Dispatches 1 December 2000
The List Special
Part of my Thanksgiving weekend was spent watching the joint MTV/Rolling Stone special on the top 100 pop songs of all time. It was a bit suspicious that so many MTV-friendly songs were on the list though… is Blink-182's "All the Small Things" really one of the best 100 pop songs ever written, or was that just an excuse to show naked men in a video? Still, that's part of the point, I suppose – lists are fascinating because you can argue with them...
So if you need more argument material, Julian's Rocklist Site is an amazing site, collecting all sorts of pop music lists (top 100 pop songs, top albums of 1968, whatever) by various publications. Or you can check out my own personal lists...
Supersize Me
ODB sightings: it's like the Elvis thing, except you know he's alive! The rapper reappeared at a release party in New York for the Wu-Tang Clan's new album. Then he was arrested in Philly while he was signing autographs at a McDonald's. The man gets around.
One is a Bloody Nice Number
Nice to see that the Beatles' 1 album was number one in the album-sales charts. Of course, the interesting thing about choosing an album based solely on chart position is that it ignores the reasons other otherwise perfectly good singles missed the number one spot… for instance "Penny Lane" may have been a US number one, but was ignominiously beaten out to number two in Britain by, of all people, kitsch crooner Engelbert Humperdinck.
Actually, an album based on Beatles non-number ones wouldn't be half-bad. Just looking at those that made the top 10 but missed the top spot, you could have: "Twist and Shout" (no. 2), "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" (no. 2), "P.S. I Love You" (no. 10), "She's a Woman" (no. 4, although really it was the B-side to "I Feel Fine") "Nowhere Man" (no. 3) and last but certainly not least "Strawberry Fields Forever" (no. 8, although it really was the double-A side to "Penny Lane"). And that's not even counting the great songs that were never released as singles, such as "Norwegian Wood" or "Here Comes the Sun"...
Trendspotting
Minor Music Trend #1: using U2 songs in movie trailers ("One" for The Family Man, "Even Better Than the Real Thing" for Proof of Life). (Click on the links to watch the trailers in QuickTime and Real Video respectively)
Minor Music Trend #2: Backstreet Boys revisionism... it seems trendy for music critics to now claim that "I Want It That Way" is a classic pop song. (See abovementioned Pop 100 list.)
CONCERTS
Two big shows this week, but you're not getting tickets this late: Paul Simon (Dec. 1-3) and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Dec. 6-10). Harvard alum-band Seventeen turn up at Bill's Bar on Dec. 7. Lots of female performers in town too: Rickie Lee Jones Dec. 6, Dido and the Bangles on Dec. 7 and Melissa Ferrick on Dec. 8. And in the Where-are-they-now? category, Richard Marx pops up, incongruously at the Paradise, on Dec. 3. Whereever you go... whatever you do... I will be right here waiting for you...
