last stop! ‘07 wrap-up concludes

21Dec07

Today’s the last day of our ‘Best of ‘07′ rollout; find out who won the User Poll (UK, your winners are here). Also, in our final Q&A, I talked to the National about the tough time they had making Boxer. Says frontman Matt Berninger: “It was taking me forever to write lyrics for this thing, so that was really stressful. Those guys were really worried. After eleven months of working on this record, I only had lyrics done for two songs. I know that caused a lot of tension and a lot of fear and anxiety in the band. I know [guitarist] Aaron [Dessner] was, towards the end, a little out of his mind. He was honestly wondering, ‘Do we have a record here?’” The interview is a bit long, but I think he sheds some interesting light on the group’s creative process.

Just for fun — some poll statistics and personal notes after the jump…

And now, a few Harper’s Index-style stats for those of you who are interested:

Total number of albums that received votes in the User Poll: 2707
Number of points separating #1 and #2 in the User Poll: 113
Number of points separating #1 and #2 in the Writer Poll: 1
Number of albums in the User Poll receiving 1 vote: 155
Number of eMusic Users who voted for Radiohead’s In Rainbows: 27
Rank of Panda Bear on the Writer Poll vs. User Poll: 1, 10
Rank of Tinariwen on same: 2, 76
Rank of the highest-placing jazz record on the User Poll: 172 (Anthony Braxton, Six Compositions)
…of the highest-placing classical record: You don’t want to know.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the ‘07 Year End package (sneak preview: you can get to all of it, any time, by going here (and in the UK, go here).

On a personal note: I’ve really enjoyed getting to talk with you guys on 17 Dots; the site has been around for almost a year, and I’m looking forward to keeping up the chatter in ‘08. I know all of us have been really excited about the community that’s built up around the blog. I didn’t get to post as often as I would have liked in ‘07, but really enjoyed the comments and conversation every time I did. I hope you all have a happy and restful holiday, and we’ll see you next year!

joe.

Filed under: editorial, indie, music, year end |

10 Responses to “last stop! ‘07 wrap-up concludes”

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1 joe on Dec 21st, 2007 said:

Thanks, Daniel! We’ve enjoyed your comments, too — keep em coming.
2 Captain Wrong on Dec 22nd, 2007 said:

Braxton at 172 as the first jazz? Yikes! I’m guessing people like myself who download mostly jazz just didn’t get around to voting…maybe?
3 joe on Dec 22nd, 2007 said:

I’m hoping that’s what it was; I was expecting a higher ranking, too.
4 porieux on Dec 23rd, 2007 said:

I voted for several jazz albums there were a lot of GREAT ones in 2007 such as the Powerhouse Sound, the Braxton of course, and Wallace Roney.
5 Tim on Jan 2nd, 2008 said:

I can’t believe this didn’t hit me until just now, looking at the front page of emu.com today, January 2, the Year of our Lard 2008. Checked The Emu Dozen as I always do and….

….Holy Poo, there are only TEN ALBUMS in it! WTF?!? Yes, it’s the emu staff’s top ten, but it should be the TOP DOZEN, —dammit.

(Note the dashes, above. My favorite thing about hearing “goddammit” on TV is that the part of that phrase that gets bleeped is “God.” Dammit is fit for the public airwaves, and GOD needs to be censored! That’s a liquid out the nose laugh, every single time.)

Seriously, you’re the EDITORS. We expect you to know how to spell, and we expect you to know how to count. Not too too high. Just count to FREAKING TWELVE. Not asking for long division here, people.

You are hereby enjoined from EVER creating a dozen that EVER has fewer than ONE DOZEN of anything in it, EVER.

I’m even going to help you with the math. If you want three entries of DOZENS, that would be a total of 36 records.

Thirty six. How awesome is that? Let those freaks at every other publication on the planet use rounded numbers. Ten-tards.

Hey, and while I’m at it, why stop at 36? How about the Top 48? Or The Hot Hundred and Eight!

The point is, you’re EMU. Your numbers aren’t round, they’re LUMPY. Embrace your independence by embracing The Dozen. Imagine: the top Dozen albums, chosen by you, the people who can count to TWELVE.

I’m just saying.

PS. Even if the DOZENS are but TENS, I love that you have “the User poll” and “the UK User Poll.” I love seeing the differences. But this begs two questions.

1) The differences between WHO? If you have the UK broken out, then who are the “users”? Americans? Everybody else in the whole wide world who’s not in the UK? Everybody in the world INCLUDING the UK? What up, dawg?

2) Don’t think we didn’t notice that, for all that segregated poll boo-shoo, you use THE SAME COMMENTS on both. So are the UK comments creeping on to the “User” list? Are “User” comments creeping onto the UK list? It makes no sense at all to have the SAME rationale presented for DIFFERENT results!

You can clearly see where votes are coming from, or there wouldn’t be two separate polls: the UK and somewhere else that you’re not telling us.

Is the problem with separating out them out that, with comments, you can’t count to TWO?

I love you. I’m getting you an abacus for your birthday.

PPS. This isn’t aimed at you, Joe. For all I know, you were banging your shoe on the table swearing to BURY anyone who can’t count to twelve. This is aimed at the User named emu Staff. Please share this with That User named emu Staff, along with my wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous TWELVE months.
6 joe on Jan 2nd, 2008 said:

Hey man -

So I’ll try to clear up some of the confusion here, though I doubt I’ll be able to be as hilariously bananas as your original post.

So the 10/12 issue: you got us. So much of that is a technical thing — the ‘Dozen’ format is the easiest and cleanest way for us to publish lists on-site, so sometimes we have to cheat a little with the numbers. Since we can’t change the heading to be anything other than ‘eMusic Dozens,’ we just go with 10 albums apiece. Point taken about going with 36 albums instead of 30 — but ‘Top 36 of 2007′ just sounded… bizarre.

As far as other Dozens that have less than 12 albums: as longtime eMusic users know, albums sometimes, er, ‘disappear’ without our knowing it. We try our best to go through and patch the holes, but we humbly recognize that we have a long way to go…

As far as the User Polls and comments — The different in the polls: one is US users, one is UK/EU users. As for the second part: we didn’t use UK-only comments because, quite simply, there weren’t enough! You’d be surprised how many ballots get submitted without any comments at all on them. In fact, one record that made the user top 20 didn’t have a single comment to go with it. I had to abridge a few user reviews. It was harrowing. Also, kind of weird that some people could vote for a record but have nothing to say about it. Maybe the lack of comments is a comment itself?

Anyway, I hope that answered most of your questions. Also, you can just send the abacus to me c/o eMusic, 535 5th Ave, 3rd Fl, NY, 10017. Try to find a neon one, if you can. That would rule.
7 Tim on Jan 3rd, 2008 said:

Wow, great reply to my wisenheimer post! Glad you got that I was laughing.

First odor of business: I froogled “neon abacus.” Nada. I googled it, and –get this– there’s a guy who makes signs in…wait for it…Madchester! Coolest thing I’ve found on the internet since….well, I’m not going to tell you what. Anyway, even though I didn’t find A neon abacus, finding THE neon abacus was more than worth the trip.

re: dozens that are ten. Maybe the Top 3 Dozens? A little less goofy than 36 by name, but drawing attention to the organization by dozens rather than tens, because frankly, 30 is pretty arbitrary anyway. Forty I get, certainly 100…but…

Although in your defense, I found this just today, courtesy of Consumer Reports (yes, I’m THAT old):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mathematical_Monthly
The American Mathematical MONTHLY is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is currently published TEN TIMES each year by the Mathematical Association of America.

Wow.

Moving along…but still slapping my head with my shoe…

Good on ya for trying to cull disappeared albums from archival dozens. That’s gotta be a pain. My favorite title on that count, btw, is one of my favorite emusicians, Boy in Static. His record Velvet was here, then gone, and is now back. That’s my comment there. I was so excited it was back that I didn’t bother being coherent. Of course, that’s true of all of them. I put more thought into my posts here than I did to all of my comments combined. I’m not even sure how many of them I agree with anymore.

But I feel your pain on the numbering scheme. I only busted your chops about dozens that had in their title, in effect, Not a Dozen.
re: polls, I almost said that you should SAY the “User” results are really US-only, but hey, the Red Sox are champions of the world, and I don’t feel a need to elaborate. My curiosity satisfied, carry on . There’s no I in team, but there IS a US in USER.

I’m okay with the UK poll leaving EU out of the title, because it turns out there’s no U in team, either.

re: comments, now you’ve given me another thing to waste my time on, trying to figure out the mystery “comment-free” winner by comparing against comments found on the album page.

On the spectrum between glass half full and glass half empty, I’m usually somewhere around “What glass? I don’t see any damn glass, you moron.” And yet, I want to believe that people made no comment because they thought the reason for the vote was self evident.

But I don’t believe that for a second. Lazy bastards.

Speaking of which, don’t look too hard for my ballot, if you know what I mean.
8 joe on Jan 3rd, 2008 said:

Speaking of which, don’t look too hard for my ballot, if you know what I mean.

Oh, the ironing!
9 CaptWhiffle on Jan 11th, 2008 said:

Clearly the only way to remedy this crisis is to have a top 60 over the course of 5 dozens. Multiples of twelves, tens, sixes and fives (and other numbers I can’t think of right now), and everybody’s happy!

As for the disappearing albums in the dozens–I say leave ‘em in with a note that they are no longer available on eMu. That they’ve left eMu doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t good choices to begin with, no? But then again, I guess the dozeners might want to include other more suitable choices as they arrive.

BTW, my obsessive, archivist, list-loving self has been saving in my Firefox Scrapbook each dozen as it’s posted, so I think I have the earlier incarnations of most of the dozens, but I’m not always clear when the revised versions are revealed. So I say keep the revised dozens up on the eMu magazine page for at least a week, so I can properly obsess. (Given this eMu-order-disorder, you’d think that with two and half filing cabinets and four bookshelves, I could keep piles of paper, folders, and books off my office floor. And don’t get me started on my lack of ironing…)
10 Tim on Jan 12th, 2008 said:

Captain, you’ve inspired me to better document my obsessive compulsivity.

Joe, you’ve dewrinkled me with that heavy steamy thing into writing up a list. I’m not sure I’m ready to call it MY list, but I’m sure it’s not 10 items long and I TELL you there are a dozen.

http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=27102509&p=1

PS. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could comment on Dozens and member lists? Because we really need MORE places for people to write, “This isn’t available in my country.”

last stop! ‘07 wrap-up concludes

10 Responses to “last stop! ‘07 wrap-up concludes”

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