Hello, everybody! I’ll be honest with you — this chart kind of stinks. I mean, it’s not “wretched,” but I wouldn’t say it’s “good by any stretch of the imagination,” either. But you know what? I open my Billboard book, close my eyes, point to a chart, and deal with what’s in front of me. (Except when I delegate it to other writers.) Anyway, prepare to get your new jack swing on as we attack August 19, 1989!

10. So Alive — Love and Rockets Amazon iTunes
9. Secret Rendezvous — Karyn White Amazon iTunes
8. Batdance — Prince Amazon iTunes
7. I Like It — Dino Amazon
6. Hangin’ Tough - New Kids on the Block Amazon iTunes
5. Once Bitten Twice Shy — Great White Amazon iTunes
4. Don’t Wanna Lose You — Gloria Estefan Amazon iTunes
3. Cold Hearted — Paula Abdul Amazon iTunes
2. On Our Own — Bobby Brown Amazon iTunes
1. Right Here Waiting — Richard Marx Amazon iTunes

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For all my pretensions, all my attempts to present myself as a literate, knowledgeable, and discerning fellow, I’m really a lowest-common-denominator guy at heart. I don’t often allow that to come through. I know that a fart joke is just about the basest, most tasteless thing in the world, especially during Holy Communion, but it can also be the most freakin’ funny thing in the world, especially during Holy Communion, especially if it’s insinuated that it was the monsignor who stepped on the duck.

I’ll tell you about it someday.

That may explain my fascination with the Kids’ WB! animated series Freakazoid!, produced by Steven Spielberg back in the rip-roaring mid-’90s. Warner Bros. Television Animation had been through a resurgence of sorts, propped up by the success of the moody, atmospheric, and terrifically written Batman: The Animated Series. They suddenly had the rest of the entertainment world paying attention, so much so that Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment came to call. From there, a succession of fondly remembered series tumbled out: Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. The word came down that Spielberg’s next series should be a superhero show, so Bruce Timm, an integral part of the Batman show, started spitballing ideas, working up a premise and designing characters. The result was a show far more earnest than Spielberg planned, so he sent back the message to crank up the humor. He should have been more careful with his direction.

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Normally, this series takes on an artist who’s a bad person and whose “badness” has tempered his or her ability to make quality albums with consistency — in other words, those who have more or less stumbled onto a good album or two in their careers. If someone is too busy getting arrested, treating people like crap, letting his ego get in the way of other people having creative input, and spending his time punching gift horses in the mouth, it follows that his musical career will suffer. With this as my starting point, there shouldn’t be any write-up about Prince, namely because he’s remained generally successful for more than 25 years and was a superstar for most of the ’80s and the first half of the ’90s. On top of that, he put out a number of very good to excellent albums during that time, from Dirty Mind in 1980 to The Gold Experience in ‘95.

But then something struck me in the past week: it’s been more than ten years since Prince has put out anything really decent. I don’t agree with the gushing praise some people (I’m looking at you, All Music Guide) have given his last two albums — they’re paint-by-numbers bland. Maybe this is due to Prince getting older and “running out of things to say,” not to mention funky ways of saying it, but maybe it’s because his badness (as opposed to His Purple Badness) has finally caught up with him after all this time.

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Sequels are fun. They’re not always good, but the movie-loving teenager who continues to take up space inside my soul will always be excited by them, especially the mere concept of sequels, i.e. “more of what you love (if all goes well).” These days, when it does go well, like with last summer’s Live Free or Die Hard, it’s a nice surprise. When it doesn’t, like with 2002’s Men in Black II, you almost forget what you liked so much the first time around.

This summer there will be a new Indiana Jones sequel in theaters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s a big deal in the world of sequels, seeing as how there hasn’t been a new entry in this series since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Expectations are high for some fans, who might have preferred that Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford had stopped after three films, but the Indiana Jones series was never structured as a trilogy like the two sets of Star Wars movies. Nothing was resolved in Last Crusade that was first brought up in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, except for the deaths of more Nazis.

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