In this week of stasis--nothing new in the top ten, with just the slightest shuffling amongst the top four--here are a few statistics to sum up the year so far. Among the songs that have made the top ten this year (that is, not counting "Low", which ruled for the first 10 weeks or so), there have been five number ones. All five of them are still on the chart, four of them in the top four spots. Each spent virtually no time in the lower reaches of the charts--once they were available for download, they went straight to the top. All, except "X Factor" winner Leona Lewis, were already established stars. Every one of them is mediocre at best. In fact, though this week's top ten doesn't come close to being the worst of the oughts, it might well be the most meh. The only song I can bring myself to hate is "Bleeding Love", with "Damaged" a distant second. The rest I struggle to pay attention to, but don't seem worthy of outright dislike. That goes for almost every song to make the top ten this year. In February I thought the chart was depressing, but now it's worse. Now it's just boring.

Denny's is now promoting bands with special menu items and free downoads on their website. And all the bands get free breakfast when they're touring. What a deal!

Luc Sante makes up for a dirth of blogging by posting a few illustrations from one of my favorite books, Nize Baby, by Milt Gross. Written in the twenties as a newspaper column, it purports to be the overheard conversations of the residents of a lower east side tenament, but all the talk jumbles together, and it quickly turns into one of the most bizarre and hilarious exercises in dialect humor you will ever read. Much of it retells classic fairy tales, and at times the dialect gets so thick it becomes a Yiddish Finnegans Wake, only funnier. Long out of print (that's a hint, Fantagraphics), but if you come by my place I'll let you look at the less valuable of my two copies.

<satire>
As a critic--that is to say, as one whose expertise, knowledge, and taste have placed one in the position of setting standards for the seething masses of society to follow--I find it unsettling, not to say offensive, when artistes regarding whom I have already expressed my contempt dare, in defiance of all that is holy, to concoct musical endeavors which, it must be admitted, possess a certifiable, if infinitesimal, allowance of aesthetic value. Such base effrontery is barely to be born. And yet, this is precisely what not one, but two, such artistes have had the audacity to lay before your humble servant in this past week; against all odds they have conjured from thin air, as if in consort with the devil himself, not only music of undeniable quality, but have also contrived, and here I discern even more strongly Lucifer's guiding hand, to have these endeavors make their initial public appearance in the hallowed ranks of the top fifteen itself! Chris Brown's effort I can accept with partial equanimity--having enjoyed a goodly number of popular successes in the recent past, he can well afford the hire of skilled professionals in compensation of his woeful shortcomings--but Jesse McCartney? The man who must take partial responsibility for the soul scouring "Bleeding Love"? The man whose previous endeavors so overflowed with affectation and imposture of sincerity as to beggar adequate description? The man I hoped had vanished for all eternity in the capsizing of the WB Network? How can such audaciousness be tolerated? My only possible compensation for this woeful breach of decorum, though I may say without undue temerity that this happens only on rare occasions, if ever, is that my first impression might indeed be mistaken, and that both of these articles of musical expression may prove to be more dismal than presently appears. One must always hold out hope of some sort.
</satire>

Having got all that out of my system (you never know when the mood for producing poorly parodied 19th century prose will strike), I need to admit that, like all satire, most of the above is true. Both McCartney's and (especially) Brown's records are of surprisingly high quality, and both debut this week in the top fifteen. And, yes, it does bug me, because I had written both of these guys off. Admittedly, they had a lot of help--from Polow Da Don in Brown's case, from Chris Stewart and The Dream and The Neptunes in McCartney's (did it really take all of them to make him sound good?)--but whatever the case, they make a pair of wonderful records. A good thing, too, because it looks like they'll both be around for awhile.

In anticipation of summer, perhaps, the Hot 100 is full of interesting debuts (though not a single country record--maybe Nashville is on spring break). Aside from Brown and McCartney, there's new Weezer and Weezy, both sub-par (Lil Wayne has apparently decided to release the oft-delayed Tha Carter III in dribs and drabs until further notice), the US debut of UK star Duffy (a slightly more electronic, brassier, and blonde Amy Winehouse), and V.I.C.'s (with help from Mr. Collipark and Soulja Boy) "Get Silly", a record that lives up to its name and then some. Plus remixed Usher, lame G-Unit, and power ballad Ashlee Simpson. Finally, there's The Dream, who for the third time releases the wrong single from his album. Can't some enterprising program manager step up and put "Livin' A Lie" on the air and show this guy how it's done?

It's far too late to add anything new to the endless analog vs. digital debate, but this snippet from The New Yorker's recent article on Dust To Digital Records and the difficulties involved in transferring analog sources to digital confirms something I've believed for a long time: it isn't vinyl's supposed sonic superiority that people love about it, but its imperfections.

A few years ago, audio engineers played two versions of the same song for a panel of listeners. The first was free of noise. The second was the same recording, only with some random noise dubbed onto it. In almost every case, the listeners preferred the noisy version.

Scratches, hiss, even the occasional skip, people love that stuff, most likely because it equates much more with a live listening experience, where there is always extraneous noise flitting about. As for that quality of "warmth" vinyl aficionados like to go on about, claiming that only analog can reproduce enough of the original sound to create that feeling, I always figured that was turntable rumble, though I doubt you'd ever get an audiophile to admit as much.

The only people who ever listen to music in a completely quiet environment are people who are making records. Music perfectly played and flawlessly recorded, no matter how beautiful it may be, and no matter how high the sampling rate, is always going to sound antiseptic, as if the listener were sitting in an operating room. And just like an operating room, sonic purity scares us a little, makes us uneasy. People like a bit of mess. It reminds us of our lives.