Confessions of a list-maker
The Sports Guy this week published an email conversation he held with some pop-culture nerd named Chuck Klosterman who writes a column for Spin magazine. (Spin magazine is as relevant as Chunky Asses, and I'm not even sure Chunky Asses exists outside of Eddie Murphy movies.) Granted I've never read anything by the guy, who's apparently an author as well, but based on his smug replies to questions Simmons was possibly phrasing in a way to knock Klosterman down a peg I don't think I'm interested. Anyone with such strong opinions about one Pearl Jam album over another is not to be trusted.
Some good did come out of it, for I was reminded of the phenomenon that there is no stronger opinion than that of a favorite band/song/album. Ain't nuttin starts a good argument like disagreeing with someone's musical preferences. Not sports (too ingrained), not politics (largely, too abstract). Music.
And nothing so neatly organizes these opinions like a good list. Desert-island discs, road-trip comps, top make-out songs… these are statements. When you make these lists you stand up and get counted, and fuck all the rest. You challenge someone to come up with better ones. And it breaks your heart to leave something out. Ask someone to pick "the best" Public Enemy song and it will ruin his week, because he's going to flip that question around in his head a thousand times and still not come up with something he can set down and declare "This is the answer."
So I'm embracing the list. The list is my friend. Every now and then I'll throw something up here, not (necessarily) to start debate but to set it down. Some lists I'm formulating are "Albums I wish I'd discovered sooner," "Overrated albums people think they're supposed to like" and "Movies I'd like to see again for the first time" (apparently I'm already breaking away from the whole music thing I just went apeshit over). Future lists may include "Zeppelin songs to play while learning to drive eighty miles an hour down a two-lane undivided Texas highway," "Three-hour playlists to help drown out Joe Theismann's offensively inane football commentary" and "Top soundtracks for not giving a damn about this joker and his stupid lists."
Also, as I was scrambling last night to find a blank VHS tape so I could record the Bob Dylan special on PBS, I found some old mixtapes I'd made in college. Since these qualify as lists from my past, I think I'll post reviews of a few of them to see how far I've come (or, where appropriate, how still I've stood). I realize this is a totally self-indulgent exercise but hey, what are blogs for? Feel free to ignore me in the future; the feelings of a 20-year-old punk who put "Jesus Built My Hotrod" on three different cassettes will not be hurt.
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4 comments:
Very nice post--and hey! You hate Spin and Rolling Stone too! Another thing we have in common!
A year or 2 ago, my dad forced a copy of RS on me. (Accepted as a gesture of good will. We don't get along so well.)It listed the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. If my memory's intact, all were Western & 95% were pre-1955. (One Sinatra song, maybe a Hank W. song.)
I wonder how many musician/composers from the dawn of time till the present day they pissed off. Man, are they gonna get an ass-whipping when they get to hell!
Oh yeah--I think there were only 2, maybe 3 hip hop entries. I think one of em was "The Message," a fine, if predictable choice. And yes! buried somewhere in the middle, was a PE entry: (drum roll) "Bring the Noise!!!!" Another fine, but predictable choice.
I'd also hate to choose a favorite PE song, but if you put a gun to my head, I'd probably go w/ "Prophets of Rage."
If you can believe it, I was in the front row of a PE Nation of Millions era show. Flavor Flav slapped my hand as he was walking to the stage! (On stage later--and I'm probably deceiving myself--I think Chuck was also trying to, but he couldn't quite reach the sea of hands mine was in. Damn crowd barriers.)
Honestly I can't name a whole lotta non-western songs either, except for the handful of stuff on the Nuggets II box set. Then again, I don't claim to be the pre-eminent voice of music like RS does.
I agree that "Bring the Noise" is awesome, but it's a safe choice. Knowing them they probably meant the lame Anthrax version. I'd probably go with "Rebel Without a Pause," which is also predictable I guess. Or "Burn Hollywood Burn." I love the beginning of that where Flav's like "Yiah Kane! What up, G??"
I'm very jealous that you saw them on the Nation tour. I've never seen them. But my high school friend Nick saw them twice in '92 and bragged about it in his yearbook entry. That was classic.
heh, I finally posted my sndtrk list....LOL
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