Top Five Aggressively Insignificant Artifacts of 2008

5. The Pitchfork “Top 500 Songs” Book—Apparently, in the rush to become our generation’s Rolling Stone, the indie-crit tastemaker inadvertently bypassed the righteous Lester Bangs/Hunter Thompson years and landed somewhere in the mire of that magazine’s bloated, self-parodying culture-factory era. And when did the hipsters get coffee tables?



4. The Google Android Phone—What do you want for Christmas, Johnny? An iPhone? Well let me tell you what Uncle Cliff’s going to do for you. No, don’t touch your uncle’s eggnog. I’m going to give you an iPhone without the music, the video—sit on my LAP, damn it—without the touch-screen, the sleek interface, or a reliable network. How does that sound? Johnny, have I ever told you that you look like a young Cary Grant?



3. “Valkyrie”—Leave it to a can’t-miss duo like Tom Cruise and the guy who made “Superman Returns” to think that an historical thriller about the assassination plot against Hitler would fill seats come Christmas time. I wonder if it occurred to the coked-up brainstorming team who pushed for the film’s reported $90 million budget that a thriller should evoke something in the neighborhood of suspense. “Do they kill Hitler?” “Does Tom Cruise save Germany and reshape the course of the 20th Century?” “Does this involve L. Ron Hubbard in some way?” I won’t ruin the end for you.



2. Sarah Palin—In the style of true insignificance, she will not occupy the #1 spot on this list. In lieu of an introduction to this...thing...I invite you all to imagine the sounds of turkeys being decapitated. Words spring to mind—“grotesque,” “cacophonous,” “bizarre.” For Palin, they’re the sounds of home. Welcome back, Sarah. Someone tell her to get some braids and she may have a shot next year.



1. “Chinese Democracy”—17 years and $13 million in the making, Axl Rose’s white whale should have been at least one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. What we expected were the sounds of angels giving birth to devils and devouring one another. What we expected were the sounds of the Aztec city that, after all these years, we were certain was built somewhere in the catacombs of Axl’s skull. What we expected was the sound of Siddhartha playing a solo conceived from the empyrean bliss of the all-being. What we got was an exceptionally slick, exceptionally boring chunk of self-indulgence that GNR could’ve spit out in 1993 and saved itself the effort. Not for its sheer magnitude could it even be crazier than “808s and Heartbreak.” Lunacy, thy name is Kanye.



—Ryan J. Meehan is the incoming Books Editor. He is insignificant.