Lists, a love affair

While last night's broadcast of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs was enough to inspire a screed from the list-obsessed, it was eclipsed this morning by The Black Table's "NOW THAT WAS FREAKING FUNNY" article. This inexplicably brief and astoundingly male "subjective list of major influences to what We Find Funny" is so deeply misguided as to border on the bizarre. Now I spent yesterday on a Black Table-deep-gratitude high, so rest assured that this is in no way the result of vindictiveness or displaced blog envy. Hell, even the folks at Gawker were mystified! Basically, the two authors are a couple of guys' guys who think "fuck" and "pussy" and calling Chinese people "chink" is a real hoot. As if this dude-tastic, pussy-and-fart parade of snarky bad-mannerisms wasn't disappointing enough, it also includes that ultimate self-indulgent blight on the history of literature, Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. How did anyone read that piece of shit without wanting to throw it out a window? I love lists because they tend to get me all worked up. It's an obsessive compulsive thing. I once read that excessive list-making is one warning sign of a nervous breakdown. Get out the butterfly nets!

But here's the real deal: Today is day one of Pitchfork's three-day The Top 100 Albums of the 1970s countdown. It is friggin' awesome, people. It opens with Eno's Before and After Science and it does crazy stuff like rank both Hunky Dory and Diamond Dogs higher than Ziggy Stardust. Me, LK, and Sugar D could drink whiskey and cokes and talk about this list for a week. Also, be sure to check out their 1980s and 1990s lists. All told, it's coming up on 300 albums worth of pathetic, geeked-out listmania. Stay tuned for more overwrought musings on listology.