January 31, 2006 by A.S. Van Dorston

The hardest thing about choosing favorite music from the past year is it hasn’t had time to marinate.One night after a movie I was eating incredibly greasy food and listening to soul music — Otis Redding and such. How can new songs compete with ones that my mother listened to on the radio as a ten year-old, I lost my virginity to, that played at a friend’s funeral?

At a New Year’s party full of meta-goths (I don’t know what to call them anymore, they’re not so anachronistic anymore, they look more like sleek characters from a William Gibson novel like Idoru), a band was playing loud originals that sounded vaguely like Depeche Mode, and I felt nothing, even during an odd cover of Phil Collins’ “In The Air.” But as soon as they stopped and the DJ started playing early 80s era New Order and such, the party really came alive. People danced, I danced, guzzled champagne, made out with my girlfriend, and felt waves of memories wash over me associated with each song. I’m not a huge nostalgist — I spend most of my time listening to new music. But I wonder, will songs this year, and last year, and next year, have the same impact on me in the next ten, twenty, thirty years?

I guess there’s a “sweet spot” of time between the age of about twelve and twenty two when everything is more dramatically burned into your brain and music is the soundtrack of the firsts in your life. Some of the songs we somewhat calculatingly jockey into positions to make some master cannon list may or may not be the soundtrack of some 15 year-old’s life right now. Are they as good? Who the hell knows without hindsight?

The Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll is like the mother of all polls. It includes the most critics/writers (795), and is the last one to be published. It’s a good time to reflect on the previous year one last time, and pick up any remaining strays you might like. I usually get turned on to a handful of albums I missed from the individual lists, though I couldn’t bring myself to deal with Mariah Carey. But the collective Pazz & Jop results, at least the top 100, isn’t nearly as interesting. I brought it up last year that on the site, there should be a hack filter for an alternative to the predictable results —

“Check this box if A) You are a newspaper journalist who stumbled upon the music reviewing gig and held onto it because it’s more fun than obituaries; B) You do not listen to more than forty albums a year or what you’re assigned to review, C) You’re one of the nutbags who voted for R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet Pts. 1-12; or D) All of the above.”

Village Voice Pazz & Jop 2005 Critics Poll

Just about exactly as I predicted, the winners were Kanye West, M.I.A., and Sufjan Stevens. Sleater-Kinney placed 4th, which was a nice surprise. Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand also placed high as expected. The rest of the items on my ballot, however, didn’t fare as well:

Opeth – 79
Patrick Wolf – 189
My Computer – 922
Editors – 341
The Rakes – 349
Field Music – 732
Robyn – 80

I won’t take it personally though. Opeth is the only one above that was released in the U.S. The rest will probably see domestic releases within the next few months. I’m already seeing reviews of Field Music, The Rakes and Robyn after the new year. Better late than never. The annoying thing is they’ll then appear again in next year’s poll. It seems to me, in the Internet age, the geographical location of where something is released is irrelevant. When it’s out, it’s out. You can stream it, download it, or buy it cheap from CD-Wow. But it goes right back to the hacks who only listen to what they’re spoonfed by the promotions departments of the domestic labels. It would be nice to see a little more passion. Any music critic worth their salt should be ravenous for anything that might be candidates for their year-end lists, and not let poor distribution and promotion get in their way. I don’t care to keep new treasures a secret. That’s just lame. The whole purpose of this site is to not let great albums remain a secret.