All That Pazz

The Village Voice 2005 Pazz and Jop Poll is up. As usual, my ballot contained at least one album that only I deemed worthy (this year, it was two). I think that says more about how few records I hear in comparison to the other critics than my lack of taste (or theirs), but I still have a difficult time thinking that out of 795 writers, only I thought enough of the John Davis and Longwave records to vote for them. Surely I missed out on a lot of records, but the fact that no one else tabbed these tells me they missed out.

To compare my previous ballots dating back to 2000:

• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001
• 2000

I've gotten enough jokey-but-truthful comments from my friends (I think I need new ones) about how awful I look in the Pollard/Keene photo that I have to post this other one to prove that my admittedly deteriorating appearance isn't helped by flash photography at 1 a.m. after drinking about 12 beers. And that, yes, I still have some hair. Of course, holding a baby this damn cute doesn't really help my cause, does it?