My Impression Now is 250 songs strong

Posted by John Kenyon

With today’s post about the Boston Spaceships’ track “Brown Submarine,”I’ve officially hit 250 songs on my Robert Pollard catablog, My Impression Now. Hitting that milestone, I hereby declare myself the king of catabloggers when judged by sheer volume of posts.

Others have completed their tasks, of course, something I may never do given that Robert Pollard releases new songs at a rate fairly close that at which I review that music.

The last time I noted my progress here , I had notched my 100th song (“Glad Girls“) in December 2007. At that time I took a survey of the other catablogs known to me. Those behind a few had given up, several others had been dormant for a long time, and a solid number were still going strong.

Fast forward to today, and things have changed (see list below). Six have definitely stopped, 10 have not posted in several months and only a handful of us are still going. Three have completed their task: the Pearl Jam blog More Than Ten, Solar Prestige a Gammon, which covered Elton John’s music from 1969 to 1977, and Matthew Perpetua’s R.E.M. blog, Popsongs ’07-08, which launched this whole movement in May 2007. Perpetua promises to write at some point about Accelerate, the album the band issued late last year after he had finished his project.

I’m surprised all of this didn’t catch on more than it did. It seemed like a great idea, both from the perspective of a writer and a reader. What better way to fully immerse yourself in a favorite band’s work than to force yourself to write about every note? And what better way to learn about a band than to read such passionate, micro-level criticism?

Thing is, it’s a lot of work. I’ve cranked out just shy of 65,000 words on Pollard’s music, and I’m not even a 1/4 of the way through his catalog. The guy behind the Pearl Jam blog (assisted by a few others toward the tail end) wrote 188 posts, while Perpetua wrote 204 (with another seven dedicated to a great Q&A session with Michael Stipe).

I plan to soldier on, if for no other reason than the close listening required of this has made me appreciate Pollard’s music all the more. I’ve been reading Lawrence Block’s great memoir Step by Step, which largely chronicles his obsession with racewalking over long distances, and I see parallels to my own Sisyphean quest. Sure, part of the motivation is in doing something that few others can (or, I’ll admit, want to), but the rewards along the way are what make this truly worthwhile.

R.I.P.
Robynsongs – Robyn Hitchcok
Chrome Canyons – Wilco
Spring, Sprang, Sprung – T-Pain
Emotional Karaoke – Mountain Goats
More Words About Buildings and Songs – Talking Heads
Ten Thousand Lies – Nine Inch Nails

M.I.A. (including month of last post)
All My Little Words – Magnetic Fields: June 2007
Blursongs – Blur: August 2008
Fridgebuzz/Radiostutters – Radiohead: October 2007
Hyper-ballads – Bjork: July 2007
Paraguay and Laos – Bluetones: October 2008
Separated Out – Marillion: August 2007
So Misunderstood – Wilco: September 2007
Crimes on Paper – Self: August 2008
One Imaginary Blog – Cure: July 2008