save for Ghostface Killah's record.

Good music still excites me, just not as much as it used to.

The essays are surpisingly pretty good reads.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:11 (eighteen years ago)

"And then there's metal. There's a tiny part of me that can't help thinking that if hipsters are looking here for nourishment, things have gotten really desperate."

fuckyouverymuch grimey grimington. love, yer pal, skot

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

i thought 2006 was a great year for music.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

It was a good year for pop hits, but there wasn;t much in the way of depth, I don't think. Save for, yes, metal.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

grudging respect for metal from reynolds, later on in that essay. I wonder where he does his METAL research ? ;-)

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

I think there was a lot of depth and greatness to 2006. THUS I REFUTE O'CONNOR.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:16 (eighteen years ago)

someone linked to a blogpost of simon's at some point where he said he was gonna try and dip his toe into the dank fetid waters of metal and see what all the fuss was about. in full hazmat gear no doubt.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

BTW, is anyone else struck by the dearth of female commenters? As far as I know, women did vote in the poll, right?

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:19 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, the pain of being refuted ... :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:20 (eighteen years ago)

I thought it was funny that Reynolds said everyone he knows agreed that 2006 was a terrible year for music. It makes his world seem pretty constrained

What was that Pauline Kael quote about Nixon or Reagan again...?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

I noticed that the a couple of the few critics (e.g., Aurora Flores) who normally include Latin music on their ballots didn't turn up on either poll.

― Rockist Scientist, Hippopoptimist (RSLaRue), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:23 (eighteen years ago)

In the wake of Richard Nixon's landslide victory in the 1972 presidential election, Kael is frequently quoted as having said that she "couldn't believe Nixon had won," since no one she knew had voted for him. The quote is usually cited by conservatives (such as Bernard Goldberg, in his book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News), as an example of allegedly clueless New York liberal insularity. No positive primary evidence exists that Kael, or anyone else, made the statement. In addition, there does not seem to be agreement as to the exact wording, the speaker (it has variously been attributed to other liberal women, including Katherine Graham[1], Susan Sontag and Joan Didion[2]) or the timing (in addition to Nixon's victory, it has been claimed to have been uttered after Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984)

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

Damned urban legends!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:26 (eighteen years ago)

on his weblog Reynolds recently declared 1969 to be the worst year ever for music. so his judgement is open to question, unless you think mocking Woodstock in 2007 is a provocative critical stance.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:27 (eighteen years ago)

simon investigating the origin of the blast beat:

http://images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/targets/images/pho/t050/T050467A.jpg

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

i thought 2006 was a great year for music.

every year is a great year for music, depending on where you look. this seems so...self-evident.

who cares what insufferably smug reynolds thinks?

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:31 (eighteen years ago)

How many people voted in the last couple P&Js? This was a pretty big drop in voters, yes?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

Not as many of the hip-hop specific folks voted, either. It's interesting to see who voted and who didn't, btw -- yes Hilburn, no Pareles. Yes, David Fricke, no Tom Moon. No Sheffield or Rob Tannenbaum. No Weisbard, no Joe Levy and no Chuck Eddy. No Nelson George. Yes Frank Kogan and yes George Smith, no Metal Mike. Yes Nick Sylvester.

Weird times, man.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

people who think a particular year sucked for music don't listen to enough of it. lamest, most unoriginal thought accepted as insight of all time.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:33 (eighteen years ago)

can we stop looking for depth, please god, please...im happy for surface, 40 years after warhol, dont people realise surface can be infinite and rewarding?

― pinkmoose (jacklove), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

How many people voted in the last couple P&Js? This was a pretty big drop in voters, yes?

By about 300, apparently.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

otm but lots of people seem to think of it. they tend to be older people. xp

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, no Nelson George? And no Sasha Frere-Jones, either! I mean, part of ther fascination of this exercise for me has always been to monitor the tastes of the Dream Team, so to speak. Can't really do that much anymore.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

Am I the only person bored by 2005 (six months In, obv)?

BORING OLD GRANDADS

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)

I wish the electorate was bigger for the polls (I'm not addressing here the Christgau/Eddy/VV Media reasons for not participating). There has always been a problem where 'genre-ists' were not that well represented and it has not changed alot. I know Michangelo Matos and Chuck Eddy and Robert Christgau have tried to reach out, but it seems to me that some of the folks I read in print and online talking about various Spanish-language genres, country music, bluesy soul,Caribbean sounds, rap, and various rock sub-genres never seem to be included. Perhaps they're out of the loop or don't care about 'pop' music polls, or perhaps the poll editors just have to keep trying to bring them in, no matter how frustrating a process that might be.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

i mean, seriously, every fucking year they whinge from the sidelines

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

can we stop looking for depth, please god, please...im happy for surface, 40 years after warhol, dont people realise surface can be infinite and rewarding?
-- pinkmoose (anthony.easto...), February 7th, 2007.

40 years after warhol, aren't people bored to tears with warhol?

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

I'm bored by this hour, Lex! Help me from being jaded.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

the bit where SR admits that he grew up in a time and place where Iron Maiden was ascendant w/r/t to the lumpen proles he loathed is extremely telling, if not at all surprising. Gotta respect any crit who can come right out and say that he/she has a bias based principally on a two decade-old tribal loyality.

Still, its too bad that lots of people just cannot let go. He struggles with metal, even though its vanguard has never been more up his street, evidently because he looked (or continues to look down) the kind of people that make and/or like the genre. Its like metal was and is "the enemy" to him… or some shit.

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

x-post

Michaelangelo

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

I'm bored by this hour, Lex! Help me from being jaded.

new avril lavigne and m.i.a singles should do the trick!

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

I did not vote in this poll, or any other since I quit Pitchfork in 2004 - the last time I endured participating in one. I have not been able to appreciate the purpose of consensus or statistics-based lists since message boards and daily music criticism became a part of our lives. I don't need to have my viewpoints watered down, and we're all aware of important records whenever they happen. Why we need to reiterate that they happened every December is beyond me - if they have legs to outlast their initial context, they will. It's not up to critics. Anyway, any suggestion that I'm a hypocrite for questioning the need and purpose of polls "these days" is just wrong.

Dylan: you're right to point out that the 1988 blurb is the weakest of my aesthetic hindsight contrast jokes. On the other hand, whoever said "Neneh Cherry/MIA jokes are soooo 2005" probably knows of some great x-s that are the new x-s. Grow up.

Mark, your comment that I want it both ways stems from a syllogistic reading of the argument, which feels like you're looking for a binary reason to suggest I'm wrong. Only if all records were the same could all records be equal. I really don't think I'm off base to suggest that the Smiths are unilaterally more important than Timbuk 3, nor that this distinction could be perceived in 1986. If you or anyone else here wants to tackle the exhausted literature of artistic relativism, I'm sure it'll make for a compelling feature. Otherwise, it's the cheapest non-counterargument going.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:03 (eighteen years ago)

So P&J measures aesthetic quality or importance rather than critical esteem? (Note: one need not be a relativist to think these three things are not the same.)

When Ott says "consensus" or "hegemony," he really means "people with friends."

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:09 (eighteen years ago)

I really don't think I'm off base to suggest that the Smiths are unilaterally more important than Timbuk 3, nor that this distinction could be perceived in 1986.

You could argue that a number of people thought that Timbuk 3 made a better record in 1986 than the unilaterally more important Smiths.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

i have never heard of this timbuk 3 but they'd have to be pretty appalling to have made a record WORSE than the smiths.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:12 (eighteen years ago)

here ya go lex:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3KPhOjF_H3o

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

You could also argue that the Smiths had shot their importance bolt 2 years earlier!

(If I'd been voting in 1986 I'd have voted for TQID cos I think it's a terrific album, but whatever importance the band had was in place before then).

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

If I had only been listening to the albums that placed well in P&J and JP, I would think 2005 sucked. Luckily, there's more to life and art than the kind of middle brow dreck that gets plaudits from blogsters.

― alext (alext), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

Buck that concensus!

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:16 (eighteen years ago)

constantly bitching about the state of rock crit and your former employers when yr still taking cash for it is unseemly.

i should know because i'm as guilty of it as anyone.

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

i guess there's no point in bitching about the lack of an ilm 2006 poll.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

There has always been a problem where 'genre-ists' were not that well represented and it has not changed alot.

What is "well-represented"? If only 1% of critics/music fans/bloggers/whatever listen to Japanese ethno-techno (for example), and you run a poll with 500 participants, then you only need five people to vote for that genre in order to achieve proper, proportional representation.

If 96% of those people really are listening to and enjoying TVOTR, then let them rule the polls, regardless of whether or not I could personally care less about them.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

There's no cash in it, Ray. :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

popular music is being stripped of its larger meaning, thanks to digitalization and the consolidation of the majors

uh-oh, just refute more o'connor! the majors started consolidating, when, 20 years ago? maybe even earlier than that? and digitalization is close to a decade old at this point if you want to start with napster, and older if you want to start somewhere before that, which you could easily do.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

why does the website list 38 top albums and 38 top singles? is 38 the new 40? (or did they leave off one each for eddy and xgau?)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

All true Mr. Cuz, 'cept it just seemed to reach a tipping point this year. Or maybe I just did, who the heck knows. Either way, there was a disconnect I could feel more strongly.

Maybe I should buy a pair of bongos, take up interpretive dance and make my own music, man! :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

> He struggles with metal, even though its vanguard has never been more up his street

In the blogpost he quotes, I said straight out "Xasthur is pretty much metal's own Burial; if you want hauntology, check out his cryptic wailing."

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

being bored by warhol is the whole point lex. i also want to write for pitchfork, why doesnt pitchfork love me?

― pinkmoose (jacklove), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)

>I have not been able to appreciate the purpose of consensus or statistics-based lists since message boards and daily music criticism became a part of our lives. I don't need to have my viewpoints watered down, and we're all aware of important records whenever they happen.

So Chris Ott, you have time every day and night to check every blog, read every magazine, read every chatboard, and keep aware of all the important records (all the genres that make up what we call 'pop'), (and without ever having to think back and recollect), that's impressive. I do not think even Christgau can match that.

>What is "well-represented"? If only 1% of critics/music fans/bloggers/whatever listen to Japanese ethno-techno (for example), and you run a poll with 500 participants, then you only need five people to vote for that genre in order to achieve proper, proportional representation--No Time Before Time

I understand that, but some genres haven't even reached the 5 voter mark. Also, yea I understand Dylan and TVOTR are gonna get more votes and I do not have a problem with that. I'm not expecting such genres to win, just to be represented.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)

I still don't get your resentment towards voting or parsing or finding consensus or a lack of it, Chris. Seriously, it's never been more obvious that it doesn't matter. I could give a fuck if I'm with the consensus for not liking Timberlake, against it, or hated because of it. It doesn't matter to me, it never has, and it never will. And to take a whack at publications who exploit consensus or participate in the industry gravy train is kind of a tired non-starter. It's not that you're a hypocrite, it's that the crux of your argument isn't new. Or at very least, it's one that is now easier than ever to find. It's easy to make the point that critical polls have lost some or most of their sway, but it's another thing entirely to pretend that they are completely irrelevant. And that's kind of the way your comments come off.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:44 (eighteen years ago)

I know folks who are music fans and don't read chatboards, but who once a year or so, enjoy reading the consensus in polls.

Jess,

Don't lots of people grumble about their jobs, and then go take a job in a similar field and continue to grumble (for whatever reason--be it they need to take that same type of job to pay the bills, or they like that type of work but just wish there were ways to make it better)

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

Don, context. Where was this published.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)

Musn't grumble, Steve.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, boss!

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)

I think given what you've posted here today and your essay in PnJ are the context. I mean, the whole "we've lost independent points of view" canard--what, we were independent back in the Good Ole Zine days? When "scenes" were largely represented by like-minded, sheepish groups that rubber-stamped authenticity or sellout-ness because they didn't want to get crushed in the moshpit by their friends? Back in the days when it was all about the music, man?

I don't see the aggregation effect of the Internet, or even the instantaneousness of it, as something that renders consensus completely useless. Or at least any more useless than it's ever been.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:16 (eighteen years ago)

Don, if you don't agree that the magnitude and unification of consensus thinking among consumers and critics has increased with the maturation of the internet over the last three-to-four years, there's really no conversation we could have here. We'll have to agree to disagree.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:28 (eighteen years ago)

re: surface vs. "depth"

says nietzsche (the first asshole music critic):

"Oh, those Greeks! They understood how to live: to do that it is necessary to stop bravely at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore the appearance, to believe in forms, in tones, in words, in the whole Olympus of appearance! Those Greeks were superficial—out of profundity!"

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

Last I checked "agreeing to disagree" wasn't part of Ott's MO. Looks like Ye Olde Devil Consensus has crushed yet another soul into submission.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:44 (eighteen years ago)

Another nightingale for free-think silenced! Woe!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

"Don, if you don't agree that the magnitude and unification of consensus thinking among consumers and critics has increased with the maturation of the internet over the last three-to-four years, there's really no conversation we could have here."

What's your evidence for this supposed increased consolidation of ideas, Chris?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

Definitely, as Curmudeon notes aboves, year-end lists of all sorts are remain useful to the average fan, who might only buy (or otherwise access) a couple of books or albums each year, and who doesn't have enough time or interest to follow reviews throughout the year.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Pazz & Jop is the way my dad keeps up with the non-dadrock/NPR section of the music world. When all these lists come out he'll go out and buy 10 or 12 rap/metal/techno/whatever albums that he never would have bought before.

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

Alex: Metacritic.com

Goodnight all.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

GOLD

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

why does the website list 38 top albums and 38 top singles? is 38 the new 40?

Should be showing 40 albums, but three singles tied for #38.

Alas, I don't think there was a tipping of the 40 for Chuck and Xgau.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

Snappy, but I'm not sure more lists updated faster = anything other than more lists updated faster. Certainly there seem to me more voices and ideas freely available now than ever before. Maybe all these voices are just checking Metacritic and running with the top ten there, but somehow I doubt it.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 17:59 (eighteen years ago)

(x-post)
hmm, i'm not showing any tie on my computer. i'm just seeing 38 albums and 38 singles (with a seven-way tie for #27 followed by a four-way tie for #34 followed by a lonely knife single at #38).

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)

"Since its inception, Metacritic has provided a cross-section of reviews from a carefully-screened group of the most respected critics for the latest (as well as earlier) releases in film, video, music, books and games in a clean, user-friendly manner. And only Metacritic uses Metascores to combine all of the individual critic scores into an overall grade for each item, so users can gauge the critical consensus at a glance." http://www.metacritic.com/about/

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

One good point Ott makes in his piece, which isn't mentioned as often as it should be, is that there is a huge rush now to be first in mentioning a band and an associated tendency to attach your identity as a critic to the fortunes of the band. This has always happened w/ critics and artists, of course, going way back before there was rock music even, but it seems much more pervasive now and I'm sure it does cloud critical judgment. And writers have to be on guard against it. It's a nice feeling when people write to thank you for turning them on to a band, or when the artists themselves write to say thanks for exposing them to people, and critics really need to work to be aware of how these things might be influencing their opinions.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

A) What is your (and Ott's) evidence that it is more pervasive now?
B) When has the line been firm and absolute between critic and artist?
C) Why the eff am I still reading this thread?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

ok the irony for me here is that the whole "SO over BLOGS, PRINT MEDIA is 4 REAL" thang that ott rocks is right outa kneejerk backlash 101. And then print it in the "context" of like, the most painfully strangled print media pub since The Big Wheel and Ott comes off as arrogant, vulnerable, defensive, and an insecure dick all around. Which, granted, has pretty much been his M.O. since day one. And this is all especially silly for those of us who remember Ott's "pitckfork/new media is STEALIN ALL UR AD CLICKTHRUS" days.

The essay is actually right on the verge of being that "preview" that idolator posted.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:19 (eighteen years ago)

the point being even if the voice had something to offer over the blogworld at this point (besides bitter memories and the salty roffles of schadenfredue) then writing about it like that would still be a douche move.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

Mark, no offense, but I think you and Ott are full of shit.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)

None taken -- although I can't believe I'm finding myself as the "you" in "you and Ott".

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

a lot of us are less concerned with breaking bands than with getting paid so we can get our rent in on time.

― max (maxreax), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

Those of us more concerned with that rarely strain to pitch for 100 words a pop anymore. :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)

I think the difference is that I don't think that the cultural effect is as significant as you do.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)

Can someone school me on who belongs to Metacritic's "carefully-screened group of the most respected critics."

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

metacritic ratings are about as useful as imdb ratings.

― roger goodell (gear), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:32 (eighteen years ago)

"Can someone school me on who belongs to Metacritic's "carefully-screened group of the most respected critics.""

Click on any of the albums on their lists and you can link to the reviews.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:33 (eighteen years ago)

I think the opposite of the Ott entry you cite is true, Don. I think consensus has whittled with the fracturing of the distribution systems and with the sheer volume of choices now. So I think the cultural siginifiance here is the 180 scenario.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:34 (eighteen years ago)

in other words, there's a REASON why the Rolling Stones are still the biggest arena band in the world. Well, besides the fact they're great. :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

I for one think that many of the albums at the top of both the Idolator/VVM lists are largely good records, and deserving of praise. But I guess that's a boring opinion to have, since the soul of good criticism is negativity (apparently).

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:49 (eighteen years ago)

Ott's piece makes for interesting, provocative theory, but the fact is we have no idea how it plays out in practice. My guess is that in 20 years no one will have trouble looking at this year's poll and mocking something on it, too. Music culture is probably faster these days, but that's about all we can say for certain. To suggest that the internet has made things better or worse, more homogenous or more varied, is pure rampant speculation and should be treated as such.

― call all destroyer (Sean Braudis), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:51 (eighteen years ago)

Perhaps the young Internet-based follower is a different breed than the student-newspaper follower of twenty years ago or whatever, I'm not sure. And perhaps Pitchfork buzz is an entirely different phenomenon than zine buzz. Again I'm not sure. I'm sure Pitchfork reaches more people than all the old-school zines combined, but as Don says above, I don't if the cultural effects are vastly different. As someone who likes criticism, I think it's a bummer than Frere-Jones's running best-of-the-year lists probably have more influence than his essays, but then again I'm sure that Christgau's letter grades had a lot more influence than his blurbs and essays. As for consumer tastes simultaneously becoming more unified with the maturation of the web, that seems to run counter to the conventional wisdom at least. I thought the thinking was that consumer tastes are a bit more diffuse thanks to the web, or at least that web enthusiasts seem to counter, somewhat at least, the hegemony one can expect to follow from media consolidation. Not my area of expertise, though. With respect to web-fueled buzz acts such as Dizzee Rascal, M.I.A., Annie, Lily Allen, and so forth, it seems like U.S. consumers at least haven't been terribly spurred by the hype, though I suppose their behavior can't always be tracked.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)

My guess is that in 20 years no one will have trouble looking at this year's poll and mocking something on it, too.

I don't have to wait 20 years! (More to the point, at the current rate 20 years from now the 'listening experience' is going to be such a crazy mishmash of media, and kids are being born right now who are going to have an exposure to music unlike anything else in history, especially as the Net becomes even more truly universal.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:56 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, I can't find the words for it at this point, but ultimately where we're at now is so clearly NOT a fixed point. Which is obvious, but look back at the past fifteen years! Now imagine all those seismic changes accelerated and sped up over the next twenty.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 18:57 (eighteen years ago)

I like the P&J comment that calls music the NHL of the entertainment world, championed only by Canadians and Swedes. That was funny.

Something that makes web-fueled buzz different from word-of-mouth trends in the past is that you can see it in action and watch it unfold. You can often trace it back to a single source, whether it's the first MP3 blog to post a track or whatever. In the past it was more nebulous. Which is not good or bad, but it makes picking at the buzz mechanism a little easier.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:00 (eighteen years ago)

The other big issue here is downloading versus buying. The internet may be leading more people to more "interesting" music but the vast vast majority of young Americans will only have a stake in a fraction of the music they're exposed to. By that I mean that they would spend money on it, see it live, push it on their friends, etc. The number of people that are really passionate about music is most likely unchanged, and all the website and blogs in the world aren't going to get the 22-year-olds I know to suddenly make a mass purchase of Annie records. To download Annie songs, sure, but there's no tangible effect there.

― call all destroyer (Sean Braudis), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:01 (eighteen years ago)

One way to look at it ... about 200 albums received five or more votes, and that covers many of the "fringe" genres. So you could argue that they *are* represented proportionally, it's just that five votes usually means you scrape the bottom of the top 200. All the more reason to not stop reading after the top 50 :)

(we're calling them "fringe" genres for a reason ...)

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

the god that failed types are always the most rabid.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)

the god that failed

http://www.gwu.edu/~fwright/graphics/icarus.jpg

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:07 (eighteen years ago)

"Something that makes web-fueled buzz different from word-of-mouth trends in the past is that you can see it in action and watch it unfold. You can often trace it back to a single source, whether it's the first MP3 blog to post a track or whatever. In the past it was more nebulous. Which is not good or bad, but it makes picking at the buzz mechanism a little easier."

Sorry Mark, but you could see it in action in the past too. And tt was even easier to ID back then because it happened a lot slower.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:11 (eighteen years ago)

I don't actually know what the hell Ott was talking about but what you guys are talking about isn't it. Take a look at elbo.ws, that's probably closer to it than "Pitchfork" or "Metacritic" or whatever.

Seems to me like the problem is consensus within bubbles and no one even thinks about artists moving outside of their bubbles, so that accelerates the cycle and fuels the need. Lack of context and perspective.

― Eppy (Eppy), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

I decided to put together a more precise statistical I did">analysis than the one I posted upthread, re: albums that did better on one poll versus the other. No surprise: Pazz and Jop voters were more likely to like safe, old-guard stuff.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

"safe"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:16 (eighteen years ago)

Weird, I don't know what's up with my syntax there. Tim, I thought for about 0.5 seconds on what word to use there, and it was probably a poor choice. But you know: old canonized folks, living legends, singer-songwriters, etc.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:20 (eighteen years ago)

I still want to know what's wrong with PM Dawn!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:21 (eighteen years ago)

(New Puritan est domini)
The grotesque peasants stalk the land
And deep down inside you know
Everybody wants to like big companies.

Bands send tapes to famous apes
Male slags, male slates, famous apes.
K Walter Keaton, now grey thoughts.
The whole country is post-gramme
(Echoes of the past)

Hail the new puritan!
Righteous maelstrom
Cook one!

And all hardcore fiends will die by me
And all decadent sins will reap discipline
New puritan.

This is the grim reefer
The smack at the end of the straw
with a high grim quota
Your star Karma Jim
New Puritan.

The conventional is now experimental
The experimental is now conventional
It's a dinosaur cackle
A pterodactyl cackle

In LA, a drunk is sick on
Gene Vincent's star
On Hollywood Boulevard.
Ha ha ha ha

Stripping takes off in Britain's black spots
The Kensington white rastas run for cabs.
This i've seen
New puritan

In Britain the stream of electric pumps in a renovated pub.
Your stomach swells up before you get drunk
The bars are full of male slags
At 10:35 they play "Send In The Clowns"

Why don't you ask your local record dealer
How many bribes he took today?
What do you mean "What's It Mean? What's It Mean"?
What's it mean? What's it mean?

New puritan
New puritan
Hail the new puritan
Out of hovel-cum-coven-cum-oven

And all hardcore fiends will guide by me
And all decadent sins will reap discipline
New puritan.

I curse your self-copulation of your lousy record collection.
New Puritan says, "Coffee Table LPs never leave"
New Puritan

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:22 (eighteen years ago)

I know, CRW, that was the first CD I ever bought!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

I STILL listen to PM Dawn way more than Metallica, U2, Seal, Massive Attack or My Bloody Valentine.

That album really holds up 15 years later if you don't dive into it with the agenda of tooling for straw men.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:25 (eighteen years ago)

I just bought it a couple months ago, used for only $2. Loved it back in the day but hadn't owned it in many years.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

tooling for straw men

The images, my brane, etc.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, Alex re: tracking, though I see what Mark's getting at. I mean certainly word-of-mouth buzz couldn't be tracked then and can't be tracked now, though I always bring a micro-cassette recorder to parties, but if you were watching closely, for example if you were in an indie band, you could pretty much mark the trip from complete obscurity to small public presence. You could even scrapbook it!

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:29 (eighteen years ago)

that's exactly my point Dylan. Simplifying aggregation or search--which is what metacritic and delicious and all the rest do--doesn't change the paradigm 180 degrees, it only amplifies what's already happening. I'm not saying that the Internets haven't had a significant impact on aggregation or consensus, but the difference between Magnet and Pitchfork aren't that vast. Instantaneous access hasn't been revolutionary...yet. That's why the mantra that critics operate a circle jerk is not a new argument.

― don weiner (don weiner), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:49 (eighteen years ago)

It's more like a perpetual snowball that a circle jerk.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)

P&J critical alignment ratings

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508d

and some album clustering:

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508e

Now I'm going to try actually combining the two polls...

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:09 (eighteen years ago)

Here is an odd detail: Charles Aaron is not only #1 in critical alignment, he's also #1 in alphabetical order and #1 in P&J voter seniority.

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:17 (eighteen years ago)

"voter seniority"?

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:19 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha "492 Anthony Miccio"

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:20 (eighteen years ago)

Are you sure ballot ID = seniority? If so, wouldn't Xgau be #1 instead of #89?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

for sure ballot ID /= seniority.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:31 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, I think there's probably some correlation, but it's not exact.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

By the way, Glenn, I love that project, and look forward to the combined poll results.

― dylan (dylan), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)

MASSIVE xposts to scott seward but that timbuk 3 song is LOADS better than the smiths! not overly keen on his voice but the song is goofy in a very endearing way and i love the delivery of the title, it reminds me how i felt when i left school, and it's a good feeling. i would like someone good to cover this song please. how can anyone prefer the smiths to that?

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:12 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.andrewhargadon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/long_tail.jpg

― artdamages (artdamages), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:16 (eighteen years ago)

The Lex goes indie rock!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

tolerable indie rock >>>>>>>>>> a band who fall short even of the woeful standards of indie rock

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:27 (eighteen years ago)

Actually they couldn't have been all that indie, said song was actually played on honest-to-god Top 40 (along with, I seem to recall, early Pet Shop Boys, Robert Palmer's "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On" and Klymaxx's "I Miss You").

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:28 (eighteen years ago)

the woeful standards of indie rock

There are a variety of standards that different people involved with the music over the last several decades have upheld. Sorry you're British.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, the British don't know shit about middling indie! you tell 'em!

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:32 (eighteen years ago)

I remember when Byron Coley said something about the Spacemen 3 being the only current British band he'd walk across the street to urinate on...

I like a decent amount of recent British indie fairly well, actually.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:34 (eighteen years ago)

my dad is right, you guys are all wrong.

― kieran reynolds (kieran reynolds), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)

I know, Tim. I'm teasing you.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:43 (eighteen years ago)

I remember when Byron Coley said something about the Spacemen 3 being the only current British band he'd walk across the street to urinate on...

:-(

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:50 (eighteen years ago)

Sonofabitch. I just realized my ballot (sent straight to Harvilla--late but supposedly accepted anyway) was not tabulated. I wish I could say I would've put TVOTR in the Rascal seat, but I gave everybody 10 points.

― lindseykai (lindseykai), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 21:50 (eighteen years ago)

Is it possible to look at the list past # 38? Without plugging names in the search engine, I mean.

That page is REALLY poorly designed.

― J. Hernandez (Pinball), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 22:39 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, you click "next 40 results" right at the end of the page's worth of lists.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 23:00 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

I'm wondering if this is a browser issue, since you're the second person to bring it up. Looks fine to me in Firefox, Safari, and IE for Mac -- http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop06/winners.php?type=album has a "next 40 results" link at the bottom, and same for singles. Or should, anyway. If this is a widespread problem, ping me offlist. (I recently became copy chief at the Voice, so I have a vested interest in getting this stuff right.) Thanks.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

POO: "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" | "I'm Alright"

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 23:37 (eighteen years ago)

GOOD MORNING!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)

OK, all snark aside, I don't get youtube at work, but judging from the titles, it looks like the first is that Timbuk 3 video and the second is Nick Sylvester video slash.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 00:00 (eighteen years ago)

Dude from Timbuk 3 played a duo show at the Crystal Corner here in town this week...but that's no surprise; the group started here because Pat and Barbara met at UW; since then, he's spent a lot of time here on and off.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 01:26 (eighteen years ago)

you should go see him and tell him he's the subject of FIERCE INTERNET DEBATE.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 8 February 2007 02:13 (eighteen years ago)

he'll be like 'where are you, these shades are really fuckin' dark'

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 02:14 (eighteen years ago)

They had at least one other great song, fwiw: 1995's "Legalize Our Love," a call for gay marriage rights.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 8 February 2007 02:51 (eighteen years ago)

he did some really nice production work with Brazilian singer Marina Lima in the 1990s.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 03:04 (eighteen years ago)

The world is a-quiver for the Klymaxx-Robert Palmer revival.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 8 February 2007 03:16 (eighteen years ago)

lex liking timbuk 3 = validation of my hate for same :)

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 8 February 2007 03:50 (eighteen years ago)

I'm using IE 6.0 with Windows. There is no "next 40 results" link.

I do happen to have another computer with Firefox installed and the link shows up fine with it.

― J. Hernandez (Pinball), Thursday, 8 February 2007 04:36 (eighteen years ago)

i wonder if outkast's #119 is the biggest album-to-album pnj drop.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 8 February 2007 05:47 (eighteen years ago)

Although they didn't go beyond top forty back then, I'm willing to bet Arrested Development's Zingawhatever finished lower. God knows Idlewild is a better album (still can't believe Arrested Development won).

― Richard Cobeen (rcobeen), Thursday, 8 February 2007 06:35 (eighteen years ago)

So I finally figured out that Chris Ott's point goes something like: The consensus all those years ago about records that came out at that time was obviously stupid because it didn't adequately predict what the consensus about records that came out then obviously seems to be today. (Even if lots of other people disagree about that latter consensus, and even though consensus is obviously worthless to begin with.) Also, critics have become more sheep-like in their tastes over the years, unlike back when they liked Timbuk 3 and PM Dawn who nonetheless are obviously sillier things for sheep to like than anything the obviously more sheep-like sheep like today. And no evidence is needed to support such claims. They are all self-evident.

Did I miss anything?

― xhuxk (xhuck), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

"Hinder rocks! Go Hinder!
Anthony Miccio Philadelphia, Pennsylvania"

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:43 (eighteen years ago)

also now they have one my actual comments up

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:43 (eighteen years ago)

don't hinder my hinder

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:47 (eighteen years ago)

all the 'reynolds is a granddad', 'reynolds is a fucking whinging moaner' stuff just seems really defensive. like 'how dare he say that this year might not have been that good?' are people that sensitive about it that ONE fucking essay is getting under their skin that much? perhaps reynolds isnt that far off the mark at all, judging on the defensiveness of the 'music was great in 2006 and better than ever so there!' brigade.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:55 (eighteen years ago)

Uh...I enjoyed Simon's essay (and said so above.) And Simon's a good guy! I think people's problem with his essay, though, isn't his calling 2006 a bad year (which it wasn't, not by a long shot, but who cares) as his basically saying "It was a bad year and everybody out there agrees with me." Which is just plain deluded.

― xhuxk (xhuck), Thursday, 8 February 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

I haven't read any of these essays; I usually don't (well, I did read Matos's in Jackin' Pop and Jess's year-end BCP piece) - because I'm bound to get as pissed and fit to be tied as everybody's getting here. Also: OF COURSE a Chris Ott piece is gonna rankle people. If the dude wrote about kittens he's manage to say something that'd spark a 1,000-post thread here. The comments are sorta where it's at, aren't they?

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

(I'm holding back from referring specifically to Simon's point-of-view because I'm not familiar enough with his stuff)

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

"It was a bad year and everybody out there agrees with me."

but a lot of people DO agree with him! (even if its just his fellow bloggerati kpunk and woebot j/k). but really hes just saying that to make his argument more convincing. and maybe in his circle, people genuinely DO feel the same way he does.

either way hes def not the only person ive read (or the only person i know personally) who has said 2006 felt like a really dull year.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

xp: And incidentally, I say that as one of those "lone loonies" who likes Paris Hilton's album (which I voted for in that other poll) and one of those "conscientious generalists" who likes modern country (though, uh, not because I'm being "conscientious" -- more like because it's some of those most interesting music out there right now), and yet I apparently had time to like way more metal (extreme and otherwise) this year than Simon did. So it's hard to buy his dichotomy--his idea that you have to pick one or the other.

― xhuxk (xhuck), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

This is a separate conversation, but 2006 was like a LOT better than 2005 or 2004.

― call all destroyer (Sean Braudis), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:53 (eighteen years ago)

Destroy the artificial twelve-month standard for musical reflection and appreciation.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

When Simon wrote that 2006 was a terrible year for music, I didn't take it literally (at least not completely). I saw it as nothing more than a convenient lead-in to the main point of his essay, which was "here are some genres that you might have missed this year, and btw, you won't find these albums near the top of P&J 2006". Whether you think 2006 was a bad year or not, allow the guy a bit of hyperbole as a set-up to his main argument.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 8 February 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

Why, because he's EARNED it with all his DEEP WISDOM?

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:04 (eighteen years ago)

notime OTM

i think we are living in a really bland/nannified time for music criticism (*No Reynolds*) so anyone that takes a really strong view on anything is bound to look a bit crazed/grumpy (and the fact grimey simey is getting older might be a factor, although i like the fact hes at least being grumpy and taking a more challenging stance rather than just trying to keep up to date for the sake of it and acting like things are better than evahhh in case he looks out of step)

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:06 (eighteen years ago)

i didn't care what simon had to say about the year. it was the metal stuff that bugged me. and it only bugged me so much cuz i think he's actually smart which is why it drives me up a friggin' wall. ott's self-loathing kill all the critics stuff doesn't bug me. he's just a weirdo. both ott and simon are way more interested in scenes and fashions and genre-worship and what the hipsters are up to than i will ever be.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:10 (eighteen years ago)

scOTT OTM

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:12 (eighteen years ago)

what the hell is simon's "stance". i'll tell you what else he has in common with ott. they both have this fear of being fooled by hucksters and swindlers. they are afraid of being wrong. that's their stance. they don't want to support anything that might make them look like a fool 20 years later.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

I thought it was an unusually good year for music before I read his piece (and others here were saying the same thing a while ago). Of course, I also see the silliness in saying one year or another was good or bad for music, when it depends so much on where you are looking for your music. All I know is I was happy with the amount of good '06 music I found. A lot of it comes down to Reynolds's emphasis on the social dimension though (looking for big movements around particular brands of music), something I have trouble relating to.

― Rockist Scientist, Hippopoptimist (RSLaRue), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:17 (eighteen years ago)

GO SCOTT!

they are afraid of being wrong.

they think there's a right and wrong in the first place. sad.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

i dunno about all that but he did retract his support for MIA v quickly

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:20 (eighteen years ago)

they think there's a right and wrong in the first place. sad.

-- antidote against poisoning (lexusjee...), February 8th, 2007.

WAHT

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

to check in, guitars WRONG, moneyed, vapid racists RIGHT, right?

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:22 (eighteen years ago)

Do we have to wait for Simon Reynolds to chase MacPherson around some meatmarket gay bar? Word going round that's how Lex changed his mind on the last music journalist he used to crowbar his dislike of into every thread.

Nasty rumours though, I'm sure.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:27 (eighteen years ago)

"...while conscientious generalists urge us to check out modern country..."

that line's been sticking in my craw a little because insofar as I'm concerned there's a kernel of truth to it. I in fact did make a conscious effort in 2006 to catch up with country, though not (as his thing seems to imply the worst about people such as myself) because I felt it my duty as a citizen, but because I figured there were good things happening there that I was completely unaware of (and because I've liked some country music in the past and because my interest in newer stuff was sparked by djing too many weddings where I didn't have a clue what to follow up the amazing "Save a Horse [Ride a Cowboy]" with that wasn't Shania Twain or Garth Brooks). Anyway, so I think he has a small point there, but I'm GLAD I made the effort in this case--and yeah, it was somewhat "conscientious," I guess, though again, not out of guilt--and I think it'd be cool if Reynolds himself stepped out of his prescribed circle now and again. Has he ever listened to a country record in his entire life? Did he really shut his ears towards all pop music in 2006 because of a couple conversations he had with people? Also, is he talking about himself here: "A few years ago hipsters of the sort now rocking Kode 9 and Corrupted enjoyed flirting with mainstream pop, putting a Justin Timberlake or Tweet album, a 'Toxic' or a 'Yeah,' in their Top 10s..." Who are these "flirtatious" types he's speaking of?

(I'm as happily closeminded as Reynolds in other ways, of course; I just can't imagine myself conscientiously spending time in the near future listening to dubstep-metal or whatever. I DID vote for the burial album in the poll I participated in but honestly had no idea it was part of a "genre." I'm pretty sure as a genre I wouldn't care much for it....I really only liked the soft, pretty parts of that record anyway.)

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

the amazing "Save a Horse [Ride a Cowboy]"

this was a freakytrigger prank i think.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:35 (eighteen years ago)

huh?

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:36 (eighteen years ago)

i just don't understand what the problem is there. likeing toxic and then a few years later "rocking" corrupted. or checking out country music in 2006, scott??? it all sounds fine to me!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:38 (eighteen years ago)

i agree! i'm just suggesting that he's pointing the finger at himself and maybe isn't aware that he's doing so. (but there's nothing that needs pointing at.)

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:40 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, it's that weird all or nothing thing. that liking a mastodon album means that you must represent all of metal foerever. i have no problem with people flirting with anything. i have no problem with people really digging something for a couple months and then never listening to it again! it just seems really childish to call people out for dabbling in genres that they aren't experts on. that's how people learn.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:45 (eighteen years ago)

i just wish that people would dabble more than they do.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:49 (eighteen years ago)

Changing the subject folks--are TV on the Radio the Radiohead in terms of critic popularity of 2006 (top or near top on both polls)---i.e,, groups that are rock but display some familiarity with both more underground genres and semi-popular rap in such a way that they win over a a critical concensus. I do not think many folks here are won over by them, but they seem to have won over many in a manner that the various diverse favorites here have not.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:54 (eighteen years ago)

i could see tvontheradio covering the future's so bright by timbuk 3.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:57 (eighteen years ago)

"The premium set on formal innovation has resulted in sub-generic splintering that surpasses even the hair-splitting neologists and taxonomists of electronic dance culture: goregrind, tech-grind, prog-grind, sludge, drone, crust, brutal death metal (as opposed to technical death metal and melodic death metal)"

yeah, 1989 was a hell of a year.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:58 (eighteen years ago)

Radiohead displayed familiarity with semi-popular rap? are we talking about that Thom Yorke iTunes playlist with Spank Rock on it?

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Thursday, 8 February 2007 14:58 (eighteen years ago)

El-P did a remix for them!

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:00 (eighteen years ago)

Oops that's TVUTR. Alright, well Yorke's interest in techno/electronica whatever stuff ....

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:01 (eighteen years ago)

can't be known as a dabbler if you want to make grand pronouncements about whole genres

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:07 (eighteen years ago)

re: TVOTR vs. Radiohead

In terms of being this year's big weirdo "rock" record that comes out on a major label and sounds like an even weirder version of something you can't imagine frat boys and Starbucksers liking (2000: Can, 2006: Eno) but they do anyway, so not only do they feel like a "difficult" critics band but a populist art crew too... Then yes!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:15 (eighteen years ago)

can't be known as a dabbler if you want to make grand pronouncements about whole genres

this is the trouble though, isn't it - yeah, dabblers and dilettantes can't make sweeping genre-specific statements, but music critics are supposed to. and by the nature of generalist music criticism AND the instinct of being a major music fan (which is what leads most critics into doing it professionally), you have to be a dabbler, because there isn't the time in the day to immerse yourself in every genre you might want to.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:17 (eighteen years ago)

something you can't imagine frat boys and Starbucksers liking (2000: Can, 2006: Eno)

Honest question -- is the TVOTR album *that* big? Out here at least the amount of times I've heard it talked about/played out/even slightly offhandedly referred to: utterly zilch.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:20 (eighteen years ago)

I don't see why dabblers can't make genre-specific statements. If anything it's that I wouldn't trust them to make artist-specific statements.

(i.e. I wouldn't trust them to notice what's interesting about an artist who is firmly within a genre, as opposed to noticing what's interesting about the genre in general)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno, Tom, seems to me that they could say something about said artist that, because they come from an 'outside' perspective, throws the qualities of the artist into sharper relief. Chuck E.'s done that for me a few times.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:23 (eighteen years ago)

x-post

TVOTR isn't bigger than "cult band" out here, but a lot of critics (self included) think they COULD be as big a Radiohead one of these days. Voting for them is kind of wishful thinking in that way too!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

TVOTR have become slightly bigger lately because they got a video on MTV in December. That's helped them go a bit beyond the Pitchfork/critics level.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

Ned: maybe I mean that I wouldn't trust them to make comments comparing artists, then!

But I get your point and agree - in fact there's nothing I wouldn't trust a dabbler to do! Good for dabblers.

(If I was an expert, I wouldn't trust a dabbler in 'my' genre, though if they were intelligent I'd listen to what they had to say. But if I was an expert I probably would know lots of other experts I'd talk to, so I'd hope I wouldn't be so precious as to mind.)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

i don't see why it is the music critic's job to make sweeping genre specific statements. thats when critics are at their worst imo. why not say something useful or descriptive about the record. why can't talk just talk about Me & U and superlongevity 4 or whatever at the same time cuz i like em both. yeah chucks mentione don another thread he thinks xgenre-ignorant writers often write better reviews. xpost

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

x-post x many

dabblers can make as many grand pronouncements about genres as they wish, it just doesn't hold a lot of water when the purpose is to dismiss. I mean, I'm fine with grand pronouncements about things by people who are genuinely interested in those things, even if what they're saying is off the mark or full of shit. But grand pronouncements about something you purport to not care much about--that's where I run into problems with Reynolds' writing all the time lately.

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, the 'taking the temperature of the genre' thing is a bit stupid if you don't listen to much of it, I agree with that. I guess I was thinking about a different kind of genre-specific statement, more along the lines of "I've listened to a few [genre] records and here's what I'm getting out of them".

SR (and other people) sometimes tend to treat music like some huge cultural stock exchange - metal is up 5 points, pop is down 10 and a half, and so on. I don't see the value of that (though I can see why it's fun).

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

i don't see why it is the music critic's job to make sweeping genre specific statements. thats when critics are at their worst imo.

yeah this is true actually, one of the most annoying things about reynoldsesque writing is the constant striving to fit things into trends and continuums and overarching narratives when maybe just talking about the song would be more rewarding.

yeah chucks mentione don another thread he thinks xgenre-ignorant writers often write better reviews.

sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, i don't think there's a hard and fast rule...i remember some opera critic being sent to a bjork concert to review it for a uk broadsheet once, and he did a really interesting job. but i can imagine other opera critics screwing it up, so.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:33 (eighteen years ago)

Lex you must review opera one day.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

i love opera but my technical knowledge of classical music is...not great.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

which maybe doesn't matter, but it matters to me!

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:35 (eighteen years ago)

sweeping genre specific statments = evaluation of popular trends/genres

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)

i dunno--reynolds, at least at one point, tended to do the "fitting things into trends" kind of writing pretty amazingly. isn't that what most of his books are about? i used to think i distrusted "overarching narratives," when really, I''m just admitting that it's not something i have a clue how to do...but others who can do it well, great!

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

genre specific statements that aren't sweeping are great thats why i like the dance threads that talk about all these sub-sub-genres.

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:38 (eighteen years ago)

which maybe doesn't matter, but it matters to me!

You're wiser than many.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

overarching narratives are fine when they actually exist outside of the critic's imagination, which does happen sometimes, but not all or even most of the time, and has little to do with how most pop music is consumed.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

Something I wish he'd do, actually, is take his accumulated wisdom of trend-studying and write a theoretical model of how trends grow and rise and fall: reading him over the years I get the impression there are bigger archetypal narratives behind the specific stories of jungle, post-punk, grime, indie-noise-bliss etc. he's been telling. So I'd like him to go REALLY widescreen and write that up.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

its prob going to get harder to fit things into overarching grand/broad generalisations anyway, what with the niche-isation of music etc etc

tom in not sure thats what grimey simey really does - he seems to prefer theorisations rather than 'telling the story'

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

"overarching narratives are fine when they actually exist outside of the critic's imagination..."

sometimes the narratives are wholly supplied by the critic's imagination. what's wrong with that? and how is "most" pop music consumed?

unrelated question: anyone know how many people actually voted in pazz & jop? does it say anywhere in there (or in here)? and is it more or less than idolator? and how many people who voted in pazz & jop didn't vote in idolator? and how many people who voted in idolator didn't vote in pazz & jop? and how many people lead perfectly normal lives not even thinking about these things?

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

So I'd like him to go REALLY widescreen and write that up.

Wouldn't that be his Ecce Homo?

unrelated question: anyone know how many people actually voted in pazz & jop? does it say anywhere in there (or in here)? and is it more or less than idolator?

There were nine more voters in Idolator than in P&J.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)

"But grand pronouncements about something you purport to not care much about--that's where I run into problems with Reynolds' writing all the time lately."

same here.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:44 (eighteen years ago)

9 more votes? so idolator wins?

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:45 (eighteen years ago)

sometimes the narratives are wholly supplied by the critic's imagination. what's wrong with that? and how is "most" pop music consumed?

got no problem with the former if the critic admits it's in their imagination, it's a perfectly valid response to music!

i'm guessing "most" pop music is consumed by casual listeners who cherrypick across genres, or within a handful of genres.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)

9 more votes? so idolator wins?

If you're looking at it that way.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:48 (eighteen years ago)

hmmm...part my beef is w/the hegelian/kpunkian philosphical underprinnings. thats why i like frank cuz he has read wittgenstein!

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

more xpost

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

9 more votes? so idolator wins?

From all the evidence @ hand - the press, the big paybacks, the lame rejoinders - I think VVM is the only one that was actually doing any finish-line sprinting (& given they had the most to "lose," I'm not that surprised).

[nedpost]

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

9 more votes? so idolator wins?
If you're looking at it that way.

gee Ned, that was kind of in jest, but since you mention it, i might as well reduce it to that, given that neither poll really spoke to me in any way. this thread is a thousand times more entertaining than the results or commentary on either.

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

we've come to a pretty pass if reynolds is being called 'kpunkian'!

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

i remember some opera critic being sent to a bjork concert to review it for a uk broadsheet once, and he did a really interesting job.

This is one reason why I do like when Alex Ross reviews popular music like Radiohead, Bjork, Missy Elliott, and Justin Timberlake. You kind of have to go in knowing that he's primarily a classical-music guy, but he makes a lot of interesting insights that someone without his background would never make (like his discussion of pivot tones in Radiohead, or how "Cry Me a River" is "polyphonically complex").

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

There were nine more voters in Idolator than in P&J.

No, there were three. 497 vs. 494.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

re. "Sprint for the finish". In terms of reminders sent out, both Matos and Harvilla sent me one automated one each. But MM's was a much better bit of direct marketing than RH - he sounded genuinely enthused and very keen to get my vote, whereas RH started by saying "THis is your last reminder" as if it was paying a bill or something!

I voted in both anyway.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

off-topic: SCOTT & DYLAN PLEASE TO POST MORE ON ILM PLEASE OUTSIDE OF YEAREND MADNESS.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

You have to put Reynolds' writing in historical context: vis-a-vis his postpunk upbringing, where the role of the critic as active participant-theorist (cf Morley) was far more prominent than it is today-- times when a critic could alter the process of musical evolution with a theory (perhaps), rather than merely reflecting some underlying reality, functioning as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm not sure if this kind of notion is more prevalent in the UK press, but you can still see a malign mutation of this sort of thing in the NME. This critical stance can be contrasted with that of the Broadsheet media which very much follows agendas set elsewhere. However, perhaps Reynolds is on shakey ground nowadays, the only music he actually admits to caring about is Ghost box stuff and a few scattered other things...

― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

it's not really about numbers, but about clout. having 'three more' bloggers on your poll isn't anything to make a cake about.

― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

I've heard 503 vs. 494, Jaymc.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

Miltonp OTM anyway, the numbers are quibbling at that level. Of much greater interest is that a new poll started out with a healthy response rate, while also having the advantage of publishing its results far more quickly as well as including comments from everyone.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:00 (eighteen years ago)

The numbers game on contributors to the polls, as has been mentioned above and elsewhere, is complicated this year by some folks boycotting PnJ, VV Media banning their critics from contributing to JnP, and some critics deciding to skip both polls this year.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)

I've heard 503 vs. 494, Jaymc.

From the Jackin' Pop site:

Welcome to the first annual Idolator Jackin' Pop Critics Poll, a survey of critics and writers from around the world. We've tallied the 497 ballots, edited the essays, and flexed our MS Paint skills--and now, we're ready for you to comb through the results.

If it's really 503, I have to go back and retool my calculations.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:07 (eighteen years ago)

or you could...not

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:10 (eighteen years ago)

My goodness, so critics make generalizations their readers reject. Where's the outrage?!

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

Well, sure, Lex, but why wouldn't I want to?

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

i skipped both polls. if matos sends me a ballot next year i will fill it out. needs more hipster metal representation. i'm done with pazz & jop.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

Of much greater interest is that a new poll started out with a healthy response rate, while also having the advantage of publishing its results far more quickly as well as including comments from everyone

It was a great idea for Idolator to print everyone's comments -- I don't think they've been given enough positive recognition for that.

More important vis a vis the numbers game: after many years of steadily increasing participation, PnJ votership fell off by about 40% from last year. That's a huge decrease that I don't think can be easily regained. They've managed to drive away about 300 people (due to several widely varying factors) and it'll be easy for them to simply stay away.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

was good that idolator posted people's comments, but clicking on 500 separate ballots to get to them wasn't ideal. i know these things are piles more work than anyone realizes, but it'd still be cool if next yr they had comments sections, and then you could look at entire comments by people whose ballots you're interested in (based perhaps on what they said in the comments sections).

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

i'd love jackin' pop to reach out to more critics - for obv reasons it's us-centric but it never feels like something i can take totally seriously when almost all the critics i know in real life - ie uk ones - don't participate/barely even know about it.

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Thursday, 8 February 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

Scott,

Thanks for the invite. Maybe I will. But then I seriously have to get back to work!

Just for giggles, a few notes on another passage from that Ott essay:

"The answer is that critics are chasing novelty, which leads to the celebration of the obvious, of "Weird Al" singles and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," one of the most perplexingly inconsequential one-hook jingles ever to storm the charts." –from Ott P&J '07 essay

The search for novelty is an essential part of the whole art-making-and-consumption cycle, no? Certain styles get boring for large numbers of artists and listeners/readers/consumers, and then new styles or variations on old styles come along to restore interest. Patricia Meyer Spacks's book "Boredom" does a nice job of exploring that very basic idea.

Don't get me started on Weird Al. My son just discovered him, and now I have to listen to "Amish Paradise" two or three times every day.

I don't expect "Crazy" to speak to everyone. I for one wish it had a bridge and some kind of surprise near the end (my mild frustration is probably a version of Ott's disdain), but I still like it quite a lot, and found it arresting, in that rather "timeless" pop way, on first listen. At any rate, its acclaim seems like a strange emblem for an allegedly debased critical community. This is necessarily speculative, but "Crazy" seems like the sort of single that would fare well with critics at any time. And if you want to engage in some cultural/psychological bullshitting, white-skinned critics, who so often would like their tastes to be bit more multi-cultural but often don't have a real passion for the prevailing African-American pop forms, often go in for rock-y or genre-blurring singles by black or multi-racial groups, as past P&J polls show.

I'm not sure why "perplexingly" is modifying "inconsequential." It seems like inconsequential works in and of themselves wouldn't offer many puzzles, unless he's getting at some kind of cool ambivalence or duplicity along the lines of the ever popular "deceptively simple." Presumably the perplexing part he's driving at is the song's success, with listeners and critics, in which case the modifier perhaps should be moved to a less perplexing place when the essay is anthologized.

I would like "Crazy" to have a bit more harmonic variation, as I indicated above, but mos def I hear more than one hook.

I'm not sure which charts he's talking about having been stormed, the ones that measure sales and airplay or the ones that track critical consensus. If it's the former, I would love to live in a world in which "Crazy" is among the vilest piffles chart history has to offer. That would be a world in which Tommy Roe's career, just for instance, never really gathered much momentum.

― dylan (dylan), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

Yes, my God, exactly. Do people really have such a dogmatic faith in aesthetic progress to believe that the rockfans of twenty years hence are by necessity going to have better taste, better insight, greater access to God/the eidei/"history"/whatever re: pop music than we do now - and that, as such, it's part of the job to impress these imaginary future beings with our acuity? Why is succumbing to a consensus of the unknown future better - or worse! - than succumbing to a consensus of the known present? (And -- I'm sort of talking to myself here -- noting the probably failibility of future audiences isn't "relativisitic." Even if we say that, yes, there is one single set of noncontingent truths in God's Big Book In The Sky and we should *all* be striving towards them, this does not necessarily compel us to assume mankind's purchase on these truths will grow with every passing year.)

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:33 (eighteen years ago)

Simon Reynolds is annoying because he's like your mom. He knows rock critics' weak spots and makes them feel guilty about what they're doing. And then when someone calls him on it he says, "What? We were just talking! Don't get so offended! You know, it's really worrisome that you get so easily worked up, you shouldn't take things so personally." HI MOM.

Also, it's hard to think of a bigger dabbler than someone who wrote one book about rave and one about post-punk, no?

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

Simon Reynolds is annoying because he's like your mom.

Uh, like YOUR mom, maybe.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

Don't you talk about my mother like that.

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

Don't get so offended!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

So Ned is now Eppy's mom?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

we've come to a pretty pass if reynolds is being called 'kpunkian'!

-- the original hauntology blogging crew (miltonpinsk...), February 8th, 2007.

i get your point. still kpunk seems to have read more theory. they are all cribbing from the same people.

― artdamages (artdamages), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

x-post -- No, I'm Simon Reynolds.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

But Ned, you're nothing like my mom.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

Is she more like Greg Tate?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

THERE YA GO!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

I'll admit to not reading anything above, but the first thing I thought when I saw this thread title is that this is sort of a dog shit vs. cat shit question for the few of us who think polls are tiresome.

Anyway, as you were.

― BlastsOfStatic (BlastsofStatic), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

Your studied indifference has been duly noted, Sir.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:59 (eighteen years ago)

Meanwhile...which rock critic is the most like your mom?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:00 (eighteen years ago)

alex ross

― max (maxreax), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)

Ken Capobianco.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

Grace Lichtenstein.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

Why does Reynolds claim that "the excitement around the noise scene continues to build?" Does it continue to build? Or was it just that Wolf Eyes put out a second album on Sub Pop or something?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

Oh Lord, I love glenn's album clusters. A third of the Dixie Chicks voters also voted for Arctic Monkeys? That's soooo precious . . .

― Vornado (Vornado), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:41 (eighteen years ago)

Ariel Swartley.

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Thursday, 8 February 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

Daddino is very otm upthread. A fear of looking foolish is a fallacy that younger critics make. In my mind a great critic always takes risks. I mean, Christgau was the only one who called the Dolls reunion album his best of the year! It's that kind of batshit craziness I expect from him.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 8 February 2007 19:50 (eighteen years ago)

Hey, someone constructed a conclusion from assumed precepts - let's all xpost and OTM it into validity!

You are either out of your collective minds or ignorant of my past on this board and at Pitchfork if you think I have any fear of being - or appearing to have been - wrong at any point past, present or future.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Thursday, 8 February 2007 19:55 (eighteen years ago)

I was actually referring to Reynolds' essay, Chris. Sorry for being unclear.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

I was referring to the italics above and the overeagerness of a few of these people to keep walking on planks they lay out for each other. Mind the drop.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:06 (eighteen years ago)

wrong thread maybe, but why no ilm poll in 2006? because of jackin pop?

― mylo (groove nihilist), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:13 (eighteen years ago)

the shit would be redundant, i think we can safely assume the end results would be similar.

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:18 (eighteen years ago)

497 was a miscalculation. the actual Jackin' Pop number is 503 and is being changed.

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:25 (eighteen years ago)

EXPOSED

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:26 (eighteen years ago)

[hides in shame]

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:28 (eighteen years ago)

http://bethemedia.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/1121notover.jpg

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:36 (eighteen years ago)

Time to fire up the spreadsheet.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6987/yaaaaowkm9.png

― senator second p. newcastle (a_p), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)

http://journalism.utexas.edu/vote04/barbara.jpg

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

we shouldn't jump to conclusions, but it's likely that both polls are corrupted and the winner of both was ooioo

― roger goodell (gear), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

I was referring to the italics above and the overeagerness of a few of these people to keep walking on planks they lay out for each other. Mind the drop.

Good morning! AND GROW UP!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:53 (eighteen years ago)

As for planks: Caliban, mirror, etc.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Thursday, 8 February 2007 20:54 (eighteen years ago)

gear i support you, OOIOO ROBBED IN OOHIOO

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:07 (eighteen years ago)

OK, combining the two polls was uglier than I hoped, but didn't take as long as I feared. So here are the combined critical alignment ratings:

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508f

and the combined album clusters:

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508g

and, just for completeness, the combined leaderboard:

http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=twas&id=twas0508h

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:39 (eighteen years ago)

ok so i picked up the print edition and am i blind or got a defective copy or was the "You Can't Compete With Babes" section of comments (the one knocking dumping xgau) completely ABSENT from it? which, if so, is pretty shady. i mean the old p&j always had the personals section but as i recall it was always made clear it was web only. this feels like a nod to blogoland that they tried to get over with like they were 4 real with it, sort of like the couple hasty cleanup jobs on the sylvester piece before they made like it never was.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:46 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know what the foundation was for the idea about a fear of being wrong. More important, for me, were the rampant generalities made about critics and editors in the essay ("self-absorption," "intellectual laziness," "overt susceptibility to peer pressure," "a virulent, unrepentant triumphalism," "crippling investment in breaking bands and generating buzz" etc.). Also the idea that these things, to the extent that they may be true, are something new or that the situation has become more acute somehow?

And also this intent on debunking a supposed relevance to the poll that I don't know anyone ever attributed to it in the first place.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:51 (eighteen years ago)

Awesome! Glenn's got the definitive poll now for my money!

How did you reconcile people that changed their ballots in the combined scores?

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Thursday, 8 February 2007 23:03 (eighteen years ago)

wrong thread maybe, but why no ilm poll in 2006? because of jackin pop?

Cause we decided to follow up No List November with No ILM December.

― The Reverend (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 8 February 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

This year's "best music" lists did not provide any variety.. everyone was voting for the same things.. almost every publication is listing the same records and singles, far moreso than in previous years, leading me to believe 2006 was a shit music year, generally speaking.

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Thursday, 8 February 2007 23:26 (eighteen years ago)

THAT'S BECAUSE WHEN A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE VOTE FOR THINGS PATTERNS EMERGE AND THE THINGS A LOT OF PEOPLE CHOOSE TO NAME RISE TO THE TOP SEE IT'S CALLED "CONSENSUS" BOTH POLLS HAVE LINKS TO INDIVIDUAL BALLOTS MAYBE LOOK AT THOSE BEFORE DECIDING EVERYONE SAYS THE SAME FUCKING SHIT OKTHXBYE

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Thursday, 8 February 2007 23:38 (eighteen years ago)

you tell em' Matos !

1300 Albums listed:
http://idolator.com/?op=compiledresults

[# 49. Burial - Burial (175 points in 15 votes) - even burial could only reach 15 votes]

the Top 50 Album only had 18 votes from a 500 poll survey
# 50. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers (174 points in 18 votes)

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 8 February 2007 23:54 (eighteen years ago)

If a voter filed different ballots in the two polls, I took the union of the two sets. So no double-voting for any given album, but a voter could end up with 20 votes. You can sort the critical-alignment list by Votes if you're curious about it. Only 6 people made more than 4 changes between the polls.

― glenn mcdonald (glenn mcdonald), Friday, 9 February 2007 01:08 (eighteen years ago)

I liked Whiney G.'s essay, because he made some fresh,thoughtful points about music, not too generalized.

― don (dow), Friday, 9 February 2007 02:14 (eighteen years ago)

btw, does anyone find it extraordinary that virtually the whole second half of this thread has been dedicated to a discussion of the P&J ESSAYS? Used to be all comments and ballots.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 03:18 (eighteen years ago)

On the page design: I can't fathom why there isn't one big, obvious link on the first page of the music section, that goes to the current P&J. You have to fish around to actually get to the main P&J section.

― Rockist Scientist, Hippopoptimist (RSLaRue), Friday, 9 February 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, the poll's totally hidden on the website. That seems bizarre to me, too. How do people who aren't on this thread even find it?

Also worth noting by somebody, and sad: In the print edition at least, it is merely called "The 34th Annual Pazz&Jop Critics Poll" on the cover, not "The 34th (or 35th)" or whatever. That would have been old pre-New Times editor in chief Don Forst's dream, to get rid of that weird parenthetetical hedge, but Bob always loved it. Sigh.

I'm curious to hear what people think of Rob Harvilla's essay, which nobody has mentioned. (I have mixed feelings, which I'll keep to myself. But I'm still wondering why nobody has even brought it up.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Friday, 9 February 2007 12:44 (eighteen years ago)

harvilla's essay has been mentioned by certain racist illustrators around here. i think he's hyper-defensive and self-consciously futurist about the whole thing -- must not look back, always move forward, speed is the key -- but i don't think he's reached the depth (or depths) of some of the other essays. he sounds overwhelmed by the whole thing, but also kinda cheery and a little spunky too, if by spunky i mean 'willing to take gratuitous shots at rivals who really shouldn't be rivals' and ' speaking FOR christgau as if he were an eskimo elder being floated out on an ice floe.' and that's exactly what i mean.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

I guess I'm especially curious what people thought about the line about getting "endlessly shouted down by meta-critics who denounce our alleged hostility and vapidity and cynicism by tripling it" (in an essay about critics, no less.) Because honestly, Matos's essay didn't strike me as especially hostile, vapid, or cynical at all. Select posts about the P&J situation on Idolator seemed more so, sure (people who don't think American Idols are worth writing about are idiots, not that I have an opinion about that one Voice cover story), but tripling the hostility of firing one's staff would be a neat trick--which nobody has pulled off, to my knowledge. (Other stuff in Rob's essay seemed more sensible, but I'm shutting up now.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:18 (eighteen years ago)

The very existence of Jackin' Pop is a huge threat to the Village Voice. In fact, so is this board, now.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:40 (eighteen years ago)

xp:(Also have yet to see anything else on any side of this dicussion remotely as hostile, vapid, or cynical as the essay by the ex Boston Phoenix roller-hockey nincompoop that Idolator uncovered last week, but since the Pazz & Jop poobahs reportedly rejected it, I'll give VVM/NT the benefit of the doubt and I agree that it's a moot point.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:43 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think the Idolator-folk said AI wasn't worth covering (they are covering it episode-by-episode, IIRC) but that having "a seventh-rate American Idol nitwit" on the cover was a bad thing. Frankly, I think that's a fair thing to say: Constantine Mouralis on the cover in 2006 is going to mean something a lot different than his equivalent being on the cover in '92 or '85 or '77. An older article would've been ironic or jeremiad-y or sociologicalish or maybe even grudgingly appreciative about the CM-manque; in the new Voice, at best you'd get no stance at all (and no reason why anybody should care about the subject), and at worst, a puff piece.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)

Or maybe not a puff piece per se -- but seeing CM on the cover did make me worry that indeed that's what it was.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

"Seventh-rate American Idol nitwit" is a pretty vapid phrase, in and of itself. But I didn't read the story; I don't know how puffy it was. (And I've never heard CM's music, so I don't know how he rates.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:04 (eighteen years ago)

so you're saying that any AI winner, runner-up, or reject can and should be put on the cover without criticism, whether you've heard their music or think they're any good or not? just because any criticism would be an idiotic implication that AI is not worth writing about?

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

(xpost)

No, it's not a great phrase.

From what I remember, the article wasn't puffy but I came away from it wondering why it even existed. Not that I like stories with a belabored case as to why its subject is worth your bother (Frank K.'s totally correct when he says this kind of thing has been a ruinous trend in rockwriting); I prefer it when worth is shown, not stated.

Not sure if you ever cared for him, but I think Guy Trebay could've done a fantastic job on Constantine Mouralis.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

As a longtime P&J reader (since 76) I found Harvilla's essay incrediblely defensive. It's not for him to tell me to "let xgau go." What xgau brought to the poll -- big ideas, the long view, gravitas, and yeah, wackiness -- is what made the poll more than just another list. If Harvilla wants me to forget xgau, he should try to fill that hole himself. The fact that it took, what? six or seven good writers to try and duplicate the range of ideas xgau brought to a single essay says it all. The voice is right to be scared of jackin pop. The P&J poll as "tradition" will only carry it so far.

― totph (Totph), Friday, 9 February 2007 14:57 (eighteen years ago)

I think Harvilla did a pretty good job of handling the elephant in the room. Fuck was he supposed to say? His piece basically says "Yeah, it kind of sucks that dudes are gone, but I have a job to do and I'm going to do it the best I can." I don't think he's saying forget xgau, he's saying "remember xgau and let's push forward anyway"

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)

Also, thanks, Don! [upthread]

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:36 (eighteen years ago)

Harvilla also said "Xgau didn't ask you to cry/fight for him!" as though concern for Xgau's welfare is the only thing driving the protest of VVM.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:43 (eighteen years ago)

x-post
Yeah, I don't know how else he could've handled the Christgau issue. Trying to "fill that hole" would not've been a wise idea, and in theory anyway I prefer a range of essays (the fact is, I haven't loved a Christgau pazz & jop essay in a lot of years, and a few I did not care for at all) (not to be interpreted as: "thank God he's outta there"--just that his essays haven't been the highlight for me for some time).

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:48 (eighteen years ago)

At some point -- 90s? -- those y/e "essays" went from being actual essays -- meditations on the state of popular music via the poll results -- to wonky statistical analysis of the poll results.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:53 (eighteen years ago)

he's saying "remember xgau and let's push forward anyway"

-- Whiney G. Weingarten (christophe...) (webmail), February 9th, 2007. (whineyg)

this is so noble, and honorable, and... i think i'm going to cry.

― critique de la vie quotidienne (modestmickey), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

Handling the Christgau firing was unavoidable; on the other hand...I dunno, it seems like even deigning to acknowledge the existence of Jackin' Pop feels like a concession. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think P&J even mentioned Marsh's Addicted to Noise/Rock & Rap Confidential poll when it was around.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:55 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno, it seems like even deigning to acknowledge the existence of Jackin' Pop feels like a concession...

A concession, I might add, I'd rather not see him make. It seems really sordid and defeated.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

x-post (to m coleman)

That's interesting, because I thought the opposite was true: in the early P&Js the essays were often about the electorate, how they tended to vote, etc., whereas the later ones became more about--I don't know what they became about, all sorts of things I guess, but I always thought they were less about the poll specifically and more about the year--I may have this totally ass backwards. (Or maybe it just felt that way in the earlier editions because the thing wasn't so huge, and it tended more often to be Christgau talking about how his friends voted...am I wrong?)

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:58 (eighteen years ago)

meditations on the state of popular music via the poll results

Actually, I think I see what you mean now...I didn't take into consideration the "via" in there.

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Friday, 9 February 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

Anyway, in the last few years, I wish Christgau had talked more about his cronies, how they voted, etc. There hasn't in the last few years been nearly enough represenation of old white guys for my liking.

― s w00ds (sw00ds), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:02 (eighteen years ago)

But Christopher he does write, "it's time to let him go," which is similar to "forget."

At any rate, it's reductive of Harvilla to suggest that the animus some feel toward the post-New Times Voice and its re-staffed P&J poll is entirely based on Christgau's firing. As Chuck said above, "tripling the hostility of firing one's staff would be a neat trick," and certainly Mike Lacey's writing and comments about the takeover and its critics found a hostile tone that would be hard to match much less treble, though perhaps some with far less power than Lacey have managed to do so, I don't know. To say that complaining about or even discussing such stuff is masturbatory, or suggest that the criticism is just hysteria over small potatoes, well, I don't find that convincing, though lots of general readers might. The whole "let's just stop fussin' and get back to work" thing would have sat well with many of my Midwestern Calvinist relatives. Overall, Harvilla's tone was pretty gracious, though, and speaking of being reductive, it's also reductive to suggest that pre-NT Voice music writing was a paragon of critical rigor and verbal dexterity and that all New Times music writing a model of vapidity, cynicism, etc., and perhaps some of us, in states of pique, have made it seem that way, and I understand why a NT person would be defensive about that. But there are aesthetic and practical differences between the old and new chains, and I think those differences are clear to folks who are passionate about such things, and that those thing are worth arguing over.

― dylan (dylan), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)

If Harvilla had just acknowledged the existence of Jackin' Pop and the criticism in his essay that would have been fine with me (even if Christgau had in prior years ignored Dave Marsh's poll) but he blew it by defensively and childishly taking non-substantive shots at Jackin' Pop and "meta-critics."

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:08 (eighteen years ago)

this is so noble, and honorable, and... i think i'm going to cry.

I think the important part is "What the fuck was he supposed to say." But feel free to call me out for having an insufficient level of snark for this thread.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:09 (eighteen years ago)

the polls are about the polls, and the comments on the polls are about the other polls
WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC MY BRETHREN (AND SISTREN) WHERE IS THE LOVE

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:10 (eighteen years ago)

That was the past. Time to listen to new beats.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:13 (eighteen years ago)

WHY CANT DEWEY AND TRUMAN WALK HAND IN HAND

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

To get back to the music,

I've already had to explain to at least two people why critics like the Hold Steady so much.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

How about Jess Harvell's ballot.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:16 (eighteen years ago)

Chris, can you explain it to us?

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

BECAUSE THEY ARE PORTLY AND SPORT SPECTACLES AND ARE BALDING OR FULLY BALD AND NERDS

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

QED

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

this doesnt explain my distaste for them, but nonetheless

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

i am coming to the conclusion that the entirety of "rock crit discourse" should be handled in much the same way as locking an idiotic ilm thread

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

This profession has been locked by an administrator.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

haha you know you love it

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

i'm big on abusive relationships

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

just ask my dad

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

I think "Jackin Pop" might want to get to year two before it starts leveling expectations of renown or respect from publications it dreams of considering peers.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

chris, sometimes i think you and i might be the most shameless people on ilm.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

and nothing has ever made me feel dirtier.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

I figure Jackin Pop, inspired by Chris' PnJ essay, will contain nothing but non-sheep like ballots and comments next year. His job will be done.

― curmudgeon (DC Steve), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

You love it.

Also, Sterling, love your little "for those of us who remember Ott's Pitchfork is STEALIN ALL UR AD CLICKTHRUS" comment.

Was I wrong about that? No, I wasn't - I'm never wrong. Idolator will not exist in 2009. Book it.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

Why rock critics like the Hold Steady:

Because the majority of rock writers spent their teenage years romanticizing the idea of rock lyrics as "poetry" since it was an easy way to legitimize their fascination with "popular" music while still maintaining the identity as "intellectual outsiders." If and when they grow up, no matter how many Luomo records they pretend to listen to, they still secretly want this Springsteen/Patti Smith ideal of high-brow lyrical concepts through a middle-brow filter--even though Aesop Rock does it better. Also, people still like rock music for some reason.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

But there are aesthetic and practical differences between the old and new chains

Yeah, such as respect for talent and an adherence to human rights ... :-)

Also,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think P&J even mentioned Marsh's Addicted to Noise/Rock & Rap Confidential poll when it was around.

Well, marsh and Michael Goldberg never cost the P&J a one-year loss of 300 voters the way J&P has (or perhaps more accurately, the way that NT management has)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

Was I wrong about that? No, I wasn't - I'm never wrong. Idolator will not exist in 2009. Book it.

Ott, you just totally proved me right! YOU are TOTALLY appealing to the sensibleness of a future audience when you say things like HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME and whatnot!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

And by the way: GOOD MORNING!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

OTT TO IDOLATOR: WE WILL BURY YOU! YOU'LL NEVER BLOG IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

http://redescolar.ilce.edu.mx/redescolar/act_permanentes/historia/html/caida_del_muro/Kruschev.jpg

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

Have to agree with an earlier poster, btw. Christgau's P&J essay usually bored me to tears or proved indecipherable. His work on the comments, however, was brilliant, and that part of the equation is SORELY missed this year.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

It seems unlikely, Chris--the costs of running a blog are so low that the advertising threshold that would need to be met to break even is quite low, too. Much lower than it would be to publish a newspaper and distribute it for free

― max (maxreax), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

Sorry, but P&J vs. J&P ain;t quite Kennedy vs. Kruschev.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:56 (eighteen years ago)

Who is Daddino? I thought Sterling was my big fanboy last time I checked in...

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:57 (eighteen years ago)

Personally, I don't think Idolator's or JP's existence in two years *is* a given, but the microwave-heat of Ott's sturm und drang rhetoric is going to sound gassy in two years either way.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:58 (eighteen years ago)

Incidentally, I'm a graduate of Columbia Univeristy, having majored in comparative literature; the author of the book *Up the Down Dollar*; the ex-boyfriend of Dan Handler; and my father is well-known in the Chicago mafia. In my spare time, I like to salsa dance.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)

I don't care who you are, where you're from, or what you did - as long as you love me.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)

Idolator will not exist in 2009. Book it.

and this proves . . . ?

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:29 (eighteen years ago)

That you have a stellar track record . . . ?

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:30 (eighteen years ago)

for not making any actual sense and acting superior about it, you mean?

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

Hey what ever happened to Perfect Sound Forever anyway?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:32 (eighteen years ago)

That pretty much sums up Idolator, Matos.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

> I don't care who you are, where you're from, or what you did - as long as you love me. - Chris Ott

This post is going to get me thru the cold nights because Idolator doesn't burn as well as the VV.

― natedey (ndeyoung), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

Alex: It hasn't gone anywhere.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

Haha but that's the old version. Where is Chris' bigger better improved gonna take over the world version?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

actually that's the "Jason came to his senses version"

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

x-post: itisamystery.gif

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

Alex, you're reaching, desperately. That tone was never present or expressed, by me or Jason, whose site it always was and remains.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:39 (eighteen years ago)

OTT: I'M RUBBER, YOU'RE GLUE, GIMME BACK MY BALL

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

(that should be "Ott to world," but hey)

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

this is great!

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

if we were all in a frat house right now someone would have made out by now.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

Trust me, I'm the only guy in this house anyone would want to make out with. Unless Harvell posted up-thread and I missed it.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:48 (eighteen years ago)

...

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

hey baby

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

come here often?

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

hahahahahahahahahaha

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)

man i am getting NOTHING done today

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

is chris high?

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

This is the only ILX thread I read anymore and I'm starting to get concerned

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

TS: Chris Ott vs. My mother's incredibly stupid ex-husband

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

He couldn't make his essay into a heart.

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

okay, i gotta go get some stuff done. keep it sexy, y'all!

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

"let's take this thread O-U-T-S-I-D-E so we can fuck"

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

this thread has finally lived up to its billing.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

and chris, call me. 1-900-MIX-ALOT.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

http://chris-ott.com/sponsorship/chris1.jpg

K-ROWR

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

even white boys got to shout

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.nova.edu/cwis/ia/pubaffairs/news/oct-dec2004/images/ott.jpg

Not so k-rowr.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

Trust me, I'm the only guy in this house anyone would want to make out with. Unless Harvell posted up-thread and I missed it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― antidote against poisoning (lex pretend), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

man nate's right...i can't look away.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.roadway.com/about/ntdc/2001/cards/images/ott_chris_front.jpg

Uh oh.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

you know, the weirdest thing about that post is that i think chris was vaguely calling me sexy there.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

Are tranny hookers pulling their ads from the voice?

― Charmmy Kitty's Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (ex machina), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

Speak for yourself, Alex. Anyway, Ott's not enough of an endomorph for me to care.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

he is attracted to yr racist illustrations

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

Those ears are yum.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

my big 12-inch ms paintbrush

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:58 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.fallcreek.k12.wi.us/fcelem/GradeLevels/Music/Ottweb/Image059_school.jpg

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:00 (eighteen years ago)

Wow that one is big.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:00 (eighteen years ago)

What does Co1in Mel0y think of all of this?

(You see what I did there? I heard he has a Google alert on his name.)

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:00 (eighteen years ago)

god this is like the dark depths of 2003 all over again

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

Well I uh...it's a very lovely shade of lime green!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

fights with ott...massive picture posts...random zings barely tethered to any sort of thread coherency...

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

there is the theory of the mobius...

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

Damn you, now I want to hear Orbital 2.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

http://images.quizilla.com/M/mattababy/1075690038_turesgiant.jpg

― senator second p. newcastle (a_p), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:03 (eighteen years ago)

Real pic of Chris is kind of dull:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c286/shallowrewards/dadnov.jpg

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

i thought that' baby's head was a mustache for a minute. i need to go to the eye doctor.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

He kind of looks like cleaned up Nate from the current season of Beauty & the Geek.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:06 (eighteen years ago)

At least the portion I can see past his infant child's head. Man can you imagine when that kid is old enough to google search his dad's name. Woo boy.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

here's a picture of me looking like i've just been in an accident:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/115/316657364_388c2f9c09.jpg?v=0

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

So happy this thread righted itself.

BEST Nirvana Song.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

nice beard/shirt color coordination jess

― the kwisatz bacharach (sanskrit), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

i only own one shirt

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE IN A PAZZ N JOP FLAMEWAR - FEBRUARY 07??

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

Is that Jimmy Fallon on your left, Jess?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

Jess I thought you had the closet full of identical black outfits like Dr. Dre in that one video

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:14 (eighteen years ago)

my one shirt is actually like that jackie chan movie though

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

kung fu panda

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

How has no-one posted the bloody nose pic from the Decemberists bar brawl.

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

that guy in the back behind the girl looks so desperately lonely ;_;

― roger goodell (gear), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

I was kind of thinking he looked mad at Jess. Hey did you guys get into a bar brawl?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)

i killed colin meloy with my big ms paintbrush

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)

that girl on the right is totally playing with her hair! she wants some of that jess juice! : D

― roger goodell (gear), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:23 (eighteen years ago)

actually jimmy fallon is her boyfriend

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

Since that Queen Latifa movie that guy is a unstoppable chick magnet.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

i'll tell you what else he has in common with ott. they both have this fear of being fooled by hucksters and swindlers.

I'm tempted to do a DING DING OTM here, but to be honest this is not exactly an incisive revelation about a guy whose explicit writing brief is to debunk blog hype.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)

how's about that Bob Dylan album, eh? old timey! and with a little sly wink-and-nod to the old feller-on-a-lady oral sex to boot!

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)

i worry about the future of music journalism. this thread is like the wizard of oz pulling back the curtain. imagine the next generation of music writers. the guys in high school right now, idolizing the current taste-makers, growing up to become the next class of important critics, seeing this thread. that never happened in the old rolling stone or whatever days. what'll happen to the next generation when they pull back the curtain and see this bunch of faggots?

― critique de la vie quotidienne (modestmickey), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)

The cherry on top of the sundae.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:06 (eighteen years ago)

http://i.biblio.com/b/152m/10020152-0-m.jpg

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

it's like being yelled at for promiscuity by a syphilitic prositute

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

House arrest really fucks up a dude. I mean fag.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

Mickey you sure do use the word faggot a lot.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

Mickey Borchardt: "Sinking a Music Pirate" (L.A. Times, April 3, 2006)
This simpering piece of garbage could have been written by an RIAA operative: a college student busted for illegal downloading details how the FBI dragged him into court while concluding that "stealing of any kind is wrong." Wonder if this essay was part of his plea bargain? If so, they should throw the book at him, though they probably won't since he's acted like such a good little tool.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

he's just smarting after that "worst music writing of the year" mention

haha xpost!!

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

In the future, they will start calling lame people "mickey" instead of "herb?"

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:09 (eighteen years ago)

the eagle eye of jason gross. can you imagine having to read all that shit to pick the WORST??

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:10 (eighteen years ago)

i can only hope to gain that level of notoriety as a troll!

― critique de la vie quotidienne (modestmickey), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:12 (eighteen years ago)

is there ANY way to get rid of that mickeymousemotherfucker?

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:13 (eighteen years ago)

you can go back to petitioning to ban me. maybe i can be convinced with a paypal fund.

― critique de la vie quotidienne (modestmickey), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:13 (eighteen years ago)

I was just looking the worst list over again myself. Amazing.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

6:14 AM, 9 Feb 07 Pazz n Jop vs. Jackin Pop locked user modestmickey by racist illustrator for hire (someone needs a time out)

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

we should start a thread about how this dude named mickey borchardt is sending us pirated CDs despite his recent bust by the feds. in his words, 'fuck those guys, they'll never catch me again!'

― roger goodell (gear), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

wow, ILM is fag naming shocka ... :-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

ahem, in, not is

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

http://muppet.wikia.com/images/4/49/Pic.cartoonallstars.jpg

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

omg

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:20 (eighteen years ago)

this thread just keeps on giving

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:20 (eighteen years ago)

Hahaha ALF!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:21 (eighteen years ago)

That's a funny ass cartoon photo in context ... ;-)

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:21 (eighteen years ago)

I mean seriously when was ALF ever a cartoon All-Star. I hate it when the fan's vote.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:22 (eighteen years ago)

i believe that ALF had a cartoon centered around his life on Melmac

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

and a marvel comic book.

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.alftv.net/images/ALFanimated_20000YearsDS.jpg

Melmac being difficult to render with then-present day muppet technology.

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:24 (eighteen years ago)

"ALF TICKLES YOUR ALIEN BONE"

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:25 (eighteen years ago)

I know that ALF had a cartoon. BUT was it ever All Star quality. Calling ALF an All Star cheapens the award if you ask me.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

alf and winnie the pooh certainly are andom entries on that poster ... wow, drugs can be a splendid thing I guess.

― O'Connor (OConnorScribe), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

Really it's worse than giving the MVP to Justin Morneau.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:26 (eighteen years ago)

haha I totally remember watching it but holy shit I forgot what the actual plot was about:

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is an animated drug prevention television special starring many of the popular cartoon characters from American Saturday morning television, among them Winnie-the-Pooh, Bugs Bunny, ALF, the Muppet Babies, and several others. Financed by McDonald's, the special was originally simulcast on April 21, 1990 on all three major American television networks: ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with most independent and smaller networks. McDonald's also distributed a VHS home video edition of the special, which began with an introduction from President George H. W. Bush, and First Lady Barbara Bush.

The plot chronicles the story of a teenage boy named Michael who is using marijuana. His concerned sister Corey worries about him, and her cries cause many of her toys, which depict several popular cartoon "all-stars", to come to life. The various cartoon characters proceed to take Michael on a fantasy journey that teaches him the health risks and other downsides a life of drug use can bring.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:27 (eighteen years ago)

Okay, that versus Captain Planet Save Belfast.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:28 (eighteen years ago)

i gotta say i really missed xgau's essay in this year's cartoon all-stars poll

― senator second p. newcastle (a_p), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:28 (eighteen years ago)

A world in which the Muppet Babies have an awareness of the effects of marijuana is a world that baffles the hell out of me.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:28 (eighteen years ago)

the entire thing, if memory serves, is up in parts on YouTube

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:29 (eighteen years ago)

if that show hadn't saved me from a lifetime of drug abuse, I might've destroyed all the brain cells I'm using to remember poorly conceived cross-promotional cartoons like Alf: The Animated Series, The Real Ghostbusters, Hammer Man, Jackie Chan Adventures and James Bond Jr.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)

yep: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cartoon+all-stars

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:30 (eighteen years ago)

haha i totally remember that movie
the ninja turtles turn up for like one scene
no joke that movie scared the shit out of me.

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

hahaaaaa! it opens with George and Barbara Bush!!!

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:32 (eighteen years ago)

this just might be my favorite ilm pazz & jop thread.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:33 (eighteen years ago)

Sounds like Corey got into Michael's stash.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:33 (eighteen years ago)

I've been digging xgau lately. "On account of a bit of brain (now) lodged in the skull" of Stone, as Dr. Python might diagnose.

― don (dow), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha the talking weed smoke

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:39 (eighteen years ago)

ugh @ the voice of bugs bunny

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

ts: real ghostbusters vs. filmation ghostbusters"

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:54 (eighteen years ago)

ts: The Harlem Globetrotters vs. "The Harlem Globetrotters"

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

In alf's show on melmac, they called him Gordon, because he was Gordon on Melmac and only an "alien life form" on earth.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:02 (eighteen years ago)

ihttp://www.infantv.com.br/ghostbusters.jpg

WHAT?!!!

― M. Biondi (M. Biondi), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:03 (eighteen years ago)

The Real Ghostbusters,

This did a decent job of recreating Bill Murray's humor at a fifth grade level.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:07 (eighteen years ago)

A brilliant display of the random, scattershot splendor ILM sometimes has to offer when everyone’s so tense they turn punchdrunk*

*Yes, this an endorsement.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:10 (eighteen years ago)

I think we're more like this:

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/23/113923.jpg

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:37 (eighteen years ago)

This did a decent job of recreating Bill Murray's humor at a fifth grade level.

Especially since Leonard Music's voice has the same dry, sardonic tone.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:42 (eighteen years ago)

It's Lorenzo Music!

― N.i.c.o.l.e (Ex Leon), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

where's your spreadsheet now

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

also omg rude dog and the dweebs

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

BOXCAR MICKEY OTT NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!!

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:48 (eighteen years ago)

That's what's should happen to music pirates - confinement to boxcars.

At least they would not have internet access.

― N.i.c.o.l.e (Ex Leon), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:50 (eighteen years ago)

what kind of child has a framed picture of alf on his dresser

― and what (ooo), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:52 (eighteen years ago)

remember when we used to spend these threads talking about why people were racists because they only voted for outkast?

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:55 (eighteen years ago)

we could still do that, but there'd only be 8 people to talk about (Xgau among them)

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:57 (eighteen years ago)

HALCYON TIMES INDEED

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

what kind of child has a framed picture of alf on his dresser

I had an ALF for President T-shirt in fourth grade.

And Nicole is OTM about "Lorenzo," my bad.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:01 (eighteen years ago)

shall I trot that old jewel of trivia about multiple incidences of Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray voicing the same character (Peter Venkman and Garfield)?

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:02 (eighteen years ago)

yes. yes, I think I shall.

― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:03 (eighteen years ago)

I'm trying to find a way to tie in "why someone is racist for only voting for Outkast" with "why someone is racist for drawing Gnarls Barkley as Bert & Ernie" but my heart's not in it.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:04 (eighteen years ago)

in the ego trip vh1 racism special i thought they determined that bert was dominican and ernie was puerto rican.

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:06 (eighteen years ago)

Somewhere in elementary school, we were meant to be drawing pictures of the solar system, with planets very roughly scaled and colored and in order, and my friend Brian and I decided it would be really funny to throw in Melmac just beyond Jupiter. Then, when we couldn't decide what it should look like, Brian had the genius idea of making it hairy. So we had a proper solar system with a hairy planet in the middle, which we found way more hilarious than the teacher did.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:06 (eighteen years ago)

xpost hahaha there really is something eerily appropriate, in a really nice way, about Dominican Bert and Puerto Rican Ernie.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:07 (eighteen years ago)

A HAIRY PLANET IN THE MIDDLE

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:09 (eighteen years ago)

My favorite one is that Animal is Armenian because they seen him wearing a tracksuit.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:09 (eighteen years ago)

I think that's just what one guest talking head dude theorized; the book actually posits that he's Mexican. I gotta find the exact justification for that, though.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:10 (eighteen years ago)

alf has nothing :(

http://dyk.nazwa.pl/dyk/content/staregry/images/alf.gif

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:16 (eighteen years ago)

shall I trot that old jewel of trivia about multiple incidences of Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray voicing the same character (Peter Venkman and Garfield)?

omg it's like the jfk/abe lincoln thing

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:17 (eighteen years ago)

Wait, this is triggering a weird memory: as soon as I moved to New York, Dominican got added to the list of ethnicities people sometimes think I am, and so at some point I was stopped by this guy on the street, who then figured out that I wasn't Dominican and started giving this long, detailed explanation of all the reasons he thought I was Dominican -- anyway, part of it involved him saying something along the lines of "see, I'm Dominican, you can tell, I've got this kinda yellowish skin tone, that's cause we've got low iron" (maybe it wasn't iron, but he had some sort of metabolic explanation here). Anyway I don't think Bert's yellowness is affecting the weird aptness of that decision; it doesn't really work on the color side, since Ernie's way darker.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

how come i've never seen this used on ilx?

http://www.zonalibre.org/blog/rufi/archives/alf.jpg

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:20 (eighteen years ago)

maybe i just missed it.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

I was actually having coffee with a half-Persian girl when this happened, and so there was this whole weird three-way "who's from what continent" moment, it was really weird.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

puerto ricans always think dominicans are hotheaded, for one thing; also, dominicans have a wider range of skin tones in my experience

― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:21 (eighteen years ago)

ftr rok crtks ov amurka

http://www.reallyfunnypictures.co.uk/oddandweird/pics/23.02.06/alf.jpg

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:31 (eighteen years ago)

I totally forgot everything did the Smurfs did was Smurfing. Like 90% of that show was just smurf smurfed smurfing smurfish and so on.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:44 (eighteen years ago)

I wanna smurf you up

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:45 (eighteen years ago)

How does Papa Smurf even approach discussing drugs with that dialectical roadblock? "It might make you feel smurfy at first, but eventually you'll want to smurf it so much that all you really feel like doing all day is smurfing!"

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:47 (eighteen years ago)

We can smurf it till we both wake up

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:48 (eighteen years ago)

i rue the day that photo ever got leaked to the internet

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:48 (eighteen years ago)

"a substance used to experience artificial highs" haha. Just like Prozac!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:49 (eighteen years ago)

I love that Simon is the one who knows about drugs.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:51 (eighteen years ago)

well he is the brainiac

― racist illustrator for hire (dubplatestyle), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:52 (eighteen years ago)

"Corey do you think your brother is a crackhead? Don't be an enabler now and tell us the truth!"

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 9 February 2007 21:53 (eighteen years ago)

"You know for ten bucks, I could score us some CRACK!"
"Oh yeah, CRACK! Now we're talkin!"
"You've got money Michael."
"But CRACK! That's serious stuff!"

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 23:47 (eighteen years ago)

and here come the ninja turtles

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 23:47 (eighteen years ago)

Start the ILE thread on that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 February 2007 23:47 (eighteen years ago)

Michaelangelo's ganj-addled voice makes for a a v. unconvincing just-say-no message

― deej.. (deej..), Friday, 9 February 2007 23:49 (eighteen years ago)

A brilliant display of the random, scattershot splendor ILM sometimes has to offer when everyone’s so tense they turn punchdrunk

If you like this you should check out the noize boxcar.

― Edward III (edward iii), Friday, 9 February 2007 23:50 (eighteen years ago)

Fucking hell, now everybody's going to invite me to go salsa dancing with them.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:24 (eighteen years ago)

ok i missed totally the thread derailing so apropros of nothing the print version of p&j also had pretty much the worst jump i've ever seen. going from one page of a spread to the next there was first a jump from ANOTHER essay, and then the continued essay from the prior page of the spread. I'm pretty sure this was never a standard voice design element before the takeover? i've never even see the post do something quite so awful although they seem to use auto-justification without proofreading to awfully ill effect at least twice a week.

rh's essay just made me feel sad btw.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 10 February 2007 00:51 (eighteen years ago)

Michaelangelo's ganj-addled voice makes for a a v. unconvincing just-say-no message

He is a party dude
This is not canon

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Saturday, 10 February 2007 01:17 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

it is

― Pylon Gnasher, Monday, 4 August 2008 21:52 (sixteen years ago)

four months pass...

You love it.
Also, Sterling, love your little "for those of us who remember Ott's Pitchfork is STEALIN ALL UR AD CLICKTHRUS" comment.
Was I wrong about that? No, I wasn't - I'm never wrong. Idolator will not exist in 2009. Book it.
― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Friday, February 9, 2007 8:28 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

heavens! i book it now!

― soyrizo headache (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 1 January 2009 05:00 (sixteen years ago)

wait, the site still exists!

wtf ott

― soyrizo headache (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 1 January 2009 05:01 (sixteen years ago)

lol, i'm glad you came back to point this out.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 1 January 2009 05:07 (sixteen years ago)

BOOK IT

― soyrizo headache (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 1 January 2009 05:11 (sixteen years ago)

I've just been informed that I and all other Idolator writers have turned into pumpkins in the past hour.

― some dude, Thursday, 1 January 2009 05:44 (sixteen years ago)

BOOK IT

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 1 January 2009 06:10 (sixteen years ago)

ottenfreude

― 909090909 Rivethed Brikkchin Reverk now DANZ (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 1 January 2009 06:36 (sixteen years ago)

Idolator=Zune

― M.V., Thursday, 1 January 2009 07:39 (sixteen years ago)

Who's zoomin' zune

― van smack, Thursday, 1 January 2009 09:04 (sixteen years ago)

Is it just me or has there been pretty much no Pazz and Jop talk on ILM this year?

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 1 January 2009 15:52 (sixteen years ago)

miss jackin pop

― BIG HOOS is not a nacho purist fwiw (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Thursday, 1 January 2009 15:56 (sixteen years ago)

This is a nice way to start the year.

― Dr. Perpetua, Thursday, 1 January 2009 16:13 (sixteen years ago)

You should change your name to Dr. Peppertura.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 1 January 2009 19:34 (sixteen years ago)

Or Peppertua.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 1 January 2009 19:35 (sixteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

So why did Jackin' Pop stop after two polls? I remember when the 2007 poll came out (with a webpage design that shamed the Voice's P&J at the time), it seemed like it could potentially usurp P&J, but a third poll never came to be.

― birdistheword, Tuesday, 22 December 2020 09:56 (four years ago)

I recall Matos said once that it was an absolutely monstrous pain in the ass to do.

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 22 December 2020 11:52 (four years ago)

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