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koganbotHere are my Uproxx Music Critics Poll ballot and my Pazz & Jop Rip-Off poll ballot. These are exactly* as I sent them except since my Uproxx email was just for my write-in votes, I've now inserted my number 2 Uproxx album into it in brackets (I originally voted for that one via their dropdown menu; nothing else I voted for was on their menus). For Uproxx I was allowed up to 10 albums and 5 singles; P&J Rip-Off was albums-only, also up to 10. The Uproxx deadline came first, obviously, and I made an easily avoidable mistake in my comments, and I followed-up with a correction.
My votes were restricted by Uproxx and P&J restrictions, sometimes to amusing effect (see footnote).
MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) "Vem Sentando Vem"
The P&J is the first 10-item album list I've submitted or posted anywhere since EOY 2014. And since way before then I've been letting singles and tracks, in streams and downloads and on playlists, way supersede albums in my listening. I think albums are still a meaningful format: can in a small way throw me more into particular artists' (and labels') own contexts. But that's less and less anyone else's context for listening, and e.g. lots of baile funk DJs and performers don't even release albums. I'm thinking that if I submit album lists in the future I might decide to include streamed DJ sets.
I joked that I was doing the Uproxx as a conceptual art piece, i.e., I knew my ballot wasn't going to make an impact. But I was actually doing it to combat my alienation and to engage with some of my critic friends via email. Then when Chuck tipped me off to the P&J Rip-Off thing I jumped in further. I worry that this conflicted with my other listening and writing, and that I'm e.g. putting off writing about singles and about baile funk in particular 'cause I want what I write to be good and not too overwhelmingly ignorant, meanwhile I'm lounging around in album rabbitholes.
Anyway, I hope to engage with you all in later posts by commenting on the music, either from these albs or elsewhere. We'll see how life and writing go. In the meantime I'll be doing the ILM tracks poll and Tom Ewing's World Cup Of 2021, both of which are somewhat different animals, more about discovery than about tracking what a social set thinks is best.
Babes Wodumo ft. Mampintsha, Rhythmsounds & Bevst Niggvs "Dumelang"
FOOTNOTE:
Uproxx poll was irritatingly early but I can see how needing to compete with other sites' end-of-year lists made it so. Their scoring system is typical but really dumb, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for albums and 5-4-3-2-1 for singles, and they restricted what you could vote for by date of release from Dec. 1, 2020 to Nov. 30, 2021, which is a really bad choice – not so much that they made the cutoff early but that they had the restriction at all, rather than allowing us to vote for anything we think had its impact in 2021. Maybe I'll write a long diatribe about why it's bad to restrict by date of release, in case you're thinking of running your own year-end poll. Short version: it means records whose popularity spills over into the next year always get undercounted, ditto stuff that becomes popular in different places at different times. The Village Voice got things right back in the day by letting us vote for whatever we felt made an impact regardless when it was released, and by adding up votes cross years as long as it's a significant number in the second year and the same person isn't voting for something twice. If something gets lots of votes in a second year, that proves impact in that year; if it doesn't then it doesn't show up in the results and no big deal. (Except with Uproxx's scoring system it might show up!) I do understand that counting across years takes more work, and I assume the Uproxx people get paid a pittance.
In any event, Amaarae ft. Moliy's original "Sad Girlz Luv Money" was 2020 but would've been a candidate for my list because its impact was in 2021 when the not-so-good remix hit – except it wasn't eligible under Uproxx rules.
(Btw, I think Tom is right to restrict nominations to a particular time frame whenever he does a year poll in his Pop World Cups, but that's 'cause he's doing something different, not an election or a public opinion poll but a game, a contest: and in his format a single nom does have an impact, since ideally everybody hears it. And stuff that doesn't get into one year's contest can compete in another, where again everybody can listen. Also, Tom relaxes restrictions when he's doing a current year.)
The bad Uproxx scoring did have one inadvertent good result, in that a mere two votes – mine and Dave's, each at number one – pushed "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera" by DJ Wesley Gonzaga up to Number 43 on their list of singles. Maybe some curious soul, or two or three such souls, will listen to it as a result. (Whereas in Tom's World Cup Of 2021 I know I've got somewhere between 50 and 250 who will listen to it, whether they like it or not.)
The P&J Rip-Off poll comes from a Facebook community; I haven't found out yet if the poll has a public presence outside that community, whether the results get posted outside or, if inside only, whether nonmembers like me can see them. [UPDATE: Results are here; navigation guide is here. Uproxx results are here.] There are no date restrictions but – of course – the fact that there's no singles poll is itself a restriction. I assume the poll is all volunteer and takes lots of work and this is all they've got the time for; though given the choice I'd have done singles rather than albums. We get to assign votes (betw. 5 and 30 per album; no more than 100 total for 10 albs; or 90 total if I only vote for 9, etc.); and – I'm sure to make sorting and compiling easier – they had us list in alphabetical order by artist's name the albums we gave the same score to; so if I gave three albums a 9, say, I was supposed to list them alphabetically, rather than in the order of my slight preference. Which I refused to do; instead I changed the albums' scores, with the following distorted but funny result:
For two more-or-less-equal albums with the first's artist beginning with a later letter than the second's, the second was docked a point so as not to be listed ahead of the first. And if its initial letter was lower than the next one, that next one lost a point as well, and on down: a potential cascade of loss for those earlier in the alphabet. The albums at the top of my list got to lap up the excess. Finally, a blow against the dominance of letters early in the alphabet!
Hello Psychaleppo "Ra7ala"
*Er, and I've now fixed my typo in the Hello Psychaleppo album title, which is Jismal, not Dismal
My votes were restricted by Uproxx and P&J restrictions, sometimes to amusing effect (see footnote).
MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) "Vem Sentando Vem"
From: Frank Kogan
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2021 9:21 PM
To: Critics Poll, Uproxx
Subject: Write-In Ballot Frank Kogan
My number 2 album is on your dropdown menu so I've left that spot blank here. The rest are all write-ins.
ALBUMS:
1. Squid / Bright Green Field
[2. Ashley Monroe / Rosegold]
3. Equiknoxx / Basic Tools (Mixtape)
4. Juçara Marçal / Delta Estácio Blues
SINGLES:
1. DJ Wesley Gonzaga, MC Cyclope & MC Laureta / "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera"
2. DJ Guuga & MC Don Juan / "Acabou Você Não Deu Valor"
3. MC Thammy, MC Jhenny (DJ Malícia) / "Chamo Teu Vulgo Malvadão"
4. MC 2Jhow, MC Rennan & MC Fahah (DJ NBeat) / "Vem Sentando Vem"
5. Sofía Martín, le Shuuk / "Tóxica"
The top four singles are all baile funk. I think Sofía Martín is also Brazilian, but she's not baile funk.
Juçara Marçal is also from Brazil, and also isn't baile funk.
From this you might get the idea that I know something about Brazil. But I don't. This is just what happens if you knock around YouTube and Twitter enough; you find the wild things.
Equiknoxx are Jamaican and Squid are Brits; they're not so wild, but they're good.
Enjoy your December.
Frank Kogan
From: Frank Kogan
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2021 5:41 PM
To: Critics Poll, Uproxx
Subject: Fact check
"I think Sofía Martín is also Brazilian..." To underscore that I don't know what I'm talking about (or how to search the Internet, apparently), I learn that she was born in Germany, grew up in Spain, and now records in Berlin.
https://www.curiousformusic.com/post/get-to-know-sofía-martín
I think one of the YouTube sites said her track was licensed by a Brazilian version of some international label. That's my excuse.
From: Frank Kogan
Date: Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 11:27 PM
Subject: Pazz & Jop Rip-Off Poll ballot - Frank Kogan
To: pazzandjop
Babes Wodumo - Crown - 20
MC Carol - Borogodó - 16
Bee DeeJay - On The Map - 12
Squid - Bright Green Field - 10
Ashley Monroe - Rosegold - 8
Slant - 1집 - 8
Hello Psychaleppo - Jismal [EP] - 7
Tia Maria Produções - Lei Da Tia Maria - 7
Juçara Marçal - Delta Estácio Blues - 6
Sexyy Red - Ghetto Superstar - 6
Glenn and Keith - Thank you for taking the time to do this.
Frank Kogan
The P&J is the first 10-item album list I've submitted or posted anywhere since EOY 2014. And since way before then I've been letting singles and tracks, in streams and downloads and on playlists, way supersede albums in my listening. I think albums are still a meaningful format: can in a small way throw me more into particular artists' (and labels') own contexts. But that's less and less anyone else's context for listening, and e.g. lots of baile funk DJs and performers don't even release albums. I'm thinking that if I submit album lists in the future I might decide to include streamed DJ sets.
I joked that I was doing the Uproxx as a conceptual art piece, i.e., I knew my ballot wasn't going to make an impact. But I was actually doing it to combat my alienation and to engage with some of my critic friends via email. Then when Chuck tipped me off to the P&J Rip-Off thing I jumped in further. I worry that this conflicted with my other listening and writing, and that I'm e.g. putting off writing about singles and about baile funk in particular 'cause I want what I write to be good and not too overwhelmingly ignorant, meanwhile I'm lounging around in album rabbitholes.
Anyway, I hope to engage with you all in later posts by commenting on the music, either from these albs or elsewhere. We'll see how life and writing go. In the meantime I'll be doing the ILM tracks poll and Tom Ewing's World Cup Of 2021, both of which are somewhat different animals, more about discovery than about tracking what a social set thinks is best.
Babes Wodumo ft. Mampintsha, Rhythmsounds & Bevst Niggvs "Dumelang"
FOOTNOTE:
Uproxx poll was irritatingly early but I can see how needing to compete with other sites' end-of-year lists made it so. Their scoring system is typical but really dumb, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for albums and 5-4-3-2-1 for singles, and they restricted what you could vote for by date of release from Dec. 1, 2020 to Nov. 30, 2021, which is a really bad choice – not so much that they made the cutoff early but that they had the restriction at all, rather than allowing us to vote for anything we think had its impact in 2021. Maybe I'll write a long diatribe about why it's bad to restrict by date of release, in case you're thinking of running your own year-end poll. Short version: it means records whose popularity spills over into the next year always get undercounted, ditto stuff that becomes popular in different places at different times. The Village Voice got things right back in the day by letting us vote for whatever we felt made an impact regardless when it was released, and by adding up votes cross years as long as it's a significant number in the second year and the same person isn't voting for something twice. If something gets lots of votes in a second year, that proves impact in that year; if it doesn't then it doesn't show up in the results and no big deal. (Except with Uproxx's scoring system it might show up!) I do understand that counting across years takes more work, and I assume the Uproxx people get paid a pittance.
In any event, Amaarae ft. Moliy's original "Sad Girlz Luv Money" was 2020 but would've been a candidate for my list because its impact was in 2021 when the not-so-good remix hit – except it wasn't eligible under Uproxx rules.
(Btw, I think Tom is right to restrict nominations to a particular time frame whenever he does a year poll in his Pop World Cups, but that's 'cause he's doing something different, not an election or a public opinion poll but a game, a contest: and in his format a single nom does have an impact, since ideally everybody hears it. And stuff that doesn't get into one year's contest can compete in another, where again everybody can listen. Also, Tom relaxes restrictions when he's doing a current year.)
The bad Uproxx scoring did have one inadvertent good result, in that a mere two votes – mine and Dave's, each at number one – pushed "Sarra Nela Com Fuzil Na Bandolera" by DJ Wesley Gonzaga up to Number 43 on their list of singles. Maybe some curious soul, or two or three such souls, will listen to it as a result. (Whereas in Tom's World Cup Of 2021 I know I've got somewhere between 50 and 250 who will listen to it, whether they like it or not.)
The P&J Rip-Off poll comes from a Facebook community; I haven't found out yet if the poll has a public presence outside that community, whether the results get posted outside or, if inside only, whether nonmembers like me can see them. [UPDATE: Results are here; navigation guide is here. Uproxx results are here.] There are no date restrictions but – of course – the fact that there's no singles poll is itself a restriction. I assume the poll is all volunteer and takes lots of work and this is all they've got the time for; though given the choice I'd have done singles rather than albums. We get to assign votes (betw. 5 and 30 per album; no more than 100 total for 10 albs; or 90 total if I only vote for 9, etc.); and – I'm sure to make sorting and compiling easier – they had us list in alphabetical order by artist's name the albums we gave the same score to; so if I gave three albums a 9, say, I was supposed to list them alphabetically, rather than in the order of my slight preference. Which I refused to do; instead I changed the albums' scores, with the following distorted but funny result:
For two more-or-less-equal albums with the first's artist beginning with a later letter than the second's, the second was docked a point so as not to be listed ahead of the first. And if its initial letter was lower than the next one, that next one lost a point as well, and on down: a potential cascade of loss for those earlier in the alphabet. The albums at the top of my list got to lap up the excess. Finally, a blow against the dominance of letters early in the alphabet!
Hello Psychaleppo "Ra7ala"
*Er, and I've now fixed my typo in the Hello Psychaleppo album title, which is Jismal, not Dismal
