Sure, the voting is interesting (top album: Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; top single: Missy Elliot's "Work It", in a landslide), but as with their movie critics' poll, it's the extensive comments section on the year in music that make it such compelling reading. Here's a sample:
"Work It"'s heroic weirdness leaves me awestruck. It's hard to know where to begin trying to unravel it, other than to observe that all the backwards looping and oh-yessa-massas ("NO!") and gadunka-dunk-dunks/toing-tanga-tang-tangs share with mid-'60s Dylan a supreme confidence that amounts to getting away with anything and everything you care to try.
Phil Dellio
Toronto, Canada
Best opening gambit had to be "I was like" from "Hot in Herre"—turning everyday IM parlance into an invite to a sweaty, neverending party.
Maura Johnston
Astoria, New York
Dumbest controversy of the year: Avril Lavigne isn't really a punk. What? Next you're gonna tell me Tobey Maguire can't shoot webs out of his wrists.
Keith Harris
Chicago, Illinois
"Like I Love You" was, among other things, a triumph of syntactic ambiguity: Does Justin, like, love her? Does he feel something approximating love? Is he just being sarcastic? The song's a perfect textual depiction of the Neptunes' indecisive Sweet Tart shuffle: Is it pop? Is it r&b? Is it just being sarcastic?
Mikael Wood
Manhattan
Is Ja Rule still alive? Doesn't calling DMX a bitch on the radio precipitate some kind of ensanguined death by pit bull in the Streets of Harlem? I mean, who's going to back Ja up? Ashanti? Mary J. Blige? Charli Baltimore? Steven Segal?
Joseph Patel
Manhattan
The worst musical trend of the year had to be those innumerable permutations of Ashanti, Ja Rule, J Lo, Fat Joe, J Rule, Ja Joe, and Fat Lo. All these songs trade on the same gimmick—girly-girl singer paired with manly-man rapper. The result is an unintentional parody of gender panic, where Ja seems to fear if he ever rises above a monotone, it must mean he's a fag, while any girl who fails to outsource her rapping to a guy with big pecs has to be a closet dyke.
Ted Friedman
Decatur, Georgia
Eminem gets more mileage out of being poor than being white. Pink cleans her own closet with a "Family Portrait." Justin chats up his modest background. J.Lo is still Jenny from the block. And young white rock stars everywhere say they're just trying to get by. Growing up lower-middle class is the new suburban street cred.
Bret McCabe
Baltimore, Maryland
The most fascinating thing about Michael Jackson is his faculty for outsizing his own irony, on levels of disbelief Voltaire, Swift, or Thompson would be hard-pressed to suspend. The plot twists are too bizarre to be calculated and at the same time too peculiar to be mere happenstance. The tragic thing is the attention this draws from media cynics and a populace with a predilection for red meat. After all, it's not like Jackson is evil, a bin Laden or a Papa Doc or a Ferdinand Marcos or the cowards who shot Jam Master Jay or a Henry Kissinger or a Sotheby's/Tyco/ Enron/Adelphia/WorldCom/ImClone CEO or a Clear Channel or a Newt Gingrich or a Dick Cheney or a Strom Thurmond. This is Shakespearean tragedy cloaked as Twainian farce directed by Spike Jonze.
Darrell McNeil
Brooklyn, New York
As I said, there's good reading to be had, and this is just a small sample. Enjoy.
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