What I'm Up To, February '24

Hi! A monthly round-up of the activities YOUR patreon pounds are funding - and a general check-in. I'm well, happier and healthier than I was last month, and I hope you are too. Also! I went to New York for a client to help with their work on Super Bowl ads (if you thought they were nothing special, guess what? You are officially correct) and made a side trip to see my friend Maura in Boston, where I watched A WRESTLING MATCH (on TV) and it was great. I also bought a bunch of books, which means I'm now surrounded by piles of unread books on three sides as I type this.

Where am I with my writing and music projects, though?

POPULAR: I wrote a new entry! Only one, so once again I've not billed anyone for the month. But it's something. This means the J Lo entry is officially up on Freaky Trigger if you want to go comment on it. There has also been one (1) change of No.1 in the UK, so I have to write something here about "Texas Hold 'Em", a much discussed record. (Spoiler: I like it) Hopefully I'll get onto that at the weekend.

THE POLLS: For those not following the polls, the 2023 one ended with a win for Olivia Rodrigo, whose song I got a bit sick of as the competition went on, but it definitely reflects a wider enthusiasm for her among the pop fans I know. Second place went to NewJeans, whose song "Ditto" - not the one that came second - was one of my great loved discoveries from the poll. We're now into Black Pop History 1978-1981, which is heading for its final group stages next week after running most of this month. As you'd expect the big winners there have generally been enormous disco hits like "Ring My Bell", but I'd still say Grace Jones' "Pull Up To The Bumper" is the favourite to actually win.

After that it's Favourite Songs, which I've almost finished the playlists for. That's going to be divided into a CROWN JEWELS poll - the name is a nod to Prince, who we've polled more than anyone else over the four years I've been doing this - and a HIDDEN GEMS one. The Gems playlist is meant to be obscure favourites you want the world to hear (in some cases, hear again, as we've had a few of them). The Jewels one is big hitters - again, we've seen a few before.

Here's a peek at my own Hidden Gems pick, Souls Of Mischief's "Cab Fare", one of the classic unreleased hip-hop tracks - the group couldn't get the sample cleared, which is a shame as it works absolutely beautifully as a beat. A guy in the very early days of Freaky Trigger made a CD-R of jams for me which included this and it's been a favourite ever since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIOM8mCS1fk

The Hidden Gems playlist is out at the weekend.

OTHER WRITING: So the big thing I've been doing this month is my series of posts on Dave Sim's Cerebus The Aardvark comic - five so far on FT, with thirteen to go. Drafts of them all exist on goodreads, so this is hopefully a project I will actually finish. The early volumes of Cerebus are fascinating, sometimes but not always very good, but the whole long series is overshadowed by Dave Sim's descent into a strange, misogynistic, philosophy/belief system which comes to dominate the work. I'm trying to take the books "on their own terms" as artistic works and stories, exploring why I think Sim made the storytelling choices he did, but of course that involves grappling with the ideas the man puts in there, often very explicitly (one might say, clumsily). And also ultimately grappling with the question of is it worth giving a work like this extended attention: the fact I'm doing it might suggest I've answered that to my satisfaction but I'm honestly not sure. It's been an interesting project so far - I'm gratified by how well it's been received. I tend not to think much of my abilities as a critic outside music, so this is a project where I feel like I'm stretching myself a little.

And then I'm still whittling down the list for Arron Wright's big music-listing project #Let5D0It - favourite singles from 1954-1976. I'd promised myself I'd link a playlist here when I got to my final shortlist of 100 but I'm not even at that stage yet, and time is running out...

Thanks as ever for subscribing and reading - have a good March!

Tom