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.