Tuesday, December 13, 2005

 

posted on the solstice


Every December I take about a week -- the week of the shortest days, usually -- and write something about all of the radio singles I heard that year. After months of writing hyperbole, wishcasting, and other pieces of hopeful prose on behalf of bands, this is my way of blowing off steam. I get pretty obnoxious. This is because:
  1. I am obnoxious,
  2. Rap music brings out the savage G in me,
  3. There is really no way I can hurt R. Kelly or Tony Yayo with anything I say.
The Pop Music Abstract is something of a yearly tradition. It allows me to pull from a database of lame witticisms when I'm writing up the results of the Critics Poll in early February. It also helps me determine what's important to me, and it helps me understand the year I just lived through. I considered getting with the program and posting it in a weblog-like format, but then decided it didn't really suit the content, or the schtick.

So I posted it twice: first, in that maligned green-and-purple-on-black format that I favor, and then in a black-on-white sissy version, complete with an index. I don't know how many people read the entire thing through from top to bottom (as I admittedly intend them to), but this year, if you'd like to jump around and skip the stuff you aren't interested in, I've made it easy for you.

It is harder and harder to get people to read writing on the Internet if you don't conform to the weblog logic; audiences are unfitting themselves to encounter prose in any other way. I sorta expected that to happen. But I've decided that I'm going to swim in the other direction. I like the way the Tris McCall Report looks and feels, I like all the broken links and dead ends and general chaos. And that ought to be good enough for me. I may do a sissy version of the Critics Poll this year. But I will definitely be keeping it old school.

# posted by Spring Chicken 2009 @ 7:13 AM
Comments:
I gotta say, I find it hard to read, on a screen, text formatted against a black background.

So I am pleased by the Pussay version. Thank ya.
# posted by Blogger Pete Prochilo : Friday, December 23, 2005 8:58:00 AM
 
i just love that green on black. but yeah, everybody complains. i have a weird brain. but you knew that.
# posted by Blogger Spring Chicken 2009 : Friday, December 23, 2005 9:02:00 AM
 
"This color that color" nothing - I just wish you made mentioned the dude from Fallout Boy trying to be Louis Armstrong with his "Suga' down, shoooobie doooo bop baaaa"...
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Friday, December 23, 2005 11:53:00 AM
 
yeah, that's pretty ridiculous. "i'm just a notch in your bedpost/ but you're just a line in a song". nasty. he goes into the closet like elvis costello in "living in paradise", but he can't work up the murderous venom. "wishin to be the friction in your jeans" is the best he can do.
# posted by Blogger Spring Chicken 2009 : Friday, December 23, 2005 12:01:00 PM
 
i like the black. it makes me think you're writing from inside of a closet. and the broken links are mysterious. and sometimes the color scheme changes...it's like the web version of the empire state building.

but i miss the photos...it's like you haven't been getting out as much.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Friday, December 23, 2005 12:34:00 PM
 
ben, the awful truth is that i lost my digital camera a few months ago.
# posted by Blogger Spring Chicken 2009 : Friday, December 23, 2005 1:00:00 PM
 
i honestly did not know that i was totally copying you until i read the written words "green on black format". i am totally copying you. happy new year to you!
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Saturday, December 31, 2005 3:06:00 PM
 
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