Idolator

Well, that's it. Tag it and bag it. Unless I happen to notice a late-breaking entry from the Burlington Community Times tomorrow while getting my coffee, the publication of the Village Voice's Pazz And Jop poll marks the last of 2007's year-end lists, headed up by LCD Soundsystem (album) and Amy Winehouse (singles). Now let us never speak of either again.

THE GOOD: 2007 is over! Also Feist and Wilco were both kept out of the albums Top 10, plus an honestly surprising, kinda heartening Winehouse-over-Rihanna singles upset, if only by 4 mentions. (And even if No. 2 Rihanna spanked No. 3 "All My Friends" by a whopping 32 mentions.)
THE BAD: As with the Idolator Pop Critics Poll, Peter Bjorn and John earn a Top 10 placing on the singles list despite the evil "Young Folks" first whistling its way into our lives in 2006. Damned twee Swedes.
THE WHAAAA? Radiohead beats M.I.A. to the No. 2 albums spot despite an equal number of points, thanks to four more ballot mentions that break the tie. Not quite fraud at the polls, but clearly the electoral college is not the only voting system that needs reforming.

As part of Idolator's continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Jackin' Pop editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he [hilariously] examines the results of the Idolator Pop Critics Poll Tracks Top 10 with some special help:

By now you've seen the critics' lists of the year's best music. But what about the folks who really count—the people? In interest of fairness and balance, I've decided to take the critics' choices to some regular folks. That's right: it's time once again for this column to exploit my family.

Because 2007 still has a few weeks/months left to haunt us—Idolator Poll comin' soon, y'all!—we present (what might be) the last 2007 list in our Year-End Analysis feautre, one we almost forgot in our joy that the clocks had turned over at midnight on Jan. 1, and with that the promise that we might never again have to type the words "Neon Bible" between an italics tag into Movable Type: the Pitchfork readers' poll! And guess what? We had to type the words "Neon Bible" between an italics tag into Movable Type. As Pitchfork itself notes, their reader's Top 10 hews close to the site's own official Top 10, but after that things "diverge." Why? Because [insert usual former-conflict-of-interest-y caveat here] despite the site's admirable expansion of coverage over the last five years into areas that readers might not necessarily mutiny over, who else is gonna vote the Shins for "Most Underrated Album" with a straight face, Braff jokes be damned?

THE GOOD: Consensus cynicism be damned, it's kind of heartening that, after all the first-listen reviews and release date hype hype, people actually do seem to be repeat-listening to and enjoying the Most Important Album Of 2007. (You can decide which one we're talking about.)
THE BAD: That said, consensus keeps great records from Roisin Murphy, Dude N' Nem, and the Dirty Projectors, which "most often received first-place votes," off the singles list in favor of two Arcade Fire joints, two Radiohead songs, and (less irritatingly) two Spoon and LCD Soundsystem tracks each. Democracy!
THE WHAAA?: We've only included the Best Albums and Best Singles list after the jump, but interestingly, or perhaps just keeping with this year's vibe of established artists comfortably trouncing even well-regarded upstarts, only three of the winners in the Best New(ish) Act category make the album and/or singles lists, all down in the lower reaches save the expected Top 10 finish for Justice's "D.A.N.C.E."

This summer I was already convinced that LCD Soundsystem would top Pitchfork's list of the best singles of the year, even if I wasn't sure if the spot would go to "All My Friends" or "Someone Great." But my former colleagues solved the issue by putting both songs into the Top 10 of the site's Top 100 singles of 2007, to which (in the interest of full blah de blah) I should note that I did not contribute my two cents. (Albums list neither.) The full 100 is after the jump, but first our thoughts on the list you've all been (admit it) patiently waiting to pick apart more than any other.

THE GOOD: The Top 10 belongs to what are by now the usual suspects (try to guess the precise order before clicking!), but this is probably the only year-end wrap-up where Sun City Girls guitar magus Sir Richard Bishop shares space with the handbag R&B of T2's bassline house anthem "Heartbroken," a soppy memory from the heyday of U.K. garage that grows on me with each listen. And unlike the bulk of 2007's best-of lists, most every entry comes with an MP3 or audio stream (or at least a video clip) so that you can decide in real time just how much you disagree with it.
THE BAD: Pretty light on dance/electronic music for a site with a monthly techno column by one of the best critics covering the beat and hip-hop's been more or less whittled down to the handful of expected/accepted 2007 Inter-faves (Kanye, Jay-Z, Wayne, etc.) in favor of Pitchfork's indie wheelhouse (which had a better-than-average year). Plus they didn't even have the balls to rank the Black Kids higher than No. 68.
THE WHAAAA? Pitchfork's (institutional) embrace of the pop charts is still so odd. (That it was one of the weakest years for American pop in my living memory notwithstanding.) For instance, nothing by Lloyd, Ne-Yo, Amerie (who they favorably reviewed, even if she scored no American hits this year), Keyshia Cole, Timbaland, Bobby Valentino, Beyonce, Chris Brown, etc. makes the list, which would be fine if there was a blanket ban on non-"Umbrella" R&B. Except why did a negligible soundtrack inclusion from one-hit ex-model Cassie (a song the entry even acknowledges is initially "devoid of any distinctive qualities") make it in?

Like many other publications featured in our ongoing Year-End Analysis series, Brit music mag Fact placed LCD Soundsystem in its top single slot of the year, but they chose neither "North American Scum" or "All My Friends." And though left-field faves like Panda Bear and consensus picks like M.I.A. dot the magazine's albums list, the Arcade Fire, Radiohead, and (yes) LCD Soundsystem are nowhere to be found. Fact's actually turned in a pair of the most idiosyncratic year-end wrap-ups of 2007 so far, and they're speckled by blog faves including our (cough, cough) fave band of 2007, Black Kids. Fact's Top 100 tracks and Top 20 albums are after the jump, but first our thoughts on two lists that remember people still go out to dance clubs (or at least download MP3s of records that get played in dance clubs).

THE GOOD: Dance music! Lots of it! And not just Justice! Fact's Top 100 singles list is filled with dance 12s and EPs, from underground disco edits to Internet-hype picks to deep Germanic techno to dubstep, and their albums list is similarly foot-friendly. Totally refreshing, and making me think I should have paid closer attention to dance music this year.
THE BAD: Like a lot of (seemingly) dance/electronic-focused magzines, Fact's taste in guitar-based music sometimes feels a little shaky. Vampire Weekend released the best rock single of the year? If you say so, you crazy Englanders.
THE WHAAAA? On "Umbrella": "Just compare this take on a loved-up R&B ballad against, say, Beyonce's recent efforts, and you'll quickly see how special Rihanna is." Did the U.K. suddenly forget "Irreplaceable"? Has the planet gone mad? Am I still the only person alive who dislikes "Umbrella"?