POLL VAULT: The most-read pop music critics’...

POLL VAULT: The most-read pop music critics’ poll? It’s probably Rolling Stone’s annual survey. The most respected ? That would have to be the one conducted by the Village Voice.

But this year it may be a little hard to tell them apart.

Rolling Stone is expanding its year-end poll to include more critics--perhaps more than 150--and will now feature a selection of short essays on the year by some of them. In other words, it’s much like what the Voice has been doing for more than 20 years.

What’s more, Rolling Stone’s year-end issue will be on newsstands Jan. 9, while the Voice poll doesn’t appear until February.

Robert Christgau, the founder of the Voice’s “Pazz & Jop” poll, says he’s “vaguely irritated” about Rolling Stone’s new approach, but shrugs off the notion that it’s competition.

“They’ve got to do it as well as we do, and they won’t,” he says. “If they do manage to pull the rug out from under us, I’ll just find something else to do with my winters.”

But Keith Moerer, Rolling Stone’s new music editor, insists that the changes were not meant to undercut the Voice.

“I just wanted to strengthen our poll, one way of which is to include more critics,” he says. “And I would hope our critics’ comments would be--and I don’t mean this as criticism of the Voice--a little less academic than theirs, less like rock critics writing for other rock critics.”