The Ninth Annual Nashville Scene Country Music Critics Poll: Jamey Johnson captured the critics, Taylor Swift topped the charts and Sugarland conquered them both

For the Scene's ninth annual Country Music Critics Poll, we sought the opinions of working writers from across North America, scribes toiling in both print and pixel, from alt-weeklies to magazines to blogs, from metro dailies to Spin to Pitchfork. (Yes, Pitchfork covers country music.) This year, our voters—74 in total—were as close to unanimous as a group of music writers is ever going to be in choosing Jamey Johnson as the year's best—head, beard and shoulders above the rest. See Geoffrey Himes' essay below for a reckoning of it all, and read select comments from our voters at nashvillescene.com.