Here’s a year-end musical farewell to those lost in 2010 by one of our most literate musical bards, Robbie Fulks!

Here we are again! Another January, another set of snowfalls to shovel. As we embark upon another year together in this grand thing we call Triple A, we’re happy to present you with the results of the Songlines Poll 2010. Thanks to all of those who provided kind comments about our efforts, and about how we might improve things next year. For the first time in a long time, we didn’t ask for prospective questions from our colleagues before we set out to put this thing together–mostly because we weren’t sure we were going to put it together at all! So while we can’t name-check any of you here to thank you for creating questions, we can pass along our appreciation to the legions of our peers who let us know that the poll was missed. And thanks to all 137 of you who took the time to participate.

Below, you’ll find a link that’ll take you to the complete results for each question, with eye-catching graphs and charts where appropriate. But first, we’ll sum things up here. No more dilly-dallying . . . let’s get this show on the road!

The Dude abides, but he’s got nothing on Rose Nylund. While 22% of you thought that Jeff Bridges had the best year, giving him second place, 41% thought one 88-and-a-half-year-old’s resurgence made 2010 the year of Betty White. And more people thought BP executive Tony Hayward had the worst year than those who voted for President Obama and Tiger Woods combined. Ouch.

The honor of funniest programmer goes to Mark “Fish” Fishman, with 9 poll filler-outers choosing our good friend from Jackson Hole as the guy who cracks them up the most. Norm Winer follows with a close second–is there any list the guy can’t make?–with mustachioed man of mystery Spider Glenn coming in at third. And Kyle Smith, the Reverend Keith Coes, Bruce Warren, Rita Houston, Dave Benson, Brad Savage, Melanie Walker, and Zeb Norris also garnered multiple votes.

On the promotion side, Brian Corona is the most likely to keep us in stiches, with 11 total votes as funniest, and he’s followed up by a pack of Dan Connelly, Sean Coakley, Adrian Moreira, Brad Hunt, and Nick Attaway all earning 5 or more votes. JB Brenner, Jesse Barnett, Jeff Appleton, Jeffrey Naumann, Danny Buch, Jennifer Daunt, and Karen Durkot were also multiple vote-getters.

Amongst the online reporting systems, R&R was given most credit for ease of use.

We were happy to see that 60 of 137 respondents are on Twitter, and 47% of us posted tweets this year.

Nearly all of this year’s pick ‘ems were landslides, with more than two-thirds of respondents choosing one answer over the other. Our colleagues kick it old school by preferring analog to digital, iPhones to Droid phones, the World Series to the World Cup, and physical books to e-Readers. (To those of you who fall into that last category, Sean and I heartily recommend that you purchase a Kindle.) We also prefer Tina Fey to Kristen Wiig by a large margin, suggesting, perhaps, that it’s long past the latter’s time to find her own 30 Rock. We’re rooting for the NBA’s barrel-bottom-scraping Cleveland Cavaliers more so than we are for LeBron James. And the eternal Stones question (Keith or Mick?) swayed in favor of Keith this year, possibly because of his hugely successful memoir, or possibly just because of his unflinching coolness.

In this poll’s closest pick ‘em, Jay-Z just edged out Frank Sinatra (speaking of cool!), but no one chose the biography of either man as the best book they read in 2010. What did they opt for instead? Well, many of your peers are undercover intellectuals (who knew?), as several of the year’s best-reviewed books received mentions:
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Equally impressive was our apparent desire to catch up on the classics this year, with a number of respondents mentioning texts like Atlas Shrugged, Candide, All the King’s Men and War and Peace as the best works they’d set their eyes on in 2010. And, true to form for our group, books about musicians, both fictional and real, fared best on this year’s list, as more people voted for Keith Richards’ Life than any other tome, followed closely by Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby and Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids. You can see a complete list of recommended titles by going to the full results at the end of the summary.

On to one of the most popular topics in America right now: football! As the playoffs roll on, many of our predictions are looking good, with 39% of those polled choosing the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, 8% on board with the Falcons, and 8% in the Steelers’ camp (though 11% picked the Eagles). Multiple respondents also chose playoff-bound teams the Saints, the Jets, and the Ravens. Interestingly, only two participants picked the Packers, and the Bears and Seahawks only got one vote each. No one chose the other two playoff teams, the Colts and the Chiefs–which is good, because both are already at home playing Madden and avoiding ESPN. By the way, 59% of us thought that the Saints winning last year’s Super Bowl was the best sports moment of 2010, and 58% fell on the side of James Harrison and the players being fined for hits against “defenseless receivers” in the controversial mid-season rule change by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

We asked you to create a caption for this photo:

and some of our favorites were:
“Once surly and jaded, Sean Coakley finally remembered what it was he so loved about the business. The chicks.”
“I went blonde, and so should you, Sean!”
“I wish I could tell you what she was doing with her other hand.”
“…do I really have to do this AARP photo shoot?” –Love, Grace
“This makes up for LeBron leaving.”
“Mt. Kisco (Ooh La La)”

Below, you’ll see our favorite captions you created for this photo:

“Bob sneaks a look at the margarita bill for the opening night AAA dinner at SXSW.”
“Bob was suddenly exposed to even more new music than even he could handle.”
“Who said I had a tiny desk?”

As for the best live bands and artists performing this year, 23 of us selected Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band. Michael Franti & Spearhead came next with 19 votes, followed by 16 for Arcade Fire and 15 for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. The Avett Brothers, the Hold Steady, the Roots, LCD Soundsystem, and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros also earned 5 or more votes. Some interesting candidates whom our participants thought were unfairly left off Paste‘s list: My Morning Jacket, Dr. Dog, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Wilco, Gogol Bordello, Dawes, the Drive-By Truckers, and Phoenix.

When it comes to our pre-bedtime viewing proclivities, Comedy Central clearly rules the hearts and minds of our crew, with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report coming out on top in the late-night world. (And speaking of Comedy Central, the most-liked sign from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was “Sorry, Glenn, but the only Beck I listen to has two turntables and a microphone!”) Letterman, Conan, and Fallon (in that order) are the next-most-popular shows with the Triple A community, and the once-weekly programs Real Time with Bill Maher and Saturday Night Live turn in a very respectable showing in the next two slots. It seems that not even the above-average musical guests can redeem our hating on Jay Leno, who lands in the bottom slot, not even besting Carson Daly.

When choosing the greatest prospective guest DJ for a party, LCD Soundsystem (aka James Murphy) edged out “me!” as the top vote-getter, with six of our colleagues hoping to hire him. Little Steven, ?uestlove, Girl Talk (aka Gregg Gillis), Prince, Danger Mouse, Pretty Lights, Mark Ronson, and Bob Marley also earned numerous nods. Some other fun choices included Lester Bangs, Jimmy Fallon, Grandmaster Flash, Howard Stern, and Gilles Peterson.

There were equally smart choices in the “most underappreciated band/artist of all time” category. Bruce Hornsby, Darrell Scott, Hall & Oates, Little Feat, Nick Drake, the Kinks, and Townes Van Zandt all scored multiple votes, while other thoughtful mentions included Big Star, Dusty Springfield, Clifton Chenier, Captain Beefheart, Los Lobos, Richard Thompson, the Jayhawks, Small Faces, the Replacements and Tom Waits, to name a few. Puzzlingly, five of you chose the Beatles (or a Beatle). Could the Beatles possibly be more appreciated?

While job security is always a top-of-mind issue in these troubled times, the colleagues of ours whom I’m about to name should never worry, as more than one of us admitted that we’d love to hire them: Bruce Warren, Lisa Sonkin, Norm Winer, Mark Keefe, Jennifer Daunt, Jim McGuinn, Leslie Rouffe, Dan Connelly, Fish Fishman, Brad Savage, Lindsay Reid, and Rick Brewer.

We’ll close out with two more bits of optimism: 85% of you still took “half full” over “half empty,” and though we’ve always feared that given your druthers, you’d break Sean’s camera, 65% of you think he ought to take more pictures. Can’t wait to see all those smiling faces in Austin!

Just can’t get enough of this poll? Follow the link for complete results. Thanks again!

Check out the fantastic EPK for Gregg Allman’s first solo album in 14 years, Low Country Blues. It offers great insight into the project with compelling interview segments and footage from the studio sessions.