My invitation to the Pazz & Jop poll arrived today. I didn't vote the last two years, feeling that I hadn't "kept up" enough to be quite fair. Definitely I could have made respectable ballots but then is respectable really the point? Still, it would have been nice to put in another vote for Goodbye Babylon or Jon Langford or whoever needed it.
This year, of course, is something different. How many people won't vote in protest or cast oddball ballots? Hey, they say literal release dates aren't important so my ballot will be filled with Palestrina and Scarlatti. The invitation doesn't entirely shy away from this, in a grand understatement pointing out that "this has been a year of some tumult at the Voice" and carefully mentioning that Christgau will be voting. Can we expect a full Dean's List? In any case, I'm time stamping my ballot idea now: Top Ten Christgau Reviews.