Grammy previews

My part of this year's Grammy mania package at Newsday:

Mariah, pariah no more: Grammy voters are very serious about comebacks -- from Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt to Ray Charles and Tony Bennett. And few comebacks in pop-music history have been as spectacular as Mariah Carey's rise-fall-and-return in the past five years.

Who should win? Who will?: A. (1) Other people, mostly. (2) Mariah.

5 to root for: Kelly Clarkson, Bruce Springsteen, Nigel Godrich, LCD Soundsystem, Ramones' "End of the Century."

Photo: Island Records

The Envelope, please

Yes, it's official, I am a Grammy pundit. It says so right on the site. :>)

Of course, odds are 2/5 that I'm going to be wrong on one of the big categories. And if it's that damn Mariah Carey album, I will totally be caught out there. Not that I have any problem being wrong, but it's harder to stomach when surrounded by picks from my pal (and savvy Grammy pundit) Dave Bauder, the great Greg Kot and Tom O'Neil, the expert running The Envelope blog and has written tons of books about The Oscars and The Grammys.

Pazz and Jop

The Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop poll is up, with Kanye West taking both the album and singles crowns. No problem with that. Here's my ballot (though it's actually the same as the Top 10s below -- no fronting here) and here's my ranking among other critics, according to Glenn McDonald's brilliant and geeky statistical analysis at The War Against Silence.

PREVIOUS RANKINGS: 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000.