2010 Pazz and Jop/ the Fall of Modern Music?


I just absorbed the aforementioned poll (villagevoice.com) and, cantankerous old crank I've become, felt compelled to vent thusly:
1. Good old rock and roll and Americana are virtually absent from the list; you gotta get to #25 on the list before Springsteen shows up and even deeper before you hit Neil Young, Robert Plant, Old 97s and other worthies. Tom Petty only made #96, compared to #25 for Taylor Swift and #14 for the incomprehensible Joanne Newsom. Enough said.
2. Likewise, bop and real jazz are MIA.
3. My own tastes, as usual, are very unpopular. The first album I really liked, Spoon's Transference, didn't show up until #26, while my other faves, like Broken Bells, Posies, Nels Cline, Vijay Iyer and Besnard Lakes, barely register.
4. Glossy college music like Vampire Weekend and Deerhunter is apparently very well-regarded.
5. I've never heard the Kanye West, which won by the widest margin in history.
6. The music world has changed radically. I feel old. Back to work.
loomisjohnson
You are looking in the wrong places.

The historical mode of delivery has changed. Who cares if Nels Cline doesn't show up on some industry insider generated list? I bet you could go online and download 40 live shows of his with every band he's played with in the last 12 months. Some recordings will be better than other's but the board recordings are usually less compressed than a typical rock cd.

The demise of the recording industry IS NOT the demise of the artists.