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Music
Analysis of Music Listicles — An Exercise In Pedantry
Examining artists with only one or two albums
I spend a fair bit of my time listening to music. To complement that, I read widely about music.
To be more accurate, I once read a lot, but nowadays, not so much. The format or style of music writing has changed substantially. I can’t remember the last time I bought a music magazine. Now I wake up to daily emails delivering headlines and short pieces about happenings in the music world. I have to dig a little deeper to find a substantial piece that is well beyond the attention span of the TL;DR crowd.
The list article, or listicle, is one of those types of writing (I am hesitant to call it journalism) that took off not that long ago and has become ubiquitous or pervasive with the gradual infestation of clickbait across the world’s media. We have all seen it, and most of us have probably clicked on a few links too. Articles like You won’t believe the top five crazy things Axl Rose keeps in his pantry — sickening! or similar!
Many seemingly reputable publications turned to the listicle dark side long ago. Rolling Stone magazine is one publication that utilises the format, thankfully without the dodgy sensationalism. I find some of the magazine’s listicles quite useful. For example, I often explore end-of-year lists to see which great albums I missed during that 12 months. A quality listicle has its purpose and suits those who wish to get a quick idea of a theme, scan through some examples, and focus on perhaps one or two items before moving on.
One-and-done
A while back, I read a Rolling Stone piece called 40 Greatest One-Album Wonders, published in April 2021. It was quite a comprehensive piece, put together by 11 authors. After a very brief introductory paragraph, the reader is led straight into descriptions of the 40 so-called one-and-done releases. The vignettes get slightly more comprehensive as the list progresses through to the top pick.
Upon quickly scanning through the 40 selections and reading perhaps 10–12 accounts, I found myself analysing the list, picking apart the selections, and posing pertinent questions.
