It's been a while since I've read anything of Greil Marcus's, but this piece in the The Threepenny Review, with it's riveting family history and reflection on memory, is one of the best things he's ever done.

Despite the entry of five new songs into the top ten over the last three weeks, and the promise of a couple more next week, the overall stagnation on the chart continues. This week, the top seven hasn't moved at all, and the only change in the rest of the chart is the disappearance of "Independent" and the arrival of "Bleeding Love" (which will be number one next week if Oprah has her way--and when doesn't she?). For those who are counting, "Apologize" has now been in the top ten for 24 bloody weeks (a period of time roughly equivalent to six goddamn months or half a fucking year). It's at number nine, though, so this may be its last week. I wouldn't look for it to drop out of the top forty until around September, though.

Not much to get excited about in this week's debuts: bad country (Rascal Flatts); mid-level country (Brad Paisley, scraping what I assume is the final single off the bottom of his latest album, and sounding a lil' homophobic at the end there); and mediocre hip-hop (Ryan Leslie). There are, however, two curiosities. The first is Danity Kane's "Damaged", which has the weirdest opening line of any song so far this year: "Do you got a first aid kit handy?" The second is Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop", its broken, staggering, blunted sound begging the question: how can you possibly have sex when you're that stoned?

All the cons, and a few of the pros, neatly summed up in a single Idolator comments thread. Yet still nobody makes the obvious Ricky Nelson comparison.

I've been tossing back and forth the last few days, trying to decide if it's worth commenting on this year's EMP Pop Conference schedule. I had already heard that most of the presentations this year would be about politics--the official theme is "Conflict", but the group who chose the speakers obviously decided that the only real conflict in pop music, or at least the only one worth talking about in an election year, was political conflict. That's a decision, even though it irritates me in the narrowness of its vision, I could live with, if it wasn't that so many of the panels, judging by a quick survey of the schedule, threaten to be not only political, but dusty, dry, and retro-political to boot.

What I mean by retro-political is that most of the panels (though certainly not all) revolve around identity-politics, an idea that has its place and has resulted in great things in the past--particularly the 70s--but that, for the moment at least, has run its course, and does nothing now but add to the political and cultural divisiveness from which we so desperately need to break free. I have nothing against focusing on the cultural aspects of different forms of music and the way it serves and helps define those cultures, but to observe this process solely through the framework of identity politics not only warps the reality of the music, but diminishes and sometimes demeans it. Music is too broad in its cultural ramifications to be pinned down in such a narrow fashion.

Besides, the most important thing about music in political terms isn't the way it defines community, but the way it expands the limits of community, breaks its bounds, and overlaps from one community to another. An imprecise and somewhat weighted term for this is "musical miscegenation", a process that identity politics not only decries, but actively seeks to prevent (an undertaking roughly equivalent to trying to bail out the ocean with a five gallon bucket: first, it's impossible, and second, why would you want to?).

When I first saw the schedule I seriously considering skipping the conference this year (though I quickly decided that calling it a personal boycott would be both meaningless and pretentious), but the fact is that there are still presentations I want to see. I'm specifically interested in Robert Christgau's take on John Mayer's "Waiting On the World to Change", a song I have always hated, both for its apparent rationalization of political apathy and it's incorporation of changes borrowed from, of all people, The Impressions to make its point. Christgau seems much more sympathetic, and after seeing the reaction this winter to the Obama campaign, I'm beginning to feel the same way. Maybe what Mayer meant is that he was waiting for a leader, or a galvanizing moment.

At any rate, I'm interested in what Christgau has to say about it, and I'm hoping that some of the other presentations won't be as bad as I fear they'll be (there are also a few things that I will definitely avoid, but I don't see much point in bringing them up here--especially since some involve people I have a good deal of respect for, no matter how mistaken I think they are in this instance). Perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised. But I suspect that overall I'll continue to be disappointed, frustrated, and occasionally enraged, by what goes on.

In the top ten update I forgot to mention the arrival in the Hot 100 of the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Markita Irglova. Not as surprising as Three 6 Mafia's win, but a surprise nonetheless. Still, the song's right up the academy's alley: so sugary you could make syrup out of it, but modern sounding, unlike those old-fashioned songs from Enchanted (any one of which, I bet, is better than this). Just what the indie world needs: official recognition of the scene as a safe stomping ground for sentimental buffoons. Of course, unofficially, we've known that for a long time.

And after 18 holes, we can discuss the collapse of late-state capitalism in the clubhouse.

Ten weeks into the new year and we finally have a new number one (yay!). But it's kind of lame (oh!). And there are still 4 songs from last year in the top ten (gee!). One of which is "Apologize", which has now been in the top ten for 22 weeks (oh my god!). Another of which is "No One", which has put in 20 weeks (is there no justice in the world?).

OK, I'll stop now.

(thank you)

As for debuts, the interesting stuff includes Erykah Badu's "Honey" and Raheem DeVaughn's "Woman", both steeped in 70s soul, but each coming from a totally different direction; another Britney Spear's single, this one not about Spears vs. the paparazzi (or BS vs BS), and hence not very interesting, and a bad country power ballad from a group whose only interest is their name: Lady Antebellum. Does that mean they long for the glorious trouble-free days of the pre-civil war south, complete with slavery? And you thought Toby Keith was a throwback.

Can I just say, at the risk of alienating the few readers I have here, that with all the excitement that's been building about the new Portishead album, I gave the first two records a relisten last week and found them, um, laughable? Did these shabbily pieced together hunks of melodrama actually impress people? Do they still? If I had to describe them in one sentence, I'd say they sound like a James Bond soundtrack played at 16 rpm, and Beth Gibbons sounds like Shirley Bassey on ludes. A My Bloody Valentine or a Breeders reunion I can get behind. But this?