Esquire

Esquire is a magazine. You can tell, because it's in italics. What does Esquire mean and how does that relate to what the magazine is about? The only time you hear the world esquire is when some pretentious guy tells you his name and it's like, "Blahblah J. Blahblah, Esquire". I have no idea what if anything the word signifies. I always think of horses when I say the word, so it may or may not have to do with horses.

If you go to esquire.com, it appears Esquire has turned into Maxim or FHM. Maybe it was always like this -- I don't know, I've never actually picked it up and read it, or even browsed their website. I have a reason for bringing this up, don't worry.

Chuck Klosterman, lightning rod that he is, has produced a list of 21 Great Albums for the 21st Century. I don't really care about the list for several reasons:

• First and foremost, it's got Courtney Love in it. Any "best-of" list that has Courtney Love isn't worth anyone's time or effort
• I sample a lot, and I do mean a lot of today's music (probably not as much as Brian Riggins or any of you who are in bands, but you'd be surprised), and come away feeling pretty bleah about the whole 21st Century Rock Genre. This is because of when I was born and who I am rather than the music, I'm sure.
  
• All "Best-of" lists suck. If I were enamored enough of my own music taste to reccommend 21 great albums from the past few years, it would start with Joy Electric. Does that sound like the sort of list you'd be interested in reading? These lists, even when they use a "pool of experts", are arbitrary and soul-crushing to those of us whose tastes lie somewhere outside the boring mainstream, which is pretty much all of us.
• Hasn't the idea of a "Great Album" gone away in this age of iPods and iTunes and P2P and your mom? We make our own albums now, keemosabe.

And you're right: this post was just so I could rip on the word Esquire. Carry on...

(editor's note: I just read something that indicated that Esquire is a title you get upon graduation from Law School, in which case an article on Great Rock Albums makes even less sense being in a magazine with that name.)