New Things That Excite Me

This man is my hero.

His name is Carlos Owens, and he is, among other things, creating a function mech, what he calls the NMX04-1A. Doesn't quite have the ring of "Optimus Prime" or "Jetfire," but I'm behind this all the same. It's an 18-foot tall, human-piloted walking mechanoid. Progress reports, pictures and even an introductory video are all available on his web site.

Next up is the new chart from Billboard, the Pop 100 (PDF). Way back in the day (we're talking nearly 50 years ago), Billboard stopped producing a "Pop 100" chart in favor of its brand-spankin'-new Hot 100. Over the next five decades, the Hot 100 came to define the very notion of the music-popularity chart, and was the chart that the king of all countdown shows was based on, Casey Kasem's American Top 40.

Music has become increasingly genrefied over the past fifteen years, and I've seen the number of ways Billboard has tried to keep up with this grow and blossom. First there was the expanded Sales and Airplay charts, then more frequent charts for genres (like the Christian music charts moving from quad-weekly, to bi-weekly, now weekly), adn then larger charts for genres, and splintering of genre's charts (the number of Top 40 [insert sub-genre here] charts. It's sort of a marvel to pick up a copy of Billboard these days. When you can find them, that is.

Billboard also has limited access to most of its charts on their web site. One of the charts they publish online in its entirety is a chart that debuted on Feburary 3 (for the Feburary 12 issue). I didn't quite realize it was the debut chart when I first saw it, just because it had been tracking titles for at least 34 weeks. Fred Bronson writes in the Chart Beat Bonus column for the February 19 issue,

On the Pop 100, "Candy Shop" makes an astounding 79-point leap, from 89-10. It's the biggest move in the history of this chart. Since the Pop 100 has only been published for two weeks that may not seem like a huge achievement, but let's give 50 Cent his due.

For the record, in the third published chart, out today, no record makes anything even close to a 79-point movement.

I'm not quite sure what the rebirth of the Pop 100 means in the annals of the Billboard charts. It doesn't appear that it's a major chart, since the entire chart has been released all three weeks it's been published thus far (non-subscribers only get to see the top half of the major charts). I'm assuming it's more of a genre-specific chart for CHR radio, as the Hot 100 has become more reflective of the wide variety of musical tastes present in America since their switch away from radio playlists to compile the chart in 1991.

By the way, there's no point to any of this except to point out the massive chart geek I am.

Arguably the bigger story to the Billboard charts this week is the change in how the Hot 100 is compiled. Beginning this week (story), the Hot 100 now includes tracks that were downloaded from the iTunes Store or some other paid service. It shows an ability to move quickly on their feet that I didn't know Billboard had. So bully for them and their new Hot 100.

To that end, I have to also make a point of noting that I'm adding a new award to my chart, the Guilty Pleasure award.

The Guilty Pleasure award is a purely subjective award and serves to explain away the presence of songs that would otherwise not be listed in any music countdown I'd want to be party to. Looking at preliminary data for the next chart, I can almost assure that it will be used once, maybe twice. So, yes, I have guilty pleasures when it comes to songs.

Let he who has no guilty pleasures cast the first DVD set of Friends.