The definitive music critic poll, Pazz & Jop, has just released its 2013 rankings. Started in 1971 by The Village Voice, the poll collects year-end rankings from hundreds of writers -- this year there were 457 voters. Kanye West won the album category for the fourth time, while Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" was your singles champion.
As they have on several other smaller-scale roundups, Denton ex-pats Parquet Courts made plenty of noise, finishing 24th among all albums, while hit national television single "Stoned and Starving" placed 21st. Perhaps more surprising is the exposure for laissez-faire country star Kacey Musgraves, a native of Golden, who finished 10th and had five songs in the singles poll.
She was also the subject of a startlingly good essay by Alan Scherstuhl. I'm going to blow the ending for you:
Gay, straight, bi, high, drunk, teetotaling -- that insistence that we're more alike than different no matter what we're into turns up on song after song, here -- and now, on actual radio stations. Musgraves isn't just a breakthrough for country music, as many critics have backhandedly branded her. She's a breakthrough, period, persuasively articulating the pleasures of an open-minded life. Her message: Find something -- or someone -- you love, rather than just another thing to kill the time. This record is a fantastic place to start.
There are a few other artists with North Texas ties mentioned throughout the poll, and local pride aside, it's a fascinating look at the year in music that was. Congratulations to our sister paper and its music editor, Brian McManus.
