My What an Excellent Moustache You Have There: Behold the 2007 Music Blog Zeitgeist (ex-Bloggregate)

The awesome folks at The Hype Machine have finished splashing around in y'all's milkshakes.  They've compiled 648 Top Ten Album lists from around the Interwhoozit into one shiny, clickable list!  It not only provides a bloggers' consensus, but the lists are interlocked, so you can find bloggers whose tastes align with yours; view their lists on Hype and then visit their sites to see what they had to say about their choices.  There are links that will let you stream work by the artists mentioned, and links to buy the albums once you find something that captures your interest.

Go!  Frolic!  (There's a bit of expository stuff here.)

For the most part, the Zeitgeist album list was compiled the same way the 2005 and 2006 Music Bloggregates were.  Inclusions and exclusions were always somewhat arbitrary; they've included LiveJournal lists and some online mags, for instance, while I'd eschewed those.  Despite it being a Hype Machine project, they certainly didn't limit themselves to mp3 blogs, thank goodness.

One thing that's a bit bothersome, though it generally only affects titles that would be at the bottom of the list, is that anything not found in Amazon's database didn't get tabulated.  A punishment for those of us who were being willfully obscure, perhaps.  From my own Top 10, for instance, only seven titles were tabulated; missing is an out-of-print vinyl-only comp of old immigrant recordings, Emmy the Great's vinyl-and-iTunes-only My Bad EP, and a Japanese import (though another Japanese import from the same artist is in Amazon's database, and was included).  The Hype list includes 1,253 albums, but there were more mentioned (last year's Bloggregate included 1,421 titles).

There's also not a built-in search function for artists/titles, but the the Hype people have made available spreadsheets with both compiled and raw data.  Those are searchable and re-sortable.

There are two other lists there that are based solely on internal Hype Machine stats.  The songs list is particularly quirky, "picked for popularity & uniqueness."  The list of bands is ranked by "how frequently they came up in blog posts we've indexed."

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Even if the consensus is - and it usually is - unsurprising, this year it was surprisingly top-heavy.  Radiohead's In Rainbows got 3059 points, was on 260 of the 648 lists.  Compare that with last year's #1, TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain (Everyone still listening to that one?) which got 1640 points and appeared on 151 of the 640 lists.

It's tempting to say Radiohead scored so highly just because it was made available to everyone for whatever price they wanted to pay.  While there are plenty of bloggers who - like the critics that participate in the Voice's Pazz/Jop and Idolator's Pop polls - are on labels' promo lists, now, many of the lists in the Zeitgeist come from real people who have to pay real money for their records.  If they're not illegally downloading them, that is.  And some aren't!

Tempting, but:  This year's #2 (Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, 2451 points, 224 mentions) and #3 (The National's Boxer, 1715, 147) also topped Cookie, with #4 (LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, 1632, 145) just about matching its numbers.  Last year's #2 was The Decemberists' Crane Wife; its 1390 points and 126 mentions, which would put it at #6 this year (behind Spoon's Gax5). Joanna Newsom's Ys, third-ranked in 2006 with 1121 points, would be #9 in 2007.

My own favorite record of 2007 came in at #74; last year's favorite tied for 523rd.  Movin' on up!  Or something.

And in case you were curious:  The Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist came in at #103 on Hype Machine's Zeitgeist.

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The Village Voice released its Somethingth-or-Somethingthminusone-Annual Pazz and Jop Poll last week, which took in 577 ballots (up from 494 in 2006).  Idolator's 2007 We're Nicer Now Honest Pop Critics Poll went up two weeks ago, featured 452 ballots (down from 497).  Here's a side-by-side of the Top 30 from all three:

Looking only at the Top 30:  The red boxes are titles which Zeitgeist's list shares with one or both of the others.  The blue are titles that appear only on the two critic's polls.  Purple boxes are exclusive to Zeitgeist's Top 30, Grey to the Voice, Green to Idolator.

Lily Allen's Alright, Still (#16 P/J and #13 I-Pop) came in at #78; if you include the 362 points from last year's Bloggregate (in which it was ranked #30), it would be #23.  Or 24, if you add the 83 points Amy Winehouse got last year to this year's total (which would bump her from her current spot at #23 to #22).

The top-ranked rap album on all three lists is Kanye West's Graduation (#17 Z, #6 P/J, #8 I-P).  Both the Voice and Idolator included Jay-Z (#18 and #23, respectively - #49 on Zeitgeist); Idolator also thought highly of Lil Wayne (#26 - #75-Z, #35-P/J) and UGK (#29 - #133-Z, #39-P/J), and coughed up the highest ranking for a "world music" CD, putting Tinariwen at #30 (it reached #34 on P/J and tied for #256 on Z).

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand (#8-P/J, #19-I-P) didn't get higher than #73 with Zeitgeist. Personal fave Miranda Lambert (#15-P/J, #12-I-P) tied for 183rd on the Z (it's currently listed as 162 because ties aren't staggered on the site).  The Voice also gave higher nods to Sharon Jones (#99-Z, #36-I-P), Bettye LaVette(tied at #199, #45-I-P), and Grinderman (#57-Z, #35-I-P).

Also in blue:  PJ Harvey (at #56 on Zeitgeist) and Against Me! (#76).

The Indie Kids filled up the missing spaces with... Indie.  Well, Justice's Album Cross-Symbol-Thingie placed (#36-P/J, #31-I-P).  But then there's Beirut, Iron & Wine, New Pornos, St. Vincent, Caribou, and Ryan Adams.

Drudgery!  See what happens when you don't go and frolic like I told you?  The consensus doesn't matter; go find folks who agree with you, and see what else they like.

What are you waiting for?  A snappy ending?  Someone drank all my milkshake jokes.  All out!  Go!

tags: 2007 music bloggregate  bloggregate  2007 bloggregate  best music 2007  milkshake  bloggergate  

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