The Wisdom of the Illiterati


	top ten update Nothing new this week, so instead I've indulged in something in the way of a year end rap up, which I'll post here, and then append to the top of the archive in case anyone should ever want to see it again. What do you say about a pop year in which the nearest thing to a controversial record was a piece of loose satiric comedy that just about everyone in the critical establishment, except me, hated, and that everyone else bought hand over fist? For the furor it stirred up alone, I’m tempted to make “My Humps” my personal record of the year. Anything that drives the ultra-hip or the super-serious into such frenzies deserves an accolade. Of greater importance, “My Humps” was a true “pop” hit, driven onto the charts not by the record labels and their promotion arms (who distribute cash with greater frequency than they do records), but by word of mouth and download sales, quickly driving the “official” Black Eyed Peas single, “Don’t Lie”, off the charts. Hate it or love it, as 50 Cent says, but “My Humps” is a sign that popular music can still be driven by the tastes and desires of the people. Downloading isn’t the force it will become over the next year or two, but it’s already shaping the scene in ways that could have been easily forecast if anyone had taken the time to bother. It’s only a matter of time before we get hit records that will only be available by download, and will arrive from far outside the regular music pipeline (I personally live for the day when someone issues a string of download only singles without officially bothering to make an album out of them until, voila! there it is). Any success of that kind will quickly be co-opted and imitated by the major labels, of course, but by then the landscape of the market will have been forever changed, lifting us, we can only hope, out of the current doldrums in which the record industry, and pop music as a whole, currently finds itself. I’ve been pointing this out for a while now, but it’s worth repeating: the last few years have been the slowest and thinnest, in terms of the number of records that have made the charts and especially the number that have reached the top ten, since the early 1950s. What’s worse, the 56 records that did manage to get into the top ten this year represent the work of only 34 different artists (33 if you count The Games’ two hits as being 50 Cent records, and how can you not?). Between them, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, and Kelly Clarkson accounted for over 20% of the top ten records this year. Compare that to a banner year like 1966, when 84 artists put 129 different songs in the top ten, or even a notoriously bad year like 1975, when there were 35 number ones alone. This year there were eight. Whether this is the result of audience indifference is a matter that could be debated, I suppose, though it seems like the obvious answer, and audience indifference is almost always the result of boring product. If you read the trades, or just the newspapers, they’ll tell you that the big news this year was Mariah Carey’s comeback, or maybe the Rise of the Clones of Usher. What they’ll avoid is the real news: that the pop scene was so lame that Carey, who’s been around for fifteen years now, was able to make a comeback without changing her style or approach in the slightest. When you’re floating in a stagnant pool, all you need to do to make a comeback is bob up a little higher than the others. Record sales, as always, are down, and I don’t think downloading can be blamed for all, or even a small part of it. Musically, there was virtually nothing that was new or worthy of sustained attention this year. Instead, it was a year of gimmicks: whistles and whispers, slot machines and screams, and other assorted sounds packed into samplers and sequencers like so many shiny baubles. There was also a lot of heavy breathing--every third record seemed to have a reference to “the backdoor” or “riding it like a rodeo”. Orgasms received particular attention: men were constantly promising to deliver them, and women, like Amerie on “1 Thing”, seemed to be constantly having them. The most graphic stuff, of course, like David Banner’s “Play”, was edited for radio, but it was easy enough for anyone to download the “explicit version”, not to mention the ringtone, of whatever piece of aural pornography struck their fancy, and then, courtesy of their cell phones, broadcast it all over the neighborhood. At least in a few cases, such as 50 Cents “Candyshop” and “Just a Lil’ Bit”, it sounded like good sex. Most of the rest was the usual sex as power, either as conquest or as showing off, and about as erotic as an instructional film I once saw on how to artificially inseminate rats. And with that cheerful image to see the year off, I’ll wish you all a happy, and more musical, New Year. Update: And for all of you who didn't think you could hate "My Humps" any more than you do already, check out this animated, singing Christmas Card (via LYD). Even I hate this. \| [Archives] Search entries:		top ten 1966 top ten OTHER OCCASIONAL RAMBLINGS Hail Blogoslavia! ~~100~~ 45 or so things about JSM The Saga of the Lone Biscuit OTHER BLOGS Blogroll Me

top ten update

Nothing new this week, so instead I've indulged in something in the way of a year end rap up, which I'll post here, and then append to the top of the archive in case anyone should ever want to see it again.

What do you say about a pop year in which the nearest thing to a controversial record was a piece of loose satiric comedy that just about everyone in the critical establishment, except me, hated, and that everyone else bought hand over fist? For the furor it stirred up alone, I’m tempted to make “My Humps” my personal record of the year. Anything that drives the ultra-hip or the super-serious into such frenzies deserves an accolade. Of greater importance, “My Humps” was a true “pop” hit, driven onto the charts not by the record labels and their promotion arms (who distribute cash with greater frequency than they do records), but by word of mouth and download sales, quickly driving the “official” Black Eyed Peas single, “Don’t Lie”, off the charts. Hate it or love it, as 50 Cent says, but “My Humps” is a sign that popular music can still be driven by the tastes and desires of the people.

Downloading isn’t the force it will become over the next year or two, but it’s already shaping the scene in ways that could have been easily forecast if anyone had taken the time to bother. It’s only a matter of time before we get hit records that will only be available by download, and will arrive from far outside the regular music pipeline (I personally live for the day when someone issues a string of download only singles without officially bothering to make an album out of them until, voila! there it is). Any success of that kind will quickly be co-opted and imitated by the major labels, of course, but by then the landscape of the market will have been forever changed, lifting us, we can only hope, out of the current doldrums in which the record industry, and pop music as a whole, currently finds itself.

I’ve been pointing this out for a while now, but it’s worth repeating: the last few years have been the slowest and thinnest, in terms of the number of records that have made the charts and especially the number that have reached the top ten, since the early 1950s. What’s worse, the 56 records that did manage to get into the top ten this year represent the work of only 34 different artists (33 if you count The Games’ two hits as being 50 Cent records, and how can you not?). Between them, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, and Kelly Clarkson accounted for over 20% of the top ten records this year. Compare that to a banner year like 1966, when 84 artists put 129 different songs in the top ten, or even a notoriously bad year like 1975, when there were 35 number ones alone. This year there were eight.

Whether this is the result of audience indifference is a matter that could be debated, I suppose, though it seems like the obvious answer, and audience indifference is almost always the result of boring product. If you read the trades, or just the newspapers, they’ll tell you that the big news this year was Mariah Carey’s comeback, or maybe the Rise of the Clones of Usher. What they’ll avoid is the real news: that the pop scene was so lame that Carey, who’s been around for fifteen years now, was able to make a comeback without changing her style or approach in the slightest. When you’re floating in a stagnant pool, all you need to do to make a comeback is bob up a little higher than the others.

Record sales, as always, are down, and I don’t think downloading can be blamed for all, or even a small part of it. Musically, there was virtually nothing that was new or worthy of sustained attention this year. Instead, it was a year of gimmicks: whistles and whispers, slot machines and screams, and other assorted sounds packed into samplers and sequencers like so many shiny baubles. There was also a lot of heavy breathing--every third record seemed to have a reference to “the backdoor” or “riding it like a rodeo”. Orgasms received particular attention: men were constantly promising to deliver them, and women, like Amerie on “1 Thing”, seemed to be constantly having them.

The most graphic stuff, of course, like David Banner’s “Play”, was edited for radio, but it was easy enough for anyone to download the “explicit version”, not to mention the ringtone, of whatever piece of aural pornography struck their fancy, and then, courtesy of their cell phones, broadcast it all over the neighborhood. At least in a few cases, such as 50 Cents “Candyshop” and “Just a Lil’ Bit”, it sounded like good sex. Most of the rest was the usual sex as power, either as conquest or as showing off, and about as erotic as an instructional film I once saw on how to artificially inseminate rats.

And with that cheerful image to see the year off, I’ll wish you all a happy, and more musical, New Year.

Update: And for all of you who didn't think you could hate "My Humps" any more than you do already, check out this animated, singing Christmas Card (via LYD). Even I hate this.