Village Voice's 2002 Pazz & Jop Poll
February 11, 2003 7:53 PM   Subscribe

Pazz & Jop 2002 - The Village Voice has tabulated the top albums and singles from 695 critics (and 10,2002 LPs). Some of the ballot-fillers even got a little personal. The usual essays are included. If your fav CD didn't make the cut, perhaps it made it onto the dean's list.
posted by boost ventilator (28 comments total)
 
I am not sure where I came across this link, but it sure is a pant-load of 2002 best of lists.
posted by boost ventilator at 7:55 PM on February 11, 2003


But does the village voice have an album of the year mix?

(Real Audio via BBC)
posted by iamck at 8:06 PM on February 11, 2003


Why bother to include jazz? The first real jazz album comes in at 100 (Brad Mehldau's Largo). I haven't heard the vast majority of these albums, but I find it highly unlikely that there were 115 albums released this year better than Wayne Shorter's Footprints Live!. My favorite album of the year, Dave Holland's What Goes Around, came in at a whopping #191. *sigh*.
posted by boltman at 8:42 PM on February 11, 2003


lock down your aerial.
posted by luckyclone at 10:21 PM on February 11, 2003


I know music is a subjective thing, and one man's piss is another man's vinegar and all that, but what the sam-farkin'-hell is Nelly's "Hot in Here" doing on that list? And I mean anywhere. It's a lousy year for music if there weren't 5000 singles better than that.

Also, get off my lawn. You kids have no respect.
posted by arto at 2:48 AM on February 12, 2003


I'm with you luckyclone. Mine's a Kronenberg, mate.
posted by yerfatma at 4:42 AM on February 12, 2003


Christgau is a weenie. He writes that Wilco's drummer on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was Ken Coomer. He makes a point of mentioning Coomer by name twice: "Wilco's drummer is Ken Coomer—you could look it up, and I bet you'll still have to." No Bob, I bet YOU still have to look it up, dipshit. You'd think the Dean of Schlock Criticism would bother to read the liner notes on his poll's number one record before he calls out the drummer by name. Or at least see the movie! Isn't that his job? And then: "They hire drummers who could beat Ken Coomer within an inch of his life..." What does that have to do with anything? Dean of my ass!

The drummer on YHF is Glenn Kotche, by the way.
posted by elvissinatra at 5:21 AM on February 12, 2003


And yet Christgau's reviews of rap match mine 90% of the time, which I respect in a 600 year old man.
posted by yerfatma at 5:54 AM on February 12, 2003


Yerfatma - stop trying to shag the birds and fight the geezers.
posted by brand-gnu at 6:44 AM on February 12, 2003


I used to vote but didn't this year, though I have to pipe up regarding "Hot in Herre." A great single isn't necessarily the same thing as a great song. Sometimes those categories overlap, but not always.

A good single (even an annoyingly misspelled one) is something you're happy to hear on the radio as you drive to the lake in July in a car with no air conditioning*, or, alternately, a little tuneful slice of pop from a 7-inch piece of vinyl that you don't mind going to the record player to repeat over and over. A great song is something you'd put on a mix CD for your best friend in November. In 2002, "Hot in Herre" was a great single, the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1" was a great song, and Missy Elliott's "Work It" was both. (The last vinyl single that I really loved was probably Air Miami's "Airplane Rider" in '95, so I'm dating myself.)

Not all good singles have shelf lives. By August I was ready to smack the radio whenever I heard "Hot in Herre," and mercifully it petered out around the same time it stopped being hot outside. But I'm still happy to hear "Work It," anytime.

(*at least this was the situation where I "got" "Hot in Herre.")
posted by lisa g at 6:56 AM on February 12, 2003


yerfatma: Can't speak for rap, but I agree with the general point: Xgau's writing has gotten more and more unreadable over the years, but his ears still work. Mekons and Orchestre Baobab are all-time greats.
posted by languagehat at 9:08 AM on February 12, 2003


I've not even checked their choices yet, but the phrase

Biggie is "old school" now? Damn, hip-hop is worse than Logan's Run.

made my morning...
posted by freebird at 10:17 AM on February 12, 2003


geezas geezas geezas!

my best-of-2002.
posted by Marquis at 10:20 AM on February 12, 2003


First off, nationally, the only albums that would make my best of the year list Clinic's "Walking with Thee" and Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (though to me it feels like it came out in oh say November of 2001). I can think of very small unknown bands that are putting out much better music than the groups making these lists.

Then I read this from the personals link...


My friends and I were waiting at the L train stop at Bedford Ave this August, after a day of guerilla rock and roll block parties that had included performances by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, Lightning Bolt, !!!, and Les Savy Fav. One of us, a girl, was wearing a white men's dress shirt with a skinny black tie. A guy had I AM A TERRORIST written in black magic marker on his green army-surplus pants. I definitely had my black one-shoulder messenger bag. We were passing around a copy of Vice magazine. Somebody said, "You know, this is as hip as we're ever going to be. It all goes downhill from here." As much as I hate to admit it, they were absolutely right.

Amy Phillips
Manhattan


Is this hip? DO the people of New York not have bullshit detectors? Maybe this explains the popularity of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs who have one good song (Bang) but buy their riffs wholesale from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Every line from that paragraph makes me hate humanity, with band names dropped like one would gush over celebrities, followed by an in depth discussion of fashion decisions that were played out by the mid-eighties. "I am a terrorist," please, your artistic statement must have required true deep thought, but of course she had her one strap black messanger bag.

It's things like this that make me hate being involved with music (fashion). It's things like this that make me hate New York. It's things like this that make me hate humanity.
posted by drezdn at 11:01 AM on February 12, 2003


drezn -
Oh for crying out loud, let the kids have their fun. I spent so many years angry and shocked, frankly, SHOCKED at the commodification of punk/whatever. Then I realized that

a) anti-fashion was just as much a fashion.
b) fashion and trends are at the core of what makes us human. It's not a game I really play well, but its arguably fundamental to social behavior.
c) There were much better things to be upset about - or not.

Seriously:
It's things like this that make me hate humanity.
Really? Come on. There's much better reasons.
posted by freebird at 11:10 AM on February 12, 2003


Hmm: "there's" --> "there're"
posted by freebird at 11:11 AM on February 12, 2003


Every line from that paragraph makes me hate humanity, with band names dropped like one would gush over celebrities, followed by an in depth discussion of fashion decisions that were played out by the mid-eighties. "I am a terrorist," please, your artistic statement must have required true deep thought, but of course she had her one strap black messenger bag.

Anyone who likes Lightning Bolt can't be that bad. I'm pretty surprised that people outside of Rhode Island even know who they are...

Lighten up dude.
posted by SweetJesus at 12:49 PM on February 12, 2003


Damnit. I'm from Rhode Island and I don't know who they are. Can't seem to tune WBRU in here in the Great North Woods. Also, freebird, I think I know where you're going, but we're not there yet. Or where're.
posted by yerfatma at 2:05 PM on February 12, 2003


yerfatma: you mean about correcting myself, or my neo-acceptivism?
posted by freebird at 2:35 PM on February 12, 2003


#1. I'm completely with you on the other.
posted by yerfatma at 3:24 PM on February 12, 2003


Yerfatma: WBRU doesn't play Lightning Bolt anyway. In fact, besides maybe on WRIU, Lightning Bolt doesn't get any radio airplay.

They're, uh, an acquired taste to say the least.

They also play a lot of "street shows", I guess. This past summer, on a few occasions you'd see Lightning Bolt flyers around random spots in Providence, with directions to some random street corner. You'd show up and Lightning Bolt would be in the back of a pickup truck with a stack of amps, and a portable generator. They would then proceed to slowly drive around Providence, scaring children and the elderly until the cops shut them down.
posted by SweetJesus at 3:39 PM on February 12, 2003 [1 favorite]


I mentioned WFMU's playlist / artist search on another thread; by using that, here's a link to an archived WFMU shift that features a 75-minute live Lightning Bolt set. (RealAudio.)
posted by lisa g at 8:48 PM on February 12, 2003


Sorry, I wouldn't describe myself as punk rock or anything of the sort, an old punk ethic, but not a punk.

The quote was, to me, just sad, like a "this is what I don't like about making music."
posted by drezdn at 10:56 PM on February 12, 2003


I should also mention that living in Milwaukee during winter gives anyone a giant chip on the shoulders.
posted by drezdn at 10:58 PM on February 12, 2003


here's the hipsters list.
posted by boost ventilator at 10:22 AM on February 14, 2003


I must say it is gratifying to see Spock's Beard's Snow on that list, even if it is tied with a bunch of other records that only received one vote for 635th place. It is a fine, fine album.

A lot of those records that only got one vote are probably worth investigating. I'd almost rather listen to a record that appealed strongly to one idiosyncratic critic than one that had broad critical appeal. Of course, that attitude kept me from listening to Radiohead's OK Computer for a couple years longer than I should have. And I do see one idiosyncratic critic voted for a Bon Jovi album... so it's not like this technique is infallible.

There are some errors there too. Johnny Cash's latest release is listed twice, once as American IV: The Man Comes Around and once as a one-vote for The Man Comes Around. Had these two been combined, the record would have achieved a higher overall ranking. The same thing happened to Solomon Burke.

I didn't get all the way to the end, just to the n-way tie for 917th place, but out of those I own 17.
posted by kindall at 11:46 AM on February 14, 2003


Another list from some asshole . . .
posted by mikrophon at 2:40 PM on February 18, 2003


Re: my previous post...

As close as Christgau gets to an apology:
Robert Christgau replies: In fact, both Coomer and Kotche are listed in the package, which attributes no instruments to anyone, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have figured it out—factual errors are always inexcusable. The point, however, remains the same. Of course I heard Kotche's tricked-up meters and textural fills as Coomer's attempt to keep up with the artiness at hand. No matter who played them, they don't rock, funk, or propel.

What a dick.
posted by elvissinatra at 2:42 PM on February 27, 2003


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