Sunday, July 05, 2009

A Very Useful Chart

I became a Mariah Carey fan around the time of 1995's Daydream (specifically, with the first single, "Fantasy"). I followed her during the following years, even buying Rainbow when it came out during my mission (the mission rule was very vaguely that we were only to listen to music that uplifted us... isn't Mariah uplifiting?), but the disastrous Glitter and then the mediocre Charmbracelet happened to correspond with my conversion into a musical snob, at which time I decided I was too cool for popular artists like Mariah Carey. So until recently, I owned only her middle five albums. But then this past week, a few stars and planets aligned: (1) I had a few weeks' worth of Amazon.com gift certificates from work accrued, waiting for me to use them; (2) perhaps because I spent all week listening to Michael Jackson songs and tributes, I decided that I'm no longer too cool to enjoy pop music; and (3) I realized that there were several Mariah Carey songs I liked but didn't own. So I fixed that. First I bought her first three albums and MTV Unplugged EP, and then I figured what the hey, and bought the two most recent ones as well.

Having completed several hours of research now, I will share my findings with you.


As you can see, Mariah is on a relative upswing. We'll see if she keeps that up with her new album coming out this summer. Stay tuned in, and on the edge of your seats.

8 comments:

Cricket said...

A) How did you find the time to do this?
B) How bored were you?

:)

B.G. Christensen said...

A) I did the research (i.e. listening to the music) while I worked this week. I put the chart together in Excel in about a minute and a half tonight.

B) Not so much bored as childfree (they're with FoxyJ at Grandma and Grandpa's house in Vegas) and reveling in it.

MoHoHawaii said...

I believe the move Glitter made it onto some worst movies of all time lists. At least it made it onto my list after I watched it as an in-flight movie. For a while I thought it was actually a parody.

playasinmar said...

Hey, Library Guy. I've a simple question and I hope it doesn't annoy you that I'm asking it here.

Is there anywhere online I can view a list of the Library of Congress catalog system?

I have an assignment on the LoC and I have some odd questions to answer. for example, "What call numbers are reserved for books on the history of fencing?"

Thanks for your help!

B.G. Christensen said...

MHH: Shudder. I never actually saw the movie, and have no desire to. How does it work as a parody?

Playa: The Library of Congress Classification system can be perused here. Another way to go about it is to look up books on the topic in question in LC's online catalog (or, for that matter, any library catalog that uses LCC), and see what number they have it classified under. Be careful with this method, though--be sure the number is used consistently for books on that topic, and double-check in the actual classification tables.

skyeJ said...

I have loved Mariah since I bought her first album on tape in the fifth or sixth grade. She is amazing in concert. I think I've seen Glitter, but it might have only been part of it. That would be worth getting from Netflix for a crazy dumb movie night.

Rebecca said...

I am so glad you did the work for me. Now I know which Mariah Carey albums to buy. (If there ever comes a day when I want to buy one.)

B.G. Christensen said...

SkyeJ: She didn't do such a great job performing at MJ's memorial yesterday, but we'll chalk that up to mourning and/or lack of preparation.

Rebecca: That day will come sooner than you imagine.