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All That Pazz
The Village Voice gives us their annual Pazz and Jop Critics’ Poll today, with predictable, transparent and delightful results. So delightful, in fact, that we consider this to be the most definitive list of anywhere anyhow. (Yay, as they say, for the Gorillaz and Three Six Mafia on the singles list and for the best album actually being the best album.)
Now for a little comparitive analysis, let’s look at the eye’s Canadian critics’ poll as compared to VV’s. Firstly, it should be noted we had a delightful time reading and participating in the eye poll, which coincidently was started by our comrade Marc Weisblott. This year, our first (and according to the Wilsonator, could be the last) year participating in the eye poll, we were anxious to add some balance to the list. As longtime TOist readers know, the eye critic picks have always stirred up the more confrontational side of us – a side which we demonstrate far too often but enjoy nonetheless (delightful). Last year we put out the attack ads, complete with menacing drums, after the Arcade Fire was slagged off without appropriate rational. We disagreed with the critic, but we still admired the balance in opinions it provided (…balance is an important word here, as is delightful).
This year, we made the same attempts at balance by voicing our distaste for a certain bible- and state-worshiping singer-songwriter named Sufjan Stevens. We don’t dislike the man, but his music has been too fawned over. Reasons:
1. Too needy. He cries, he clutches bibles, he requires female backup at all times. How will this guy make it in the real world?
2. Sonically, his music comes off a tad singular in focus. This new album, whatever it was called (Come on Feel the Illinoise? Or Illinois?), doesn’t stray much from Greetings. And if he’s doing all fifty of these, he’ll have to come up with a different schtick. No?
3. Verbosity. We get it. You took a creative writing course. But come on with the exclamation marks! (Okay, this reason wasn’t all that grand. But still.)
And, to our delight, we weren’t alone in this thought: A letter to eye this week has much the same critique. So, maybe it all comes down to balance. Maybe it’s that eye didn’t give us any quotes. Either way, the Village Voice Jop and Pazz Critics’ Poll is out today.