JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Ourstage judging?

Pandora already does what you're suggesting Richard. They have expert filters and then give you suggestions based on what you say you like.

We do the same thing in our awards. At the start, a tiny number of people pick genres so they are consistent throughout the process. By having the stuff filtered correctly for genre, it makes the entire comparison screening process dramatically easier. Not everyone agrees with the "name" of a genre, but at least once you're inside it, you're going to hear music with commonalities and a somewhat logical collective.

As with any process where you choose one thing over the other, people will always disagree. Each year we have to pick a song of the year out of the entire entries. We rarely end up with a song that even half the voters in the genre category even chose as one of their top 5. (i.e. out of 20 nominees). But once something is in the top 6 at the end, it's considered for song of the year. Last year we ended up with a song that finished second in it's category as overall song of the year based on the final voting just among the top 6. We didn't have a single song in any category that didn't get votes so it's clear that even the very worst song in any given category had someone who thought it was one of the 5 best.

That's why we've always stressed that our goal isn't to say "this is the greatest song/album out there..." but rather here's some amazing music that our system has put forward for recognition and attention. Our combined group of experts, peers and fans all voted and came to this combined result. I think by having that mix, you really get a lot of diverse perspectives. Ironically, the fans are often the best, of the 3 groups, at picking what eventually wins. Industry is the least effective. = )

Brian