Music Week

Music: Current count 22675 [22655] rated (+20), 579 [572] unrated (+7).

Jazz Prospecting is indefinitely suspended. Only way I can see bringing it back is if someone steps forward and offers me a paying gig writing a variant on the Jazz Consumer Guide format, and it has enough visibility and support to let me run it as I've long wished I could. I don't see much chance of that happening. At this point Robert Christgau is unable to get a sponsor for his Consumer Guide, and as his former editor pointed out to me: jazz is such a tiny bit of the market -- so tiny the outfit that last supported Christgau wouldn't even consider it.

Even so, I would have to decide that it is more worthwhile to spend my remaining time sorting out records than working on my long-procrastinated book project, Share the Wealth -- resurrecting the old Huey Long campaign theme, but with wrinkles and reverberations he never imagined. Still, one thing I like about the line is that it wasn't just a slogan: it came with an organization (better still, "clubs"), and it also came with a theme song. My major weakness as a jazz (or rock) critic was that I always suspected I should be doing something else, so I never put the effort into really mastering music writing. For instance, I was struck recently by a post by W. Royal Stokes where he reviews 135 Jazz, Blues, and Beyond Books Published in the Past Year or So. I've read (roughly) similar numbers of books in the last year (or two), but none of them have been on music. (Of course, expertise only goes so far: I'd take my2013 list over Stokes' recommendations any day.)

This doesn't mean I'm going to stop listening to music, or even stop writing about it. I expect to continue with Rhapsody Streamnotes at least once a month, and I'll fold anything I might have written for Jazz Prospecting or Recycled goods into it. A week after I postedDecember's column (with 77 records in it) I have 25 notes more/less ready for next month. I expect the pace to slow down: I've been stuck in a mental rut trying to wrap up 2013, but that will wind down after Pazz & Jop posts on January 8th -- traditionally the last thing I do to mymetacritic file is to fold in the Pazz & Jop results. (Meanwhile, I've been adding lists steadily: the file is now up to 7037 new records, and thereissues/vault jobs file is up to 1028 entries.)

Now may be the last chance I get to post metacritic file results before Pazz & Jop, so this is how the current standings go:

1. Kanye West: Yeezus (Def Jam) {264}
2. Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City (XL) {202}
3. Daft Punk: Random Access Memories (Daft Life/Columbia) {186}
4. Arcade Fire: Reflektor (Merge, 2CD) {183}
5. My Bloody Valentine: MBV (Pickpocket) {172}
6. The National: Trouble Will Find Me (4AD) {163}
7. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual (Mute) {150}
8. Haim: Days Are Gone (Polydor) {149}
9. Savages: Silence Yourself (Matador) {139}
10. James Blake: Overgrown (Polydor) {138}
11. Arctic Monkeys: AM (Domino) {137}
12. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Push the Sky Away (Bad Seeds) {136}
13. Disclosure: Settle (Island) {134}
14. David Bowie: The Next Day (Sony Music Entertainment) {132}
15. Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap (self-released) {129}
16. Janelle Monae: The Electric Lady (Bad Boy) {126}
17. Boards of Canada: Tomorrow's Harvest (Warp) {125}
18. Queens of the Stone Age: . . . Like Clockwork (Matador) {123}
19. Kurt Vile: Wakin on a Pretty Daze (Matador) {122}
20. Jon Hopkins: Immunity (Domino) {105}
21. Danny Brown: Old (Fool's Gold) {104}
22. Chvrches: The Bones of What You Believe (Virgin/Goodbye) {104}
23. Laura Marling: Once I Was an Eagle (Ribbon Music) {104}
24. Bill Callahan: Dream River (Drag City) {101}
25. Julia Holter: Loud City Song (Domino) {101}
26. Lorde: Pure Heroine (Lava/Republic) {101}
27. Earl Sweatshirt: Doris (Columbia) {100}
28. Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven (Warp) {99}
29. Deafheaven: Sunbather (Deathwish) {95}
30. Neko Case: The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You (Anti-) {93}
31. El-P/Killer Mike: Run the Jewels (Fool's Gold) {91}
32. Deerhunter: Monomania (4AD) {86}
33. Parquet Courts: Light Up Gold (What's Your Rupture?) {86}
34. Drake: Nothing Was the Same (Cash Money/Republic) {84}
35. Factory Floor: Factory Floor (DFA) {82}
36. Fuck Buttons: Slow Focus (ATP) {82}
37. Atoms for Peace: Amok (XL) {79}
38. Rhye: Woman (Polydor) {78}
39. Justin Timberlake: The 20/20 Experience (RCA) {78}
40. Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt (Don Giovanni) {78}
41. Phosphorescent: Muchacho (Dead Oceans) {76}
42. Tim Hecker: Virgins (Kranky) {75}
43. Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury Nashville) {75}
44. Yo La Tengo: Fade (Matador) {75}
45. MIA: Matangi (Interscope) {74}
46. John Grant: Pale Green Ghosts (Bella Union) {72}
47. These New Puritans: Field of Reeds (Infectious) {72}
48. Darkside: Psychic (Matador) {70}
49. Forest Swords: Engravings (Tri Angle) {69}
50. James Holden: The Inheritors (Border Community) {69}
51. Tegan and Sara: Heartthrob (Vapor/Warner Bros) {68}
52. Foals: Holy Fire (Warner Bros) {66}
53. Nine Inch Nails: Hesitation Marks (HALO) {66}
54. Foxygen: We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic (Jagjaguwar) {63}
55. Mikal Cronin: MCII (Merge) {62}
56. Pet Shop Boys: Electric (X2) {62}
57. Sky Ferreira: Night Time, My Time (Capitol) {61}
58. Pusha T: My Name Is My Name (Def Jam) {61}
59. King Krule: 6 Feet Beneath the Moon (True Panther/XL) {60}
60. The Flaming Lips: The Terror (Warner Bros) {59}

This file has generally been pretty indicative of Pazz & Jop performance, although it doesn't attempt to match the Voice's profile for voters, so certain skews are well known: P&J has very few UK (or for that matter non-US) voters, so artists who are weaker in the US tend to underperform (likely examples here: James Blake, Arctic Monkeys, Bill Callahan, John Grant, probably David Bowie, maybe Nick Cave); token hip-hop/R&B, and to a lesser extent pop, artists tend to do better in P&J (Chance the Rapper, Janelle Monáe, Danny Brown, Lorde, Drake, MIA; Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus will do better but both are way off the pace, at 245 and 182 respectively); older mainstream artists have usually done better in P&J (e.g., Dylan, Springsteen), but it's hard to see who's close enough to be helped this time (David Bowie?). I think it's very likely that at least two of this year's breakout country women will crack the top forty (Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe, Brandy Clark).

(By the way, I've looked at a lot of disagreeable lists, but Jim Farber's in the New York Daily News is easily the worst I've seen all year -- among other problems, it's the first I've seen that even mentions Natalie Maines, whose record he touts as the year's best.)

Aside from the metacritic file, I'm also updating the "Best Jazz" list originally posted a month ago to reflect what I've found since (quite a bit), and when I'm done I'll have a "Best Non-Jazz" piece to go with it. Historically, the two splits have been fairly evenly matched, but this year the jazz side is ahead 85-69 (A- or above) and 726-305 (B+ or below; both are new records including belated 2012 grades; non-jazz leads in the old music categories 39-25). I'll post these pieces later this week, at which point I'll do my annual list freeze. And I'll wrap up the metacritic file when I fold the Pazz & Jop results into it -- the results are due January 8.

Also on my schedule is to send out a letter to many of the publicists who have been sending me records, after which I expect they'll stop. (Actually, some have stopped already. Also, I don't have a definitive list, so some will no doubt learn from here, if they bother at all.) I've already covered most of this in the revised version of the file formerly titled "Send Me Music to Review." One thing I will point out there is that there remains a small residual value in still sending me stuff: I will continue to publish "Music Week" every Monday, and it will have a current rated count up top and a list of the week's newly rated albums, as well as the old "unpacking" feature, toward the bottom. Likewise, those of you who tune in each week for consumer guidance will at least get the latest grades. (Reviews, such as I bother to write, will wait for the month's Rhapsody Streamnotes.)

Arguably that's not much, but it won't take much effort beyond what I would do anyway. How valuable it turns out to be will depend previously ungraded music I listen to -- something I have no way of predicting at the moment. But I do hope this provides those who value my judgment -- I'm especially grateful for those who wrote in recently -- some reason to stay in touch.

One thing I've already discovered in compiling the recently rated list is that it would be useful to provide at least a genre tag and a source: cd=CD, r=Rhapsody, bc=Bandcamp, etc. In theory, the list below should add up to match the delta above. This week has been particulary dicey in that I had pulled much of this together after the fact this week. Mostly listening to records from 2013 EOY lists here, although I did get distracted by two Barry Guy/LCJO records I had missed.

Records rated this week:

• JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound: Howl (Bloodshot): Chicago soul [r] B
• Ari Brown: Groove Awakening (Delmark): mainstream sax [cd] B+(***)
• Buika: La Noche Más Larga (2013, Warner Music Latina): Flamenco jazz diva [r] B+(*)
• The Child of Lov: The Child of Lov (2013, Domino): trip hop [r] B+(*)
• Dub Club: Foundation Come Again (Stones Throw): dub (duh!) [r] B+(**)
• Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio: Follow the Sun (Delmark): polyrhythms and blues [cd] B+(**)
• The Fat Babies: 18th & Racine (2013, Delmark): trad jazz [cd] B+(***)
• Barry Guy/London Jazz Composers' Orchestra/Irène Schweizer: Theoria (1991 [1992], Intakt): free jazz monster + piano [r] B+(*)
• Barry Guy/London Jazz Composers' Orchestra/Irène Schweizer/Marilyn Crispell/Pierre Favre: Double Trouble Two (1995 [1998], Intakt): free jazz monster + two pianos [r] B+(**)
• Angel Haze: Dirty Gold (2013, Republic): hip-hop [r] A-
• Honey Island Swamp Band: Cane Sugar (2013, Louisiana Red Hot): Southern rock [r] B
• Hookworms: Pearl Mystic (2013, Weird World) post-Velvets [r] A-
• Carolyn Lee Jones: The Performer (2013, Cat'nround Sound): standards [cd] B+(***)
• Juicy J: Stay Trippy (2013, Taylor Gang/Kemosabe/Columbia): rap [r] B+(*)
• London Grammar: If You Wait (2013, Warner/Chappell): trip-pop [r] B+(*)
• Cava Menzies/Nick Phillips: Moment to Moment: makeout jazz [cd] B+(***)
• Juana Molina: Wed 21 (2013, Crammed Discs): Argentine singer-songwriter [r] B+(*)
• No Joy: Wait to Pleasure (2013, Mexican Summer): shoegaze [r] B+(*)
• Katy Perry: Prism (2013, Capitol): megapop [r] B+(*)
• Pharmakon: Abandon (2013, Sacred Bones, EP): noise [r] B+(*)
• Quadron: Avalanche (2013, Vested in Culture): Danish nu soul [r] B+(**)
• Lee Ranaldo and the Dust: Last Night on Earth (Matador): singer-songwriter [r] B
• Brandon Ross/Stomu Takeishi: For Living Lovers: Revealing Essence (Sunnyside): guitar moods [cd] B
• Anton Schwartz: Flash Mob (2013 [2014], Anton Jazz): postbop [cd] B
• Edward Simon: Venezuelan Suite (2012 [2014], Sunnyside): Latin jazz [cd] B+(**)
• E. Doctor Smith: Quantum (2013, Edgetone): fusion [cd] B
• 10^32K: That Which Is Planted: Live in Buffalo and Rochester (2013, Passin' Thru): trombone trio [cd] A-
• Randy Travis: The Influence Vol. 1: The Man I Am (Warner Brothers): country covers [r] B
• Steve Treseler Group: Center Song (2013 [2014], Creative Music Adventures): postbop [cd] B+(*)
• The White Buffalo: Shadows, Greys & Evil Ways (2013, Unison Music): Americana [r] B+(**)

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

• Ari Brown: Groove Awakening (Delmark)
• Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio: Follow the Sun (Delmark)
• The Fat Babies: 18th & Racine (Delmark)
• Carol Fredette: No Sad Songs for Me (Soundbrush): February 11
• Craig Handy: Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith (Okeh): advance, January 21
• Fareed Haque: Trance Hypothesis (Delmark)
• Mimi Jones: Balance (Hot Tone Music): February 4
• 10^32K: That Which Is Planted: Live in Buffalo and Rochester (Passin' Thru)
• Camille Thurman: Origins (Hot Tone Music): February 4
• Shirazette Tinnin: Humility: Purity of My Soul (Hot Tone Music): February 4