Pop

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I've been playing, well, perhaps a little too much SongPop Free. A spare few minutes after reading Clavjio's account of his embassy to Tamerlane, while at Barnes and Noble? Yeah, I'll admit it: I might use those minutes throwing it down with some other smart phone user who thinks she knows her vintage folk music or Billy Joel melodies cold. Got ten minutes before a meeting on campus? Well, we could leaf quickly through the latest Artforum... or we could go for a clean sweep in Metal, by identifying five melodies in less than ten seconds apiece.

So what's come of this part-time hobby? Nothing much, in a sense, since I don't get a thing for plugging the game - except for a slight case of tendinitis in my thumb after an exuberant initial session. But there are other ways of looking at it. How to quantify, for instance, the pleasure of identifying a long-unheard song by Asia in less than a second? How to describe the happiness that comes from hearing Tupac, and remembering his sheer excitement in describing the Italian ices of New York in "Old School" - even as you're frantically trying to touch your phone's screen so that you might win a round of classic rap?

And then there's this. Suddenly, as a result of the game and the frequency with which Today's Hits comes up as a category, I'm better versed in recent pop music than I've been since... well, since around 1987. Bruno Mars? Yeah, I know a few of his tunes. Frank Ocean? I just bought the CD. Taylor Swift's smash hit is a familiar anthem, rather than a mere abstraction, and while I'm a bit late to the Party Rock Anthem scene (the song went to number one in 12 countries, I read, two years after it did so), I now know it's by LMFAO, the uncle-nephew duo comprised of Redfoo and Skyblu. I mean, there's now a small part of me that feels like I could actually have an unembarrassing conversation with a 12-year-old.

But then I listen to Cleo. She's only three, but the other day she surprised us by telling us that her best friend Justice often sings a song while at school. Oh, really? I said, expecting some Mother Goose rhyme, or twist on the alphabet song. And what song is that? And Cleo, in turn, sang "This girl is on fire" - that is, a portion of the massive hit that I later learned is by Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj.

So, um. Where I thought I might be au courant, it turns out that my Yellowbird is more up on the hits than I am. Chastened, I figured I'd make about the only sort of contribution that I can: I fired up the computer, and found a non-explicit video of the song, recorded by Keys. See, Cleo? I can be hip, too. But no: while she watched with some interest, the only lasting result was this: now Cleo sings the refrain nearly in tune, and with a proper flourish at the end.

Even as, doubtless, she wanders on to the next current anthem, while I learn belatedly, and through the filters of time-delayed games, what is current.