The results of Pazz & Jop, the Village Voice’s annual music critics poll, hit the WWW this morning, and .007 percent of the world’s abuzz over the outcome. Josh Bis broke the news earlier, and in this space I’d like to elaborate just a tiny bit about my ballot. 2011 was the year I contributed a minuscule speck of gray matter to the music-journo hive mind with my inclusion of Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up, which placed #10 in the album poll. I am a shameless sellout. But I don’t feel bad about it, because Black Up is a once-in-a-lifetime explosion of hiphop genius that deserves every iota of hype it’s garnering.

My next flirtation with being in lockstep with my colleagues occurs at #74, with Demdike Stare’s Tryptych, an epic, hauntological electronic masterpiece making a surprisingly high appearance. I am a shameless sellout. It was also fulfilling to see such near-misses from my list as Danny Brown’s XXX (#28), Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica (#35), Clams Casino’s Instrumental Mixtape (#61), and Peaking Lights’ 936 (#106) come in at fairly lofty positions.

Surprisingly low on the scale were such worthies as Ty Segall (#100), Thee Oh Sees (#103), the Field (#111), Rustie (#113), Battles (#122), and the Dirtbombs (#170). (If you’re into schadenfreude, the Head and the Heart’s self-titled album limped in at #172. Even my beloved weirdos Psychic Paramount (#132) and Andy Stott (#157) ranked higher. Booya! If you’re into WTFs?, Sun Araw’s monumental Ancient Romans checked in at #276. Outrageous!)

As for the “Singles” chart, my top one was #68, Burial’s “Street Halo.” I am a shameless sellout. Other than that, though, my top songs of 2011 didn’t share much overlap with other music scribes’. Shabazz’s “Swerve” only reached #226, and shit gets really long-tail-y with this chart, as any song qualifies as a single in VV’s game. Most of my babies tied for last with one vote each at #604. Boo hoo.

Scanning the top 20 albums, I see a handful that I wouldn’t kick out of bed (the Roots, EMA, Kurt Vile, PJ Harvey, St. Vincent, Shabazz, of course), but most of the entries leave me apathetic. However, looking at the P&J top 20 singles, I feel as estranged from the mindset of my peers as I’ve ever felt. (Are we even the same species?) Still, ultimately, I am a shameless sellout. (Please read my motherfuckin' ballot, kthxbye.)

• Josh Bis
• tUnE-yArDs

Meanwhile, Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" came out on top of the singles ballot, just ahead of Beyoncé's "Countdown", Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass", M83's "Midnight City", Jay-Z & Kanye West's "Niggas in Paris", and six hundred other songs from 2011. Dig into all the results (all of that data is available, just begging for all sorts of deeply geeky statistical interpretations), peek into individual critical affections (including the mystery reveal of the other half of Dave Segal's ballot and my own curious definitions of what counts as a single), and deep thoughts about what it all means at Pazz & Jop.

update: so much data wrangling at needlebase.

• In the Red

Instead of a conventional list, i.e. one representing the year that has just come to a conclusion, here's a blast from the past—or at least a tiny explosion. In checking my email archives, it's the oldest one I could find. A hard drive crash destroyed all prior data, though there are a few older lists floating around on paper and in archived form (I was a member of the independent music mailing list, Chugchanga, for a decade and many of us would submit top 20s each year). At the time, I was writing about music for the All Music Guide, Amazon, and Tablet.

Top 20:
1. The Dirtbombs - Dangerous Magical Noise (In The Red)
2. The White Stripes - Elephant (V2)
3. Holly Golightly - Truly She Is No Other (Sympathy for the Record Industry)
4. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)
5. Benjamin Biolay - Negatif (Virgin France)
6. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Pig Lib (Matador)
7. Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound (Warp)
8. Quasi - Hot Shit (Touch & Go)
9. Various Artists - City of God [original soundtrack] (Milan)
10. The Clientele - The Violet Hour (Merge)

Conclusion: my taste hasn't changed much over the years. More below.

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To follow up on this post on my Pazz & Jop ballot from yesterday… I didn’t really listen closely to Oneohtrix Point Never’s latest album, Replica, until after I’d finalized my ballot, so my fave cut from it, “Explain,” failed to make my top-10 tracks list. A tragic turn of events, for sure. But I’m going to partially compensate for that gross mishap by posting about “Explain” here.

The last track on Replica (a strong album all the way through, by the way), “Explain” is like a prolonged, rapturous sigh of relief after a long, arduous journey. It strikes me as what would’ve transpired if My Bloody Valentine, still wondering what the hell to do after releasing the paradigm-shifting Loveless in November 1991, had collaborated with Seefeel, MBV’s closest competitors for the shoegaze throne, in 1993, when Seefeel dropped their aqua-solar-dub debut EP, More Like Space. The word "heavenly" gets tossed around too casually by music reviewers (I may have done it cavalierly myself in my younger, less disciplined days), but in this case it's totally justified. "Explain" proffers a gilded, lavender-scented ladder to a much lovelier, loftier realm

The Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop poll of the nation’s music critics is a big deal… to the 1,500 or so music critics who participate. This yearly stock-taking of the critical hive mind typically reminds us of the conservatism and herd mentality of the country’s opinion-havers on the music beat. There are a handful of writers whose lists deviate from the predictable norm, and you can determine who they are by a gauging system of selection similarity that accompanies the results (some guy with too much time on his hands tallies these stats; may Allah deluge him with blessings). The last few years, I’ve ranked near the bottom of P&J's critical pool for sharing affinities with other voters’ selections. And this is why I can’t have nice things.

Anyway, Pazz & Jop ballots have been sent and the results will be published Jan. 18, 2012 at villagevoice.com. However, in this dead zone between Christmas and New Year’s, there’s hardly fuck-all happening in the music world and the ravenous blog monster must be fed. So I’m going to give y’all a sneak peek of my top 10 albums and top 10 songs—but just half of my picks. Which half? Not telling. :p

Feel free to post your favorite albums and tracks of 2011 in comments. You have hardly fuck-all to do till Saturday, right?

½ of Dave Segal’s top 2011 albums list for Pazz & Jop

Demdike Stare- Triptych (Modern Love)
Andy Stott- Passed Me By/We Stay Together (Modern Love)
High Wolf- Atlas Nation (Holy Mountain)
Cut Hands- Afro Noise Vol. 1 (Very Friendly/Susan Lawly)
Planetary Assault Systems- The Messenger (Ostgut Ton)

½ of Dave Segal’s top 2011 tracks list for Pazz & Jop

Tobias- "Observing The Hypocrites" (Ostgut Ton)
CHLLNGR- "Ask For" (Green Owl)
Danny Brown- "Adderall Admiral" (Fool’s Gold)
Seefeel- "Sway" (Warp)
Woods- "Out Of The Eye" (Woodsist)

• Mute

Actually, I didn't get any music for Christmas, other than the Ty Segall singles collection I picked up a few days ago, but here are 10 titles—plus one extra—I would have liked to receive...and I do have a birthday coming up in nine months (New Year's Day presents are also welcome). That said, I'm not complaining about the gifts I did receive. My friends and relatives know me well, so there was chocolate, champagne, bath products, and other life-sustaining substances.

In alphabetical order:

1. Can - Tago Mago: 40th Anniversary (Mute)

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Flavorwire has an interesting chart on the geographical stats of the artists who placed tracks in Pitchfork's list of top 100 of 2011. Seattle came in a 4-way tie for 8th place (along with Philadelphia, Providence, and Eau Claire, Wisconsin). Yay? New York City, London, and LA came in at 1-2-3. zzzZZZzz. The most shocking thing here? Chicago and Detroit each only had one artist represented.

View the chart here.

• K.C. Fennessy

Years ago I ran out of space in which to store any new CDs, and yet I keep buying them. Or people keep sending them to me. If I were a record collector, the situation would surely be worse (and I have plenty of those, too), but I still like CDs—in fact, I prefer them—and I'm not about to convert every release I own to mp3 or whatever the hell the kids are doing these days (I honestly don't know).

So, instead I've been stacking them wherever I can find a spot. Here are three of my favorites. Several titles in the first stack also appear on my top 10 of 2011.

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