Pop and (very little) Jazz

This week the Village Voice released their annual digest of year-end music polls known as the Pazz and Jop list (don't ask my why they even pretend to include jazz as an option - Ornette Coleman squeezes in at 21, but he's the only one in the top 100). The rundown of the top ten is as follows:

1. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
2. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
3. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
4. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America
5. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
6. Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am Thats What I'm Not
7. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
8. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
9. Joanna Newsom - Ys
10. Tom Waits - Orphans

The list is a fairly predictable (though eclectic) mix of overhyped indie rock, avante Hip-Hop, chick folk, and grizzled old men writing songs about being grizzled and old. With the exception of the Artic Monkeys (who I find so ridiculously overrated that I wondered if I didn't accidentally download the wrong album) I found the list fairly unobjectionable. I was glad to see my favorite album of the year, Yo La Tengo's I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass in the top 20 along with Sonic Youth and Belle & Sebastian. Bob Dylan's place at the top along with Tom Waits at 10, and Bruce Springsteen at 19 makes me wonder whether rock critics will throw praise at any venerated musician that hasn't completely lost their spine (you'll notice that the Who don't make an appearance in the top 100).

While I thought Bob Dylan probably did make the most tasteful album of the last year, the album mostly succeeded in putting me to sleep (even if it did spawn my favorite music video of the last year), so I was disappointed to see him inch out TV on the Radio, who took a chance on a much more ambitious record. Let me also say that I was glad to see Gnarls Barkley in the top ten. Backlashers be damned, I still enjoy this album. Even though the single has worn a bit thin after the 3 millionth listen, I think I'd still rather listen to "Crazy" than "Hey Ya". Plus I have to give it up for any song that succeeds in uniting holier-than-thou hipsters with drunken club sluts (Thanks Gnarls).