U2 No. 1 in E&P's First Pop-Music Poll

By: Brian Orloff As 2004 ended, pop-music critics for daily newspapers recounted the year's musical highs and lows in their columns and, as critics are wont to do, tallied their favorite albums in list form. Unable to resist tabulating the results, we hereby announce the winners -- drum roll, please -- of E&P's first-ever, sure-to-be-annual, Pop Poll.

After considering the selections of about 20 critics at daily papers around the country, we settled on 10 to include in our tally, simply because (1) they limited their choices to a top 10, and (2) they ranked the CDs in order. These are the true purists, and it was the only way we could assign scores and tabulate highly scientific results.

In our rigorous ranking process we assigned point values (15 for the No. 1 slot, 12 for No. 2, and 8 down to 1 for the rest of the top 10) to determine our album of the year. And because our calculations were so exact, we even had a three-way tie for ninth place, which brings the number of albums on our top 10 list to 11.

The winner, by a narrow margin: U2 over Kanye West.

We studied these critics' lists: Jim Abbott of the Orlando Sentinel; Joan Anderman of The Boston Globe; Michael D. Clark of the Houston Chronicle; Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times; Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times; Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune; Tom Moon of The Philadelphia Inquirer; Steve Morse of the The Boston Globe; Jon Pareles of the The New York Times; and Kelefa Sanneh of the The New York Times.

The results of Editor & Publisher's first Pop Poll:

U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (58 points)
Kanye West's "College Dropout" (54 points)
Green Day's "American Idiot" (46 points)
Loretta Lynn's "Van Lear Rose" (34 points)
The Streets' "A Grand Don't Come For Free" (25 points)
Franz Ferdinand (s/t) (22 points)
Wilco's "a ghost is born" (18 points)
The Roots' "The Tipping Point" (17 points)
Black Keys' "Rubber Factory," The Hives' "Tyrannosaurus Hives," and Steve Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now" (15 points)

In addition to the rankings, our critics offered some pointed remarks, or just waxed enthusiastic.

U2's album, its first since 2000, appeared on many critics' lists, though some complained about the band's ubiquitous iPod ad. It was heralded by Steve Morse as the band's "most personal record? since "The Joshua Tree."

Greg Kot picked Kanye West's disc No. 1, explaining "He's a minimum-wage Everyman who is by turns a cutting comedian, street philosopher and conflicted evangelist." Kelefa Sanneh wrote about the album's infectious quality: "[West] chuckles at his own endless supply of shameless jokes. There's only one sensible response: Join him."

Green Day's ambitious concept album, "American Idiot," also ranked high on several lists. Jim DeRogatis wrote, "The snotty pop-punks who gave us 'Dookie? have grown up and pulled off the surprising feat of releasing a rock opera that doesn't collapse under its own weight."

Apart from big name acts, critics favored albums by indie bands, including the self-titled debut from Scotland's Franz Ferdinand that favors danceable disco-grooves and New Wave hooks.

And British rapper Mike Skinner, who performs under the moniker the Streets, charted high with his concept album which, Anderman wrote, "transformed a few mundane days and druggy nights in the life of a loutish urban slacker into an ambitious minimalist hip-hop narrative told in 11 chapters -- complete with plot, dialogue, characters, conflict, and resolution."

Other well-regarded discs (though, alas, they did not score enough points to make our composite list) included Brian Wilson's re-recorded "Smile" and Brooklyn's hipster doo-wop-meets-indie rocker TV on the Radio's "Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes."