American Top 40

Still Processing

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Arts

4.8 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wesley has been obsessed with lists since he was a child — think Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, the Academy Awards and Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Albums of All Time. Now, he wants to think more seriously about expanding what we call the canon, making sure more people have a say in which works of art are considered great, enduring and important. For guidance, Wesley sits down with Daphne A. Brooks, an academic, critic and music lover, to ask whether expanding the canon is even the right way to think about this. Her thoughts surprise him: We can do better than lists! Check out Daphne A. Brooks's reading recommendations at nytimes.com/stillprocessing.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Berkinstok family tradition of shoe-making dates back to 1774.
0:04.5	In the years since, Berkinstok is innovated in daring ways.
0:08.1	Its now iconic footbed was developed at the turn of the 20th century,
0:11.8	allowing wares to walk as intended by nature.
0:14.4	When the company's next revolution, the Madrid Sandole,
0:17.0	was introduced at the Ducel Dorf Schufer in 1963, it was met with criticism.
0:21.2	The functional design went against what was considered fashionable at the time.
0:24.8	Fast forward to present day, and the once ugly Sandole has now become a coveted
0:28.7	fashion item. To find out more, visit nytimes.com forward slash Berkinstok.
0:44.4	I have a lot of weaknesses. I take long showers, I can't help it, I don't want to be that kind of
0:50.3	person. Sometimes I eat too plate to dinner when really I should only have one.
0:55.6	Another weakness I have is lists. I love them. I cannot get enough of them.
1:04.1	If Rolling Stone is making a list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,
1:09.3	you better believe I'm going to be there asking, why is Janet Jackson so low?
1:15.6	Where's the Joe and Armoured Trading record? Why is Joni Mitchell not on the top?
1:20.6	These are the important questions to me. I'd like to know, is there not an M2
1:25.7	May record that nobody thinks is as good as a, I don't know, pet sounds?
1:31.6	And all that makes me want to do is fight harder to make sure that when these countdowns and
1:36.4	lists and awards get given out, that they include things that tend to get omitted.
1:42.4	And I think that I really want to dedicate the work that I do or a significant portion of the work
1:50.8	that I do to making these institutions more inclusive of more different kinds of people.
2:00.9	But I'm wondering whether or not those institutions can ever be made equitable.
	...

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