It’s December, and it’s time to discuss the crucial jams which qualify as honorable mentions for JAM OF THE YEAR 2011.  First, a few methodological notes.  I’ve picked these seven jams for discussion because I think taken together they describe particularly illuminating or stellar moments in mainstream rap and r&b music and, moreover, I wanted to write about them. 

 Jam of the Year is always a subjective choice, and almost anybody could find seven different jams to draw up their own short list.  I’ve chosen from mainstream songs that basically performed well on the charts and appeared on urban radio, but those were not final criteria for selection.  This will explain one key omission, LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem,” which is, I’m afraid, probably the JOTY.  It’s a song I have no love for, no patience for, and no desire to ever again aurally experience.  And yet in terms of popular appeal and cultural saturation, what could match it?  I could say that I found the content too vapid and obvious to write about, or that the quality of the electronic tones underneath the “rapping” conflict with the sonic conventions that typically constitute “rap” and “r and b” music, but that would ultimately be misleading.  My leaving LMFAO off this list is cowardice, plain and simple.

Finally and speaking of cowardice, above and beyond the ubiquitous debatability of any given JOTY  I’d be willing to call almost any of these 7 jams the JOTY (I exclude 2006 from that debatability simply on the strength and undeniability of “Gold Digger,” but I digress.)  For the first time since writing these annual wrap-ups, I’m not burning to make a choice between the top 2 or 3.  Also, for the first time, one’s choice between upper echelon jams feels like an essentially political one. That is, the preference for a jam insisting on euphoric and optimistic action versus one that abandons the social in favor of a linguistic and hedonistic nihilism is a highly charged preference, a resonant moment of decision.

Which is all to say, I’ll look forward to everyone else’s JOTY lists, most of which will likely be topped with the letters L, M, F, A, O.