Pazz & Jop predictions thread

[koganbot]

I really have no clue this year. Remember that last year "Rehab" beat "Umbrella," so these people are not to be trusted, but also it was clear that the four tracks likely to compete were going to be "Umbrella," "All My Friends," "Paper Planes," and "Rehab" (which was the order they finished on Idolator).

Anyway, being clueless, I think Santogold could win both album and single, but then I also think Beyoncé could win single, since she always polls high in that category (though I don't like either "Single Ladies" or "If I Were A Boy" as much as "Crazy In Love" and "Baby Boy"). As for albums, something awful like Fleet Foxes or something that I'm ignoring like TV On The Radio will probably place high, and beyond that I can't think of any. Well, Kanye will place, but I don't know where. Scooter won't place. I really don't know about Ne-Yo - not top 10, I don't think. Vampire Weekend? As for singles that do well on poptimists, "Closer" could get in the top 20, "No Air" I don't know, probably top 40. "American Boy" will do reasonably well, "Wearing My Rolex" will probably be lucky to get top 40. "A&E" will do well. Lil Wayne is the wild card, since his album ought to place top 5, and I'd guess the same for "A Milli," but I really don't know. There's probably some mainstream respectable prestige item like last year's Plant & Krauss that I'm not remembering. And a lot that have slipped my mind.

Comments

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

A couple months ago I would have said (and probably did say) that anybody who figured Tortoise-head I mean Porpoise-head I mean Portishead would finish Top Five in Pazz & Jop has serious delusions about their critical standing in the States -- they've really never been *that* big a deal, believe it or not; both their '94 debut and '97 followup placed # 14 (never knew that til now!), and I can't imagine why they'd suddenly turn into huger potatoes 11 years later. I really don't think most rock critics in the midwest have any idea who they are, or care (beyond their being one-time prog-Sade I mean trip-hop one-hit-wonders I mean.) But now I'm less sure of all that. Not sure why; I don't *think* they've placed all that high on most magazines' iternal poll lists so far, but it's not like I've been watching out for them, either. So who the hell knows.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

"iternal" = internal

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Seriously though, can somebody explain the whole Portishead phenomenon this year to me? Is it that people actually think they've gotten better over time? Or are they just being cut slack (Metallica or Guns N Roses style but apparently more so) for, like, "hanging in there"? Which would maybe make them a sort of Gen X version of a Heritiage Artist (like also, say, Nick Cave, who U.S. critics basically didn't care *at all* about for the first two decades of his career, but now he's mysteriously somehow a shoo-in for polls like this.) (So okay, wanna know what would be cool? I didn't even think their '08 album was all that great, but what if AC/DC suddenly made *their* Pazz & Jop debut this year, after almost three and a half decades? Top 40 isn't out of the question, right?)

[koganbot]

I'm not the one to explain the whole Portishead phenomenon, but (1) interest in a band among wide swaths of critics can easily increase during the years the band stopped and when it restarted, the Dolls and the Stooges being two obvious examples (not to mention the Troggs and ? and the Mysterians etc. etc. etc.) and (2) I wouldn't be surprised if some of the critics live in the Midwest, which after all is where Pitchfork Media has its physical location. Also, though I've only heard one song from it (and only remember one song total from their first two albums), from what I've read their new sound is an actual departure. In fact, I'm told that Beth Gibbons has made zero compromises this time out: her lyrics uniformly bleak and her singing in a very 'closed' performance style, not looking for empathy.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

>zero compromises this time out: her lyrics uniformly bleak and her singing in a very 'closed' performance style, not looking for empathy.<

Sounds, um...wonderful. (Translation: stay away!)

Actually, though, I see artsy Isis/Neurosis-style metal bands in *Decibel* name Portishead as an influence these days, so who knows. Maybe they *are* a bigger deal than they useta be. (And Frank is obviously right about midwest critics, though I meant ROCK critics, like at the daily papers in, say, Dayton or Des Moines or Duluth or wherever. Real men who drink beer and eat hamburgers and old John Hiatt albums for lunch. A species that, for all I know, might be as imaginary as unicorns by now.)