Pazz & Jop


Pazz & Jop is an annual poll of top musical releases, compiled by American newspaper The Village Voice and created by music critic Robert Christgau. It published lists of the year's top releases for 1971 and, after Christgau's two-year absence from the Voice, each year from 1974 onward. The polls are tabulated from the submitted year-end top 10 lists of hundreds of music critics. It was named in acknowledgement of the defunct magazine Jazz & Pop, and adopted the ratings system used in that publication's annual critics poll.
The Pazz & Jop was introduced by The Village Voice in 1971 as an album-only poll; it was expanded to include votes for singles in 1979. Throughout the years, other minor lists had been elicited from poll respondents for releases such as extended plays, music videos, album re-issues, and compilation albums—all of which were discontinued after only a few years. The Pazz & Jop albums poll uses a points system to formulate list rankings. Participating critics assigned a number value, ranging from 5 to 30, to each of the albums on their top 10 list, with all 10 albums totaling 100 points. The singles lists, however, are always unweighted.

History

The Pazz & Jop was created by Village Voice critic Robert Christgau. The idea behind its name was that, since the words "pazz" and "jop" do not exist, participating critics would judge a musical work on its own merits rather than be distracted by categories and genres. In 1971, English rock band the Who topped the first Pazz & Jop albums poll with Who's Next. The following year, Christgau left The Village Voice for Newsday, and the poll was not conducted again until 1974, when Christgau returned to the Voice and the poll "became an institution", according to fellow Voice critic Chris Molanphy. English singer Ian Dury and his band the Blockheads topped the first singles poll with "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick". Bob Dylan and Kanye West topped the albums poll the most number of times, with four number-one albums each. West, in addition, won the singles poll of 2005. Christgau oversaw the Pazz & Jop poll for more than thirty years; he also wrote an accompanying essay that discussed the poll's contents.
Writing in 2002, author Bernard Gendron cited the lack of overlap between the 1999 poll results and that year's best-selling albums on Billboards US charts—whereby only five of Pazz & Jop's top 40 appeared in the Billboard list—as indicative of a continued division between the avant-garde aesthetic of cultural accreditation and commercial considerations. Although Pazz & Jop established itself as a critics' poll with a clear identity, it has attracted criticism, particularly for its methodology. Addressing the participants in 2001, Mike Doughty of the New York Press complained: "In the guise of a love of music, you've taken the most beautiful nebulous form of human expression, squeezed it through an asinine points-scoring system specially cooked up for this pointless perennial, and forced it into this baffling, heinous chart system."
Christgau's tenure as Pazz & Jop overseer came to an abrupt end when he was controversially fired from The Village Voice after a company buy-out in August 2006. In response to his dismissal, several prominent critics publicly announced that they would no longer be turning in their lists for the poll; Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker described Christgau's firing as "a slap in the face to so many of us in so many ways". Regardless, The Village Voice continued to run the feature, with Rob Harvilla succeeding Christgau as music editor and overseer of the poll. Christgau's annual Pazz & Jop overview essay was discontinued and substituted with multiple retrospective articles of the year's music written by a selection of critics.
In 2016, the poll's name was changed from Pazz & Jop to the Village Voice Music Critics Poll by the new owners of the newspaper. Christgau, who had continued to vote in the poll since his departure from the newspaper, expressed dismay at the name change. When the 2016 results were announced in January 2017, the poll had reverted to its Pazz & Jop name.
The Village Voice ceased publication altogether in August 2018. Despite the closure of the newspaper, a Pazz & Jop poll for 2018 was announced on December 20, with Christgau confirming its legitimacy on Twitter. The 2018 poll was published on the Village Voice's website on February 6, 2019.
As a continuation of the poll, Glenn Boothe and Keith Artin organised a “Village Voice Paz & Jop Rip-Off Poll” in 2019. The poll was conduced via private Facebook group and included over 1,100 members—music writers, business execs, or artists themselves. Purple Mountains' eponymous album was voted the best album of 2019.

Albums voted number one

YearArtistAlbumMentionsPointsRef.
1971Who's Next540
1974Court and Spark14186
1975 and '23285
1976Songs in the Key of Life25292
1977Sex PistolsNever Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols32412
1978 and This Year's Model58783
1979Squeezing Out Sparks63767
1980London Calling891,347
1981Sandinista!67862
1982 and Imperial Bedroom871,061
1983Thriller1001,305
1984Born in the U.S.A.1361,757
1985Talking HeadsLittle Creatures991,078
1986Graceland961,131
1987PrinceSign o' the Times1181,491
1988Public EnemyIt Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back791,011
1989De La Soul3 Feet High and Rising891,050
1990 and Crazy HorseRagged Glory1041,282
1991NirvanaNevermind1341,699
1992Arrested Development3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of...971,050
1993Exile in Guyville1081,383
1994HoleLive Through This1211,552
1995To Bring You My Love1201,492
1996BeckOdelay1101,134
1997Time Out of Mind1351,655
1998Car Wheels on a Gravel Road1672,129
1999MobyPlay1341,548
2000OutkastStankonia2202,660
2001Love and Theft2353,010
2002WilcoYankee Hotel Foxtrot2012,328
2003OutkastSpeakerboxxx/The Love Below3053,554
2004'2452,826
2005Late Registration2272,525
2006Modern Times951,123
2007LCD SoundsystemSound of Silver1411,662
2008TV on the RadioDear Science1541,744
2009Animal CollectiveMerriweather Post Pavilion1541,794
2010My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy2663,250
2011Tune-YardsWhokill1351,645
2012Channel Orange1701,952
2013Yeezus1601,991
2014D'Angelo and the VanguardBlack Messiah1632,008
2015To Pimp a Butterfly2102,639
2016Blackstar2092,367
2017Damn1,756
2018Golden Hour1001,155

Singles voted number one

YearArtistSingleMentionsRef.
1979 and "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick"/"Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3"29
1980""40
1981"O Superman"/"Walk the Dog"56
1981"Start Me Up"56
1982Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five""156
1983"Billie Jean"75
1984Prince"When Doves Cry"/"17 Days"111
1985Artists United Against Apartheid"Sun City"101
1986Run–D.M.C."Walk This Way"78
1987Prince"Sign o' the Times"54
1988"Fast Car"55
1989Public Enemy"Fight the Power"75
1990Deee-Lite"Groove Is in the Heart"/"What Is Love?"74
1991Nirvana"Smells Like Teen Spirit"116
1992Arrested Development"Tennessee"100
1993"Cannonball"78
1994Beck"Loser"89
1995Coolio featuring L.V."Gangsta's Paradise"81
1996Quad City DJ's"C'mon N' Ride It "34
1997Hanson"MMMBop"96
1998Fatboy Slim""110
1999TLC"No Scrubs"109
2000Outkast"Ms. Jackson"124
2001"Get Ur Freak On"176
2002"Work It"212
2003Outkast"Hey Ya!"322
2004Franz Ferdinand"Take Me Out"145
2005 featuring "Gold Digger"145
2006Gnarls Barkley"Crazy"151
2007"Rehab"97
2008M.I.A."Paper Planes"107
2009Jay-Z featuring "Empire State of Mind"89
2010"Fuck You"187
2011Adele"Rolling in the Deep"116
2012"Call Me Maybe"94
2013Daft Punk featuring "Get Lucky"117
2014Future Islands"Seasons "75
2015Drake"Hotline Bling"76
2016Beyoncé"Formation"99
2017Cardi B"Bodak Yellow"62
2018Childish Gambino"This Is America"64

Defunct categories

Compilation albums

Album re-issues

YearArtistAlbumMentionsRef.
1986Treacherous: A History of the Neville Brothers 43
1987At the Dark End of the Street35
1988'35
1989'65
1990'108
1991Star Time84
1992Songs of Freedom51
1993'42
1994Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 34
1995Peel Slowly and See57
1996'25
1997Various artistsAnthology of American Folk Music100
1998Various artists'111
1999Os Mutantes31
1999Various artistsLoud, Fast and Out of Control: The Wild Sounds of '50s Rock31

Extended plays

YearArtistAlbumMentionsRef.
1981Ghost Town44
1982Trap Door75
1983Los Lobos...And a Time to Dance54
1984Places That Are Gone32
1985Feudalist Tarts32
1986No Sex27
1988Chimes of Freedom13
1989Passionate Kisses17
1990F.U.N. '9027
1991PavementPerfect Sound Forever26
1992PavementWatery, Domestic23
1993Luscious JacksonIn Search of Manny31
1994Pizzicato FiveFive by Five15

Music videos

YearArtistMusic videoDirectorMentionsRef.
1983"Beat It"63
1984Art of Noise"Close "35
1985Artists United Against Apartheid"Sun City", Godley & Creme68
1986"Sledgehammer"87
1987Squeeze"Hourglass"12
1990Deee-Lite"Groove Is in the Heart"35
1990Madonna"Justify My Love"35
1991Nirvana"Smells Like Teen Spirit"59
1992Nirvana"In Bloom"23
1993Nirvana"Heart-Shaped Box"34
1994Beastie Boys"Sabotage"66
1995Björk"It's Oh So Quiet"33