35 Best Singles of 2021

I tend to live in my own bubble, if not on my own planet, when it comes to singles these days. Well, maybe I always did (you might be saying), but at least I used to not go through entire years without writing about any of them, or really talking to anybody about them at…

Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2021

Frank Kogan recently emailed out a tentative 2021 top not-yet-10 album list for something initiated on facebook called the Pazz & Jop Ripoff Poll (which election I had voted in myself and actually told him about — his eventual final ballot is here); he wrote that “I’d probably give these B-PLUSes in the Christgau rating…

Nashville Scene Country Critics Poll Ballots, 2003 – 2020

Decided to put these all in one place — One-stop shopping, doncha know. Not sure when the poll started or when I was first invited to vote, but my 2003 ballot is the earliest I’ve been able to find so far. Can’t say I still entirely agree with all of these, especially the further back…

33 Best Singles of 2020

It’s not so much that singles are an afterthought for me these days as that they’re very much a side dish. I haven’t reviewed them in a regular column, or contributed to The Singles Jukebox, in ages. And unlike with my friends Frank Kogan (who keeps a running tally on his blog through the year)…

Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2020

As I explained just over a month ago about 2019 (and I’ll repeat verbatim here because laziness) Pazz & Jop Product Report was a monthly feature in the Village Voice music section in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Approximately ten critics a month (not always the same ones, and never including music editor Robert…