Kanye West has come top in a pre-Grammy's survey of US music critics. Ahead of next week's Grammys bash, New York's Village Voice has released the results of its survey of 795 critics regarding their favourite album of last year. This is a complicated little survey - each critic gets 100 points which they can distribute to their favourite albums, giving each rated album anywhere between 5 or 30 points depending on how much they like it. Make sense? Good. West's 'Late Registration' came in at the top of the poll, though MIA's wonderful 'Arular' wasn't too far behind. Here's the top ten, with each album's points score (and US label). Full chart is at http://www.villagevoice.com/pazzandjop05/
1. Kanye West - Late Registration (Universal/Roc-A-Fella) - 2525
2. MIA - Arular (Beggars/XL) - 2418
3. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (Asthmatic Kitty) - 1747
4. Sleater-Kinney - The Woods (Sub Pop) - 1212
5. Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine (SonyBMG/Epic) 1117
6. The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (V2) 1013
7. Antony And The Johnsons (Secretly Canadian) - 1006
8. The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday (Frenchkiss) - 980
9. The New Pornographers - The Twin Cinema (Matador) - 954
10. My Morning Jacket - z (SonyBMG/RCA) - 942