30 August 2001

Pop Quiz Nick Hornby ploughs through the Billboard Top 10 albums: "Sales are no longer the absolute indicator of success or popularity that they once were—this is what we must tell ourselves. The Billboard Top Ten means nothing! Kids download everything now! Or they burn CDs for each other! And, yet, hundreds of thousands of young Americans have wanted these albums badly enough to go to a store and spend their cash on P. Diddy and D12 and Blink 182; someone on your street might be listening to "Fuck a Dog" right now. I shall, when I have recovered my strength, creep back to my little private Top Ten, which consists of penniless artists like the Pernice Brothers and Joe Henry and Shuggie Otis and Olu Dara, who make music full of thoughtful, polite ironies and carefully articulated cynicism and references to our glorious heritage. But I won't kid myself that it's pop music—not anymore." 5:16:15 PM