Pazz and Jop

The Village Voice recently published its annual Pazz & Jop Critics poll, which over the years has become the best (by far) barometer of what is going on in the rock universe. Take a look at the past poll results, and essentially you're looking at the history of rock - at least since 1971, when the poll first appeared.

The fact that Bob Dylan again triumphed in the album category is less of a story than the fact that this year's poll is the first to be published since Robert Christgau, the self-styled "Dean of American Rock Critics," was fired by the Voice last September. Happily, Christgau landed on his feet, securing not one but three new gigs: contributing editor at Rolling Stone, music correspondent for NPR, and writing his legendary Consumer Guide for msn.com. I wondered what would happen with Pazz & Jop, but apparently the show must go on, and so it has. The Voice's new music editor, Rob Harvilla, contributes a good-natured piece which references the Christgau phenomenon, and the poll also devotes a section to voters who made sure to include some bitchy comments about the Christgau firing along with their polls. And for the skeptics such as myself who wondered whether the poll should be retired gracefully, the Dean himself participates, a damn nice gesture considering what happened.

I began subscribing to the Voice in 1978, and the first issue that came in the mail (with Reggie Jackson on the cover) just happened to be one with Christgau's Consumer Guide in it. For the most part, his taste has always matched up well with mine. He's never had much use for some artists that I love (Peter Gabriel and Jackson Browne, for example), and has sometimes failed to appreciate artists who I think are wonderful (for instance, I've never seen him write anything about Patty Griffin, which strikes me as strange). But in the end, he can always be counted on to identify a new artist's potential before he hits it big (e.g. Prince), and find the potential in a new genre (e.g. rap, punk, hip-hop) before it hits the masses. And his ability to distill an album's essence into a paragraph or two is simply amazing. One of my favorites:

Born in the USA [Columbia, 1984]. Imperceptible though the movement has been to many sensitive young people, Springsteen has evolved. In fact, this apparent retrenchment is his most rhythmically propulsive, vocally incisive, lyrically balanced, and commercially undeniable album. Even his compulsive studio habits work for him: the aural vibrancy of the thing reminds me like nothing in years that what teenagers loved about rock and roll wasn't that it was catchy or even vibrant but that it just plain sounded good. And while Nebraska's one-note vision may be more left-correct, my instincts (not to mention my leftism) tell me that this uptempo worldview is truer. Hardly ride-off-into-the-sunset stuff, at the same time it's low on nostalgia and beautiful losers. Not counting the title powerhouse, the best songs slip by at first because their tone is so lifelike: the fast-stepping "Working on the Highway," which turns out to be about a country road gang; "Darlington County," which pins down the futility of a macho spree without undercutting its exuberance; and "Glory Days," which finally acknowledges that among other things, getting old is a good joke. A+

Almost alone among critics of the day, Christgau nailed what may be the single most important thing about the album - the crispness of its sound. Seems simple enough, but just try it sometime.

The Voice had become less and less interesting to me over the years, and when Christgau was fired, I finally cancelled my subscription. But I'm glad to see that Pazz & Jop lives on, even if it is a little like watching the Tonight Show without Johnny Carson.