The List

We’ve all done one. We’ve all provided or two cents on them. Some have even started arguments and fights over them. The list. Some lists are really dope, while some are full of shit. But we’ve all seen one, made one and/or talked about one.

The latest list I just read was Forbes’ Top Earning Musicians of 2010 list. Topped once again by the venerable U2, the list features such esteemed acts as the Black Eyed Peas and Britney Spears, with a notable highlight being Beyoncé ranking higher on the list than her husband Jay-Z.

I would elaborate on something about how women need to not be so preoccupied with the largely false notion that the glass ceiling is keeping them down in life, but since I also like to have sex with a female partner on a regular basis I’ll refrain from delving any deeper.

Anyways, while this list resembles something out of the results of a US Census (i.e., not a lot of color round them parts) it is somewhat nice to see urban acts rank among artists who have been doing music since the times I would wake up early on Saturday to watch cartoons. I’ll just ignore that nagging fact that the list makes me feel even more of a hobo, though. I mean damn, I’m sure all of the people on this list could pool even a small percentage of their earnings and wipe out the country’s deficit in one swoop, and here I am frustrated because I actually contemplated selling my broken Xbox 360 to the Direct TV repairman that came to fix my shoddy cable the other day. Good grief.

Where was I...

At the end of the day, who really cares about a list? The house that Viacom is raping so badly that if it had a sphincter it would resemble a funnel right now, MTV, has been compiling their yearly list of “Hottest” artists, this time with the XXL-cloned “Breakthrough MC of 2010.” While some folks will comment on the “legitimacy” of the list, it must be realized that lists of this nature are essentially based on a combination of music’s current climate and the opinions of those who compose it. Nicki Minaj may be on many folk’s radars, but she’s certainly not on my own.

Lists are only good for one thing: talking. There’s an obvious difference between lists that are crafted using actual facts and evidence, and those that are made by a bunch of people chilling in some nondescript office barking back and forth at each other as if they were engaged in some Pokemon-style battle to the death, yet the latter seems to be the one that garners the most attention. Whether based on fact or viewpoint, the list, however, is a guaranteed conversation on your favorite message board to steal movies from. Shouts to RNS.