The History Of Jop Part 9 aka Every other story is tellin you somebody died

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The Pazz and Jop poll for 1987, revisited. You get nine choices.


[Poll #832067]


1986: The Jip-Jop Wars (Poptimist Version)

1. West End Girls (38 votes)
2. Word Up (35)
3=. Walk This Way (33)
3=. Fight For Your Right To Party (33)
3=. Papa Don't Preach (33)
6=. Kiss (31)
6=. Walk Like An Egyptian (31)
8. Manic Monday (25)
9=. Rise (18)
9=. Nasty (18)
9=. Addicted To Love (18)

Comments

Re: Frank Kogan's Pazz & Jop ballot, 1987

[nicolars.livejournal.com]

How come "Point of No Return" did not make Pazz & Jop? It's one of the greatest singles of all time!

Re: Frank Kogan's Pazz & Jop ballot, 1987

[koganbot]

No freestyle track ever made it to P&J, as far as I can recall, unless you want to count Madonna as freestyle lite. (And Madonna had shamefully weak showings in P&J until "Like A Prayer.") Just as crunk and bounce and hyphy do relatively poorly in P&J now (though they do show up).

Re: Frank Kogan's Pazz & Jop ballot, 1987

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

I may be thoroughly wrong, but to my mind freestyle was so New York-centric that it didn't register at all elsewhere in the country (oh except for the Eastern seaboard, of course), and that could've only hurt its chances in the poll (though, yes, the same could've been said about early hip-hop -- and I'm also failing to account for P&J strong NY voter base).

Re: Frank Kogan's Pazz & Jop ballot, 1987

[koganbot]

Well, in general you're right, except you'll have to take in Miami to Philly to Montreal, and also San Francisco and L.A., and perhaps some other places with heavily Latino populations. And 1987 was something of a national breakout year for freestyle: between '87 and '89 Exposé scored six consecutive Top Ten hits (though there were a couple of ballads mixed in there); Company B got a song in the Top 30, Sa-fire had a song go Top 20, and Sweet Sensation had several (again, did best with ballads); Cover Girls got several in the Top 40. Around '90 these artists were still scoring hits but most had pretty much switched style to Paula Abdul type r&b pop. In the early '90s there was a slight resurgence of the genre*, with Corina going Top Ten and Lisette Melendez sneaking into the Top 40.

But you're right: P&J will generally only take in national nonhits that come from rock bohemia, with occasional exceptions coming out of hip-hop and NY dance; but freestyle wasn't Pazz & Jop's style of dance.

*first time through I'd typed "slight resurgence of the drama," which is an appropriate slip, since nothing got more dramatic than freesytyle.