This year's results for the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll came out yesterday, and it was my second year voting in it (my ballot is here). I have to admit, though, that at this point I get almost more excited for Glenn McDonald's statistical breakdown of P&J, All·Idols 2008, than the poll itself. New Times Media or somebody should really be paying McDonald for all the stuff he does -- up within hours of the poll results, no less -- including showing what albums appeared on the same ballots the most, or what voters have the most albums in common. The best part, though, is the voter centricity scale, which measures how much each voter is in line with the consensus. It'd be kind of missing the point, or perhaps a little immature, to say that it's somehow better or worse to have a more unique ballot, but I have to admit that I do take a childish little bit of pride in being in the bottom third on the centricity scale. I'm actually 20% higher up than I was last year, mainly because my #1 album, Erykah Badu, placed in the P&J top 10. This page shows how each album I voted for ranked, as well as the most similiar voters to me (which unsurprisingly includes a number of people I know and/or read regularly).

A little over a year ago, I posted a list of my 25 most anticipated albums of 2008, and in a way it was less an earnest prediction of what I'd enjoy than an experiment to see how well I could predict how the year would go down. I limited myself to artists that I knew had an album scheduled to come out that year, mostly ones that already had titles announced, and listed them in rough order of how high my expectations were. Now that the year's over, I can compare the anticipated list with my actual list of favorite albums of 2007, if they came out at all. Actual year-end rankings on the right of each album:

Apollo Sunshine - Great Mysteries Of The Old Soul : #61 (released as Shall Noise Upon)
Keri Hilson - In A Perfect World: delayed to 2009
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III: #16
Evangelista - Hello Voyager: #6
T-Pain - TBA: #43 (released as Thr33 Ringz)
Grand Buffet - King Vision: #9
Prodigy - H.N.I.C. 2: #40
Jadakiss - Kiss My Ass: delayed to 2009 and re-titled The Last Kiss
Mike Watt & The Black Gang - TBA: delayed to 2009 and titled My Shubun No Hi
Peedi Peedi - Prince Of The Roc: delayed to 2009
The B-52's - Funplex: #31
The Roots - Rising Down: #50
Nas - Nigger: #53 (released as Untitled)
They Might Be Giants - Here Come The 123's: #54
T.I. - Paper Trail: #27
The Disciplines - TBA: delayed to 2009 and titled Smoking Kills
DJ Drama and Fabolous - Gangsta Grillz: There Is No Competition: #81
B.G. - Too Hood To Be Hollywood: delayed to 2009
Mike Doughty - Golden Delicious: #44
50 Cent - Before I Self Destruct: delayed to 2009
Raconteurs - TBA: #12 (released as Consolers Of The Lonely)
Trick Daddy - Welcome To Thug Country: delayed to 2009
R.E.M. - Accelerate: #36
My Chemical Romance - TBA: delayed to 2009
Saigon - The Greatest Story Never Told: delayed to 2009

Nearly half of that list, mostly the major label stuff, was shelved in '08 pending a future release date (the inclusion of Saigon was kind of a nod toward that inevitability; I just barely gave a shit about him a year ago and certainly don't now). But if you look at the rankings that are there, there's a pretty good measurement of how albums shaped up in comparison to my expectations: Apollo Sunshine was a crushing disappointment, and Lil Wayne a milder, less surprising one. Meanwhile, Evangelista and Grand Buffet landed right about where I thought they would, and only the Raconteurs really exceeded my expectations by surpassing their debut.

I'm not gonna make another list like this for '09, but I will say that I'm still anticipating Jadakiss and Keri Hilson and Mike Watt in particular. I'm also looking forward to new albums from Erykah Badu, Sonic Youth, Ted Leo, The Alchemist, Eleni Mandell, Asobi Seksu, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Paramore, the Lonely Island, Two Tongues, Beauty Pill, U2, Kelly Clarkson, Ryan Leslie, Big Boi and Consequence. But I'm sure there'll be a lot of great stuff that I don't know about yet too, there always is.

And finally, as I did last year, here are the top 8 year-end lists I compiled in the past 2 months:
1. The Producer Power 20: The Biggest Beatmakers of 2008
2. The 20 Best Shows I Saw In 2008
3. The Top 10 Baltimore Club Tracks of 2008
4. The Top 20 (and Bottom 20) Hip Hop/R&B Remixes of 2008
5. The Top 100 Singles of 2008 part one and two
6. The Top 20 Baltimore Hip Hop Releases of 2008
7. The Top 50 Albums of 2008 part one and two
8. The Top 20 TV Shows of 2008

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23, 2009 at 12:02 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.