Sad breaking news this morning: HUGH MASEKELA died today in JOHANNESBURG... I used to luuuvvvv the VILLAGE VOICE's PAZZ & JOP POLL, which for a long time was the closest thing there was to a critical consensus of the year in pop, an annual affirmation of the cultural import of records like STANKONIA or 3 FEET HIGH AND RISING or SIGN O' THE TIMES. You weren't going to find that at the GRAMMYS or in ROLLING STONE. Everyone who was anyone voted. Reading the curated list of pithy comments from the voters was like eating a never-ending pop music dessert, and their individual top-10 lists—some gave up multiple nights of sleep to get them just right—were endless sources of music discovery. Yes, I was/still am a music nerd who doesn't get enough sunlight. I am not unaware. But I get a little more sunlight now, and the world has created a thousand different ways to discover music and a million different ways to tabulate all that music at the end of each year. The Village Voice isn't what it used to be, and Pazz & Jop serves no particular purpose anymore. No one loses any sleep thinking about it and no one would be running out to ASTOR PLACE on Tuesday night to grab one of the first copies even if a print edition still existed. But it can still serve as a final marker, a final affirmation of KENDRICK LAMAR's DAMN and CARDI B's "BODAK YELLOW" (and plenty of other meaningful work by JASON ISBELL and JLIN and MOUNT EERIE and CHARLI XCX and FUTURE and and and). We'll use it to lower the final curtain on our running MusicSET "Best Music of 2017: The Year in Lists," which it now officially disappears into, the same way individual voters disappeared into the Pazz & Jop list back in the day... The Pazz & Jop cover essay by the poll's esteemed founder, ROBERT CHRISTGAU, weaves a compelling storyline through the year's top 100 albums, based entirely on how they do or don't—but even then they do—relate to the presidency of DONALD TRUMP. It would have been nice if the only other essay wasn't by another old-school male rockcrit. Could've used some pazz, that is. Or some jop. Where were the actual inhabitants of LIL UZI VERT's and CARLY RAE JEPSEN's worlds? (Here they are: NPR MUSIC's RODNEY CARMICHAEL on Uzi. MTV NEWS' ANNE T. DONAHUE on Carly Rae)... Metal, the adjective... Roadie school... DJ MUSTARD just says no to codeine.... Sending all the REDEF love in the world to NEIL DIAMOND... RIP DAVE HOLLAND, the drummer on JUDAS PRIEST's classic albums who fell from grace in later years.