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2009 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll Results

In what, believe it or not, amounts to semi big news in rock crit circles, the results of the 2009 Pazz & Jop Poll have been posted over at the Village Voice site. Thoughts? What a boring and predictable list it is. I can't say I dislike the results, but I probably could have called the top albums from a mile away. I was hoping there might be a surprise or two this year, but nothing is shocking about this year. I actually voted for three of the albums in the top ten, including the eventual winner, so I certainly played my part in adding to the consensus. I just wish the Animal Collective win hadn't been so bloody obvious. "Empire State of Mind" winning the singles list was a bit of a surprise, mostly because I was under the impression that most critics hated it, but the rest of the top ten was surprisingly indie-centric with a lot of overlap with the top ten albums (Lady GaGa and Taylor Swift did sneak in to represent the mainstream pop worlds though). I certainly fed into the hivemind even worse on the singles list, voting for a whopping seven out of the top ten. But, I won't apologize, I still legitimately believe those were the ten singles that I got the most out of this year. Despite being disappointed with the predictability of the list, I don't know that this necessarily points to critical consensus being worthless (as some over on the ILM boards may have you believe), I think it just means that we, as critics, need to spend more time seeking out niches to get lost in and not being so blind when it comes to buzz and hype. I recommend a nicely worded essay by Chuck Eddy that dives into some theories behind lazy consensus. I will say, however, that I was happy to see how well some of my favorite metal albums did, especially that nice grouping around the upper teens. At any rate, another year another list. For the curious, below are my ballots with the final placing in the overall poll noted in parentheses.

Albums
1. The Flamings Lips - Embryonic / 20 points (#9)
2. Baroness - The Blue Record / 20 points (#19)
3. Mastodon - Crack the Skye / 10 points (#18)
4. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions / 10 points (#42)
5. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion / 10 points (#1)
6. Oneida - Rated O / 10 points (#193)
7. The xx - xx / 5 points (#7)
8. Converge - Axe To Fall / 5 points (#24)
9. Shrinebuilder - Shrinebuilder / 5 points (#314)
10. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (#17)

Singles
1. Animal Collective - "My Girls" (#3)
2. Phoenix - "1901" (#2)
3. Kid Cudi f. MGMT & Ratatat - "Pursuit of Happiness" (#148)
4. Dirty Projectors - "Stillness is the Move" (#5)
5. Phoenix - "Litsztomania" (#9)
6. Jay-Z f. Alicia Keys - "Empire State of Mind" (#1)
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Zero" (#6)
8. Lady GaGa - "Bad Romance" (#7)
9. Jay-Z f. Kanye West & Rihanna - "Run This Town" (#34)
10. The xx - "Crystalised" (#33)