Picked To Click 2010: Reactions

The results of the City Pages’ Picked to Click Best New Music Poll were just announced yesterday and, as usual, plenty of folks have plenty to say about the winners/losers.  First of all though I have to say that, based on the results, we did a pretty good job of predicating the winners a few months back, with nearly every top ten vote getter accounted for.

In a bizarre move the CP has also published Jim Meyer’s anti-P2C screed, which is a pretty well reasoned critique of the whole feature (even if it does feature a quote from the lunatic Ayn Rand).  

Hip Hop artist (and Reviler contributor) Kyle “Guante” Tran Mhyre wonders why, with such a vibrant hip hop scene, not a single rap artist was featured in the results (which is a pretty common occurance in the yearly feature). He has published his own list of Best New Hip Hop artists here in which he cheeckily includes himself.

Suprisingly the Modern Radio Message Board’s (always a source of entertainment) Picked To Click Thread has fallen by the wayside, but doubtlessly those very opinionated folks will start sharing some of those opinions soon.

In my own thoughts my feeling is that the results are pretty much what was expected, but probably aren’t a terrific gauge of the “best” new music out there since, as many commenters have pointed out, bands tend to do well largely on the basis of how long they have been part of the music community and conversely, how many friends they have (which is a bit odd since the whole concep is supposed to be “new” bands). This isn’t to say that winners Pink Mink didn’t deserve to win – more just a critique on the overall process.

Some suggestions for improving the system:

1. Shake up the roster of who gets to vote.  Certain types of bands seem a bit over-represented every year and it might be wise to throw in more people with more diverse tastes.  There are a few hip hop, punk, metal, etc. fans on the list right now – but not enough to really add up to any significant voting block.  Also, rotate list of said voters yearly.

2. Make voting anonymous.  Every year the complete list of ballots is posted, making sure that anyone who doesn’t want to look bad will be sure to make sure to vote for their friends’ bands.  With anonymous voting this would limit (somewhat) the “friend issue.”

3. Don’t let artists/promoters/label owners etc. vote for themselves or their own bands.  And actually enforce this!  Just seems like a pretty obvious way to reduce the conflict of interest.

Probably none of these things will happen though, so see you next year, same time, same place.  And crongrats to Pink Mink and all of the other bands who placed!

     — Jon Behm

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