The Illiterate

2007 shoulda-been top ten

Most of the songs on this list were chosen according to one simple, old-fashioned principle: that pop songs are best when they

top ten update

As expected, nothing new this week, with Alicia Keys keeping her hold on number one (with another track poised to enter the top ten in the next week or so). As far as year end surprises, though, it won

2007 top ten worst ten

Unfortunately, competition was fairly fierce for this list, and there were any number of records that could have placed in slots six through ten. But even though I know there

top ten update

You want to know what kind of week it is on the Hot 100, here so close to Christmas? It’s the kind of week where three out of the four new songs to enter the charts could qualify for the Top Ten Worst Ten list, if there were the remotest possibility that they could make top ten to begin with. If that isn’t suggestive enough, how about this: the best debut this week is a Miley Cyrus song. Does that clarify the picture for you?

As predicted, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks finally hits the top ten with “Tattoo”, a better song than anybody had any reason to suspect it to be, while “Crank That” drops off. And even with five new songs waiting their chance in the lower half of the top twenty, that may well be it for the year.

2007 top ten top ten

I know, every magazine and blog out there saves the list of the best songs for last. But this list is so obvious that it would be anticlimactic to wait until the other two go up to post it. Anyone who

now where did that top ten update go?

My apologies for not updating the top ten last week, but the overall sluggishness of the charts, due largely to a ridiculous number of top 40 stations switching to an all Christmas format, along with most record companies and their employees moving into hibernation mode (those that aren’t being tossed out into the snow, that is–just about every day brings news of another record company laying off a large percentage of its staff), makes the charts somewhat depressing this time of year. It’s the Hot 100′s version of Seasonal Affective Disorder. For those who are interested, last week Finger Eleven crept, like Thing, back into the top ten, while Baby Bash dropped off. Except for “Kiss Kiss” and “Apologize” swapping places, and “Clumsy” inching up another spot, that was pretty much it. Only Jordin Sparks’ “Tattoo” looks to have a chance of making top ten before the end of the year, unless there are some big surprises (one candidate: Snoop’s “Sensual Seduction”, which is a hoot).

In anticipation of Idolater’s second annual pop music poll, I’ll be posting a few different summary lists based on the Hot 100 over the next few days. I’m usually not a list maker, and now I know why–it’s harder than it looks, and I’m really only writing this preview in order to force myself to do it–but I’ll have at least three different top ten lists coming up: the best of the top ten; the worst of the top ten; and the shoulda been top ten. There might be one other list of tracks that didn’t make the Hot 100 at all, but more likely I’ll give up after the first three and just wait for January like everybody else.

just what is scratch smoking, anyway?

Weidest producer/artist matchup of all time: Andrew W.K. and Lee “Scratch” Perry. But that’s not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that it’s W.K. who’s producing Perry, instead of the other way around.

jokes that write themselves, headline division

Billboard: “Sony Ordered To Pay $5 Million In Meat Loaf Dispute”

at last, a dylan movie even more incomprehensible than masked and anonymous

No, I take that back. I’m Not There isn’t incomprehensible. If anything, it’s too bloody obvious. The basic conceit of different actors playing different aspects of Dylan’s public personas makes sense, except that’s all you get, the public personas, with no added depth, all of which have been documented far better elsewhere. You also get a lot of dumb in-jokes, song lyrics presented as dialogue (oh yeah, that trick always works), fake interviews that are, as Anthony Lane pointed out in the New Yorker, more reminiscent of A Mighty Wind than anything else, and some of the most lifeless musical performances ever to grace what they used to call the big screen. Anyone who has any knowledge of Dylan’s career, or has seen the actual footage that many of the scenes here recreate, will find the movie cringe inducing. Anyone who doesn’t know much about Dylan will learn nothing, not only about his life, but most importantly, his music. Almost all the performances are slack, either too lacking in energy or too filled with reverence (usually both) to get over (there is one exception: a beautiful version of “Goin’ To Acapulco”; too bad the scene surrounding it makes so little sense). I dare anyone to compare the performance of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” here with the footage it recreates (which, for easy reference, is included in both Don’t Look Back and No Direction Home), and tell me this movie comes anywhere near recreating Dylan’s power and depth, his sheer electricity as a performer. Cate Blanchett comes across best, but all her scenes are set pieces, and her performance never gets any kind of rhythm going or makes a connection to anything else in the movie (but then, nothing here connects to anything else ). When the third best performer in a movie–after Blanchett and Charlotte Gainsbourg–is David Cross, you know something is really wrong.

For anyone who ever wondered what could be worse than baby boomers treating Dylan like some sort of prophet, this is it: people a couple of generations down the line, treating him like some multi-faced, multi-faceted mystical entity: Shiva with frizzy hair. Quite possibly, and I’m not engaging in hyperbole here, the worst movie I have ever seen.

oh, that it explains it then

Kevin Barnes from of Montreal clarifies some basic economic theory: “When capitalism is working on a healthy level, everyone gets their dick sucked from time to time and no one gets their throat slit.”