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The Tris McCall Report

Critics Poll 2004 -- Postscript

Some extra garbage.

We had 106 voters this year -- 37 more than our previous high total. Credit increased traffic to the Tris McCall Report for the spike. One of the biggest problems I have with Pazz and Jop is that because it's so big, it's virtually impossible for an unusual record to jump the mathematical hurdles and make a dent on the charts: idiosyncratic picks cancel each other out, and you end up with a record of whatever it was that was hyped that year. Useful, sure, but not as useful as a circumscribed poll with a well-devised slant. Has our own homegrown Critics Poll grown so large that a similar thing is happening here?

I don't think so; not yet, anyway. I always figured that if the number of participants ever broke the century mark, I'd seriously consider instituting a more restrictive policy about who gets to vote in the poll. But looking back on the list of voters this year, I'm extremely pleased with the quality of the respondents. We had a huge number of return voters: 80% of people who have voted in the poll over the last six years submitted a ballot for 2004. That included several voters who have been MIA for awhile, but who came back with force. 64 of the 106 voters in Critics Poll 2004 were Critics Poll voters in prior years.

The new voters were mostly Jerseyans who visit this site semi-regularly. But they didn't vote particularly Jersey: unlike in previous years when Jersey residents stuffed the ballot box for Ace Enders and Val Emmich and even The Wrens, local respondents were much more likely to pick Arcade Fire over a popular area indie like Hero Pattern or American Watercolor Movement. Even Jersey demigod Ted Leo was as likely to be chastised by Critics Poll voters as he was to be praised. The Roadside Graves were the only Garden State indie act to break into the top forty, and even they were outpolled by Palomar, Brooklyn's finest.

This probably tells me something about the current state of Jersey music. But it ought to tell me more about the sort of person who reads the TMR. When I first started this website, the prototypical reader was someone immersed in local indie rock culture. These days, I get regular readers who couldn't tell you what Maxwell's or Jerseybeat is. I can say with some certainty that none of those readers voted in the poll. But ballots came in from many other Jerseyans who are big music listeners, but whose obsession with the local scene is somewhat less than total. In short, I'm not writing to the Whole Sick Crew anymore.

Thanks in part to my lingering association with Scott Miller, I also continue to get responses from members of the Loud Family mailing list (seven in 2003, ten in 2004). I've never actually visited this list, but I understand the discussion of pop music over there is extremely knowledgeable. Which brings me to my second point: I was really impressed by the quality of this year's ballots. You guys weren't content to send in a bare-bones top ten. You annotated, responded at length to the smartass questions, and in general took the poll seriously. My San Francisco Giants hat is off to you.

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Before we go, I'd like to answer two other questions that have been looming over the poll. Since 2002, some respondents have been floating the idea that because of the popularity of MP3 and file-sharing, album lists no longer matter -- the full-length is a dinosaur, and only single cuts now carry any relevance. This may be true for my cousin Butch in Matawan who purchases and listens to those Jock Jams compilations. But three years into the iPod revolution, there's no sign that Critics Poll voters have given up on the LP. The proportion of votes cast for albums to votes cast for singles has remained steady. If the new technologies are changing the listening habits of our voters, I've yet to see the imprint of that change in the polls.

On a related matter, it has been suggested to me that Pitchfork reviews are now driving indie critical tastes. As you probably know, I don't really dig Pitchfork, and I don't like being open to this charge. It definitely pained me that our choice for Album of the Year was the same as theirs. But the reason I'm disinclined to visit Pitchfork isn't because I disagree with them -- it's because I agree with them too much. I always know what they're going to say, and I'm never surprised by any of their judgments. They like concept albums like Blueberry Boat and A Grand Don't Come For Free, and so do I. Judging by your ballots, so do you. If you're the sort of person who has resisted giving up on the full-length -- and as I just showed, you are -- you're going to be attracted to the same virtues that Pitchfork espouses. Pitchfork isn't determining the tastes of serious music listeners, it's a repository of conventional wisdom for people who still believe that the album form has important cultural work to do.

The Pitchfork rave of Funeral was a confirmation of something that was obvious to me the first time I spun it: here was an indie record that was really going to catch on through word of mouth. Pitchfork might have hastened its popular acceptance a little, but it did not establish it.

Okay, that's a wrap. Same time next year, folks.

View the album list

View the singles list

View the miscellany

View my ballot

 

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Hilary knows best. Here's her top ten list:

Hooray for twee indiepop! Argyle style in '05!

 

If you still want me, please forgive me -- the crown of e-mail has fallen from me.