The best club category was a little tricky.  I decided to leave out most of Chicago's stereotypical clubs, such as Soundbar, Spybar or Enclave, and stuck the clubs which also tend to cater to the more indie/hipster crowdset.  Basically, the ones that you will find here on the site.  Another tough decision was figuring out what qualified a venue a 'club' or a 'bar'.  Darkroom, for example, was tough to categorize and in the end might've done better or worse in another category.

Personal pick: Darkroom

Easily the closest category in this year's poll, the best bar winner came right down to the wire and was back and forth the entire time.  Newcomer Logan Square spot, The Burlington, made a strong run and nearly took the prize.  Another new bar, The Violet Hour, finished in 7th place.  This was a category that was hard to initially limit the nominees.  Many worthy bars had to be omitted.  A few strong write in candidates were: Liar's Club, The Black Beetle, Estelle's, Simon's and Stella's.

Personal pick: Happy Village, Danny's, California Clipper

What can I say, this was easily the most volatile category.  There was some definite ballot stuffing going on, perhaps to an unfair advantage as early on in the poll it was fairly easy to cast multiple votes.  Beta Theta took advantage of this and stuffed their way to a decisive victory.  Fair?  Not sure, but one could argue that in a category of best promoter, perhaps ballot stuffing just comes with the territory.  The "other" vote statistically took third place, which also shows a complete lack of solidity in this category.  A few popular write-in's were: Chicago Suicide Club, Opaque, Sang, Club Jams and 'word of mouth'.

Personal pick: Avant Trill

Again, another very long list of candidates in this category.  Empty Bottle won in commanding style and only four or five venues managed to make a strong run.  Schubas and House of Blues were also towards the top of the list.

Personal pick: Hideout

Another huge category which was tough to limit.  Lots of qualified names were reluctantly left out and lots of those names were voted for as write-ins.  Some of the strongest DJs to not make the top three were Jordan Z, Matt Roan, Trancid and Mano.  The most popular additions (write-ins) who also deserve some credit were: Hunter Husar, Heaven Malone, Marco Morales, Greg Corner, Beatkids, Lee Foss and Intel.  One person even voted for yours truly, most likely because they thought it was funny.

Personal pick: Flosstradamus, Major Taylor

With the recent national explosion in popularity for the Cool Kids, it's no surprise they dominated this category.  They have been turning up on many best of '07 lists, including best song nods on both Pitchfork and Rolling Stone's Top 100 songs of the year lists.  Kid Sister put in a strong showing for the second spot on our poll, and beyond her the rest of the pack was pretty evenly represented.  As with the best band category, I opted to exclude the bigger local acts, such as Kanye West or Common.

Personal pick: Cool Kids

As much as it depressed me that Wicker Park is rapidly losing it's artistic edge, I still knew the trendy neighborhood would win.  I was curious to see how some other neighborhoods would fare.  Fourth place went to Lincoln Park, followed by Pilsen, Lakeview, Downtown, Andersonville, Hyde Park and, with six votes, the South Loop.

Personal pick: Wicker Park

This category perhaps suffered a bit from the late entry into the poll, at a time where I was fairly busy and not updating the website.  It was up for about a week before the votes were tallied but ideally should've had twice as many voters to make things a little more accurate.  In the end, Office took the top spot, a local band that has been seeing quite a lot of national publicity lately and could perhaps be the next big thing to come out of Chicago.

Personal pick: Aleks & The Drummer

Personally I'd vote for Monday, but I don't have a day job either.