Coming Attractions: More of the List, and More

As the days grow increasingly dark and dreary, I thought it wise to pause and take stock of where this blog is headed. I began with a list and a rant, as well as a promise to make sense of why I find the lists that pass for discourse within the pop music subculture so unsatisfying. Now that we've arrived neck deep in the Holidays and find ourselves sinking quickly toward the New Year, we've suddenly entered prime list season. Over the course of the next several weeks, then, I will continue my struggle with the list. What is its purpose? Who are its friends? Why does it only come in intervals of five and ten? These are just a few of the vexing questions I intend to address and offer in place of the usual comfort and tidings of joy. Michael Bérubé has suggested that I hate lists because they "disguise the fact that a great deal of popular culture isn't worth ranking or remembering at all." He also states that "the real fun of a list -- and the intellectual labor -- is realized only when its creator has to explain and defend its rationale." Yet too often I find the list becomes a dead end, an excuse for pundits to make blanket generalizations they never have any intention (or idea how) to defend. I don't have a problem with the list, per se -- just the lack of insight it tends to yield. This, at least, is the premise I mean to explore.