Pazz + Jop 2011

So the results of the latest Village Voice Pazz + Jop critics poll are in and, what do you know, I think we have an unexpected choice for the album of the year winner. I was convinced it was going to end up being that mediocre Bon Iver record (actually placed #9) or that spotty PJ Harvery record everyone else seemed to love (#2), so I was surprised to see the not too awful tUnE-yArDs album slide in at number one. I ultimately respected that album more than I liked it, but its great to see a surprise winner sitting at the top of the albums list.

The singles list did end up a little more predictable, with Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" running away with things, but I can't complain because my number 1 and number 2 choices ended up at #3 and #2, respectively.

Below is my ballot, complete with the actual placement of each album and single in parentheses. One thing you may notice is that my ballot was a little different from my lists posted here over the past week, this is due to two reasons. One, my "official" lists weren't anywhere near finalized back when I had to submit my ballot, so there was a bit of rearranging that had yet to happen. Two, I decided to take a slightly different approach to my ballot this year and bumped up a couple of my lower placing albums that I thought were deserving more attention, but otherwise might not have gotten much.

Top 10 Albums
1. Atlas Sound - Parallax [10 points] (#61)
2. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life [10 points] (#11)
3. Joy Formidable - The Big Roar [10 points] (#58)
4. The Psychic Paramount - II [10 points] (#132)
5. Mastodon - The Hunter [10 points] (#47)
6. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up [10 points] (#10)
7. The Cosmic Dead - The Cosmic Dead [10 points] (#902)
8. Falloch - Where Distant Spirits Remain [10 points] (#902)
9. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust [10 points] (#408)
10. The Atlas Moth - An Ache for the Distance [10 points] (#270)

(interesting side note, I was the only critic that voted for the Falloch and Cosmic Dead albums, the first time I've ever been the sole voter for anything on this poll)

Top 10 Singles
1. Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass" (#3)
2. Beyonce - "Countdown" (#2)
3. Lady Gaga - "The Edge of Glory" (#23)
4. Lana del Rey - "Video Games" (#7)
5. Fucked Up - "Queen of Hearts" (#51)
6. Tyler, the Creator - "Yonkers" (#10)
7. Cass McCombs - "County Line" (#22)
8. M83 - "Midnight City" (#4)
9. Britney Spears - "Til the World Ends" (#7)
10. Yuck - "Get Away" (#51)

So what does this all mean? Well, I'm pretty centrist when it comes to singles, since I voted for six of the songs that ended up in the top ten. When it comes to albums, except for those Fucked Up and Shabazz Palaces albums I'm pretty far outside of what everyone else voted for. I'm not terribly concerned one way or the other, I don't go into this hoping to be an outlier or a centrist but I do have to admit that it was kinda cool to be the sole vote for a couple obscure-ish records that I genuinely loved.

As for the real top ten albums, I don't think its actually all that terrible, outside of that awful, awful Drake record - I will never understand what people hear in such a boring personality that mopes his way through otherwise interesting productions. I do think the Bon Iver and PJ Harvey records were overrated, but neither were awful. And I'm actually kind of surprised with the Jay-Z and Kanye record getting that much love, I thought the party line was pretty dismissive back over the summer. At least its an interesting list once again.