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The
GQ Music "Coolness" Quiz
The 40 Best Albums of the 21st Century (According
to GQ Magazine)
February
15, 2004
by
Michael Walls
 Ever
since I abandoned Rolling Stone as a reliable
source for pop-culture information, I sort of floundered
around for a bit. About a year ago I decided that GQ
Magazine was my new source for entertaining and enlightening
content about the world around me. Best of all, GQ
covers all of the bases – music, sports, politics,
religion, fashion, and general pop culture. They also
present this content in a not-so-serious, “we-might-be-wrong-but-we-don’t-care”
sort of fashion, which I appreciate.
Recently, GQ Magazine offered up a simple one-page
feature listing the "40 Best Albums of the
21st Century" (October 2003 issue). This
list was presented without explanation, without excuses,
without descriptive narratives – nothing. Just a
list.
Now, I think I’m pretty cool – pretty hip
to what’s going on in the world. And when it comes
to music, certainly I’m above average. Right? So,
from this list of the 40 best albums of the 21st century
(only three years worth of music) I must certainly own
half of them – a third maybe?
No – three. I own three of them.
Suddenly, I’m not feeling so hip, so cocky about
my pop-culture coolness. As a pop-culture webzine publisher
and music review writer – I should be scoring better
than 3 for 40 in the "CDs I own" category for
this list. The only thing that makes me feel a little
better is that there are only 8 artists on this list I’ve
never heard of – 32 for 40 in the "CDs I’ve
heard of" category.
So I decided to create a quiz, based on GQ's
list, to determine people’s level of music "coolness".
With only 2 questions (number of CDs heard of, number
of CDs owned) and working with a 100% scale, a formula
has been devised to attach a numeric "coolness"
value to people’s answers.
For
me, 32 (CDs I’ve heard of) plus 3 (CDs I own) gives
me a total value of 35. Divided by 80 (40 CDs x 2 categories)
equals 43%. Anyone who owns all 40 CDs would score 100%,
while anyone who owns none and has heard of none would
score a big fat 0%.
So where do you land on the "coolness"
scale? Take the quiz and find out! Here's the GQ
list (followed by the quiz):
| TOTAL
POINTS SCALE |
| 0-20%
= |
Uncool
– You need to make a better effort to get
up-to-date with music |
| 21-40%
= |
Barely
cutting it – The only people you're
impressing are the 0-20% crowd |
| 41-60%
= |
Middle-of-the-road
– You're less hip than you think, but you're
not alone |
| 61-80%
= |
Cool
and hip – You're doing fine, don't
hurt yourself trying to reach that 100% mark |
| 81-99%
= |
Super
cool – You may be jeopardizing other
aspects of your life – like sleeping |
| 100%
= |
Freak |
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