150 Best Albums of 2004

The fifth year of the 21st Century, in case you forgot, is the year that started with an areola belonging to Janet Jackson being exposed to 150 million or so football-watching couch potatoes in January and everybody blaming her for it when maybe they should have blamed Justin Timberlake instead or even better just ignored…

150 Best Albums of 1957/’58/’59

Norman Mailer somehow managed to get through “The White Negro,” the monumental essay he published at just over 9000 words in Dissent in the autumn of 1957, without even once mentioning Elvis Presley (whose “Don’t Be Cruel” had just topped the pop and country and r&b charts in 1956), Jack Kerouac (whose On the Road…

Videos I’ve Loved Before

I didn’t notice until today, but last week Alfred Soto posted a list of his favorite music videos ever, after participating in an I Love Music poll calculating the top picks of lots of other folks. Realized I’ve never put together such a list, and I’m not sure how feasible it would be — my…

Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2022

A post in progress, for however many months are left. See also (and for explanation and/or comparison): 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021. PAZZ & JOP PRODUCT REPORT – early February 2022 YEA: Chrome: Scaropy (Cleopatra ’21) 7; Michael Beach: Dream Violence (Goner/Poison City ’21) 5; Divine Horsemen: Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix (In…

150 Best Albums of 2002

MY CRANKY COMMENTS THEN: If the Pazz & Jop album list is indeed topped by Wilco, Springsteen, and Beck¹, which I assume it will be, then 2002 will probably be first year ever that the top three albums will all have been reviewed negatively in the Voice itself (by Christian Hoard, Keith Harris, and James…

Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2017

As far as I can tell, May 2017 was when I first started posting these more-or-less monthly report cards on facebook, demonstrating my obessive-compulsiveness for anybody who inexplicably still doubted its existence. If you can’t figure out what the lists and grades are about because they look totally cryptic and you hate math and need…

Pazz & Jop Product Reports, 2018

Finally figured out how to unearth these on facebook. Same drill as 2019 (which probably includes some late-breaking 2018 releases I didn’t annotate as such at the time), 2020 (which includes a handful I’ll list in the comments) and beyond — turn of the ’80s Village Voice style: 8 = A, 7 = A-, 5…

150 Best Albums of 2001

“CRANKY COMMENTS!! (PROBABLY COMPLETE WITH TYPOS AND EVERYTHING!!!)” I wrote but didn’t publish beyond a blurb or two back then, some of which I no longer recollect what the heck I was talking about, and all of which I’m glad I managed to excavate from my hard drive since I couldn’t figure out what else…

150 Best Albums of 1972

Some bot calling itself Charlie Davis showed up on my facebook feed last week, claiming “There are no songs about animals…FACT.” Probably it was harvesting potential answers to “What’s your pet’s name?” or personal-information security questions along those lines; all I know is somebody I went to high school with had naively answered “‘Wildfire’ ‘Born…

150 Best Albums of 1984

“This is the age of Genesis, the beginning. Of Genesis, of ‘Where’s the beef?’ and Cabbage Patch Dolls. Of benefits for Ethiopia, & Ethiopia jokes. Of Prince and the Revolution, David Bowie and the Police (always the age of the Beatles of course). Of teenage sex movies (Porky’s, Class, etc.) and of horror movies (Friday…