START PAGE
ARTICLES
ARTISTS
ABSTRACT
E-MAIL ME

The Tris McCall Report

Critics Poll 2007 -- Miscellaneous Categories

Monkey power!: George drew support in the Best Singer (six votes) and Best Lyricist (four votes) categories.

Before we begin, a little more Poll XVIII love for Of Montreal. I don't usually calculate or post winners for the instrumentalist categories, because in my experience, if I've gotten 50 responses, they'll list 50 different names. This year was different, though. Kevin Barnes won a noticeable plurality among those voting for best synthesist, and an unmistakable plurality among those voting for best bassist. It's hard to begrudge him either title, since he really is one hell of a player. That wasn't always made clear on earlier Of Montreal albums (at least those made before Sunlandic Twins), but virtuoso performances on songs like "Gronlandic Edit" demonstrate why he felt comfortable canning his backup band. Bryan Devendorf of the National took away a very minor plurality in the best drummer category, and nearly everybody -- even those who hated Challengers -- praised the New Pornographers's vocal harmonies. Again.

One more thing: in a surprise development, the Most Unsexy Person In Pop Music category has become a repository for stealth compliments. Last year, amidst comments marvelling at her spectacular public implosion, Britney Spears won this category; this season, Amy Winehouse proved she could be even more thunderously gauche. "How can somebody from the UK be sooooooo Jersey?", asked Stephen Hindman, hitting the nail on the head. DaVe Lipp thanked Spears (though he could just as easily have been talking about Winehouse) "for bringing the word 'rockstar' and the phrase 'complete mess' together again." Public grossouts: they're part of the heritage.

 

Best Album Title

Lots of love for the unfathomable Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Help me out here, people: what in hell is the relationship between that nonsense title and Spoon's latest set of glassblown art-pop? Britt Daniel's official explanation doesn't help, either -- there's nothing even vaguely dada-ist about Spoon's measured approach. The wordy Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer got votes in this category, too; have I mentioned that it was a really good year for Of Montreal? Awkward, prosaic, vaguely confrontational titles were in style on the Poll this year: The Inevitable Rise And Liberation Of Niggy Tardust by Saul Williams, How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul??? by Public Enemy, The Crumbling Empire Of White People by Mr. Smolin, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Prevents Me From Being The Master by Electric Six. Paula Carino opted for something a little punchier, and more evocative -- PJ Harvey's White Chalk. "I'm not sure why", she explained, "I just like it." Me too.

 

Best Album Cover

Vanessa Chu felt that the cover art to Can't Wait Another Day was a fitting memorial to San Fadyl -- but even if you didn't know anything about the tragedy, you'd still probably find that stark subway photograph affecting. Elsewhere, things were far less elegaic: explosions of color and animation, from Life In Cartoon Motion to Places Like This, made the grade this season. Poll voters love illustrations that remind us of the storybooks of our childhoods; if Richard Scarry was on the ballot, I bet he would've won. Speaking of cartoons, The flamboyant artwork for Graduation drew plenty of support; I cannot front on the emotional efficacy of superflat or the extremely pleasing shade of purple that Murakami used. Weirdly decontextualized symbols of rock power did well, too: Justice's terrifying monolithic cross, KT Tunstall's bass-fetishism, the Liars's indie-grungy documentary photo. Here's Dan Purcell on the Liars cover: "a really elegant combination of punk-rock signifiers: the black-and-white photo (austere, journalistic, documenting the scene) that’s out of focus (‘cause we don’t care about perfection), the upside-down (oppositional, like the culture!) mic stand (the music, of course), the basement with the drop ceiling (we will rock you anywhere they have laid power lines)." Jeff Norman flashed his good taste once again, tabbing the visually-stunning Neighbor Singing by Brad Laner, an album I don't know anything about. But our winner was the Arcade Fire's black-velvet portrait of a plate of electric calamari. Just kidding, I know it's supposed to be Cthulhu.

 

Most Welcome Surprise

Now, why would you clowns be surprised that Bruce Springsteen put out a solid album? He's the Boss, the Boss, I tell you. Moreover, he's coming off one of the best sets of his career. Go back to your record collections and dig out Devils & Dust; give that baby another spin. Oh, you don't have a copy? Get out of my Garden State, and don't come back until you've got one.

 

Biggest Disappointment

"Johnny Marr and Modest Mouse is nowhere near as good as Johnny Marr and Morrissey", reports Christopher Amann. But what is, Christopher, what is? Still, it's hard for us mope-junkies not to get our hopes up: since the breakup of The Smiths, wherever Marr has gone, he's left votes for Biggest Disappointment in his wake. Modest Mouse has always done respectably on the poll, but the Marr collaboration raised expectations, and perhaps unfairly: regardless, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank picked up eight votes in the category. Oliver Lyons had some choice words for Camp Lo, and ones that, in my opinion, apply to all rappers currently fudging the distinction between their "official" and "street" releases: "thanks for just re-packaging the Fort Apache Mixtape album again, you jerks!" Radiohead, and, predictably, Rilo Kiley received some opprobrium in this category, too. But despite their eighth-place finish in the Poll, this year's Biggest Disappointment belonged to The Arcade Fire. The ecstatic critical reception of Neon Bible came under attack, too; many of you saw the response to the Arcade Fire's sophomore release as symptomatic of a 'net journalistic establishment that appears to have lost all sense of proportion. An irate Ben Krieger voted for "pretty much anyone who wrote about music", before continuing, "the lack of a single well-thought review (positive or negative) regarding the Arcade Fire record springs to mind. Trouser Press states 'A rewarding, resonant album, Neon Bible ranks among the best indie rock recordings of all time.' Besides a brief description of the album, there is no further explanation for this statement. This was the first year that I barely picked up a magazine, barely followed a blog. Boring, boring, pathetic and predictable." I remember a few years ago, Marisol Fuentes voted for the Internet as her Biggest Disappointment; seems like you guys are beginning to agree.

 

Worst Song Of The Year

Sean Towey voted for himself. There's one every year; this is Jersey, we're self-deprecating like that. Sean, there's no way that's true, and besides, you're not a hater. Leave this category to literary demolitions experts like me and Jens Carstensen. Jens managed to round up many of the unpopular favorites in this sweeping comment: "Well, it was going to be 'Rehab', until I heard 'Niggy Tardust' by the Lenny Kravitz of hip-hop, Saul Williams. I assumed he was a lock until I came across 'Antichrist Television Blues' by Arcade Fire. Then, after hearing it for about the 14th time, I finally decided that it's the song where the chorus goes 'I wiggle my toes and I crinkle my nose'. Yeck." Indeed, Colbie Caillat turned stomachs this year; one voter compared listening to "Bubbly" to the experience of walking in on one's parents screwing. Which reminds me -- there's something about this category that elicits sexually-explicit responses. Hey, I'm not complaining, I'm your filthy uncle. The most inspirational, as you might expect, came from Zach Lipez, who voted for "Feist's 'Sealbabymamacide', or whetever it's called. Nina Simone? Really? When I'm tossing around some weirdo, and I don't want to come early, I think of all the girls who like Feist having boners with all the boys who like Dirty Projectors, and wammo!, I'm Sting." Zach, you never disappoint. But the hyper-sexual -- and admittedly terrifying -- Stacy Ann Ferguson was the winner by consensus; some picked "Glamorous", some picked "Big Girls Don't Cry", some opted for "Clumsy"; Bradley Skaught covered all bases by picking "some Fergie song". I actually thought that her production was, in general, pretty hot. Finally, Tom Snow, exiled from the Garden State to Geneva, chose Euro-annoyances Take That: "'If you stay with me girl/ we can rule the world' has got to go down as one of the most bizarre choruses in pop history". Tom, not if you imagine Bill Clinton singing it.

 

Best Singer

Man, I really need to hear this Sharon Jones. She's fifty years old, she sings raw soul, and she records for an indie label in Brooklyn? How the hell did I miss this? Vrinda Patel called her "the real Amy Winehouse"; Vrinda, it pains me to report that Jones lost to Winehouse by a single vote in this category. Also polling well: Thom Yorke, Linda Thompson, Will Robinson Sheff, and the lovable monkey at the top of this page. Oh, and the incomparable Eleanor Friedberger drew five votes in this category, and four more in...

 

Best Rapper

It's not as absurd as it sounds. Her flow on "Automatic Husband" is pretty nice; icy-cold, but nice. Moreover, Eleanor Friedberger's sense of time is at least as good as Jeezy's. As the Grace Slick of her generation, it suits her to emcee a little. Her showing in this category is definitely the best in Poll history by any thin white woman from Oak Park, Illinois. The top of the category, though, belonged to the quartet of perennial indie-kid favorites: Jay-Z, Kanye West (who really was better on the mic this time out), Ghostface Killah, and Lil Wayne. Mr. West and Ghostface picked up twelve votes apiece, Jigga landed unlucky thirteen, and Weezy took the title with fourteen. That's without counting Jonathan Andrew's confession: "Lil Wayne says he is, and who am I to argue?" He's definitely in the conversation, as Mike and the Mad Dog like to say.


Song That Got Stuck In Your Head The Most

That infectious "woo hoo, wee hee" from "The Sweet Escape" snagged some of you guys; others found themselves singing "Us v. Them", over and over again. As Billy Joel demonstrated, songs with well-recorded whistling are always catchy; Peter, Bjorn & John were taking notes in rock school that day. Let us not forget the outbreak of ella ella eh eh eh madness that gripped the nation (or just Downtown Jersey City) during June '07. Steve Carlson had these choice words for Maroon 5: "If Adam Levine isn't writing lines like, 'It's not just rainbows and butterflies, it's compromise,' he's still using gratuitous F-words in his choruses or talking about shooting guys in an attempt to sound hard or something, despite the fact that he weighs about as much as my right leg and would probably snap in half if I breathed on him wrong. I hummed 'Makes Me Wonder' a lot this year, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it." Others felt his pain. But many more of you found yourself coping with pop earworms from high-profile advertising campaigns: the song formerly known as "Wraith Pinned To The Mist" (but now generally referred to as "Let's Go Outback Tonight"), Natasha Bedingfield's solicitation to "feel the rain on your skin" for Pantene, Leslie Feist's gussied-up iPod commercial, and, above all, that maddening reggaeton spot for IO Digital Cable. As Chuck D told reporters during the Sister Souljah controversy, you people need to stop watching so much television.

 

Artist You Don't Know, But You Know You Should

"Let's just rename this the Jens Lekman award", says DJ Mike Cimicata. Two albums and seven hundred EPs in, and many of you still haven't picked up on the affable Swede with the magic-lesbian friend. Jens Carstensen's reasoning was more personal, or maybe more paranoid: "I mean, another Jens? I should really know who i'm up against." But most voters seemed resigned to their ignorance this year; Anna Howe named "Wilco -- but I never will" in this category. Why not, Anna?, they're always playing over the in-store sound system at Tunes. Pitchfork hyperbole has created substantial anxiety surrounding Dan Deacon, Burial, and Panda Bear. "If I don't have Person Pitch on my iPod", asked Stephanie Mercado, "does that mean I'm not allowed in Williamsburg?" (Everybody's allowed in Williamsburg, Stephanie, it's getting out that's difficult.) Meanwhile, Dakkan Abbe interpreted this category differently, turning it around on those readers who've slept on Ears Like Golden Bats. He's right, you should all know about that.

Album That Felt Most Like An Obligation To Get Through

So one day a high-profile, well-regarded rock band announces that their new album will be available on the Internet at a flexible price determined by You the Downloader. Hot damn, pay what you want?, how about nothin'? Hot damn, a free album! That Mackenzie report isn't due on the CFO's desk until next Friday, things are pretty dull around the office; time to direct my web browser to the appropriate site, fill out the required forms, and commence some legit file-sharing. And there it goes!, I'm watching the pixels add up on the screen, I'm participating in the demolition of the record industry as we know it! After this, nothing will be the same! Look, there it is on my portable MP3 player, digital proof that I was present at the revolution. I stuck it to the man! Wait, now I'm supposed to actually listen to it? What, uh, what do you mean?

 

Song That Would Drive You Craziest On Infinite Repeat

"Due to the nature of my work", insists Jay, "everything I listen to is on infinite repeat." That's not even the best of his ballot -- there's also his answer to the question before this one. "Every album is an obligation to get through when you're getting paid to make it." Then there's his thoroughly-botched production job: "anything recorded in Williamsburg." His album that wore out the fastest? "They don't wear out, they get saved to another hard drive." Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jay Braun!

 

Most Overrated

I thought Radiohead had finally won. Maybe I was just swayed by Efrain Calderon's strong words: "Radiohead is OVERRATED. Hear those same songs live and you'll see how they ruined the simple arrangements by having the obligatory humming and buzzing of robotic whatnot." Then I counted the votes and found that Yorke and company had been edged out in this category by M.I.A. Here's Jonathan Andrew, again, covering both acts: "I don't think many of the journalists who are falling all over themselves to praise her have the necessary contextual knowledge to understand what she's doing. Lord knows I don't. They just don't want to seem unhip, so they tow the 2008 rock-crit party line. I think Radiohead has received a lot of 5-star reviews this way as well, going back to Kid A." Feist, Modest Mouse, and Arcade Fire were strong runners-up, but Ben Krieger, among others, reminds us that this isn't necessarily a negative category. "Overrated usually just means that nobody has thrown down a positive review I can respect. Notice how Pitchfork gave them [Arcade Fire] a lukewarm write-up but jacked the score up to 8.4?" Then there's Brian Block, who, as usual, took the longer view. His vote? "That cut-off-his-own-ears guy who did 'Sunflowers'. It's vaguely pretty, but forty million dollars?"

 

Most Thoroughly-Botched Production Job

I'm not sure why I run this category in the miscellany but I don't print its sunnier opposite. Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was the plurality favorite for best-produced album, "though that doesn't mean it's good", cautions Omar Velez. There was no clear consensus this year on a record that had been screwed up by its producer, but Michael Liska's assessment of Devendra Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Mountain was, I believe, typical of a prevailing trend. "The album is choked to death in plate reverb. And I love reverb." Could Poll voters, at long last, be tiring of the endless echo chamber?

 

Hoary Old Bastard Who Should Spare Us All And Retire

Bill Chappell weighed in with this timely response: "Rudy G., and I'm feeling pretty good about it." 15% in Florida will get you a one-way ticket back to the Big Apple. We've got the primaries on our minds: don't blame us, blame that damned Anderson Pooper. In keeping with the theme, Meredith Conway voted for Dick Cheney. I wasn't aware he was still putting out records; I thought he'd classified them all. Ba-dum-pum, chchhh! Get me that Air America show! Marisha Chinsky did Merry one better, gunning for the Chief himself. I'm pretty sure she'll be getting her wish, and soon enough; did you folks watch that pathetic attempt at a State Of The Union address? My God, he is just dying to go home, isn't he? Traditionalists will note that Rod Stewart still got his votes in this category -- it wouldn't be a Critics Poll if he didn't. But this year's "winner", sad to say, is my all-time favorite instrumentalist and singer. "Paul McCartney", demands Lori Key, "will you please stop puckering at me in Starbucks?"

 

Young Upstart Who Should Be Sent Down To The Minors For More Seasoning

Tie between Nelly McKay, who always wins in this category, and Lily Allen, who looks likely to give her a run for her money for the next few years. If Kate Nash doesn't get in on the action, that is. Sherri Locker pleased me immensely by voting for Calvin Harris here (bless you, Sherri), and for Sufjan Stevens in the Most Unsexy category (bless you x1,000, Sherri).

 

Trends for 2008 (in your words):

Brad Luen: T-Pain becomes self-aware, initiates war between men and machines, which turns out to sound a lot like Eurodisco.

Tom Snow: Hmmm, what musical trend will the Pitchfork backlash generate? Bands making concept records dissing entire Midwestern states? Lil' Wayne releasing a mixtape called "Bitchfork?" (although I guess that wouldn't qualify as a "trend," would it?).

Steve Carlson: Indie pop has become ever more crowded with idiosyncratic arrangements and unusual instruments. I think the time has come for a klezmer/theramin/keytar trio. Top that, Fiery Furnaces!

Hank Kalet: Hip-hop klezmer.

Oliver Lyons: Klezmer.

Bradley Skaught: Hambone.

Jonathan Andrew: Artists breaking through in TV commercials.

Sherri Locker: Glockenspiels, theft, Starbucks music marketing.

Brian Block: Starbucks's boutique line of indie metal.

David Urbano: Bad haircuts and make-up.

Christine Saliceti & Chris Acosta: Music/phone/iPod/MP3 all in one -- downloads will go through the roof.

Christopher Amann: VolumeWars/Compression/Mixing for laptops and iPods.

Mitchell Manzella: Horns, horns, horns.

Stephen Mejias: Salsa, I hope.

Sarah Gentile: Bands ditching the bass player.

Brad Krumholz: Bands with two bass players.

Jens Carstensen: People finally admitting they like screamo.

Efrain Calderon: Whistling was indeed the trend of '07. Artists tooting their own human horn include: Paul McCartney, Good, Bad & the Queen, Albert Hammond Jr., Peter Bjorn and John, Andrew Bird...

Zach Lipez: Cop Shoot Cop/early 90s NY noise-rock revivalism (fingers crossed).

Jim Testa: Grunge revival.

Joseph Coscarelli: Yacht rock revival.

Joey Bullock: Psych.

Stephen Hindman: Electro bangers.

Steven Matrick: Sequencer rock.

Thomas Coyle: Stuff like Burial.

Andrew Spaulding: L.A. noise wave.

John Gleason: New bands sounding like bands I liked in high school. Small Factory and New Bad Things should sue.

David Singer: People will start to care about SONGS again.

Billy Gray: Sequels to hip-hop singles (another remix to "Ignition", maybe?)

Jason Paul: Un-gangster rap

Sean Towey: Bare rock and roll.

Hunter Harris: (in my head) polymorphic bassline/grime&b crossovers, post-Disney (pre-)teenpop.

Marisha Chinsky: Miniature daschunds in bags.

Lori Key: Not sure if it's a trend, but I hope it becomes one--artists (like Nine Inch Nails) releasing multitrack songs.

Mike Atari: Downloading albums with donations a la Radiohead.

Paula Carino: "Pay what you think is fair" pricing.

Hans Gutknecht: Giving your music away for free.

Brian Wilson: Death of the music industry.

Matt Sirinides: Brooklyn synth/punk/nostalgia trips.

Robin Eisgrau: Old bands reuniting.

Marisha Chinsky: The Mighty Boosh (British comedy TV show) will be HUGE in the U.S. in '08.

Milton: Glorifying ignorance, apathy, and compulsive consumption.

DaVe Lipp: Artists doing reality shows.

Sue Trowbridge: TMZ'ing of rock continues (Winehouse, Britney Spears, etc.)

Marisol Fuentes: Combing through the Urban Dictionary to come up with cool new obscene rap songs about weird sexual practices that nobody actually does. What will happen, you see, is that rap executives will scan the site until they find an obscure term, like "Mesa Sunrise", and then they will call up Soulja Boy, or Soulja Girl, or Paramilitary Boy, or Navy Seal Girl, and they will record a song using that term. The chorus will go "Mesa Sunrise that ho!, or "Green Lantern that ho!", or "Acererak the Demilich that ho!", and it will be a huge hit! Eventually, all the novel obscenities will be used up, and the major labels will pay graduate students to invent new ones. But that isn't until 2009.

Ben Krieger: No-brainer…it’s an election year.

Mike Cimicata: A giant sucking sound.

Pat Pierson: Nothingness.

 

Additional comments and assorted additional smart-assed questions:

Hunter Harris: Well, actually, I kind of wish I didn't know what "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" was about. Thanks, Tris.

Zach Lipez: If you think re-interpreting Nina Simone or Black Flag is a good idea, you're probably a smart, reasonable person. Your parents wasted no tuition money on you. And I don't hate you. Just because this is online, that's no justification for spewing venom over, at the end of the day, entirely narrow and unimportant musical differences. But I will say this...I'm glad we're not dating. There's things that appeal to me that would probably leave you a little queasy.

Tom Snow: 2007 was the first year I can remember where I did not buy a single album in a "hard" format: I bought everything I listened to this year through iTunes. For some reason, most artists now feel obligated to tack a few bonus tracks on all their iTunes album releases. I guess if one/Steve Jobs has decided that the unit of consumption is now the individual track, and that the list price of each individual track is $0.99, one could come to the conclusion that adding track to an album effectively offers a discount ("buy 10, get 2 free!"). The problem with this strategy is that it often makes the experience of listening to an album worse, not better. Some songs are meant to close albums, others are meant for a B-sides compilation better left to more rabid fans and other idlers. "We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling" should be the last thing you hear when you spin Hissing Fauna, not some bonus track.

Dan Purcell: If “Sexual Eruption”/”Sensual Seduction” and its ridiculous video had been released in 1995, people would have lost their minds. Are you kidding me? At the height of Tarantino-mania? Sweet Jesus. But of course Snoop wasn’t ready to wink at his audience back then. These days he’s full-time Reality TV Snoop. Murder is no longer the case that they give him; now they give him a case of single-malt Scotch. Anyway, I do think we should all take note that, in the past 20 years, Compton g-rap has moved from Eric Wright’s “I may be a woman beater/But I’m not a pussy eater” to Snoop’s “I’m gonna take my time/She gon’ get hers before I/I’m gonna take it slow/I’m not gonna rush the stroke.” Even if the world is otherwise going to hell in a handbasket, that’s something we all should be able to raise a glass to.

Ben Krieger: I feel as if many musicians are behaving like adult children of alcoholics, out on their own but carrying a bunch of baggage and learned behaviors that they just can’t shake. Following that analogy, it might take another generation for us to see a substantial number of musicians who are truly living outside the grips of the record industry and doing some interesting things.

Jay Braun: I don't feel cheap about liking music, but liking music seems to be getting cheaper.

Paula Carino: It didn't make me feel cheap, but a little unsettled, to second the critics on the Shins and Radiohead. I really liked both of these albums and I really didn't want to.

Efrain Calderon: [on In Rainbows.] Press stunt, bullshit, they sold it anyway and released it on a day when records stores are closed, asses.

Joey Bullock: Album I've had the longest but haven't listened to yet -- Radiohead's In Rainbows.

Joey Bullock: Smokiest live show -- Devin the Dude (ridiculous).

Andrew Spaulding: Best show -- Boredoms: Boredrum: 77 drums.

Sarah Gentile: Artist I don't get why people like -- Rilo Kiley.

Brad Krumholz: Album that should've been shorter -- Cassadaga, and it should've been 100% shorter.

Ben Krieger: Most continually misunderstood artist -- Brian Wilson. There are a lot of acts taking their production/arrangement nods from the surfer boy, but they seem to forget that Brian’s music resonated with the listener. It resonated immediately. These acts also fail to even approach Brian’s vocal harmonies. And I’m sorry, but the rest of those pet sounds -- now that they’re out there in the universe -- are easy to mimic with a bit of reverb and a room full of toys. I have to wonder if the staff at Pitchfork ever really connected with “Don’t Talk Put Your Head on My Shoulder” or are they just suckers for aural wallpaper. Panda Bear. Pshhhah! Why doesn’t Lindsay Buckingham get the credit he deserves in this department? I am so tired of praise being heaped upon musicians who know their way around the studio, but not the heart.

Dan Purcell: Worst rapping -- Birdman’s verse on “100 Million” is just godawful. At this point, the guy has delivered positive value on the mic like once in his career (“Get ‘Em High” from The Mind of Mannie Fresh, if you’re keeping score). Let me get this straight: you’re the label owner who raps? What do you think this is, Brewster’s Millions?

Dan Purcell: Band that is no longer getting it done and should break up -- Modest Mouse. Really, they were done on the last record. People were like, “Johnny Marr,” as if that meant anything, as if they’d acquired a superstar, a Jack White or Stuart Murdoch or somebody, rather than a complementary player. The result was exactly what happened when the aging Scottie Pippen went to Houston in the 1998-99 strike year: in an uncomfortable setting, he aged in dog years and couldn’t pull the team out of its decline, and the expectations of the fanbase were dashed. This record is just a bunch of annoying pop songs with awesome guitar tones.

Matt Houser: Best video -- Ola Podrida -- "Lost And Found"

David Reynolds: Best website -- www.blogotheque.net/takeawayshows

Jackie Roman: Best use of a non-traditional instrument -- Shilpa Ray of Beat The Devil.

Michael Liska: Best use of a non-traditional instrument -- Wouldn't you like to know? I'll take the secret to my grave. Oh, wait, "best use of a non-traditional instrument"? For a second I thought you said "best non-traditional use of an instrument".

George Pasles: Best use of a non-traditional instrument -- pleasuring one's self with a zither.

Brian Block: Tori Amos's new one just missed the Top Ten; terrific album as usual, but her calling herself a mother she'd like to fuck would be a lot more intriguing if I thought she'd said that on purpose.

Jens Carstensen: Last year, I proposed nominating the "Snake on a Plane" award, for the band who went from obscurity to web-darlings-back to obscurity in the same calendar year. I had a lot of trouble with this one for '07: the Amy Winehouse deathwatch guarantees she won't be going away until/unless she has the wherewithal to attempt a follow-up; Tay Zonday is too obvious; hype for Vampire Weekend and Yeasayer came along about 3 months too late and thus will carry over into 2008 for a brief spell. So, uninspired, but closest to correct: Lavender Diamond.

Robin Marie van Maarth: That song "Shut Up and Drive" was written by 2 dudes in the key of D using the automobile and what one does with an automobile as an allusion to sex. And it was sung by an R&B pop singer. I wish I had written that song -- I even like the extremely familiar repitition of the pre-chorus and the sing-song walk-up/down of the chorus and then the blunt statement of "shut up and drive". I guess I like the key of D too. I think it's stupid and embarassing, but I love it. I love that song. Nice job everybody.

Dan Purcell: “Mistaken for Strangers” is about waking up and realizing you are a commodity, finally understanding in your gut that all your furtively cultivated individuality, all the paintings and movies and records and restaurants you like so much that contribute to your self-image as a person of substance, mean next to nothing. That everyone can and will be replaced; that, once you’re gone, the world will go on smoothly without you. As an urban professional in his late 30s who spends too much time at the office, naturally I relate. And even if you’re an indie-rock fan, you can still give it up for the drummer: Bryan Devendorf kills you on this one, but so softly you don’t even notice.

Jonathan Andrew: Even though he's marginalized in Brendan O'Brien's ProTools playground, Garry W. Tallent still provides the bottom like few ever have.

Milton: If a recording doesn't sound like digitally squared off, oversaturated, aggressive piece of navel gazing un-subtlety, did a tree still fall in the woods?

David Urbano: The kids depend too much on computers and Google to make anthing orginal in the good song dept. Where are the good polical songs?, ...and why does Britain kick our ass in this deparment?

Hunter Harris: Finally succumbed to teenpop after all these years (at least Aly & AJ and Ashley Tisdale). I think next year it may be my new favorite genre, for better and for worse. Sort of made peace with modern rock this year (at least Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, and Queens of the Stone Age -- also metallish: High on Fire, Dillinger Escape Plan). But this was clearly the year of R&B (American in fine form, and the best year for the UK since the heyday of 2-step).

Steve Carlson: I think one day this summer, I heard "Beautiful Girls" five times in one day. By the end of that day, I was rooting for the girl to split up with Sean Kingston just so he'd off himself.

Kerry Kennedy: No witty comment this year, sigh.

S. Asad Raza: Didn't understand your diss of Chromeo in the Abstract: why does it matter if one's a grad student in French? Didn't like that at all, Tris! And you make arguments hanging on the same hook about Lavender Diamond and Of Montreal... Education = responsibility? Not fair.

Jens Carstensen: The inadvertent creation of Indie Rock Baseball resulted in me being exposed to more new music in one year than i had been since, seriously, probably my mid-20s. And I heard a lot of stuff i really dug. I also now think that years past when I griped, I just wasn't trying all that hard. Mind you, a lot of it was stuff that got absolutely no press, or was generally reviled by those who did bother to write about it (unless you wanna tip me off to the music blogger that will cop to liking Gallows). When even The Onion doesn't seem to get it right, it's easy to become discouraged. But, by forcing myself to look -- gotta write about somebody after all -- it kinda became fun again. People used to have to dig through record crates, now they have to dig through MySpace profiles. Not the same sort of experience, but a lot more convenient. And, just like fishing, it only takes a few nibbles to keep you going. Then you can retain your pious approach to hating buzz bands like Animal Collective by being able to offer relevant counterexamples, you know, like "fuck that, have you heard Ariel Pink"? Solutions, that's what I'm all about now.

Jon Robb: I bought two new albums this year, (Shins and New Pornographers) neither of which I enjoyed. I spent the year happily watching the Phillies win the East (sort of), re-acquainting myself with old Pavement albums, grooving to the Sonics and 13th Floor Elevators, and generally turning a deaf ear to new music. I also bought a house and had a baby, so disposable income was at an all time low (and I'm not big on downloading). I did like what little I heard from Panda Bear. I read about new bands; I just don't listen to them.

Bill Chappell: Last year I said we we see Disneyfication of pop music, and we got the Hanna Montana "live" show ticket scandal. I also predicted noise on the Palomar record, and we got the Rick on overdrive in several songs. And Bomb.Repeat.Bomb was crushing live.

Marisol Fuentes: Last year I boldly predicted more music based on D&D, and you rock people really let me down. How about music based on webcomics about D&D? Would that be easier for you?

Marisol Fuentes: From Legazpi City it is hard to follow the progress of your Democratic primaries, but it seems to me that Clinton vs. Obama might be the Gotterdammerung of identity politics. After this, all prior identity categories will be dissolved, and new identity categories will form around the D&D classes/races we most resemble, like elven illusionists, or chaotic neutral gnome thieves.

Tom Snow: Over here in Geneva I listen to basically two radio stations: "Couleur Trois," which plays very cool Anglo-European music and hip-hop, and "WRS," the English-language station, which mainly caters to expat Brits. For some reason, I feel cheaper about listening to WRS as much as I do, but my French isn't that great, and sometimes you need to hear the weather report in English. There was a stretch of time this fall when you could tune into that station without hearing "Goodbye Mr. A "by The Hoosiers. The only thing more annoying than that song might be the way that the British DJs say the band name: "HOO-zee-uhs." Monmouth County never looked so attractive.

Robin Eisgrau: Best music of '08 -- Joe Jackson's Rain, from what I've heard so far.

Ben Krieger: Hoary old bastard who should spare us all and retire -- Jann Wenner. But fuck, man -- if Ian Hunter keeps rocking through his seventies like this, maybe it’s the rest of us who should retire.

Dan Purcell: Will still be making good records in 2017 -- If Ian Hunter, currently 68, is alive in 2017, and I’m sure we all hope he will be, then the answer is “Ian Hunter.” Ian Hunter, the man who, in four minutes with “Standin’ in My Light,” said what took Roger Waters the better part of three records. He wrote Mott. He wrote the single angriest, most righteous lyric in rock and roll history, the glorious home stretch of “The Moon Upstairs.” For forty years now, he has been an artist always willing to strike a blow against simpering ironic distance and in favor of heedless, if potentially unwise, commitment. God love him, may he live forever.

Mike Atari: A crackhead in NYC claimed 50+ of my CDs.

Bradley Skaught: I really thought Crazy Frog would come strong in 2007, but he/it really let me down.

Melissa Surach: It's really annoying when my boyfriend plays Guitar Hero in his underwear in the living room for 5 hours while I work on my shitty freelance work.

Tom Snow: Oddest career move -- Alex James now lives on a farm in Cotswald and makes cheese.

Sean Towey: Great '08.

Steve Schiltz: Who the hell is Tris McCall?

*************

 

Step this way to the album results.

The singles results went thataway.

My own ballot looms large on the horizon.

My uptight final word will ruin your Casual Friday.

Prior miscellanies:

Poll XVII (2006)
Poll XVI (2005)
Poll XV (2004)
Poll XIV (2003)

 

 

Critics poll winners over the years:

 

I know a place where no e-mails go. Hey!