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Pearl Jam, Gaga, Green Day Win SPIN Readers’ Poll

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SPIN cover stars Pearl Jam scored big in SPIN.com’s 2009 Readers Poll, taking top honors in four of the poll’s 11 categories, including Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, while Lady Gaga won for Best New Artist and Video of the Year (“Bad Romance”).

Beloved Bay Area punks Green Day were this year’s bridesmaids: They finished second to Pearl Jam in three categories — Best Live Artist, Album of the Year, Song of the Year (“21 Guns”) — and second to Gaga for Video of the Year. But they didn’t go home empty-handed: Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong nabbed one of the poll’s most coveted titles: Sex God of the Year.

The battle for Sex Goddess of the Year between Paramore’s Hayley Williams and Katy Perry spilled out into the Twitterverse, with both hotties trading tweets about the hotly-contested race.

“Um…what?” tweeted Williams — whose band scored top-five finishes in several categories, including Artist of the Year and Album of the Year — when she found out she was the leading the category midway through the polling period. Perry quickly tweeted a flattering response: “I’d lose to ur fine ass any day,” to which Williams replied, “Naw naw gurl. You got this!!! Teach me your ways.” Williams ultimately scored the win, edging Perry by some 2,000 votes.

Fans of rapper P.O.S., who appeared on SPIN.com’s 10 Best Albums You Might Have Missed list, staged a massive campaign via Twitter and the web to get out the vote. The Minneapolis MC led the race for quite awhile, but ultimately finished second to Jay-Z — after Jigga and his label urged their 1.3 million collective Twitter followers to vote.

German guyliner-wearing emo lads Tokio Hotel managed to crack the top-five in three categories — Album, Song, and Video of the Year — all on the strength of write-in votes! Their never-say-die followers get our honorary “Fans of the Year” trophy.

Finally, the closest race turned out to be in the Most Welcome Return category, where reunited pop-punkers Blink-182 edged out dapper musician/novelist/poet Leonard Cohen, who returned to the stage for the first time in 15 years; ska-loving No Doubt, who graced SPIN’s May cover; and grunge icons Alice in Chains, who toured and released an album with a brand new frontman replacing the late Layne Staley.

To check out the rest of our Readers’ Poll results, click here. Thanks to the 100,000-plus people who voted!