Day: August 26, 2008

I haven’t done an honest-to-goodness meme in a long time. (Unless you count the weekly random guess ten.) We may be about to rediscover why. Stolen from Caitlin R. Kiernan, the rules are pretty simple:

Go here and see what was on the top of the charts on the day you were born and every birthday thereafter. Learn just how astrologically-musically lame your life has been. If you want, add in your own favorite Hot 100 hit single of that year, wishing that your birthday had been cool enough to have that song be #1.

I don’t know if this will be remotely interesting to anyone but me, but here are the songs:

1977: “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates
Favorite: “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder

1978: “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees
Favorite: Sigh. “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, I guess

1979: “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees
Favorite: I think “Heartache Tonight” by the Eagles, although “My Sharona” by the Knack and “Heart of Glass” by Blondie are also good picks.

1980: “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” by Pink Floyd
Favorite: “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” by Pink Floyd

1981: “Rapture” by Blondie
Favorite: “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon

1982: “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Favorite: “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

1983: “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson
Favorite: “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners

1984: “Jump” by Van Halen
Favorite: “Hello” by Lionel Richie (Yes, I like Lionel Richie more than Van Halen. Deal with it.)

1985: “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon
Favorite: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears

1986: “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco
Favorite: Either “Addicted to Love” by Robert Palmer or “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel (although even the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” is a contender)

1987: “Lean on Me” by Club Nouveau
Favorite: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2

1988: “Man in the Mirror” by Michael Jackson
Favorite: “Got My Mind Set on You” by George Harrison (And “Kokomo” was only a #1 hit for a single week? It seemed a lot longer at the time. Although, at the time, I seem to remember liking the song, so obviously things change.)

1989: “The Living Years” by Mike + The Mechanics (I haven’t heard that song in an age)
Favorite: It may very well by “Good Thing” by Fine Young Cannibals or Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” 1989 was not a very good year for pop music, it would seem.

1990: “Black Velvet” by Alannah Myles (I like the song, but I never knew who sang it)
Favorite: “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor (It’s partly that famous video and it’s partly that her competition includes Michael Bolton and New Kids on the Block. It’s a good song, though.)

1991: “One More Try” by Tommy T (Another one I don’t think I’ve heard in over a decade)
Favorite: Heaven help me, I think it’s actually “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

1992: “Save the Best for Last” by Vanessa Williams
Favorite: “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot

1993: “Informer” by Snow
Favorite: “I’d Do Anything for Love (but I Won’t Do That)” by Meat Loaf (Lean times, 1993. Lean times…)

1994: “The Sign” by Ace of Base (I used to hate this, but John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats showed me the error of my ways)
Favorite: I guess “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories

1995: “Take a Bow” by Madonna
Favorite: Wow, I don’t think I like any of these. This is the year I graduated from high school, and Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” is the best it had to offer?

1996: “Because You Loved Me” by Ciline Dion
Favorite: “California Love” by 2Pac (Seriously, how are these two songs in the same universe, much less same list?)

1997: “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” by Puff Daddy featuring Mase
Favorite: None of ’em

1998: “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” by Will Smith
Favorite: “One Week” by Barenaked Ladies (although it’s probably my least favorite song on that album)

1999: “Believe” by Cher
Favorite: Meh.

2000: “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child
Favorite: “Bent” by Matchbox Twenty (no, really.)

2001: “Butterfly” by Crazy Town
Favorite: I don’t hate Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” but that’s pushing it.

2002: “Ain’t it Funny” by Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule
Favorite: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem

2003: “In Da Club” by 50 Cent
Favorite: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem (Although I don’t love it that much. It’s just a process of elimination. Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” is okay, too.)

2004: “Yeah!” by Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris
Favorite: “Hey Ya!” by Outkast (I just don’t know any of the others well enough to have an opinion.)

2005: “Candy Shop” 50 Cent featuring Olivia
Favorite: The only two contenders, Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” and Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” just became too annoying out of sheer radio repetition.

2006: “So Sick” by Ne-Yo
Favorite: No. Just no.

2007: “Glamorous” by Fergie featuring Ludacris
Favorite: Okay, I don’t completely hate Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” I only a little hate it.

2008: “Love in this Club” by Usher featuring Young Jeezy
Favorite: Am I just getting old, or are the #1 hits getting worse and worse every year?

It’s interesting to see the progression, as I find less and less to like in the charts, and I think this is only partly a product of me becoming a crotchety old man who doesn’t like them kids with their loud music. It has a lot more to do with the list long having been a reflection of cultural mediocrity, and of fewer artists spending considerably more weeks dominating the top position as the years go on. I was also interested to see how infrequently my musical tastes matched up with what passed for popular opinion. There are a handful of songs that made the charts in my 30+ years that I like, but precious few that I genuinely love. I barely even recognize some of the more recent ones.

Henry Alford on this week’s Studio 360:

In his profile of the “successful female writing team” of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, John Anderson throws in this odd little bit:

Ah, the New York Times, always letting us know what’s really important in a story…

• Is “Crippled scion of great family in militaristic society recently reintegrated into galactic communications makes name for himself” really such an over-used science fiction trope? I can’t think of any books off-hand that use it.

• On the plus side, Kevin McKidd is actually Scottish, which would be a welcome change for the title role in Highlander. (He’s also a pretty decent actor.) On the downside, though, another Highlander movie? Seriously?

• There’s a recent trend of using Twitter to post as fictional characters, mostly from television and movies, which seems a whole lot more interesting than using it to post as yourself. (Seriously, I remain unconvinced that Twitter is significantly better or easier to use than a regular blog.) Some of these have been sanctioned by the powers that be…and some not so much. I am amused by the idea of someone Twittering as a character from Mad Men, considering that the show takes place decades before the technology existed. I’m reminded of Bloggus Caesari, which purported to be the weblog of Julius Caesar.

• The Sci Fi Wire reports that Shia LaBeouf’s recent hand injury has been written into the script for Transformers 2. Now if only they could write “not sucking” into it as well…

• Arresting someone for a pair of overdue library books seems excessive until you realize she ignored “two phone calls, two letters and a citation that included a court date” and that her $170 fine works out (at 10 cents a day) to 1,700 days or four and a half years. Seriously, nobody should need that long to read White Oleander and Angels and Demons. And her “I’m not returning them now” just bugs me to no end. I sort of hope they arrest her again.

• Man, naughty British slang is just weird. “Hitching lifts in the nuddy”? I’m not sure how I feel about a morality clause for children’s authors. It seems a little silly more than anything. (Oh, and the link is SFW, but not the ones in the nuddy.)

• I read “Buffy blamed for an increase in paganism” as “Buffy blamed for an increase in plagarism.” I think that would be a much more interesting story, actually. Although I do like the IMDB’s phrasing — Gellar Blamed For Pagan Rise — which conjures images of the actress vacationing in Innsmouth, accidentally raising dread Cthulhu from the deep.

• “‘I feel like H.P. Lovecraft is associated with creepiness,’ says Kurtzman, a children’s book marketer.” Gee, ya think?

Finally somebody is standing up for the real victims of this troubled economy — the literati who can’t afford that summer home in the Hamptons anymore.

I am amused, though, that The Independent felt the need to explicitly define “the period that constitutes the summer in America” — lest their regular readers in the UK be all perplexed.