06
Dec
Poll taxing
Music blogging is such a selfish discipline, an autonomous vanity project in which you attempt to convince readers that your music taste is clearly so much better than the blog next door.
The quirky thing about having such an opinion-driven cartel is that you end up with lots of authors but very little authority. That might help explain why the opportunity to join forces with other bloggers in an effort to wield collective influence is so tempting.
Around 30 UK music websites, The Pop Cop included, contributed to a poll called The Blog Sound Of 2012. Its chief organiser is an English blogger who wanted to come up with an alternative to the BBC’s annual Sound Of poll, an understandable undertaking in light of the heinous Jessie J being deemed ‘the Sound Of 2011′.
Nevertheless, wilfully diluting the one commodity that sets you apart from everyone else – personal taste – doesn’t sit easily with me, and these polls have only reinforced that.
The remit of The Blog Sound Of was to supply “a list of five acts you’d like to see make it big in 2012″. However, I quickly realised the five I’d picked out were complete unknowns outside Scotland, thus rendering my selections rather pointless given the volume and demographic of bloggers being surveyed.
I therefore decided to sacrifice one of my choices in favour of a non-Scottish band who I thought might actually have a chance of being picked by other bloggers. And, wouldn’t you know, The Jezabels turned out to be the only one of my five selections who ended up on the longlist*.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this same, flawed thought process goes on in the heads of the 184 critics, presenters and producers who were surveyed for the BBC’s Sound Of 2012 poll. There’s little doubt that judges Vic Galloway, Ally McCrae, Jim Gellatly, Dave Kerr, David Pollock, Muslim Alim and Brian Paige are well-qualified to identify and nominate the best new acts Scotland has to offer, but even if all of their choices favoured indigenous talent, it would cause barely a ripple in the BBC poll given that their collective influence makes up less than 4% of the panel (which, incidentally, isn’t even close to representing Scotland in the UK proportionately).
And if the Scottish judges are also aware of the futility of championing a scene that is commonly ignored down south, who could blame them if they just gave their BBC votes to half-decent buzz bands who might actually have a chance of being in the final placings?
As a fanatic of new music, I’d much rather read about the tips of individuals I respect than a poll which, by its very nature, decrees that a group’s most unoriginal taste is its most important.
*The Blog Sound Of 2012 longlist:
Alt-J
Bastille
Beth Jeans Houghton
Daughter
French Wives
Friends
Houdini Dax
Lianne La Havas
Lucy Rose
Meursault
Outfit
The Good Natured
The Jezabels
Theme Park
Washington
7 Responses to “Poll taxing”
December 6th, 2011 at 14:06
Doesn’t seem to be a reference to the fact that there are two Scottish bands on that list, which is more than Scotland’s proportion against the rest of the UK, and that’s without having any Scottish backing.
December 6th, 2011 at 16:11
Not sure that all of us music bloggers deserve such approbation.
December 6th, 2011 at 17:31
Hamish, there were actually four Scottish blogs involved in the Blog Sound Of poll – The Pop Cop, Peenko, Song By Toad and Kowalskiy. So there was “Scottish backing”, although I’m not sure if any of us would have deemed Meursault “new” enough to vote for them (not even Matthew at SBT did and they’re on his label!)
December 6th, 2011 at 17:57
this is all over the place. the bbc poll is by nature all encompassing so it’s inevitable that it will be a bit cruddy to us indier-than-though types. also, it will be scots-free as we don’t really do ‘pop’ here, not to the level that it gets noticed by the london-centric media and (cough) tastemakers.
but I still get the impression that the guys who set up the blogger poll (god is in the tv I think) have taken the huff that they’ve not been deemed worthy of contributing to the bbc one. so they have put together an ‘alternative’ to it – actually an alternative in that most of the blogs will have an indie bent rather than having a load of pop or r’n'b like the bbc one has.
and yet they still managed to pick some of the acts which the bbc poll has featured. plus, as the main thrust of the piece above has it, the choices are kind of safe, probably driven that way thanks to this (understandable) block vote thinking that we probably all do when compiling lists (I just put Jetpacks and Wire in a poll as I know there was little chance of my first choices picking up votes from anyone else).
so what am I trying to say? polls are pointless, music’s not a competition, and the beeb has been crap since peel departed, I guess. (but the music business has always been driven by pr companies and pluggers in London and lists like these will always be more about haircuts and personal stylists than the music).
December 8th, 2011 at 02:29
Ah fair enough then, thought you were the only Scot asked.
December 8th, 2011 at 22:50
And there were only around 50 women out of 184 (give or take a ‘sam’ or two) and only 3 names that had a vaguely ‘asian’ ring to them, when people of Asian heritage make up around 9% of the UK population. Did you check to see if anyone not obviously Scottish was actually born in Scotland? Or had one Scottish parent? Or was maybe a generation away from being Scottish? I just don’t understand the position. It’s about pop music, not health care. There’s no ‘fair’ involved here. If a band get noticed or popular it’s for all kinds of reasons. Who did Noddy Holder complain to when the Bay City Rollers broke the USA and Slade didn’t?
December 10th, 2011 at 20:02
agreed on the jezabels being likely to make it big… except their best material is on their first 2 eps… the album is weak by comparison…
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