December is nearly over, which means that pretty much every music publication has filed its obligatory end-of-year list and gone off to gorge itself on turkey and mulled wine. Looking over said lists, it’s interesting to note how they’ve become an exercise in critical homogeneity — you see the same names cropping up over and over again on list after list, and the days of gloriously off-the-wall choices like NME dubbing the long-forgotten Sugar’s Copper Blue as the best album of 1992 are long behind us. Still, having said that, pretty much every publication manages to include at least a couple of names that no-one else does, and it’s these idiosyncratic choices — both worthy and/or laughable — that tend to reveal the most about the publication in question. If you’re wondering which one might be right for you, then look no further — after the jump, we dissect 10 leading outlets’ top 10 lists, and consider what their choices say about them (and us).

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As we’ll discuss in more detail tomorrow — when we publish a round-up of end-of-year lists from around the music world — the problem with a lot of the listomania that goes on at this time of year is that for all that critics and magazines try to be as eclectic as possible in their list-making, their choices ultimately reflect the nature of their readership and also their own limited geographical scope. Taking this idea a step further, UCLA doctoral student Patrick Adler has mapped out where every act on Pitchfork’s Top 100 tracks is based, and his results are both fascinating and ultimately unsurprising: the vast majority of acts on the Pitchfork list were from or based in New York, London and LA, in that order. Adler then rated cities by their representation per capita on the list, and apart from a couple of statistical outliers like the tiny town of Eau Claire, WI (home of one Bon Iver), the results were largely similar, with big metro areas like New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver placing highly. What does it all mean? That even in this brave new age of internet self-distribution and SoundCloud and unlimited online streaming, you’re much more likely to get heard if a) you’re American and b) you suck it up and go to scrounge a living in the big city in order to get your music heard. There’s more information about Adler’s study at The Atlantic.

It’s that time of year again, when everyone from New Yorker critics to mp3 bloggers who barely write a single sentence about the songs they post embark upon that great equalizer: the best-of list. This week, Pitchfork has revealed its writers’ 100 favorite tracks of 2011, and as usual, it provides some subliminal insight into where young, indie types’ (we’ll do everyone the favor of not using that word) heads have been over the past 12 months. Indulge us in our overanalysis of what the site’s top 10 songs of the year say about us, after the jump. Read More »

It seems an era of vibes is coming to an end. Altered Zones, the Pitchfork-spinoff blog aggregator that launched only last year, has just announced that it will cease publication. The reasons for the shutdown are unclear, but we can only speculate that the audience for the obscure and sometimes difficult music the site traded in was limited. The host of blogs that the site drew from, including 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Gorilla vs. Bear, and Yours Truly will continue to publish independently.

Looking towards the future of DIY sounds, the co-editors of Altered Zones, Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander (who is also a member of one of our new favorite bands, La Big Vic) have announced the inception of a new project, Ad Hoc. At the moment, the page gives few details, but the earthy aesthetics imply a departure from some of the spaced-out vibes that AZ was known for. The only description currently available states that the site will be a “100% independent, daily music and visual culture publication,” featuring content from “some of our favorite music bloggers, and active imaginations from all across our global grassroots community.” We’re excited to see what this new direction will mean for the endlessly entertaining Internet music alt-osphere, but while we’re waiting, you should really check out one of the last posts on Altered Zones, an in-depth interview with Brooklyn electronic duo Prince Rama, which is as fascinating as it is incomprehensible.

1. Does Seth MacFalane wish that Family Guy would get canceled? In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter he says: “Part of me thinks that Family Guy should have already ended. I think seven seasons is about the right lifespan for a TV series. I talk to the fans and in a way I’m kind of secretly hoping for them to say we’re done with it.”

2. Pitchfork is bringing a new music festival to New York City this February; according to the organizers, it will “include works by visual artists and game designers at galleries, museums and unconventional performance spaces around the city, along with four days of performances at clubs run by Bowery Presents.” [via ArtsBeat]

3. So here’s one (and quite possibly, the only) reason Star Wars fans might want to see Paul W.S. Anderson’s 3D version of The Three Musketeers when it hits theaters on October 21: it will be your first chance to check out the new 3D-converted Phantom Menace trailer. [via /film]

4. British book publisher Faber & Faber has named Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as its new editor at large, a position once held by Pete Townshend. Explains Faber editor Lee Brackstone: “We now have an excellent portfolio of authors from the pop world and our intention is to develop these relationships and continue to build a reputation as the home for exciting and original writing on music.” [via Guardian]

5. NME.com has arbitrarily named Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” the best song of the past 15 years. Rounding out their top five: Arcade Fire, “Rebellion (Lies)”; Outkast, “Hey Ya!”; The Strokes, “Last Nite”; The Killers, “Mr. Brightside.” Do you agree with this list?

Bonus Buzz: 10 Pugs Extremely Upset With Dr Pepper

It seems that we aren’t the only ones less than impressed with Odd Future’s look-at-us-we’re-so-outrageous shtick — an anti-domestic violence group is apparently planning to protest at July’s Pitchfork Festival against the collective’s presence on the bill. WBEZ critic Jim DeRogatis reported a little earlier today that Chicago-based group Between Friends will be at the event to hand out 5,000 cardboard fans adorned with “a powerful message about violence against women” in the hope of getting attendees “discussing the issue and knowing where to turn for help.” Sadly, we can’t really imagine that either OFWGKTA or their fans have the remotest interest in stopping and thinking about why people are so down on their shock-horror lyricism — if anything, this whole affair will probably lead to much further hand-wringing about whether Tyler et al are just kiddies who don’t know any better, or whether they’re actually just playing out roles and people just don’t get it, man, or whether they really are spoiled, misogynistic, homophobic little turds. Next, we suggest Pitchfork be picketed for still thinking that bratty teenagers making naughty statements in search of attention are remotely interesting. (And we look forward to commenters calling us “faggots” again in five… four… three… two…) [via WBEZ]

First it was Facebook. Now, indie types the world over are giggling over the news that underground auteurs-turned-mainstream filmmakers Mark and Jay Duplass have written a script called Pitchfork. As The LA Times describes it, the movie is about “the middle-aged mother of an indie rocker who, after her son is killed in a car accident, seeks vengeance on an online blogger who had peddled snark about her son (on the music site Pitchfork, hence one of the title’s entendres).” Yeah, we’d see it. Ten more websites-turned-movies we’d like to see are after the jump.

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1. The new self-titled Bon Iver album, which isn’t officially due out until June 21st, is currently streaming online. Justin Vernon has said that “Beth/Rest” is his favorite song on the LP because, “It’s definitely the part where you pick up your joint and re-light it.” What’s yours?

2. That girl we told you about earlier in the week, who had all 156 of her Facebook friends tattooed on her arm, was pulling one over on us. The video was actually an advertising stunt for Rotterdam tattoo artist Dex Moelker. [via Gawker]

3. As of Wednesday night’s preview performance, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is officially “frozen,” meaning that no more major changes will be made to the musical’s script, lyrics, or choreography. If all goes according to plan, the show officially opens next Tuesday. [via ArtsBeat]

4. Indie filmmaking duo The Duplass Brothers (Cyrus, The Puffy Chair) are working on a new dramatic thriller called Pitchfork, that’s about “the middle-aged mother of an indie rocker who, after her son is killed in a car accident, seeks vengeance on an online blogger who had peddled snark about her son.” Sounds promising, no? [via LAT]

5. Following in the esteemed footsteps of Lauren Conrad, Glee star Chris Colfer is launching a second career as a YA author. He just signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, with the first novel, which draws from the world of classic fairy tales, due out some time next summer. [via EW]

Bonus link: Record a song with today’s Google Doodle, a tribute to Les Paul

So you missed Coachella and Sasquatch, and for the last week you’ve had to put up with reading all these reports about how amazing Primavera was. Trust us, we sympathize. But now, with summer upon us, there’s plenty of options available if you’re thinking that you’d like to hit up a music festival over the next few months but don’t want to spend a fortune or fly to Barcelona. Over the next few pages, we’ve compiled a brief guide to our pick of the best summer festivals that aren’t Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, etc. Read on if you’re keen for a piece of such action, or you just want to amuse yourself by counting just how many festivals Cut Copy are playing this summer.

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There are few more apt pairings than LCD Soundsystem and Pitchfork. Not only are they two of the most influential forces in independent music, but we have to assume the band and the webzine’s fans overlap by nearly 100 percent. Most importantly, both LCD and Pitchfork are major music nerds, throwing down obscure references at every opportunity. That synergy has led to one our favorite infographics in a while, comparing artists James Murphy name-drops in “Losing My Edge” with those Pitchfork mentioned in their song-by-song LCD retrospective. The result is pleasing both for your obsessive list-maker types and those who find either entity somewhat worthy of ridicule — and, of course, the large group that would fall into the center of that Venn diagram. [via I Love Charts]