Coming in at #9 on the Pazz & Jop singles list is The National with their song ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio.’
I skipped song number three, Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own,’ because I’ve already featured it on the blog. Numbers four, five and six are all tracks from Kanye West’s new album. Seven is a Big Boi track that didn’t do much for me. Eight is a song by a band called Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti — and unfortunately their name is the most interesting thing about them.
For some reason it has taken me a long time to get around to reviewing this movie. Some movies send me out of the theater and directly to my keyboard while others are more stubborn.
And now I’m in a weird position, as the discussion about The King’s Speech has evolved from “heart-warming little movie you should try to catch” to “Oscar-bait Brit-flick that’s going to steal the gold from The Social Network.” It’s become a real war online among the geeks who get perturbed by the Oscar race.
I don’t count myself as one of those geeks. I do get into the horse race aspect of the Oscars, and I’ll certainly root for my favorites to win, but I’m long past getting upset when something safe and obvious wins over something daring and exciting. I think Dances With Wolves defeating Goodfellas pretty much killed the Oscars in my mind as any true barometer of great cinema.
For the past 36 years, Village Voice has released their year-end “Pazz & Jop” poll, a compilation of top albums as voted by over 800 music critics. And while some of their selections are on the pretentious side, they actually have a pretty great track record when it comes to naming the top album of the year.
Artists who’ve had an album in the #1 spot over the past few decades include Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. In fact, I don’t see a weak pick in the history of the poll (you can see all the winners here).
Cinematographer Roger Deakins has been nominated for nine Academy Awards (including this year for True Grit) and he hasn’t won once.
Five of those nominations were for Coen Brothers films and he probably deserved to win every one of them. I’m hoping (and predicting, in this year’s Oscar pool) that he’ll finally take home the prize next month.
One last Stew offering before I put this extended theme week to bed.
Stew’s a funny guy. In his website bio, he once referred to himself as a “critically-acclaimed (ie., broke) singer-songwriter.” He has since replaced that with a laundry list of his accomplishments culminating in this sentence:
“But what Stew will ultimately be remembered for is having composed ‘Gary Come Home’ for SpongeBob SquarePants.”
