Saturday, March 06, 2004
I meant to blog this up weeks ago, but... The 2003 Pazz & Jop poll was released recently. That's a survey of music journalists (tending, I gather, towards the alternative newspaper types) that comes out every year. This year top album and single were by Outkast. In Christgau's accompanying commentary on the poll, I was surprised to see him championing indie worthies such as Fountains of Wayne, Four Tet, and the Libertines! (I was also surprised to learn that The Shins, Belle & Sebastian, and Grandaddy cracked the Billboard Top 100 album charts.) He also opined that Jay-Z's album's-worth of guest spots on other rappers' albums was better than his much-ballyhooed bow-out.
As for "Hey Ya," the survey's single of the year, I've been wanting to write about it for a while. I've been amazed at the broad appeal of the song, and am glad about it--I even agree that it's the song of the year. But I also think that after a hell of a verse, the chorus is kind of puny. Just sing it out loud to yourself with no music in the background and you'll see what I mean. It fizzles. Hey ya. (pause). Hey ya. But then it rallies with the much-quoted (even in the primaries?!), "shake it like a polaroid picture"--awesome. (Heehee. Silly related news.) So I don't know if it's one of the best songs ever in pop, but I think it's a big improvement over "Ms. Jackson," which I liked at first but then morphed into one of those sticky songs that tortures you when you get it stuck in your head.
