Yes, it's finally that time of year, the point at which we're all forced to stop dithering and decide once and for all if, say, "Party Rock Anthem," really was one of the 10 best singles released in the past 12 months. In other words, if you're among the 1800-plus critics included in our database, a 2011 Pazz and Jop ballot should have appeared in your inbox early this evening Eastern time. If you were expecting a ballot and have yet to receive one, or if you're writing regularly and would like to be included, email Maura at mjohnston@villagevoice.com, me at nmurray@villagevoice.com, or the trustworthy pazzandjop@villagevoice.com, and we'll see what we can do. Polls close on December 23 and the issue comes out on January 18, which should give you plenty of time to figure out whether it would be cool to vote for The Coup's "5 Million Ways to Kill a C.E.O." via the year of impact rule.

Before he was writing novels about zombies, elevator inspectors and summers on Long Island, the man behind 2010's best literary twitter account worked on staff at the Voice, writing mostly about television but often about books and music as well. To coincided with the release of his new Zone One, we spent a couple of hours in the archive room, using the old-fashioned card catalog, to unearth what turned out to be some of the best pop criticism we had read all month. Yesterday we reproduced his review of Basehead's We're Not in Kansas Anymore, and today we've got his take on Digable Planets' Reachin' (A New Refutation of Space and Time).

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Before he was writing novels about zombies, elevator inspectors and summers on Long Island, the man behind 2010's best literary twitter account worked on staff at the Voice, writing mostly about television but often about books and music as well. To coincided with the release of his new Zone One, we spent a couple hours in the archive room using the old-fashioned card catalog to unearth what turned out to be some of the best pop criticism we had read all month. Below we've reproduced his review of Basehead's We're Not in Kansas Anymore, an album Whitehead takes to task for "[signifying] rap without playing it," and will continue tomorrow with his take on Digable Planets and Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde. Long form album reviews, remember them?

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Demi Lovato, not pleased with her advance copy of our thoughts on her new record.

In the span of months, Disney star Demi Lovato, only 19, has gone from ugly tabloid stories—many probably false, but still—about cocaine, eating disorders and regrettable parties to releasing her third solo album, Unbroken, after receiving towering (ahem) acclaim for redemptive lead single "Skyscraper." This is 2011, of course, so her tours include fewer covers of goth metal and more of Lil Wayne, and her album features fewer guitars and more appearances by the likes of Dev, Jason Derulo and Iyaz. Popdust's Katherine St. Asaph and Sound of the City's Nick Murray discuss, via the miracle of GChat, Demi's new record, growing up in public, and the difficult transition from Radio Disney to Z100.

Katherine St. Asaph: The whole Demi Lovato album campaign's come seemingly out of nowhere, going from 0 to "Skyscraper" and then to Unbroken, the new album.

Nick Murray: Yeah, out of nowhere Demi Lovato starts getting critical buzz, while Joe Jonas plays a VIP-only show when Santos Party House takes over Saks Fifth Avenue for Fashion Week. How did we get to this point?

Katherine: Everybody likes redemption. Especially considering how (really, really, really) uncomfortable all the tabloid stories about Demi had gotten.

Nick: I imagine that much of the good press this record has gotten relates to how easy it is to find those stories (or the fallout from them) in the songs. But beyond the lyrical content, those tabloid stories have really determined the direction of the album and at this point, her career. Whereas most artists seem to attempt the transition out of teenpop by showing how edgy they've become (e.g. Miley Cyrus becoming a bird who can't be tamed in the video for "Can't Be Tamed," or Joe Jonas using drunk driving as a metaphor for a night in the club—or is it the other way around?—in "Fast Life"), for Lovato, that wasn't really an option.

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Adele's 21 has ruled the American charts for most of 2011, and it's done so almost entirely on the back of one song: the lead single "Rolling In The Deep." While the British singer was topping charts in her homeland and several other countries with the follow-up single, the ballad "Someone LIke You," her US promotional campaign just kept on milking the uptempo "Rolling." The Ryan Tedder co-write "Rumour Has It" thrived on a few niche radio formats this spring and summer (it hit No. 1 on the Triple A chart), but for most of America, Adele has been synonymous with only "Deep" in 2011. And in an age where promotional blitzes include multiple singles preceding an album's release (Lady Gaga was on her third single by the time Born This Way hit stores in May), selling so many copies of an album because of one hit is a staggering achievement.

Last month, a couple weeks after "Someone Like You" was sent to American radio for adds, Adele finally properly launched the single's stateside campaign with a performance of it at MTV's Video Music Awards. The strategy seemed to deliberately mirror the way it was launched in the UK; a performance of "Someone" at the BRIT Awards had sent the song skyrocketing to the top of that country's charts all the way back in January. And given that the performance, frankly, felt kind of drab and low-energy when contrasted to the headline-grabbing performances by Beyoncé and Gaga, I was pretty skeptical about the odds of the BRIT effect repeating itself. But evidently it worked, because "Someone Like You" ascended to the top of the Hot 100 last week.

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River Avenue, 3:45 p.m. Most of the Anthrax shirt-wearers were inside by this point.

The Big 4: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax
Yankee Stadium
Wednesday, September 14

Better than: "Nationals beat the Mets, 2-0. WP: Brad Peacock (1-0), LP: Mike Pelfrey (7-12)"

Truth be told, the crowd at Yankee Stadium last night didn't look all that different than a crowd at a Major League Baseball game normally might—lots of dudes in logo-ed t-shirts and caps, drinking beer, cheering lustily for the goings-on down below. There were also a few scattered chants about the suckiness of Boston and the Mets, just for good measure.

But the reason for the 41,000 people in attendance wasn't a late-season tilt between the Yankees and its American League also-rans; instead, they were united under the banners of loud guitars and pummeling drums, of alienation and anger. The Big 4—Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, four titans of thrash who had seen both triumph and tragedy over the past 30 years—shared a bill for what was said to be the east coast's biggest metal show.

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Cameron Whitman

"In life we do not experience one emotion; there are many that shape our being," says Nick Palmirotto, guitarist and vocalist for Brooklyn metal mutation Hull. "Such is the same with our music; this is why we never stick to one particular genre or feeling." Naturally the second album from these ADD cineastes, Beyond The Lightless Sky (due October 11 via The End), doesn't stay in one place for too long; instead, it veers between motorcycle-revving D-beat, bog-trawling doom, sinister black metal, Neurosis drum-offs and hypnotic passages that gnash like a venom-dripping cousin to the final Isis album.

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MTV

Sort of the way I remember it.

Welcome to Sound of the City's liveblog of the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the cable channel's annual paean to musically borne decadence and its own self-storied past. Tonight's roster of performers includes Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Pitbull, and Young the Giant, as well as a "surprise" performance by Jay-Z and Kanye West, a tribute to Britney Spears (not dead and celebrating the 10th anniversary of her dancing uncomfortably with a snake), an homage to Amy Winehouse (R.I.P.), and the looming possibility that Tyler, The Creator will crap himself onstage. The blogging starts below.

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Kanye West's favorite Clipse brother, Pusha T, drops his new EP Fear of God: Let Us Pray today. Released on 'Ye's GOOD Music label, the project includes collaborations with Tyler, The Creator, Young Jeezy and Diddy, as well as the label boss himself on "Amen." In the run-up to the EP's release, Pusha T took a timeout from shoveling down some Chinese chow at a Midtown spot to trace the links between the Odd Future and No Limit movements, recall his days playing shows for local drug dealers around the country, and explain why he might not be that keen to work with Large Professor these days, despite "Looking At The Front Door" being his favorite song of all time.

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The clattering "Drones Over BKLYN" is the first taste of the third album from NYC hip-hop iconoclast El-P. It's a tangled jigsaw of old-school signifiers future-shocked into a violent pointillism, where Kool G Rap pianos and Rubin-style guitar stabs wage war with spasmodic Just Blaze double-drummer anarchy. And that's just until the track collapses under its own weight and emerges with a gorgeous acid-rock coda, swirling organs and spiraling guitars making delicious cosmic slop. El says this maddening, multi-layered blusterfuck matches the energy of his upcoming record, tentatively titled Cancer For Cure (Fat Possum). This fall, you can catch him reuniting with the mighty Company Flow at this years All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Asbury Park, N.J., at the behest of curators and superfans Portishead.

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