Lorde’s ‘Green Light’ lands at #4 in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll, giving women artists three of the top four spots. Kendrick Lamar’s ‘DNA’ rounds out the top five, giving him the best showing in a top ten that is split between men who rap and women who pop (plus Cardi B, a woman who raps).
I kind of get the praise for this song, though it by no means wins me over to the Kendrick Lamar cult. It’s more interesting lyrically and musically than anything else of his I’ve heard.
The third top single of 2017, according to Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop poll, is Carley Rae Jepsen’s ‘Cut to the Feeling.’ I’m a big Jepsen fan so I’m happy to see her show up so high, especially for a song I’ve never even heard. I’m looking forward to firing it up now.
This track was cut not just from Jepsen’s critical-adored 2015 album EMOTION, but from the follow-up EP, EMOTION Side B. It ended up finding a home in the French-Canadian animated film Ballerina, which will be released as Leap! in the United States. Jepsen plays a character in the film as well.
If the Academy Awards can be held in March, I can post about 2017 at least through February, right?
Over the next two weeks, I will take my annual dive into the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll — now in its 45th year. This ranked list of the year’s best albums and singles is, according to famed critic Robert Christgau, “America’s most comprehensive survey of ‘rock critic’ taste.”
It’s been six years since we last heard from Jakob Dylan, apart from a few one-off contributions to other people’s work. He released an album with The Wallflowers in 2012 (the band’s first in seven years) but nothing since.
I wasn’t thrilled with that Wallflowers release (Glad All Over) but I love pretty much everything they did in the 90s and 2000s. I also love Dylan’s two solo albums, 2008’s Seeing Things and 2010’s Women + Country, on which today’s SOTD appears.
Today’s Random Weekend selection comes from Brad Paisley’s 2005 album Time Well Wasted, his second of nine straight albums to hit #1 on the country charts (that streak is still going).
I rank Time Well Wasted as Paisley’s third best album, following American Saturday Night and Mud On the Tires.
Meet Me In Montauk 