Parsing The Pop: Thinner Margins At The Top?
One thing that’s for sure: Posting the Jackin’ Pop results has lured mathematically inclined Idolator readers out of the woodwork. One reader decided to put the poll’s results into a historical context:
Hi, this is probably the sort of thing that would only interest an obsessive-compulsive stat/list geek, but I found something that I believe places the Jackin’ Pop results in an interesting light. The Jackin’ Pop page says that 497 critics voted for 1300 different albums. According to information I got from robertchristgau.com and villagevoice.com, the 1998 Pazz and Jop had 496 critics who voted for 1242 different albums, similar numbers.
However Cookie Mountain only got 1338 points from 125 votes, a 10.7 average. The ’98 winner, Lucinda Williams Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, got 2129 points from 167 votes, a 12.7 average. While the Jackin’ Pop’s somewhat different points system accounts for part of that difference, it doesn’t explain why TVotR got 25% less votes.
Something similar happens over the top portion of both polls. The top 22 albums in the ’98 Pazz and Jop all got more points than their Jackin’ Pop counterparts, and the top 25 Pazz and Jop records got more votes. Both trends immediately reverse thereafter, and the Jackin’ Pop albums start to dominate.
So, what causes a nearly identical number of critics to vote for a similar number of albums, but with much less consensus as to what the top 20 or 25 albums were, especially the top 10 or so? Fragmentation, dispassion, just a lack of real masterpiece type records this year? Dunno, not my strong suit.
We’re guessing that fragmentation–helped along by the wide path cut by Internet distribution (of the legal and illegal varieties)–is one of the key factors here; there’s just more music now, as many voters noted in their comments sections, and while that may not result in a larger number of total vote-getters, it’s surely helped spread the points-love around, at least on the albums side of things.
Another stat set that might shed some light on this reader’s query: Glenn McDonald’s album clusters, which chart the overlap in votes between various records.
