Ten problems with Top 10 Lists

Really? Not the controversial Wham-O Boomerang Axe? And you call yourself critics?

At this point, it's hard to come up with interesting lists that pique the interest of those jaded by media saturation.

• Top three movies that were based on another movie but failed to recapture the emotions you had when you first saw the characters back in the Reagan administration.

• Top 10 terrific tofu-truffle tortellini trattorias.

• Top 152 TV shows on Netflix you lied about watching, because if you didn't, someone would go on and on about the plot and tell you the whole damned thing.

• Top 10 attempts to contact you about a car warranty.

It was easier than last year, when nothing happened because of the shutdown of the world. Top 10 hand-sanitizer bottle designs! Top 10 "Tiger King" quotes!Top 10 subverted expectations of normalcy!

Of course, there was that old standby, Top 10 books, which an unscrupulous writer could make up. If you said the top book was a memoir of a Peruvian woman who lost her family in a landslide, then later found them in another landslide, then became a microbiologist who won the Nobel Prize for poetry, most people in book clubs would say, "I think we did that one."

I bring this up to share a disturbing moment I had on the internet. It was a headline: Top 200 songs of 2021.

You wonder what sort of exquisitely tuned critical calibration can make a distinction between No. 197 and No. 198. You wonder if No. 200 refused to be seen in public with No. 201 after that: loser.

It seemed to be an absurd number. Music is nice and all that, but I'm not sure 200 songs per annum are necessary. But wait, that's just the top 200. It's possible they made 400.

But the worst part of list was that I did not recognize the name of even one song on it.

Well, you tell yourself, that's because modern pop is just awful. It is an empirical fact that pop music was better when I was young. It was almost a blessing when I turned 40 and everyone in pop decided they would just make awful noise now, and I was relieved of the obligation of keeping up. "Don't mind us, we'll just be blaring out disconcerting racket!"

But maybe I'm just square, pops. (As the kids say. ) Pop music is as good as ever, they claim. Perhaps so. But I was at a wedding last weekend, the nuptials of two smart, hip-as-heck kids, and the dance floor playlist was all from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. I think there was a brief snippet of a recent song, although that may have been the caterers dropping an armload of dishes.

If modern pop is the equal of the past, why didn't the young couple play it at their wedding? Because it's not as good. Because it doesn't have the same emotional resonance. Because it lacks the melody and humanity of the pop of the past, that's why.

Also maybe because the parents were paying for it? Possibly one of the Top 10 reasons.

Most of it was awful, but we watched, because that seemed to be your duty as an American. You liked it when one channel had a good lineup, because you didn't have to rise from your chair, cross the room, find the pliers and change the channel.

It's hard to express the importance and the excitement of the new fall season. Now shows come and go, start and finish, with no relation to the calendar. The nation is no longer united by a common culture — we're enjoying our own choices on streaming services that provide a kaleidoscope of options, not passively enduring rote dreck en masse. People used to have water-cooler conversations about shows, and this bound the nation together.

"Didja see 'The Waltons' last night?"

"Yeah, but I fell asleep."

"Want to know what happened?"

"Not really."

"OK, see you around."

Is it better now? Of course. We don't talk around the water cooler because no one's at the office, but the shows we don't discuss are much, much better.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

James Lileks
Minneapolis Star Tribune/ (TNS)

James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.