Well, that’s it. Tag it and bag it. Unless I happen to notice a late-breaking entry from the Burlington Community Times tomorrow while getting my coffee, the publication of the Village Voice‘s Pazz And Jop poll marks the last of 2007’s year-end lists, headed up by LCD Soundsystem (album) and Amy Winehouse (singles). Now let us never speak of either again.
THE GOOD: 2007 is over! Also Feist and Wilco were both kept out of the albums Top 10, plus an honestly surprising, kinda heartening Winehouse-over-Rihanna singles upset, if only by 4 mentions. (And even if No. 2 Rihanna spanked No. 3 “All My Friends” by a whopping 32 mentions.)
THE BAD: As with the Idolator Pop Critics Poll, Peter Bjorn and John earn a Top 10 placing on the singles list despite the evil “Young Folks” first whistling its way into our lives in 2006. Damned twee Swedes.
THE WHAAAA? Radiohead beats M.I.A. to the No. 2 albums spot despite an equal number of points, thanks to four more ballot mentions that break the tie. Not quite fraud at the polls, but clearly the electoral college is not the only voting system that needs reforming.
Sure, we’re ten days into the new year, and the music year just passed has been covered in every imaginable manner, but have we heard the contributions of the true driving force in the music industry? The consumers who are keeping the leaky ship afloat? The voice of those people has been heard… through the announcement of Verizon’s top ten ringtones for 2007. The list (which is, curiously, arranged in alphabetical order) after the jump, but for now a few thoughts.
THE GOOD: I suppose the good news depends on your opinion of one-hit-wonder rap hits of the past year (Hurricane Chris, Sean Kingston, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em). Maybe the good news is that there’s only one Fergie song on there, and it isn’t “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal).”
THE BAD: “The Way I Live” by Baby Boy Da Prince, and of course, Fergie.
THE WHAAAA? With Interscope announcing that Soulja Boy hit the three-million mark in ringtones, yet had only just reached gold status as far as actual album sales, it nearly makes my head hurt to think of where the music business is going from here, or if anyone will actually be releasing songs that last more than 30 seconds by this time next year.
As a sort of companion piece to the news that Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard had been dropped from J, Entertainment Weekly‘s Hollywood Insider blog ran a list of acts that had been dropped by/defected from major labels in 2007 last week. Frankly, I’m surprised that it isn’t about a mile longer, even though it does run the gamut from on-to-better-things artists (the White Stripes, Radiohead) to bands that seem to have hard luck follow them wherever they go (Mooney Suzuki, Blood Brothers). Full list after the jump.
THE GOOD: This is a pretty depressing list overall, but perhaps Liz Phair getting dropped by her label will make her think twice before recording her next ode to getting down with the Kotaku set, “Mii And You (Pushin’ My Trigger Button).”
THE BAD: After all that will-it-or-won’t-it-come-out? drama, it looks like Amerie has been dropped from Sony, thus leaving the status of Because I Love It‘s US release date more unknown than ever. Here’s hoping she’ll make a second mix tape.
THE WHAAA? It’s not about the list per se, but the comment section of the EW post has turned into a kinda crazy-ass pissing match between JC Chasez fans and Bo Bice diehards. I mean I loved “Until Yesterday” probably more than anyone else, but really?
Because 2007 still has a few weeks/months left to haunt us–Idolator Poll comin’ soon, y’all!–we present (what might be) the last 2007 list in our Year-End Analysis feautre, one we almost forgot in our joy that the clocks had turned over at midnight on Jan. 1, and with that the promise that we might never again have to type the words “Neon Bible” between an italics tag into Movable Type: the Pitchfork readers’ poll! And guess what? We had to type the words “Neon Bible” between an italics tag into Movable Type. As Pitchfork itself notes, their reader’s Top 10 hews close to the site’s own official Top 10, but after that things “diverge.” Why? Because [insert usual former-conflict-of-interest-y caveat here] despite the site’s admirable expansion of coverage over the last five years into areas that readers might not necessarily mutiny over, who else is gonna vote the Shins for “Most Underrated Album” with a straight face, Braff jokes be damned?
THE GOOD: Consensus cynicism be damned, it’s kind of heartening that, after all the first-listen reviews and release date hype hype, people actually do seem to be repeat-listening to and enjoying the Most Important Album Of 2007. (You can decide which one we’re talking about.)
THE BAD: That said, consensus keeps great records from Roisin Murphy, Dude N’ Nem, and the Dirty Projectors, which “most often received first-place votes,” off the singles list in favor of two Arcade Fire joints, two Radiohead songs, and (less irritatingly) two Spoon and LCD Soundsystem tracks each. Democracy!
THE WHAAA?: We’ve only included the Best Albums and Best Singles list after the jump, but interestingly, or perhaps just keeping with this year’s vibe of established artists comfortably trouncing even well-regarded upstarts, only three of the winners in the Best New(ish) Act category make the album and/or singles lists, all down in the lower reaches save the expected Top 10 finish for Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.”
This weekend the BBC unveiled the best-selling singles of 2007, and not one but two contestants from U.K. reality TV singing contest X-Factor, with Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” even outselling Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” a tune that might have been inescapable for Americans this summer but haunted rainsoaked Brit listeners’ dreams. The Top 20 is after the jump, but first we gotta ask: a comedy version of the Proclaimers’ “(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles” in the Top 10? Really? Hang your heads, people of Great Britain. Hang them lower than your standards for novelty pop tunes.
THE GOOD: Idolator’s beloved Sugababes at No. 6, the somewhat overlooked (in the U.S., obviously) Amy Winehouse collaboration from that much-maligned Mark Ronson album at No. 9, and of course “Umbrella” in the runner-up slot.
THE BAD: Inflicting the wussy Braffery/wussy mall emo of the Fray and Plain White T’s on England now makes us about even for the whole unfortunate James Blunt episode.
THE WHAAA?: Both Leona Lewis and Leon Jackson–the 2006 and 2007 X-Factor winners, respectively–finish in the Top 5 despite their singles only having been released in December. That’s got to make every recent American Idol winner, even the successful ones, briefly wish they had been born across the Atlantic.
The super-indies at Magnet are waiting until the January issue to print their Top 20 albums, but a sneak peek has revealed that the mag has chosen Ween’s La Cucaracha to lead the list. It’s like God answered our yearnings for year-end variety with a big ol’ curveball made of chocolate and cheese. The rest of the list is after the jump, and it certainly sticks to Magnet‘s “bearded, bespectacled core.”
THE GOOD: Along with a bunch of already-acknowledged Idolator faves (Grinderman, Parts and Labor, Robert Wyatt, Spoon, Battles, My Teenage Stride), it’s nice to see Blonde Redhead’s somewhat-lost-in-the-shuffle 23 recieve a prominent shout-out.
THE BAD: Along with “bearded” and “bespectacled,” we forgot “penis-ed.” (Though “bearded” probably covers that well enough.) With few enough exceptions to count on one hand (with some fingers left over), it’s dudes, hairy dudes, and hairier dudes.
THE WHAAAA? Ween?
In years past, New York top 40 powerhouse Z100 turned over its Christmas programming to a commercial-free all-seasonal-music block, but they’ve abandoned that practice in recent years, no doubt because other stations had hopped on that bandwagon back in late November. (Although I would like to register a complaint about not hearing Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” at all this year until approximately 11:05 a.m. yesterday. In the NYC metro area, no less! What the hell?) In its place, the station is running its Top 100 of 2007 countdown on what seems to be endless loop, and given that I spent a lot of time in cars these past two days and this chart deviates just enough from the year-end Hot 100 to be kinda interesting, I figured I’d share it. Timbaland took the top two spots, with the “The Way I Are” placing at No. 1 and the still-not-very-good Scott Storch dis track “Give It To Me” somehow landing at No. 2.
THE GOOD: Two Pink tracks–“Who Knew and the oft-censored “U & Ur Hand”–placed in the top 10, as did Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right.” Also, Elliott Yamin wound up being the highest-charting American Idol alum of the year who wasn’t Daughtry*, with “Wait For You” (No. 19) just nosing out “Before He Cheats” (No. 20).
THE BAD: In a year that was pretty lackluster for rock-on-pop-radio to begin with, the highest-charting representative of the genre is… the limp, sub-CW-theme “The Great Escape” by Boys Like Girls, which landed at No. 8. Is it because they played the Jingle Ball? I’m seriously curious.
THE WHAAAA? At approximately 7 p.m. Monday, the Best New Artist voting (part of some listener polls that are running in conjunction with this list’s airing/trying to pad the station’s web stats before the year ends) was led by the moptopped Jonas Brothers, with Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in second place. In third place? Timbaland. Hey, if he keeps it up in the polls, maybe he could get a Disney Channel show of his own!
Pollstar’s list of the top 20 concert tours of 2007 had good news for Sting and bad news for pretty much anyone else trying to figure out if the road life would help make up the money lost by nosediving album sales. The 20 top-grossing tours–which were led by the Police’s reunion jaunt, which grossed $131.9 million–made a total of $996 million, a number that’s down 15% from last year’s top 20 total.
THE GOOD: Despite being shut out of rock radio formats that aren’t saddled with the word “classic,” the aging rock fan still has a place in the big-ticket music industry because he can still spend money. Namely, on tours by classic-rock staples like Genesis, Roger Waters, and Van Halen. OK, this isn’t “the good” as much as it is “the obvious,” but hey, something has to keep the music business hoping that its next gasp for air is slightly worth it, right?
THE BAD: Miley “Hannah Montana” Cyrus–one of only two musicians on the list under the age of 25*–comes in at No. 15, which seems low until you remember that it was the low price of tickets on the legal market (they averaged $54 a seat) that led to the sellouts, the “secondary market” freakouts, and the 400-pound Miley Cyrus statues.
THE WHAAA? Not that I like Genesis all that much, but it has to smart that their big reunion tour (which made $47.6 million) was outgrossed by the umpteenth leg of Rod Freaking Stewart’s “Trampling On Any Legacy I Still Have Left” jaunt ($49 million).
* The other: Wolfgang Van Halen. You forgot about him, didn’t you?
The only real consistency across these three lists of the year’s Top 10 albums, as compiled by the Times‘ pop critics, is the appearance of Leslie Feist: She lands at No. 2 on Jon Pareles’ list, places No. 6 on Ben Rattliff Ratliff’s rundown, and takes the top spot for Kelefa Sanneh. (Look, Idolator just refuses to believe we’re the crazy ones; that album is a nap-and-a-half.) Looking past the fact that the Times can’t even get a dude’s name right these days, we’ll momentarily drop the grousing, brought on by year-end exhaustion, in interests of holiday cheer and note that these are interesting, diverse lists (look, jazz and music made by people outside of the Anglophone world!) with the bonus of nary a Neon Bible in sight.
THE GOOD: Queens Of The Stone Age finally make a year-end Top 10 that doesn’t have the word “hotties” in it. And perhaps a well-placed Times endorsement will finally break that Tracey Thorn solo album out of sales purgatory.
THE BAD: Blah blah Feist blah blah shrug. No real beef here. It’s the Christmas miracle.
THE WHAAAA? “In a year with shockingly few big albums…” Sales-wise, perhaps true. (Perception-wise among the mass public, perhaps also true, since pop perception is always tied to sales to some extent.) But allowing for us having to redefine the world “big” in a niched-to-death music industry, didn’t most of the high-placers on 2007’s year-end lists (Radiohead! Arcade Fire! M.I.A.! Bruce!) prove we had the usual crop of traditionally crit-friendly, statement-making, and/or zeitgeist-exploiting/exploring “Big Albums”?
Entertainment Weekly becomes one of the last of the major print media outlets to weigh in on 2007 with its lists of the 10 best and five worst albums of the year as the Boss Supermans Soulja Boy, Paul McCartney unexpectedly pops up like a Whack-A-Mole among Radiocade Firehousesystem (betcha can’t guess which list), and 50 Cent gets sandwiched between OneRepublic and Good Charlotte. (Worst fanfic ever.)
THE GOOD: Thanks, EW, for pointing out the following Soulja Boy line that had somehow escaped me until this afternoon: ”Booty meat in my face, even when I be talkin’.” Booty meat! That’s so awesomely gross. It might turn me off asses* even more effectively than that Bangers And Cash cover.
THE BAD:“Now infamously troubled, Amy Winehouse risks a total eclipse of the art.” Can’t decide if that deserves boos or kudos, really.
THE WHAAAA? Did Jennifer Lopez really “[bomb] by playing the hottie card with dance-pop tunes even Ashley Tisdale would’ve dismissed as too shallow” because Brave didn’t offer “the kind of album people want to hear from a celeb of her stature… at least a smallish window into her soul”? Something makes me think that if she’d gotten the hooks right on those shallow dance-pop tunes the buying public wouldn’t have really given a shit about being denied a peek into her inner life.
