PAZZ & JOP
Pazz & Jop is an annual poll of musical releases compiled by American newspaper The Village Voice since 1971. The poll is 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. 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 have been elicited from poll respondents for releases such as extended plays, music videos, album re-issues, and compilation albums — all of which have since been discontinued. (More from Wikipedia)
The Deee-Lite song “Groove is in the Heart” was a truly mountainous hit; as Wikipedia tells it: “Slant magazine ranked the song second in its 100 Greatest Dance Songs list, adding: ‘No song delivered the group’s world-conscious Word as colorfully and open-heartedly as “Groove is in the Heart”, which flew up the Billboard charts while goosing stuffed shirts.’ NME and The Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop annual critics’ poll named ‘Groove is in the Heart’ the best single released in the year 1990.”
(March 2016)
* * *
I was a subscriber to The Village Voice long before I moved to the City in 1990, and that was one way that I stayed in touch with the musical scene. Lead rock critic Robert Christgau spearheaded an annual poll of hundreds of music critics, with the results published as Pazz & Jop (a rather corny takeoff on “jazz & pop”, though they never really talked much about jazz). I looked forward to it each year, but in 1993, so many of the albums on the list were completely unknown to me, starting with the #1 pick, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville. Next year, that will be 25 years ago – a long time of not being “with it”.
(June 2017)
