Parsing The Pop: Chuck Eddy’s 150-Album Top 10

mmatos | January 16, 2008 9:30 am

Obviously with all the tabulated lists to pore over, Idolator Pop ’07 offers plenty for music geeks to read and argue with. The year-end mixes, which will go up later today, will offer yet more fodder for banter. But let’s not forget the individual ballots, several of which make pretty good reading on their own. First prize for going over and above the call of duty undoubtedly belongs to Chuck Eddy, who not only offers an extra list of his 10 favorite EPs of 2007 but extends his Top 10 Albums to a whopping 150. In addition, he breaks them down by genre:

Market share for unarguably “country” releases within my top 150 is 25.33%, slightly edging out unarguably “metal” releases’ 24.67% (though for fairness’ sake, both of those numbers discount country-verging rock by people like Kid Rock, Black Angel, John Waite, and Mississippi Mudsharks, and both also exclude punk/glam/garage-leaning titles by people like the Sirens, the Eat, Black Lips, and Crash Street Kids). Market share for albums released on non-major-distributed indie labels (thus, disqualifying imprints like Big Machine, Show Dog, Wind-Up, Shout! Factory, and Blue Note) is a whopping 69.33%–104 albums out of 150. Only a baker’s dozen or so of those, though, would be likely to pass muster as Pitchfork-approved “indie rock” (though big-label releases by Lily Allen, M.I.A., Simian Mobile Disco, the Hives, White Stripes, and Modest Mouse probably would, oddly enough), which may well mean I am properly supporting alternative entrepreneurs in the age of cut-throat mega-merger post-capitalism without kowtowing to any widely marketable bohemian subculture per se’. For eight of the albums below, the only “label” I could come up with was a band website, and for probably at least another ten or so, I have serious doubts that any other artists record for the band’s label. So who knows–maybe I’m more indie than you are.

Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t, but it’s probable that Eddy is crazier than all the other voters combined. Salut!

Ballot: Chuck Eddy [Idolator Pop Poll]

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