Although it could be (rightly) argued that the collective GloNo gang has way too much time on its hands—how else to explain this?—we are but pikers compared with the countless others who spend their time dealing with music-related things specifically and pop culture more generally. At least that’s a conclusion from looking at the Lycos 50 for 2004, the listing of the top 10 search terms for the period ranging from January 1 to November 30 (which means that all of your searches for, oh, Quasar Wut Wut on the Korean-owned search engine right now will count toward the ’05 listing).

The number-one searched term is none other than “Janet Jackson.” While we here at GloNo received countless hits from people who actually open that spam for “c-I-@-l-I-s” “horny housewives,” and any number of things that promise great wealth and/or imagines of compromised barnyard animals, one can readily assume that the importance of Ms. Jackson had more to do with her anatomy than her comparatively irrelevant release of ’04: that is, the percentage of those who were trying to get the low down on Damita Jo were probably few and far between (although the wrap she poses in for the disc cover could easily have its own malfunction, one imagines). That same cadre of websearchers was probably responsible for the #2 most-used term, “Paris Hilton.” Once again, her performance on her TV show with Lionel Ritchie’s daughter (note how we’re keeping the musical relevance in play here?) was probably less the issue than the turns, moans, groans, and overall skinny athleticism portrayed in her video tape: the lesson here is that if you have a boy/girl friend who happens to be in the “video business” you’d best stay on exceedingly good relations irregardless of the circumstances lest you end up in some steaming video.

One of the most surprising things are the third and fourth terms. Coming in show is “Clay Aiken.” We’ll pause while you try to wipe that notion out of your synapses. Following him is none other than “Britney Spears.” She’s not more sought after than Clay Aiken? There’s something wrong here, or it’s just that after you’ve seen Paris. . . . More troubling than that is the fifth place entry: “Nick Berg,” one of those people who was beheaded in Iraq. This proves, if nothing else, there are a lot of sick fucks who spend time searching on the internet. And in case you’re wondering, rounding out the top 10 are: “KaZaA,” “Tattoos” (why would someone need to search for slung ink?), “Pamela Anderson” (think of this as a faux verity), “Michelle Vieth” (star of her own frolicsome tape), and, finally “Poker.” We can only hope that the people looking for that were interested in the card game, that they weren’t practicing spelling via Hooked on Phonics.