“New York Times” Still Allowing Serial Charticlist To Run Amok

noah | August 19, 2008 3:30 am

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The front page of today’s New York Times arts section was overtaken by yet another “whimsicial” music-related graph by Andrew Kuo, an artist who’s been making inscrutable charts of his music-consumption habits for Times‘ readers perusal for a little over a year now. This time, the subject is the ever-popular topic of “songs of the summer.” In it, we learn that he really enjoys Hotstylz’ “Lookin Boy” and Lil Wayne; also, he has zero familiarity with Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” and thus has no opinion on it, a super-contrarian pose that leads me to believe that he either doesn’t leave the house much or only visits bodegas whose ambient radio choices he approves of. (Or he’s fibbing to be “funny,” but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Kuo’s charts have revealed a few tidbits about his likes and dislikes:

• His radio stations of choice: Power 105 or Hot 97. BUT NOT Z100. NEVER. • He goes to shows at McCarren Pool and other Brooklyn Vegan-approved venues. • His font choices are similar to those of Wes Anderson. • He really, really likes Lil Wayne. • He was clearly scarred by Lollapalooza 2.

And… that’s it. You know, it’s nice that the Times wants to break up its pages with pretty images, but it would be an awful lot nicer if those charts actually, y’know, said something beyond “Futura is almost as awesome as Da Drought 3, you guys.” I don’t have a problem with people taking music criticism in new and exciting directions, but I do have a slight issue with a joke being beaten into the ground, especially when said joke wasn’t even “ha-ha” funny when it first came out. Clearly, it’s time to whip out the response Jess crafted back in January one more time:

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Color Them Summer’s Hottest Songs [NYT]

[Addendum: Apparently the colors on the Web version are messed up, too. Oh, Times!]