List-o-rama

I’ve been seeing more and more list-style content these days, and not just on the web either — on TV and in magazines as well. Some of it is brilliant and some of it (in the case of VH1) is clearly filler. And it almost never fails to get attention. Why does the media love them so? Why do they persist?

1. Lists are easy to write and easy to digest
   • So ulitmately they are fun for both author and reader — you don’t have to absorb the entire work, you can tackle content piecemeal and it makes the subject matter seem, well, simple enough to be summarized into a list.
2. Lists seem comprehensive when they are not
   • Large lists always have the allure of being everything-you-need-to-know even when you’re well aware there are enormous omissions of equally worthy material or opinions.
3. Lists can be presented as “not definitive”
   • Authors often use this with point #2 to allow them to make their content stinging and controversial, because it’s not a true, overall ranking… just one that was written to “fit with the times.”
4. Lists are always highly contentious
   • Lists garner a lot of feedback from highly opinionated readers who overlook points #2 and 3 because they want lists to be complete and definitive. That means lots of discussion about your lists which means more people will read them.
5. Lists don’t have to be great to be interesting
   • Keeping all the points above in mind, often the list itself and the subsequent discussion around the list is more fascinating than what’s in it. Because they are so succinct, they can be more ambitious in their subject. After all, you’re not actually going to go into deep details over each point, are you?
6. Lists are bundles of declarations, requiring no formal conclusion

Everyone had a list… I wanted one too! This was not as huge an album-buying year for me as 2003, but it’s quality, not quantity, or so I’ve been told.

I’ll expand on my choices as I get time.

1. Madvillain — “Madvillany”
   Wow wow wow. This was a no-brainer. Madlib plus MF Doom equals unrestrained creativity, mindblowing rhymes, and beats out of deepest archives of jazz history. Each one performs to their fullest potential while the other one keeps them from derailing into concept-album nonsense. The result is one of the best hip-hop collaborations ever.
2. Arcade Fire — “Funeral”