It’s another case where the column is better than the spotlighted song. Thanks Tom! In unrelated news, I celebrate 19 years clean and sober today – woo hoo!

It was tough being a child who was vocally a fan of Elton John. I genuinely loved his music, but for whatever reason that fact was a way to tear me down. Everyone had to point out “you know he’s gay, right?” long before I even really understood what that meant. But even when I knew what gay was, it was an excuse for people to call me gay, and of course, when you’re in grade school in the 90’s, there’s no greater shame. One of the main reasons I sought out other music was I was tired of being ridiculed for liking a gay musician. When my parents took me to an Elton concert, I felt mortified for most of it. But eventually, the obnoxious drunk couple in front of us irritated me enough to make me go down to “the pit”, and I stood there, looking up and realized that I was seeing one of the greatest living legends in music. And I stopped giving a shit and sang along. Elton fucking rules.

Phoebe Bridgers Headline Unnecessarily Long, Wordiness Breeds Confusion and Uncertainty Over Actual Content Yet Invokes Ample Curiosity to Elicit Click

you know what really “drags”? a 9-paragraph comment.

George Michael and Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” top YouTube official music video comments:

1. There’s something in George that has kept me from taking my own life after my son died. Nathaniel meant everything to me. But George’s lyrics give me strength that I didn’t know I had. I listen every night and take comfort from hearing his voice. I wish blessings to all you out there and have a blessed Christmas.xx

2. I wish concerts were still like this. You don’t see a single phone. Just the audience enjoying the moment, taking it all in.

3. I think I’ve listened to this song a 1000 times, and every time George sings “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Elton John”, I get the chills. Truly one of the best musical pairings of all time. When we lost George, we did indeed lose a legend. He was one of our best.

4. I was in the audience that night. We were just invited to a George Michael concert for free said they needed an audience. Nobody knew what to expect. It was magic!!!

5. What I really love about this—aside from the fact that it is a truly great song spectacularly sung—is Michael’s attitude. You can see it a couple times, particularly when Elton first comes on, George Michael is absolutely thrilled to be on stage with Elton. The respect is overwhelming, he is truly a fan. Almost like a kid getting to kick the ball around with his favorite football player. It brings a measure of joy to the performance that one rarely is lucky enough to be a part of. But he doesn’t fawn, rather he celebrates the moment by taking this song together with its creator to new creative heights. Beautiful and moving.

🙂

Hey! Wait! I’ll file a new complaint!

ok boomr

I was a huge Elton John fan back in high school and all 28 of my graduating class can attest to that. I played his music during art class, and a fellow fan and I would draw pictures inspired by his music. For Homecoming, 1974, I went to bat for “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” to be our coronation theme, kinda dorky, right? However, we distilled the title to just Sunset and created a beautiful *insert sarcasm* crepe paper sunset for the gym. Our music teacher who sang “Time in a Bottle” the year before, sang an acoustic version of the Elton John hit. In ’74 I felt cheated that DLtSGDoM didn’t hit Number One, so I was avenged in 1992.

As the person in charge of music for our sock hops, I played a lot of Elton John among the Bad Company, Sly and the Family Stone, Bachman Turner Overdrive, etc. One song that I’d play was for me and three of my friends who comprised the “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” Fan Club. We all agreed that when we died someone would have to play FfaF/LLB at our funerals. It was never morbid, but more celebratory. I’d drop the needle on the song, and the fan club would stand in front of the speakers and sway to the orchestral song from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It was our song and we owned it, dorky or not.

We haven’t had to make good on our pact, yet. D, K, L and I are still above ground. However last Thursday I awoke to a text from a friend who informed me that a mutual friend died of Covid. His health the last few years had been up and down due to complications from Diabetes, and when I heard he had Covid, I knew the worst was possible. He was a good, humorous, creative man who tried to bring lightness to his friends.

When Betty White died, someone said she died knowing the world loved her. I am certain that Bobo knew his friends loved him too. We loved the Art Institute of Chicago graduate who drew crayon drawings of horses while we dined at Hamburger Mary’s and at a fancy Chicago steak house. We loved the Cubs fan who made jokes about his own lack of athleticism. We loved the guy who would insert a joke when things got tense, even while dealing with disease. We loved the man who had sinister plans for Erin Napier from HGTV’s Home Town so he could have Ben all to himself. We loved the guy who had an irrational/rational fear of Wisconsin.

Don’t be stingy with words of love, especially for those close to you. I realize that our group is special in that we are music focused, and that we’ll probably have songs picked out for our own life celebrations. For Bobo I’m playing “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and “Tarzan Boy” for reasons only a few would know. Finally, I will make him an unofficial member of the “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” Fan Club as I sway in front of the speakers and thumb my nose at Wisconsin. Safe travels my friend.

A Year-End Statistically Significant Sidebar

Happy New Year’s Eve to the good people of TNOCS!

Whilst concocting the 2021 TNOCS Christmas video, I had to figure out a fair way of how to include as many folks as possible. So, I thought I might catch a clue by crunching the stats from every TNOs column posted in 2021, up to and including December 3. Join me over at the big whiteboard, won’t you, as we check out some fun metrics about the 2021 participants within our beloved section o’ comments.

Even though I’d extended the number of verses in the song to a perhaps fatiguing level, I still had a practical limit of the number of folks that I could list. So I had to draw a line: If you commented or replied 18 times or more during the entirety of 2021, your name was in. For comparison: in 2019, I was able to name-check 62 of you. Last year: 102. I’m pleased to report that this year, we crammed 242 of our friends into the mix. For any omissions beyond that methodology, I apologize; this was the most equitable way that I could think of to get the job done.

(Sorry – real quick before we hit the digits: Right after I posted the video, I had to log off for the rest of the day. When I checked back very late Christmas Eve, I was stunned, overwhelmed and humbled by the incredibly kind and thoughtful feedback. I know that it was just a corny bit, but I promise that my heart was 100% all-in to make something that you’d get a kick out of. Thank you to everyone that commented about it. (Friend rollerboogie asked how long it took to do; about 110 hours in all – and worth every minute of the process if anyone enjoyed seeing it.))

OK, chatterboy: Enough. Get to it:

Between January 1 and December 3, there were 145 The Number Ones Columns penned by our venerable scribe Tom Breihan. In response, the denizens of the The Number Ones Comment Section ponied up exactly 16,354 comments, crafted lovingly by 986 different commenters. Fun fact: Just about a third of these, 326 delurkers, decided to comment only once.

If we define each comment or reply as an “interaction,” and score each with a point, let’s look at the Top 20 commenters for the aforementioned time period. (And, in a tribute to the spirit of Casey: we’re doing it right: we’re countin’ ‘em down:)

#20 946 Jmf74
#19 960 feetontheground
#18 1006 Mr. Plow
#17 1137 vails
#16 1207 Rabbits Rabbits
#15 1256 dutchg8r
#14 1669 dothestrand
#13 1690 Legeis
#12 1825 ozcorp
#11 1837 rollerboogie
#10 1855 Guy K
#9 1870 thegue
#8 1960 RJ1313
#7 2054 Chris S
#6 2462 shadowboxer122
#5 2464 washingtonknight
#4 2766 Brigit
#3 2792 LinkCrawford
#2 2827 blu_cheez
#1 4358 irishbearaz/tx

(With a few minor adjustments necessitated for rhyming purposes, this was the metric for listing folks in the video: from fewest to most interactions.)

Now, occasionally, some of us might be in a particularly chatty mood. The Top 20 Most Interactions Within A Single Column:

#20 44 rollerboogie “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
#19 45 irishbeartx “Baby I Love/ Freebird”
#18 47 blu_cheez “Don’t Worry Be Happy”
#17 47 dutchg8r “Praying For Time”
#16 47 irishbeartx “Nothing Compares 2U”
#15 47 irishbeartx “When I’m With You”
#14 47 latinazza “Step By Step”
#13 47 vails “When I See You Smile”
#12 50 irishbearaz “Could’ve Been”
#11 50 irishbeartx “We Didn’t Start The Fire”
#10 51 irishbeartx “Black Velvet”
#9 52 Brigit “One More Try”
#8 53 irishbeartx “I’ll Be There For You”
#7 53 shadowboxer122 “Kokomo”
#6 53 washingtonknight “All The Man That I Need”
#5 54 irishbeartx “When I See You Smile”
#4 55 Brigit “With Or Without You”
#3 55 irishbearaz “Head To Toe”
#2 61 irishbearaz “The Flame”
#1 61 vails “We Didn’t Start The Fire”

As most Oscar™ winners will tell you, “hey, it’s a thrill just to be nominated…” That said, here’s the Top 20 for the category of Most Upvotes Received For a Single Post or Reply:

#20 51 Lee Chesnut “Heaven Is A Place”
#19 51 Left of the Dial “Dirty Diana”
#18 51 Shocker “One More Try”
#17 52 CarrieAnne “I Don’t Have The Heart”
#16 52 Justice “Can’t Live Without Your Love”
#15 52 rollerboogie “Step By Step”
#14 53 CarrieAnne “The Way It Is”
#13 53 poorlittlefool “Lost In Your Eyes”
#12 54 Legeis “Foolish Beat”
#11 55 mt58 “Mony Mony”
#10 56 Lee Chesnut “Step By Step”
#9 57 Ace of Moms Basement “I Knew You Were Waiting”
#8 59 dustrock “Vision Of Love”
#7 60 mt58 “Don’t Wanna Lose”
#6 63 Barnable “Never Gonna Give You Up”
#5 63 jnagle4 “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”
#4 64 Fishhead “The Living Years”
#3 71 Fishhead “With Or Without You”
#2 71 mt58 “Jacob’s Ladder”
#1 78 Simone Magus “Nothing Compares 2U”

BTW, each commenter’s “appearance” in the video was their actual highest upvoted comment for 2021. Friends hokienole and Mumchance thought that perhaps the numbers had been inflated – but, nope – all are accurate.

And like all overly-long awards shows, we’ve saved the biggie for last: here are the 2021 TNOCS Top 40 Commenters, By Total Received Upvotes:

40 1355 scanner3
39 1397 Lovethisconcept
38 1407 wes_r
37 1410 Shocker
36 1412 RWonegan
35 1440 DanceFever
34 1463 Carstonio
33 1493 jrctennis23
32 1511 vails
31 1518 dwmacg
30 1536 Pauly Steyreen
29 1566 Chris S
28 1588 Justice
27 1601 RJ1313
26 1619 JJ Lives At Leeds
25 1632 Lee Chesnut
24 1645 washingtonknight
23 1834 shadowboxer122
22 1863 rubberbandit
21 2060 mt58
20 2074 Rabbits Rabbits
19 2152 DJ Professor Dan
18 2219 scorpio516
17 2235 dustrock
16 2256 dothestrand
15 2263 Mr. Plow
14 2286 blu_cheez
13 2296 Saint Nothing
12 2365 ozcorp
11 2415 prefab
10 2521 SrCarto
9 2521 rollerboogie
8 2654 Virgindog
7 2690 Brigit
6 2715 Legeis
5 2716 LinkCrawford
4 2895 Fishhead
3 2954 Guy K
2 3078 BixMeister
1 3153 thegue

I hope that this was a fun read; it seemed like something many of you would enjoy reviewing. We’ve sure had a great 2021 together! I look forward so much to visiting here with you all, and I know that many of you feel the same. Thanks to Tom and Scott for providing us this place, technically rent-free, three times weekly, just so we can have our little ongoing weird and wonderful party. It’s among the most fun ongoing experiences I’ve ever had.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. I will think good thoughts for everyone here, and for all those that they love. We’ll see you in the remaining virtual 1990s, and beyond! I’m mt Kasem. Thanks for listening. Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars…

..and good on you all.

Dude is trying so hard.

Couple things:
1. “Plotzed”
2. Great article, Rachel!
3. I’m really surprised nobody made a bigger thing of Billie Eilish saying porn was a disgrace. Seems like we’re keeping Billy off the cancel train, eh? You always see people bending over backwards to be sex-positive now and ol Billie says porn is a disgrace! Seems like, once again, we only care about certain things when they’re said by certain people and not really concerned with the certain thing in question. Sex-shaming from Billie Eilish?????? How was this not just a batshit controversy? Where were all the Only Fans people condemning Billie Eilish in a fire of lingerie and dollar bills???? Where was Stormi Daniels coming out and saying Billie’s music should be banned???? WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE WE NEED THE OUTRAGE!!!!!!! Just further proof that 99% of the discourse on Twitter is bullshit and that nobody should pay any attention to it.

Pretty insensitive of each one of those bros to rock mustaches. Which one of these is not like the other…? Wow. Thought we’d learned.

Rachel out here doing the most to write the least about Pinegrove beyond the bare minimum and pull quote. You aren’t off her hook, Evan boy!

Nice pic. So “The Smile” is more of a theory thing? Morose fucks.