Kinetic

Well, then it's not an enormous stretch to say that Elvis should be included in the top ten. I'm no huge Elvis fan, but as far as influence is concerned, his importance to the development of popular music in the latter half of the 20th century and beyond is inestimable.

I look at this as some sort of bizarre Incandenza science experiment: Create a thread with a somewhat intriguing but ambiguous title, give no sort of prompting whatsoever as to what should be discussed, and then leave it to see what develops.

It's just that somewhere along the line I really fell in love with them as a couple. The lengthy, needlessly protracted courting process; the tearful confessions of attraction; the spirited make-out session in his conveniently broken-down car; the fact that she's Ukranian; the ridiculous confrontation with the football player in Barnes & Noble...it just really hit me where it counts, y'know?

Absolutely. Although I'd replace the word "dabble" with the phrase "fully immerse herself in" and the word "phase" with the phrase "sub-plot of every story." I'm sort of leaning towards Mary Kate for that part currently. She looks like the type.

This is, like, post-modern.

I'm really disappointed to have just discovered this thread today.

You read me like a book. While the first of my 75+ Olsen Twins stories for the new year is still in the embryonic phase, I suspect that bit of randy sorority hazing is in the works. Maybe the twins, frightened and homesick in their new world of flexible scheduling and individualized study, attempt to take solace in the arms of a well-endowed sociology professor. It's a brand new game out there.

As a leading writer of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen fan fiction, I find this news encouraging and feel that 2004 will be a banner year for me.

While technically correct, I think you're overlooking the big picture: The BBC is an enemy of democracy. And with the alertness level at Orange, you'd be well served to watch it with all that pinko talk, Mr. Smartypants.

Paris Hilton is obviously a reprehensible person for no other reason than the vindictiveness that typically goes hand-in-hand with never having to have worked for anything in your life. You can transcend that, but she's obviously chosen not to. Now, that said, she didn't choose to be born rich, nor does she seem to go out of her way to court this sort of undeserved celebrity status any moreso than anyone else with a prime time television series. That her private life is under such scrutiny is not her fault. She shouldn't be forced to stay in and abstain from things like drinking, drugs, and sex just because she's an impossibly wealthy heiress. And all of this slut business is just nonsense coming from people (men) who are intimidated by the notion that females enjoy sex.

This is completely and utterly irrelevant and was posted solely for the opportunity to kick a hippie when he's down.

This is a pretty unlikely turn of events. And yet it also seems like a perfect opportunity to unload some of my Tiffany cassingles, if you're interested, AoO.

Personally, I can't wait until Kim Possible comes of age. Yowza.

The Pet Shop Boys are a completely unrelated act. Nick Cave was formerly of the Birthday Party, but upon going solo formed a group called Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

I'm not opposed to any of your average American yellow-type beers. My depleted sense of taste and smell doesn't allow me to recognize any sort of difference, really, which is probably for the best given my affinity for 40s of malt liquor and PBR. I do take issue with oatmeal stout and that goddamn pumpkin-flavored yuppie beer, however. I had some embarrassing troubles getting mescal down, so I'm not too fond of that. And Old Crow, while not too objectionable in taste, does invariably cause me to vomit and have a day long hangover any time I drink it.

Did you ever hear Nick Cave's early version of "West End Girls"? His portrayal of the East end boys is a little darker than in the single version.

That's either an unintentionally hilarious typo or an unintentionally hilarious misinterpretation of facts.

All replies in this thread should be made in the form of a highly contentious list. Certain people will argue that "100 Greatest One Hit Wonders" is totally overrated and is easily owned by "100 Greatest Love Songs of the Past 25 Years," which featured a run between 34 and 17 that rivals anything ever aired on VH1. This will be met with considerable backlash. People will begin starting threads about which "Best VH1 100 Greatest List" list is their favorite. This cycle will continue unimpeded. And there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.

I'm eager for one of these news agencies to point out to me the irony of Saddam, once so proud in his palaces of opulent build, being discovered in a dingy hole with not so much as an ivory placemat to call his own. I suspect that this would help put Saddam's downfall into perspective for me and potentially curtail my own plans of someday becoming dictator of a volatile Middle Eastern country.

Christ, is Wire still releasing albums? I haven't liked anything they've done since Chairs Missing. Some critically acclaimed post-punk bands don't know when to quit.

That they're fuck-ups is debatable. All Paris Hilton did was have a video of herself having sex leaked onto the Internet, which could conceivably happen to any one of us were it not for the fact that a) no one would care, and b) many of the people here do not frequently engage in sexual relations. And I don't consider getting caught with drugs to be fucking up, so much as really bad luck. That they're idiots is most likely beyond dispute, however.

I didn't realize that her horse-faced friend is the daughter of former Commodore and mastermind behind such classics as "Dancing On The Ceiling" and "Say You, Say Me," Lionel Richie. This puts a whole new spin on the series and makes me all the more eager to see impossibly wealthy young gadabouts shove their hands in cow vaginas.

My personal Smiths recommendations would be The Queen Is Dead (and you apparently didn't need my help on that one) and Meat Is Murder. The first album is really not all that great and Strangeways, Here We Come is sort of spotty, although it certainly has its moments. You'd also be well served to pick up the Louder Than Bombs compilations, which features some excellent non-album tracks like "London" and "Rubber Ring" and whatever else. Morrissey's solo work is vastly underrated, in my opinion, and you'd do yourself a favor by checking out Bona Drag and Your Arsenal. The Talking Heads are probably the best band to emerge in the late 70s, or at the very least the most consistent up until Little Creatures and all of David Byrne's stupid faux African bullshit. '77, More Songs About Buildings And Food, and Fear of Music are all stellar albums and a must-have for any self-respecting music fan. Like Incandenza, I am not partial to Remain In Light, but quite a few people are so you may want to give that one a shot. And don't judge the Cure by Disintegration, which really only has about two good songs. Get Staring at the Sea, which is a compilation of all of their singles released prior to that album. It's really amazing and should, if all goes to plan, make you reconsider that band altogether.

And I own the following albums: 020: Björk - Post 019: Beck - Odelay 018: Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream 016: The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I 015: Radiohead - The Bends 014: Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister 013: Nirvana - In Utero 008: Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain 006: Nirvana - Nevermind 005: Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted 004: Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea 003: The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin 002: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless 001: Radiohead - OK Computer 021: Björk - Homogenic 022: Built to Spill - Perfect from Now On 023: The Beta Band - The Three EPs 024: Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong with Love 025: Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One 026: Weezer - Weezer 028: Pixies - Bossanova 029: Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West 030: Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville 031: Wilco - Summerteeth 037: Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs 043: R.E.M. - Automatic for the People 046: Air - Moon Safari 048: Portishead - Dummy 050: Outkast - Aquemini 052: PJ Harvey - Rid of Me 053: Weezer - Pinkerton 054: Blur - Parklife 056: A Tribe Called Quest - The Low-End Theory 059: Elliott Smith - Either/Or 061: Pulp - Different Class 063: De La Soul - De La Soul Is Dead 064: The Breeders - Last Splash 068: Elliott Smith - XO 069: Jeff Buckley - Grace 076: Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs 081: The Breeders - Pod 083: Pixies - Trompe le Monde 088: Wilco - Being There

I'm totally baffled as to why they'd bother doing this list again. Edwin's explanation makes as much sense as any, but it still seems like an awfully big waste of time when they've yet to tackle best-of lists from the 60s and 70s, arguably the two best decades for rock/pop music that would contain more records that their readership probably hasn't heard but should. Doing a small revision on the first list--and what happened in the last three years that suddenly made OK Computer, released in '97, better than Loveless, released in '91--seems like a paltry excuse to post another pointless list.