Oh Grow Up

Extremely irksome NY Times pop music critic Kelefa Sanneh weighed in yesterday on "Ain't Nothin' Like Me," the latest CD from boringly monikered R&B love man Joe --

One of Joe’s signature songs is “I Wanna Know,” a sublime slow jam. He teamed up with 50 Cent’s G Unit for a club-conquering collaboration, “Wanna Get to Know You.” And this new CD, No. 2 on Billboard’s album chart, begins with a song called “Get to Know Me.” Near the end comes “You Should Know Me.” Think he’s trying to tell us something?

-- and you'll note that, once again, the statistics-obsessed Sanneh proves incapable of reviewing an artist without a mention of their current chart position.

Apart from being a really annoying stylistic tic, this is a manifestation of a form of nerdy fanboy bullshit that's really embarassing for a guy his age.

Note to Sanneh: When I was ten years old, back during the Spanish Civil War, I went through a period when I felt compelled to write down a list of every week's Top Forty Hits as played on WMGM-AM in New York City.

By the time I was eleven, however, I had gotten over it.

Word to your mother.