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jakeh2987 · 2 years ago

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A Look Back at the Things We Loved in 2023

2023, in many ways, was an incredibly challenging year, whether it be because of many things going on the world or just on a personal level, but there were a lot of things that kept us going throughout all of that. There was so much in terms of various entertainment throughout the year, and I wanted to take some time to talk about it all. But, thinking about it, I felt like I couldn’t do it alone. I immediately knew I had to call in my old friend Bradley (go follow him over at @thisaintascenereviews, he posts all kinds of music reviews and will be putting out a companion piece to this soon) ; we had recently reconnected earlier this year, but we used to write about music together a lot, so it was only fitting I ask him to be a part of this. When he and I talked about coming together to write this, we circled around the idea of really wanting to celebrate the things that brought us joy. Before we get to the heart of this with our music lists, we wanted to take a quick look back at the rest of entertainment and share a few of our personal highlights in movies, TV shows, video games, books, or anything that comes to mind, really!

So, Bradley, I wanted to ask, before we get into specifics, is there any sort of recurring theme or vibe or energy that you found yourself gravitating towards this year? I think for me, a lot of the stuff I loved most this year was really resonant because it tackled a lot of trauma and personal struggles and what happens when you try to get to the other side of that. I also found myself falling back on a lot of old favorites, things I knew would be comforting and safe in what was often a chaotic and uncertain year.

First and foremost, thanks for having me here, Jake! When you approached me to collaborate on this, I was immediately on board, especially because last year was the first time I did a proper yearend list in a few years. I had a yearend list for 2021 as well, but I didn’t listen to a lot of new releases that year, as I only really got into new stuff in the last few months of the year. Last year, however, I took my time and really spent my time with a lot of albums and artists, but I digress. I guess what I’m trying to say is that things feel different this year, but in a very good way, so thanks again for bringing me on board. It feels like old times, so I couldn’t be excited to be doing this.

This year has been a challenging one, you can say that again, both in terms of what’s happening in the world at large, or personally, but one thing that’s always been there has been various forms of art and media to keep us entertained and comforted in these uncertain and challenging times. As for what kind of stuff that I’ve loved and gravitated to, I think it was a mix of stuff that resonated with me, whether it was IPs or albums that tackled and commentated on real world politics or dealt with personal struggles, and things that just were having fun. The last few years have been so stressful, dour, and downtrodden, I just wanted to have fun. I did last year, too, as a lot of my favorite albums from last year were things that let loose and had fun, but this year was more so a mix of catchy, fun, and energetic stuff, and poignant and personal, ultimately having something important to say.

I know we’re going into 2023 releases, but before we dive into that, did you find anything that was, for the lack of a better phrase, “new to you”? Over the last couple of years, I ended up going back to a lot of favorites, especially when the pandemic first hit, and I’ve been doing that this year, too, but I also found some new stuff, whether it was games, music, movies, or TV that isn’t new, but I spent a lot of time this year getting really into. A few prime examples were diving into the Mafia game franchise, as well as watching the show Justified for the first time this year, and really getting into artists like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface in comparison to other stuff I got into, let alone the new stuff I got into this year, but whenever I had a lull in new releases, I’d revisit some old favorites, especially a few bands on my yearend list, and some stuff that’s related to some of my favorite TV shows and movies, too. What about you? Did you find anything that was “new to you,” that you hadn’t checked out before, regardless of what it was?

I actually have something that I’m in the middle of watching right now that perfectly fits this, that being Law and Order: SVU. That show’s been around since 1999 (and is still airing currently, believe it or not), and I started making my way through it from the very beginning over the last couple years, but 2023 was the year I really went all in on it. There’s something comforting, despite the heavy subject matter, about watching the bad guys get caught, and even if a particular episode isn’t especially interesting, being with the core group of characters is always a good time. I think it comes back around to having that catharsis and certainty that things were gonna be okay by the end of an episode in a year that often wasn’t. Another big one for me this year was the early 2000s teen drama series The O.C. It was four seasons of ridiculous, silly nonsense, but honestly, it was just what I needed. I watched a couple episodes a week in a Discord call with some friends throughout the year, and that was such a fun experience (I’m doing that right now with another show in a similar vein, One Tree Hill, with another friend). You put it really well, while I will always resonate most with stories and music that cuts deep to my personal experiences and is reflective of the world around us, sometimes you just wanna have fun, and The O.C. was perfect for that. When it comes to gaming specifically, I wanted to highlight a few things I really loved that came out this year. This year had so many incredible games come out, and there were a lot of different releases for a lot of different genres, so everyone had something they could resonate with, I feel. For me, I wanted to highlight a few that really hit home for a variety of reasons. For starters, this was a great year for horror games, and we got two really incredible remakes of genre-defining classics in Dead Space and Resident Evil 4. What both of these did really well is take the essence of what worked so well in the original games and bring it up to modern standards, whether it be Dead Space making the entire environment seamlessly explorable versus being restricted by loading screens and cornered-off sections, or RE4 getting a combat overhaul that brought it up to some of the best third-person, action horror combat you’ll ever play. It’s almost as if these games play now the way you always remembered it feeling while still being new experiences. This year also saw the release of two of the most fun but also emotionally resonant action/adventure games I’ve played in a long time, those being Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Final Fantasy XVI. These two games really hit on that theme of going through something deeply traumatic and the aftermath of that, and they both had really fun gameplay to back it up.

But, my biggest highlight, and my personal favorite game of 2023, is easily Alan Wake 2. This game is one of the most unique pieces of media, period, that I’ve ever experienced. The way the dev team at Remedy was able to seamlessly interweave live-action footage into gameplay and story cutscenes is really cool, and it’s also a game that’s not afraid to commit to its really weird and abstract ideas. It’s also just a damn good survival horror game in its own right. So really, Alan Wake 2 was a perfect blend of unabashed creativity, and I’ll be thinking about it for years to come. I know you’re not as big of a gamer, but you do still play some things! You mentioned Mafia, but is there anything else you played this year that stuck out, from 2023 or otherwise?

Law & Order: SVU, huh? I used to watch that back maybe a decade ago when the USA Network would show reruns (back when those were a thing, anyway) of that and NCIS. Law & Order is a very successful and long running franchise, and the cool thing about a show like that is, since you have 20+ years of episodes to get into, you’ll be on it for awhile (although that could be a bad thing, too, just because there is a lot to get through). I felt the same way when watching Justified, although that show is less about the bad guy of the week and more so about a season long arc, but it was satisfying to watch the main character get the bad guys, and things would be momentarily okay. Sure, that’s not how life works, but like you said, for a year where a lot wasn’t okay, having that catharsis helps.

The OC is a good example of what I meant with having fun this year, although with sinking my teeth into hard hitting and poignant stuff, and in fact, I have something similar — I spent a lot of this year revisiting The Muppets, whether it was most of the movies, the 2015 sho, or the original Muppet Show, and that was a good time, because The Muppets are an American institution at this point that knowingly provide solace, fun, and a good time away from the bad things that are happening. I realized the last couple years, and I’ll talk about this more later, but not everything needs to be super deep, poignant, or meaningful. You can just have fun, escape, and lose yourself for a bit, regardless of what you’re diving into.

Switching gears, however, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a “gamer,” but I do enjoy playing a lot of stuff. I haven’t really played anything from this year, per se, but I’ve gotten into a lot of stuff. I never played Dead Space, or RE 4, but I have played a good amount of horror games this year, namely the Dark Pictures Anthology, as well as The Quarry. Those games provided some of the best horror stories I’ve seen in awhile, even if the gameplay itself wasn’t always as interactive or interesting as other games.

I wish I had a PS5, so I could play the new Jedi Survivor game, as well as something like Spider-Man 2, but aside from the Dark Picture Anthology that I really got into this year, as well as getting into the first couple of Mafia games, a couple of games that really stuck out were playing God Of War: Ragnarok around this time last year (and the beginning of this year) after getting it for Christmas, and that is the sequel to the last one that I really wanted. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played; not only was the combat still just as good, and even more interesting this time around, the story was excellent (really going more into the Norse aspect than the first game), and the relationship between Kratos and Atreus was more fleshed out and ultimately very emotional and compelling. That ending, too, really got me excited for another one. Another really cool game I played this year for the first time was The Wolf Among Us, which is a game from about a decade ago made by Telltale Games that adapted an obscure DC series that is kind of a gritty look at the classic fairytale characters and it’s a choose your own adventure game, but that was a really fun experience.

I’ve played a bunch of other stuff, as I’ve downloaded a lot of the monthly games on PlayStation Plus, but those are a handful of games I’ve played this year that really stuck out. I wish I could have gotten more stuff from this year, but I’ve played a lot of stuff that was new to me, and that’s the most important thing, I think. With that said, do you want to talk about our favorite movies and TV shows from this year? I know I’ve got a few, but I’m sure you got a bunch of stuff, too, so I’d love to discuss that before we get into the meat of everything.

There’s one main thing I wanted to highlight when it comes to TV and movies, and that’s The Last of Us on HBO. If you’ve known me for any amount of time since its original release in 2013, you know that The Last of Us is easily my favorite game of all time. So, when I heard there was a TV adaptation being made, I went through the range of emotions I imagine a lot of fans did, from being initially skeptical of an adaptation in the first place, to being more open to the idea whenever we learned who the creative team and cast would be, to being excited once we started seeing footage in trailers. I don’t think I was ready for just how great this show would be, however. Firstly, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie were really wonderful; they took what Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson did in the games and struck a good balance between paying homage to them and also adding their own layers to the characters. I also really love that the creative team was willing to take risks and do different things that played out very differently in the game (episode 3, without spoiling anything, is one of my very favorite things I’ve watched this year, and that doesn’t happen if you’re restricted to just recreating the game 1:1). And with HBO behind it, the team went all out on making all the sets and environments really feel like they were almost ripped right out of some Naughty Dog development concept art. I really couldn’t have been happier with this first season, and I have all the confidence in the world that they'll continue to nail it as they go into adapting The Last of Us Part II in future seasons.

I do also wanna briefly mention Ahsoka, the new Star Wars series from this year. It was essentially a live-action fifth season of the animated show Rebels, but I had a great time with that. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Barbie. I mean, come on, Ryan Gosling as Ken singing Push by Matchbox Twenty as some kind of empowerment anthem, how can you not love that??

How about you, though? What really stood out to you from the world of TV and movies this year?

You know, I never watched that, or haven’t played any of the games, but that’s something I’m going to rectify next year. I know how much you love those games, and that’s cool that we got a show out of it, let alone being so critically acclaimed.

In terms of TV and movies, I had a few things stick out, including Ahsoka. I’m kind of burnt out on Star Wars nowadays, but with Ahsoka, I enjoyed that show quite a lot, although it’s one of those shows that if you haven’t seen Rebels (or Clone Wars, for that matter), you won’t either get it or care, and I do hate that media, especially huge IPs, has become a web of needing to watch shows and movies to understand new stuff, instead of also being its own thing. Ahsoka ended up being a good surprise, though, especially after Obi-Wan being ultimately fine, but very predictable.

Speaking of IPs with a lot of material, Marvel is worth talking about a bit. I watched everything Marvel put out this year, except for The Marvels, and only a couple of things stuck out this year, which were Guardians Of The Galaxy 3, and Loki season 2. The former is ultimately a send off for the titular characters, but without spoiling much, it was a good time that was also rather compelling and emotional. Loki’s second season was a masterclass on how you execute the “multiverse,” and how you make it interesting, since every IP is trying to make their own multiverse now. Kind of a shame that Marvel dropped Jonathan Majors as Kang (although it was for a very understandable reason), because despite his performance in the new Antman film being solid, that movie wasn’t particularly amazing, but he did great as Victor Timely in Loki, so I’m a little bummed that we won’t know what happens to Kang, unless the character is recast. I also wanted to briefly mention a few more shows — The Muppets Mayhem on Disney+, which unfortunately got canceled, but was a great romp that focused on the in-house band for the Muppets making their debut album after 50 years of touring, and the new season / spin-off of Justified that brought the main character back for one more grand story that sent off the show and the character with a lot of grace. The last show I wanted to mention is the Netflix show The Fall Of The House Of Usher from Mike Flanagan, and if you’ve seen any of his other work, it’s very similar, but as a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, he does his work justice.

Barbie is another movie worth mentioning, and it’s one of the most unexpected successes of the year, as no one thought a movie about a doll from 60 years ago would be as great as it was, but Ryan Gosling using Matchbox Twenty to express his feelings was a bunch of fun. I never saw Oppenheimer, but Barbenheimer was probably the biggest media event of the year. I didn’t see too many movies, at least new movies, but Killers Of The Flower Moon is my favorite movie of the year. A three and a half hour epic about the 1920s Osage murders in Oklahoma, it’s a compelling crime drama that showcases a very uncomfortable and awful truth in our nation’s history. I did also see the new Indiana Jones when it came out this year, and despite the movie getting torn apart in its release, something about seeing Indy again in one last romp was a lot of fun.

I guess it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room — our favorite records of the year, but where do we begin? There was so much music this year, but I suppose we can talk about our overall impressions with music this year, so what are your general thoughts and impressions with music this year? Did you gravitate towards one or two genres, or was your radar all over the place?

When I look back on this year in music, one of the main things I see recurring throughout my favorite albums and songs is the idea of coming back home to old favorites. So many bands and artists I love or am nostalgic for put out new material this year after hiatuses, fan-favorite members returning, or maybe not being at their best in recent years. I admittedly didn’t listen to as much that was new to me, but as the year went on, I grew to be okay with that! I’ve spent so many years chasing the next new and exciting thing to listen to, and while that’s great and led to so much music that I love dearly, I spent a lot of this year letting go of that need to discover the next new thing, and instead I just listened to things I knew I would find comfort in. That’s not to say I didn’t make any new discoveries at all, but it felt really nice to just kick back and enjoy the ride, so to speak. How about you, Bradley? In the over ten years that I’ve known you, your taste in music has evolved so much, so I’m really curious to hear what really sticks out to you about this year.

You know, Jake, that’s one thing from this year that I can say was a recurring theme, too — a lot of old favorites, including my two favorite bands period, dropped new albums after years in between albums, and it was nice to have those bands back, especially with some of those bands leaving a sour taste in peoples’ mouths with their last albums. I certainly did listen to some stuff that was relatively new to me, although it wasn’t from this year, and a lot of what came out this year that I love are from artists and bands I already enjoy. Sure, there are some that are first timers on the list, or that I’m just listening to for the first time, but there is a sense of comfort in revisiting your old favorites, or listening to new albums from your favorite artists. I was on the lookout for new stuff, but I wasn’t in a state of mind that I needed to listen to obscure and random stuff, and it was refreshing just to look for stuff, versus feeling like I needed to sink my teeth into everything that was in the zeitgeist.

I had a couple of other recurring themes this year, aside from also revisiting a lot of old favorites, or getting back into artists I haven’t listened to in awhile, and the biggest one for me is that I haven’t really listened to a lot of “heavier” music this year. I’ve been a fan of hardcore and metal for years, almost a decade now, and aside from a few pretty popular acts and a couple of more obscure ones, my list isn’t very heavy, but it’s interesting because it’s not that metal and hardcore have had a bad year. It’s been great, actually, but not a whole lot of it has resonated with me, I guess, and that’s okay. I still enjoy a lot of heavy music, but I’ve really expanded my horizons even more so this year. I’ve also really gotten into a lot of country and folk this year, two genres I’ve had mixed feelings on in the past, but I finally dive headfirst and really found a lot to love. I wouldn’t say my favorite albums are any one specific genre, but there are a few that show up repeatedly on my personal list, and out of my favorite albums of this year, and country is one them, surprisingly. Are there any genres that you found yourself listening to a lot, or any genres in particular from your favorite albums of the year?

Genre-wise, my favorite music this year is pretty all over the place, and I think that speaks to just how varied a lot of what I listened to was. Last year, I definitely found myself leaning towards a bit of a heavier, hard rock/alt metal sound, and the years before that was a lot of pop-punk and adjacent genres. Going back to the idea of letting go of any preconceived notions, I was able to just listen to whatever felt good in the moment, and that led to a lot more variety in what I heard, and that’s really exciting! When you see my list, you’ll of course notice that I do have certain sounds that I might resonate with a little more than others, but overall, I think this is the most variety in one of these lists I’ve maybe ever had. Okay, so I think we’ve done enough buildup to this thing, haven’t we? I say we kick things off with our honorable mentions! I actually only have one entry for this, and that’s alternative pop/folk artist Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever), the deluxe edition of his breakout album that dropped earlier this year. Since this is technically a re-release of an album that came out last year, I didn’t put it on the list proper, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give it some form of love because of how much of an impact it had on me this year. Huge shoutout to my friend Claire; she was always talking about Noah Kahan and saying I should listen to Stick Season, and one day early this year, I finally did. Very quickly, this album became a source of comfort for me, and I’ve had it in heavy rotation ever since. There’s just something warm and inviting about these songs and how Kahan tells stories through his lyrics. Plus, getting to share that with a friend made it even better, so it just really meant a lot for me to have something like this throughout the year.

From talking to you about making this piece, I know you have some fun things to mention even in just the honorable mentions, so whatcha got?

I can say the same thing, that this year is pretty all over the place, genre-wise. There’s a lot of great stuff that came out, and not just in any specific genre, but quite a bit. It’s exciting how much great music is out there, and how much came out this year. Of course, we all have sounds and genres that we resonate with and gravitate to more, but there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Noah Kahan is a really solid artist, and it’s been great seeing his blow-up this year. He’s sorta bringing that 00s indie-folk sound back, although in certain corners, it never quite went away, but it’s great. I’ve listened to Stick Season myself, and it’s a solid little record, especially for that type of sound. As for myself, I got about fifteen honorable mentions (I wanted to keep it between five and ten, but this year was so packed with great albums, it was hard to keep it so short). I was only going to highlight a few here, but I think I’ll briefly list each record, because all of these albums are worth hearing, but let me know if any of these were on your list, or stick out to you, Jake.

I wanted to start off with a few metal albums, because metal did have a good year, but only a few metal albums stuck out to me. Native-American black metal band Blackbraid and their sophomore album, Blackbraid II, was a great surprise, expanding on their idea of taking melodic black metal and combining it with indigenous music and lyricism about nature, and the band Wayfarer, with their new album American Gothic, takes black metal and combines it with country, folk, and Appalachian music and lyrics about the Old West to make for a very unique experience that I’d call “Cowboy metal.” Death metal stalwarts Cannibal Corpse also put out a new album, Chaos Horrific, and I put this here because while it doesn’t really reinvent the wheel, these guys are an institution at this point and they’re always reliable to give you a solid record. The only real surprise I had in terms of metal was the new Thy Art Is Murder record, Godlike; aside from the controversy around this album, which I won’t talk about, the band sounds revitalized and their brand of deathcore isn’t anything special, but it hits hard here.

I did enjoy a few post-hardcore records, too, and a couple of them are records / bands you put me on. Caskets’ Reflections, Wind Walkers’ What If I Break, and Archetypes Collide’s self-titled are bands in the “pop and R&B meets post-hardcore” vein, and they’re nothing special, either, but they execute that sound so well. Spiritbox also dropped a new EP, The Fear Of Fear, and that’s why it’s not on the list proper. I didn’t feel like putting a single EP on the list, but it’s a great record that showcases their strengths. Guitarist Nita Strauss put out a really cool album called The Call Of The Void that brings together a lot of who’s who in hard-rock and metalcore, and it was a fun little romp with some good tunes.

Aside from hard-rock and metal, I had a lot of fun with other styles of music, especially catchier music. This year had a bit of a theme where alternative bands, either bands that have been around for a long time, or just put out a debut album, released an alt-rock album with an 80s sheen. Bands like Honey Revenge and their debut Retrovision, Broadside’s Hotel Bleu, and Boys Like Girls’ comeback album, Sundays At Foxwoods are in that vein, but they’re so fun and catchy. The last few albums I really wanted to highlight are one of their kinds, really, but they really resonated with me — The Muppets Mayhem show also included a soundtrack from The Electric Mayhem, which was really fun. I didn’t listen to a lot of hip-hop this year, but Aesop Rock put out Integrated Tech Solutions, a really fun, catchy, and witty look at how technology affects people and the lack thereof. My last album is a late addition, but the new Spencer Sutherland album, In His Mania, is a really solid and timeless-sounding pop album I found this past week, and I just had to include it, because his voice is so good.

Okay, let’s take a breath and regroup, because that was a lot, but what were your favorite albums this year? Were any of the ones I talked about on your list? I’m real curious to see how our lists overlap, but I’m also excited to see how different they are, too.

I have a pretty definitive number one, and I’ll save that for last, of course, but my top ten can be broken up into a couple different groups with similar sounds and moods, so let’s get started with that! First, I have what I’ll affectionately called the “sadboi hours” albums, and these are albums that hit you hard emotionally. This Wild Life’s Never Fade and City & Colour’s The Love Still Held Me Near have a very chill, almost serene sound, and that allows all the focus to be on the vocals and lyrics, and they both do very well with that sound. It’s nothing necessarily super different than what these artists have done before, but they both do it really well, and it hits me just right if I’m having a rough go of it and just need to be in my feelings . My next category of sorts would be albums that were just super fun listens from start to finish First, Broadside continued to carve out their own lane in the pop-punk scene by leaning into their pop sensibilities on Hotel Bleu, and Olllie Baxter’s voice is just endlessly enjoyable to listen to. Next up, there’s Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness’ Tilt At The World No More, a breezy indie-pop ride that continues McMahon’s signature self-reflective songwriting and piano tunes. In a sort of similar vein, Citizen’s Calling The Dogs, while I admittedly didn’t like it quite as much as their previous album, is a quick burst of indie-rock jams that you can’t help but dance along to. Next up, I wanna shout out Casket’s Reflections and Beartooth’s The Surface, two albums that fall into the hard-rock/alt metal category. Caskets just does this sound really solidly, and they’re anchored by an utterly killer vocalist in Matt Flood. You’ll get a good mix of catchy hooks, emotionally-charged lyrics, and a lot of damn solid music to back it all up. A lot of the same could be said about Beartooth; Caleb Shomo has morphed into one of the best frontmen in the scene, the hooks are incredibly catchy, and the lyrics are hard-hitting and emotional, but I think what sets The Surface apart from the others is Shomo’s focus on self-love and positivity. Shomo’s made it no secret that he didn’t wanna write about super dark things with this album, as he was undergoing a life change and it would be disingenuous to do so just because it was the expected thing for the band. It really shines through, and it makes The Surface easily Beartooth’s best album. Before we get to my final three albums, I wanna turn it back over to you; what are some of the albums in your top ten that especially resonated with you?

I don’t want to spoil my top three, so I can think we can save those for last, but I can say the same about my top ten having some minor themes to it, although there are a handful of outliers, too. I think I’ll dive into those first, because they don’t adhere to a theme, but since you mentioned Broadside and Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness (whose new album was quite good, by the way), another album in the “alt-rock / pop-punk band making catchy, fun, and 80s-influenced stuff” is The Maine’s self-titled. That was a bit of a theme for me this year, but I wanted to include my favorite of that bunch in my top ten, and that’s the one that really worked for me. Citizen’s new album, while not on any of my lists at all, was still a really good album that might have been a slight step down, but still offered something different. The same thing that I said about The Maine’s S/T also goes for the handful of alt-metal and post-hardcore albums with pop sensibility that I talked about. That’s where The Surface by Beartooth comes in; I certainly agree that it’s their best album, and it really takes their catchy sensibilities to the next level. Caskets’ Reflections was great, too, but Beartooth’s latest just hit so hard. Its lyrics and main thesis statement from Caleb Shomo were part of that, too. I really appreciated his optimism this time around, and it made for a very liberating album.

I do have a couple more albums, outside of my top three that resonated with me, and one theme that I’ll touch on with my top three is the idea of some of my all time favorite bands coming back after a lengthy hiatus, or just surprisingly releasing a new album, and Paramore is the one band from the bottom half of my list to do with that This Is Why. While not my favorite Paramore record, the stuff that’s really good on here is just that — a masterclass in post-punk. But another major theme I touched on earlier was country music dominating my list this year. Albums from a lot of lesser artists known in the mainstream but very big in the underground dropped some killer albums, such as Colter Wall’s Little Songs, Tyler Childers’ Rustin’ In The Rain (which is nominated for a couple of Grammy’s), and Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit’s Weathervanes. The latter album is one of the most poignant, emotionally compelling, and best performed albums of the year.

I did have one more album in my top ten that doesn’t fit a theme, and I almost felt as though I was cheating with it, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to include it. This is gonna be a shock to most people, maybe yourself, too, but Seth MacFarlane and Liz Gillies (of both of Family Guy and Victorious fame, respectively) teamed up for a jazz / Christmas album in the form of We Wish You The Merriest. If you enjoy jazz music, and/or Christmas music, this may as well be a new album on the yearly rotation, because it will be for me. Sure, it’s a Christmas record, but there’s something about this album that really resonated with me, whether it was their vocal chemistry or the way they handled these classic (and exclusively secular) Christmas songs. This record is very fun, festive, and catchy, and if you want a good modern Christmas album, it doesn’t get any better than this.

With all of that said, let’s talk about our top three, and I feel like I know what one of ours will be, since it hasn't been mentioned yet (yet people who know either one of us know what one of our favorite bands is), but what are your top three albums of the year? These are the best of the best, even among the top ten, so what do you got?

I feel like I know which album that will be, too, but before I get to that, I wanted to bring up a band you had recommended to me, actually, that being Spanish Love Songs and their album No Joy. I had only vaguely heard of them before, but you had recommended that I check out their album from 2020, Brave Faces Everyone, and I really enjoyed that. I think No Joy came out shortly after, and that album kinda snuck up on me. I really liked it on first listen, but I kept coming back to it more throughout the year, especially as I started thinking about this list. What Spanish Love Songs do really well is write really poignant lyrics that paint a vivid picture in a very direct way, Much like bands such as The Wonder Years, Bayside, or another band who may or may not be on this list, these guys just know how to hit you in the feels, as they say. For number two, this is the one that’s not gonna be remotely surprising to you or anyone reading this if you know either of us, and that’s Fall Out Boy’s So Much (For) Stardust. This band really needs no introduction at this point, but I do think the backstory behind this album is pretty fascinating, as well as my feelings leading up to it and ultimately how the album turned out. We’re both pretty staunch defenders of Fall Out Boy’s post-hiatus material, but their last album, 2018’s Mania, is a bit of a tricky one for me. I respect the hell out of the band for going all out in the way that they did and trying new things, but in chasing all of that innovation and trying to remain fresh, I feel like they bit off more than they could chew, and it results in an album that I don’t enjoy going back to as much. The band themselves have said as much, so when they went back to the studio to make So Much (For) Stardust, they essentially decided to make the album they would have made if they had never gone on hiatus after 2008’s Folie A Deux. In doing so, I think Fall Out Boy made what is easily their best album since Folie, and you can really feel how reinvigorated the band is throughout. It’s a real love letter to everything they’ve done without feeling derivative, and that’s such a tricky balance to strike for a band this long into their career. It was just so gratifying to have a band that’s meant so much to me for so long now really firing on all cylinders.

Finally, my favorite album of 2023 is, without question, The Menzingers Some Of It Was True. This is the album that resonated with me the most this year, and it’s largely due to the recurring themes of being in your early thirties and being stuck in this holding pattern in life, and it really digs into the anxieties and insecurities that come with that. I turned 31 a little over a week ago from writing this, and I struggle a lot with this idea of not having everything figured out and feeling kind of directionless due to any number of factors, whether it be societal pressures or seeing the people around you find their way through all this. The Menzingers have always been really damn good at capturing these emotions (2017’s After The Party is still one of my all-time favorites), but I don’t think I was ready for just how hard this album would hit me. It really gave a voice to a lot of the things I’ve been feeling these last couple years, and I’m super grateful for that. It also just helps that they continue to be damn good alt-punk songwriters who know their way around a catchy hook and some energetic guitars. I’ve always really liked this band, but Some Of It Was True cemented them as one of my all-time favorites. So, Bradley, kicking it back to you, what are the albums that really stood above the rest this year?

Spanish Love Songs, eh? No kidding, that’s cool you really loved their new one! Their new album, No Joy, is a fantastic album. I don’t like it as much as Brave Faces Everyone, as that album really hits home, but No Joy is a great addition to their catalogue. That’s an album I painfully cut from my honorable mentions, and that’s saying something when I had to make a handful of cuts that I wouldn’t have otherwise made in almost any other year.

I’m gonna come out the gate, spoiling part of my list, but my favorite album of this year is Fall Out Boy’s So Much (For) Stardust. I think you said it best, Jake, especially for how we’ve always been defenders of their post-hiatus work (even when in retrospect, some of it hasn’t aged the best, but it’s really damn good), and this new album had a lot riding on it. Their last album, Mania, was a really solid album with overblown production and self-indulgent songwriting that could have used some rewrites, but I really enjoy that album still, warts and all. They still shine through in that record, despite how it goes off the rails sometimes. With Stardust, they could have easily harkened back to 2005 - 2007, because emo nostalgia is huge right now, but they didn’t. They took everything they’ve done since Folie A Deux, and put it all into a blender, as well as adding some new spices and flavors, making for an album that feels both nostalgic but forward thinking. Fall Out Boy is my favorite band, period, and they always have been, so this album represents a lot. In a year that has been rough in many ways, getting this new album from this band that I’ve loved since I was 13-years-old and having it sound the way it does makes me feel like I’m falling in love with them all over again.

Before I talk about my second and third favorites, I did want to go off what you said about The Menzingers, and their latest. I’m glad you loved it as much as you did, but I was kind of disappointed by Some Of It Was True. I really enjoyed it, but I really love Hello Exile from 2019. I listened to that for the first time before this record came out, and I feel as though that album has the same themes but done a bit more interestingly, and a lot of the subject matter is the same as what they’ve always done, but is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. It’s an album that still connected with me for those same reasons.

Anyhow, the two albums that resonated with me, aside from So Much (For) Stardust are Metallica’s 72 Seasons and Zach Bryan’s self-titled. Two very different artists, and they both resonated for different reasons. Metallica is very similar to Fall Out Boy, as they’re my other all time favorite band, and despite not being into a lot of metal this year, hearing this was a breath of fresh air. We haven’t had a Metallica album in seven years, and their last album was fine, but very much trying to appease their older fans. This one does a mix of trying to do that again, but also doing whatever the hell they want. This album has flashes of thrash, traditional heavy metal, doom / stoner metal, alt-metal, and grunge. There’s an interesting variety of sounds here, and while this album gets a little too self-indulgent at times, they pull you back in just when the album starts to lose you. For diehard fans, and even the public at large, this is the best Metallica album we’ve gotten since maybe the Black Album, but I did also listen to 2008’s Death Magnetic for the first time earlier this year and I really enjoy that album.

Zach Bryan had a huge year in 2023, and no one expected that, especially after the awful year that mainstream country’s had. Having songs in the top from Morgan Wallen, Jason Aldean, and Oliver Anthony (who’s the least awful of the bunch, but “Rich Men North Of Richmond” isn’t very good), Zach Bryan took the world by storm with his self-titled album that came out almost out of nowhere. His duet with Kacey Musgraves, “I Remember Everything,” went to number one, and it’s one of my favorite songs of the year, but this record resonated with me because of how personal, introspective, and “real” it sounded. The instrumentation is raw, organic, and stripped back to make room for his vocals and lyrics that are very well-written and understated. This is his most personal album yet, despite how he has been writing more third person / story based songs, but this is just heart wrenching stuff. Out of the country albums that came out this year, and the ones on my list already, this was my favorite.

Whew, this was a long one, but a very good one, nonetheless. This year was also a good one, too, at least for music, anyway. We had too much stuff, especially in comparison when other years haven’t had anything at all. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap this up and tie a bow on it, Jake?

Ultimately, I’m really glad we decided to do this kind of on a whim. It’s always fun reflecting on the year, but it was even more so getting to tackle it with an old friend and really dig into each other’s perspectives, and even explore some different mediums like gaming and movies/TV a little bit! This was an often challenging year, but it was also a really great year for the things we love most, and I’m excited to see what 2024 has in store for us!

#best of 2023 #music #video games #movies #tv shows

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dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

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Listening Pest: The Worst of 2021

None of us got into music writing to hate the music. No, we’re appreciators mostly. We choose our own records, and so, rarely come into contact with albums that truly irritate us. When it happens, it’s easy enough to set them aside. Why focus on the negative?

That said, however, when list season comes around, we often find ourselves confronted with highly-regarded records that—well, let’s just put it bluntly: they piss us off. And because of that and because nothing is more satisfying than a good slam, we present the worst of 2021. We even provide audio clips, but take our advice. Don’t use them.

Contributors include Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Patrick Masterson and Andrew Forell.

Babyface Ray — Unfuckwitable (Deluxe Edition) (Wavy Gang)

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The deluxe version is an expansion of the Unfuckwitable EP which means a double amount of mediocre music. Yet Babyface Ray remains among the artists people name first when asked about Detroit rap scene. It’s a curious paradox: the more he recycles his own music, the more he’s liked. And there is nothing much to recycle to begin with. Babyface Ray never released a stone cold Michigan classic. His only solid release, Ghetto Wave with Peezy, was recorded almost five years ago, and since then it’s all been downhill.

Babyface Ray on Unfuckwitable tries to stay on the chill side and be as casual as possible but can’t hide his inability to freestyle. If there was a rhyming exam, he’d never pass. Usually he is good with the flow and keeps things short (one verse is more than enough) which saves a lot of his tracks (“Like Daisy Lane” is a good example).

The bitter irony of this tape is that on his song “Real Niggas Don’t Rap” he says: “I know some real killers don't rap \ Ayy, I'm a real nigga, no rap.” Yet he continues rapping. Either he’s not a real one or what he makes is not rap. It’s a wonder how it even passes for music.

Ray Garraty

Courtney Barnett — Things Take Time, Take Time (Mom + Pop)

Things Take Time, Take Time by courtney barnett

No question that the pandemic brought the bougie out in people, as otherwise hip, interesting types took to baking sourdough bread and starting kitchen gardens. How else can you explain Courtney Barnett, once the sharpest tool in the Aussie rock-pop box, now singing earnestly, affectionately, a la Mr. Rogers, about the people in her neighborhood. It’s not just that Barnett has developed a disconcerting interest in real estate. She’s also slowed down, pulled the claws in and settled into a drawling stasis, as if the only thing she picked up from working with Kurt Vile was his slacking, drifting pace. And the writer who surgically eviscerated cubicle life in “Elevator Operator,” has turned her pen into a blunted instrument, inexact and uninteresting, using the word “thing” and its variant repeatedly, in nearly every song, to stand in for a blah, featureless non-specificity. (I had an English teacher who would make you rewrite the whole paper if you used the word “thing.” Paging Mrs. Langdon.) “Write a List of Things You Look Forward To,” the songwriter suggests. How about a sharper, better, less soporific Courtney Barnett album?

Jennifer Kelly

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra — Promises (Luaka Bop)

Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra

Maybe it’s a tad harsh to discuss this album in a worst of 2021 retrospective; in a year when the outgoing president of the USA tried to drown democracy in the bathtub and over three million people around the world died from a pandemic, nothing musical, not even a Bush Cabinet reunion doing a dance party on a palette of the most wretched LPs on earth, moves the needle on the scale of cosmic badness. Most undeservedly praised? That’s another matter. Promises was relentlessly feted in record reviews, best of the year polls and social media show and tell pages, and why? The billing sequence tells you what you’re getting; a contemporary ambient artist bulking up his mildly sparkly electronics with the sounds of an orchestra supplying the same thing here as it did on the Moody Blues’ Days of Future Passed (deep upholstery) and some solos by an aging free/spiritual jazz saxophonist. Pharoah Sanders does play with dignity and gentle soul, but that does not make this one of the best records of the year. There are many better places to hear what made him matter in the first place. One suspects that the praise heaped on this record is like a late-career, victory-lap Oscar given to some film figure whose best work never got an award. Put it on if you need some nice background sounds, it’ll do the trick, but best of the year? Don’t put me on.

Bill Meyer

200 Stab Wounds — Slave to the Scalpel (Maggot Stomp)

Slave to the Scalpel by 200 STAB WOUNDS

Perhaps it’s a bit unfair to pick on 200 Stab Wounds. Slave to the Scalpel is just another record emerging from the sophomoric and tumid space of overlap between brutal death metal and knuckle-dragger goregrind. Song titles will reveal what’s likely already obvious: “Drilling Your Head,” “Phallic Filth,” “Itty Bitty Pieces.” And it’s equally obvious that I am feeding the trolls here: the reactionary types that make records like Slave to the Scalpel likely thump their meaty chests in triumph whenever someone is provoked, or grossed out, or takes issue with the music on moral or aesthetic grounds. Enjoy yourselves, dudes. Job done, I guess.

The more expedient response would be no response at all, simply to ignore the record and let it seep back into a moist slough of obscurity. But 200 Stab Wounds generated a bit of buzz late in 2021, scoring a positive Pitchfork review and an appreciative shout-out from horror culture website Bloody Disgusting, which doesn’t often venture into music criticism. The buzz irritated me, mostly because the record is insufferable. But it’s also the case that I really like horror movies, and I listen to a fair amount of death metal. So, what’s the deal? Why do I find Slave to the Scalpel so irretrievably noxious, but Wharflurch’s Psychedelic Realms ov Hell so much fun, or Cryptae’s Nightmare Traversal so compelling? Probably for the same reasons that I find Angst (1983) a significant film, Dead Snow (2009) enormously entertaining and Terrifier (2016) a cynical piece of crap. I can connect with the cinema of cruelty if it’s coupled to thoughtful rigor, and I can have a good time with bloody gross-outs if they aren’t operating unfairly at someone’s real, material expense. Even nihilism can be interesting and invigorating — see much of Michael Haneke’s stuff. But small-minded representations of gratuitous violence that take an obtuse sort of pride in their putative transgressions are a different matter. The problem with a movie like Terrifier or a record like Slave to the Scalpel is that they are so glibly diligent in their efforts to offend; it’s their whole reason for existing.

Things used to be different. When Carcass recorded Symphonies of Sickness (1989), the Video Nasties list commanded force of law in Britain, and the PMRC still wielded considerable power in the States. Carcass wasn’t seeking aesthetic apotheosis, and they likely weren’t operating all that ideologically. But there was a degree of interest and a sort of danger in what the band was doing. Official Culture sought forcefully to police bloody violence in music and film. Carcass presented that Official Culture with “Ruptured in Purulence.” Whole genres of heavy music emerged from the confrontation. That was then. Now you can pony up five bucks or so and stream Bloodsucking Freaks (1976) or Martyrs (2008) on Amazon Prime Video, whenever. Alternatively, you can navigate from the aforementioned Pitchfork review to Maggot Stomp’s Bandcamp and exchange 10 USD for Slave to the Scalpel, if you must. To refashion the Dead Kennedys’ trenchant irony: Give us convenience, and give us death. Whatever used to be transgressive about this sort of music, and thus resistant to the dominant logic of the commodity, has now been fully embraced by Official Culture and the market’s endless desire to expand. Those gagging sounds in “Phallic Filth”? That’s just capital doing what it does best: swallowing subcultures whole.

Jonathan Shaw

Van Morrison — Latest Record Project Volume 1 (BMG)

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Look, we don’t have to litigate all the unhinged COVID stuff here; yes, the crap Van Morrison has been spewing both in and out of his recent songs is a dangerous, irresponsible contribution to current miseries, but even if you agreed with Morrison on all of that, it is exceedingly hard to imagine you’d then sit down with all 28 songs and over two hours here, the collection titled and with cover art like it’s some fly-by-night collection of public domain works, and actually enjoy it. It would also be easy to say it’s not worth engaging with at all, but Morrison is still enough of a draw that combined with the ‘controversy’ this farrago went top ten in something like seven countries (and it’s not just him being in the news for anti-lockdown stuff and other ranting, given that 2019’s Three Chords and the Truth (sigh) managed some similar placements), and this one got at least some good reviews out there. Even some noticeably negative ones note that his voice and the music are decent, which is only kind of technically true in the sense that you’d rather have a tidal wave of pablum swamp your house than the same amount of lava. If anything, the extremely toothless “tasteful” “chops” here just make songs like “Thank God for the Blues” and “Where Have All the Rebels Gone” with its evocations of rock and roll somehow even more annoying than more obviously poisonous likes of “Western Man” and “They Own the Media” (sequenced directly together near the end of the second disc, followed directly by “Why Are You on Facebook?” like Morrison is trying to parody himself). Somehow the bland professionalism of the music makes everything worse, as if you’d gone to see a movie that promised to be absolutely batshit awful and it’s just kind of limp, competently executed on technical grounds but devoid of any kind of spark in either positive or negative senses. The absolute best-case scenario for listening to this is that someone wants two hours of vaguely Van Morrison-flavored pap playing in the background and they don’t care that every time you do start paying attention to the lyrics it just sounds like you’re listening to someone extremely bitter about support payments or something. Van Morrison is beset on these songs, constantly talking about what a brave champion of the world he is for not giving into “them” and their “system,” constantly being spied on and stolen from and disrespected. Most songs linger close to or go over the five-minute mark (they all feel more like ten) and get there mainly through aimless repetition. And then of course the whole thing ends with “Jealousy,” where he dismisses any possible criticisms of himself and his work with, well, you know exactly what. One hopes for a long and healthy life for all our fellow human beings, even ones pumping out records this rancid, but it’s worth considering Latest Record Project Volume 1 as the dark corollary to all the times an artist dies young and we lament the work they still might have made. It’s not better to be dead than to be making art like this, but it would be better to shut the hell up.

Ian Mathers

The War on Drugs — I Don’t Live Here Anymore (Atlantic)

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The War on Drugs have always been inadvertently divisive, riding the finest of lines between ascendent classic rock (“Comin’ Through,” Lost in the Dream) and a musical touch of gray too anonymous to address (A Deeper Understanding). To say I hate I Don’t Live Here Anymore, then, is a bit dramatic — I knew the possibility of losing 52 minutes of my life was always on the table. But like Lucy Dacus’ Home Video, the novelty of more synths smacks of a cheap trick masking lackluster songwriting. Calling it a fangless Grateful Dead rip-off or dead-eyed Dylan impression is doing Jerry and Bob respective disservices; this doesn’t even pass muster as a convincing War on Drugs record. Worse, it seems to have emboldened older fans and critics who thought this was the best 2021 had to offer — a youthless, nostalgic desperation reminiscent of McSweeney’s “humor” (no guesses which band leads the list off!) or Wilco dads during that band’s heyday. Intolerable. Falling back on the attention economy as an excuse to not like something is lazy, but you’ll have to forgive me if my mortal awareness has been heightened in the last three years and my patience for an hour of listlessly strummed schlock is lower than ever. It’s a tainted orb we live on too briefly to hear I Don’t Live Here Anymore once, let alone twice.

Patrick Masterson

Wolf Alice — Blue Weekend (Dirty Hit)

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Porridge eh? Even with the warm milk, honey, almonds, raisins and other tidbits we add to make it palatable, it’s still porridge; a bowl of sludge that sticks to the roof of your mouth and dries hard and crusty. Blue Weekend is well made, attractively packaged, artisanal but porridge nonetheless. Yes, there are tasty morsels but they are trapped within an insipid slurry that seems calculated to offend few as much as appeal to many. It’s a pity because Wolf Alice have done good work, and there was a thrum of anticipation about this next step, but they sound unconvinced and in Markus Dravs they have a producer responsible for the some of the most underwhelmingly Jim Steinman moments inflicted upon the innocent by Arcade Fire, Coldplay, Mumford & Sons and other purveyors of the grand gesture. Too often their swings for Manic Street Preachers like catharsis are blunted by vocal multi-tracking, compression and a studio sheen that makes many of the songs performative rather than performed. This doesn’t make Blue Weekend a bad album so much as an algorithm of affect. If that is the point then well done but I’m still scrubbing my bowl.

Andrew Forell

#dusted magazine #yearend 2021 #2021 worsts #babyface ray #ray garraty #courtney barnett #jennifer kelly #floating points #pharoah sanders #bill meyer #200 stab wounds #jonathan shaw #van morrison #ian mathers #the war on drugs #patrick masterson #wolf alice #andrew forell

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bryan360 · 4 years ago

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Here’s my note before I’ll get started….

(DON’T YOU EVER COPY FROM MINE OR MY FRIEND’S WORK, CHARACTERS, AND STUFF IF ONE OF YOU ARE IMPOSTERS WHO HAD HABITS OF PLAGIARISM! I WILL BLOCK YOU FROM MY BLOG IF I SEE YOUR POST WITH MINE OR MY FRIEND’S ORIGINAL WORK BEING EDITED ALL OVER! I’LL EVEN SHARE IT ONTO MY BLOG SO IF EVERYONE WILL SEE THAT YOU TRYING TO COPY MINE OR MY FRIEND’S THINGS FOR NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER! That will be all….I mean it.)

My Own Yearend Art Picks of 2021 🖌

Hello to my good followers and to my good closest friends! It's finally here after few days ago during 🎅🎄December 31st, 2021 when posting the celebration artwork for Happy New Year's Eve with my Animal OCs, but then yesterday it's January 1st of 2022 at last! However while I'll get those upcoming plans to share something soon, I do have other things that I'm suppose to cover it up first; included one of my P-Pal's past posts in responds with my characters. (Don't worry about that. ^^*)

Nevertheless, just wanted to bring you guys to my own Yearend picks of 2021 post to share that I thankfully got it from yesterday while getting started at New Year's Day run so far. Even though, I'm still at be online that I would consider doing else like exercise.

Anyways, here's to my picks via art posts I've gotten from last year generation and this time included one of my secret art trade post that I always share with my P-Pal as of friendship moment. Although I wish to include one of my tech/item stuff such as my complete YCCTEAM Controller review and the reveal of my Cystereo Fusion Glare Authentic Hi-Fi Wireless Earbuds. As far I gotten some tech stuff though, I only have few of them. Still I have other stuff that are waiting to be reveal soon; so hoping it will happen during this year and maybe I could add to it during my next picks list.

By the way since last year that I did with the top artworks picks of 2020, I've selected two artworks to collab a bit together for what I did posted them during a single month each.

January - Art Trade 2021 - Maxwell and May’s Spare Clothing from the Speedsters/Maxwell the Rabbit

❤February - Lovely Heart Chatting/Secret Art Trade - Sam’s own Cude’s Clothes

🍀March - The Loud House Raccoon 2021/My Own SixFanarts Pic

🐰April - Easter Time with the Rabbits

🌼May - An Art Gift to celebrate my P-Pal’s 28th Birthday

☀️⛱June - FNF Maxwell

🎆🇺🇸July - Going to the Show!

August - A Visit to Jelly Folks/Secret Art Trade of 2021: Murukir and his spare Autumn/Winter Clothes

🍁📚🍎September - Happy 25th Birthday to our A-Pal!/Happy 8th Rita Day Art Post

🎃October - Inktober of 2021 - Day 15: Scary Bunny

🦃November - The Keyblade Wielder/Happy Thanksgiving 2021

🎅🎄December - A 2021 Christmas Art Gift share to my P-Pal

Now let's go into honorable mentions that I wish to included through my pick list of 2021, but at least hoping it wasn't disappointing when I've tried my best to make this.

January - Happy New Year 2021

❤February - Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production Art Post

🍀March - My Little Pony Maxwell/Secret Art Trade of March 2021

🐰April - Maxwell's Cartoon Style Cover

🌼May - Sam The Fox/Secret Art Trade of May 2021

☀️⛱June - Brown the Squirrel

🎆🇺🇸July - The Son of Heihachi

August - AR - Emme and Jo’s Ballet

🍁📚🍎September - International Rabbits Day 2021/Happy 10th Anniversary to Spot Speedster

🎃October - Secret Art Trade of October 2021: Stripes and Friends’ Sleepover Nighttime

🦃November - My Jellystone! Mains

🎅🎄December - Pibby Before Apocalypse

Hope you guys like to suggest about my picks of 2021 I've gotten, but hope I can expect to do again for this year. See you guys later or less. 👋🙂

#art post #bryan360 #bryanvelasquez87 #yearend #yearend post #of 2021 #artworks #drawings #digital #traditional #january 2022 #january 2nd 2022

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atariaction · 4 years ago

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Kay’s 2021 Wrap-Up

It’s the waning days of 2021, which means it’s time for my annual summary of the computer history efforts I’ve made in the past year.

I published interviews with 29 people across 28 episodes of ANTIC: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast. Many of those interviews can be grouped into specific subjects that I gave extended attention to. Those subjects were:

The Capital Children’s Museum and Interactive Picture Systems. The museum was home to a large lab of Atari (and later, Apple) computers, as well as the office of Interactive Picture Systems and the “Superboots” software development lab.

Atari Research. I did five interviews with people who worked in Atari’s famed R&D lab.

Atari computers at the science fair. I interviewed three people who, as kids, used their Atari computers for school science fair projects.

Computers: Expressway to Tomorrow — a deep dive into a multimedia school assembly, sponsored by Atari, that was seen by more than a million middle- and high-school students in 1983 and 1984.

Some of the folks that I interviewed still had old source code, which they gave to me and allowed me to share with you. I unearthed the Forth code for Worms? by David Maynard as well as his development notes; three published and two unpublished programs by Ed Fries; and LOTS of Apple II Forth source code — both published programs and their development tools — from Prentice Associates.

In a collaboration with programmer Peter Liepa, I preserved the source code to several versions of Boulder Dash, but I am not able to share them due to German copyright law. (A German company owns the rights to Boulder Dash and still publishes new versions.) Still, it’s good to know that the code won’t be lost.

The media I digitized wasn’t limited to code. Filmmaker Lucy Hilmer generously gave me a U-Matic videotape of The Magic Room, Atari’s 1983 documentary about Atari computer camps, which I had professionally digitized, as well as a folder of production documents related to the film. After digitizing them, I donated all the material to The Strong Museum of Play.

After my interview with Suzanne Ciani, she found an unpublished song that she produced for Atari and allowed me to share it. “My Atari” is a bop.

I also unearthed Brenda Laurel’s Atari research memos on the subject of interactive fantasy, which she didn’t have anymore but were buried deep on a very old, very janky hacker site.

I scanned a figurative ton of material in 2021, even purchasing an A3-sized bookedge scanner for larger-format material. I scanned 83 issues of Home Computer Advanced Course magazine, completing the Internet Archive’s collection of that fun UK publication. I also scanned dozens of Atari newsletters, including issues from Jersey Atari Computer Group, Atari Interface, South Shore Atari Group, Atari Times, Bay Area Atari Users Group, Atari Computer Enthusiasts, and Atari Dealer News. (In a herculean effort to organize my workspace, I donated these newsletters to The Strong also.)

Dan Kramer sent me amazing batches of material to scan. Dan, who worked at Atari from 1980 to 1984 in the consumer engineering group, created the Trak-Ball accessories for the Atari game consoles and computers. He also worked on the prototype Atari 2700 and various other projects. I scanned his Atari engineering notebook as well as the schematics and notes that he had saved regarding the Atari Cosmos, an unreleased holographic tabletop game; the Atari 2700 with radio-controlled joysticks; SECAM video versions of the Atari XL computers; and more.

I continued work on the Scantastix project, adding 310 items (primarily Apple II manuals provided by 4AM.) Those 310 items totaled at least 8,000 pages. I lost count.

Other projects that I completed in 2021:

Copying my back catalog of 450+ audio interviews onto YouTube to increase their visibility and reach.

Creating The Internet Archive Research Assistant (TIARA), a tool for researchers who use Internet Archive.

Processing videos of the presentations at Vintage Computer Festival West and VCF East 2021.

Looking ahead: to be perfectly honest, I doubt I will be as productive in 2022 as I was in 2021. The end of December, and the end of 2021 in particular, probably isn’t the best time for me to write this summary. The short winter days weigh on me. I am healthy, but the lingering effects of wave after wave of covid are draining me emotionally. I can’t predict how much energy I will have to devote to these projects in 2022. I need a break from so many interviews (each is more time-consuming than you might guess), and spending hours processing piles of scanned documents does not appeal to me at the moment. It’s possible that a bunch of exciting new projects will reveal themselves this year, and it’s possible I’ll regain the energy and emotional bandwidth to dive into them. It’s also possible that 2022 will be a quieter year. So I’m making no predictions, setting no goals. I’m going to take things a little bit at a time and see where 2022 takes me.

Thanks to my supporters for joining me on this journey, whatever waves and crests it endures.

-Kay Savetz, December 26, 2021.

#atari #computerhistory #interviews #yearend #2021

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your-neighbours-cat · 4 years ago

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so 2021 is coming to an end and where I stand absolutely nowhere LMAO

#yearends 2021 #year end summary

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frameofchiku · 4 years ago

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Nothing else matters more, than the relationship you have with your mind.

I recently watched the recent continuance of The Matrix on HBO Max.

Popular opinion is : blegh.

My opinion is: Interestingly well said.

I didn’t expect anything. I was sparked more by curiosity. It wasn’t until the newest version came out that I realized I never watched the 3rd one.

So, I went back and watched them, not from the first but from the 2nd one on.

The matrix is all about questioning why. Why anything, and if anything. A lot of questioning and that’s why I appreciate the series. It was the first movie that I watched that made me question why anything. It’s something I feel we humans tend to do with other people and other things but we ourselves seldomly ask why us? Like, ourselves... why do you wake up when you do, or why do certain sounds bother you or why do certain things make you want more of them. Is it because others desire it therefore you do to? Etc...etc.

In the most recent matrix I enjoyed how it was brought into present day, and how the entire movie was based upon love. It’s like the series The Leftovers. You’re not aware that you’re actually watching a love story and seriously...that’s all that matters.

Isn’t that what matters in everything?

Think about it. Any business that is successful is a love story. Take Apple for instance. Apple is about belief and providing others with a way to connect, and bringing in other people to do what they LOVE to do; simply. It is a love story.

Love is caring, love is providing others with something they didn’t know they needed. Love is believing.

In this most recent movie, there are folks that believe in Neo and believe in him asking for help with seeing if Trinity would remember him, and want to leave her current life for love which ended up being a simulation by Mr. Neil Patrick Harris’ character... we also see the interesting relationship of Mr. Smith and Neo and how they actually worked well together and ...interesting enough Smith believes in him and ends up helping him because although he may be the “evil” one...they realize how similar they are...

We see how easy it is to bring up past pain, and how it causes us to be ....I mean them to be unconscious again and highlight their differences and innate need for power (control).

We see how Neil’s character ironically a therapist is trying to keep Neo away from himself, which he calls delusions in a sense but it’s actually a world into him getting closer to his next task which is reconnecting with himself and reconnecting with Trinity. I mean, how many times have we seen a psychiatrist in a role of helping someone but they end up actually drugging someone away from their answers....yikes.

Overall I enjoyed the movie. It shows how destiny is what we make of it and we actually have more control than we think and we’re always going to be tested by people, moments and situations. However, if what we want is true to us and we desire it, we can and will get it no matter what it is...for good...or not and yes, there usually is a risk. What matters, is the relationship and belief we have with ourselves.

#matrix #thematrix #sequel #yearend #newyears #2022 #2021 #pryceonpurpose #playwitrox #real #perception #philosophy #gain #promise #blogaday #dailyblog

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jeffhirsch · 2 years ago

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September Opens Typically Weak and Closes Weaker

Although the month used to open strong, S&P 500 has declined nine times in the last fifteen years on the first trading day. With fund managers tending to sell underperforming positions ahead of the end of the third quarter there have been some nasty selloffs near month-end over the years.

Recent substantial declines occurred following the terrorist attacks in 2001 (DJIA: –11.1%), 2002 (DJIA –12.4%), the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 (DJIA: –6.0%), U.S. debt ceiling debacle in 2011 (DJIA –6.0%) and in 2022 (DJIA –8.8%).

Do not anticipate any major selloff and expect new highs around yearend. But expect some sort of surprise to send stocks into another mild correction before the Q4 rally ensues. Nobody wants to talk about it or hear about it, but inflation appears to be done cooling. Further hints at higher inflation will likely heat up the “higher-for-longer” chatter and weigh on stocks.

Concerned that we are poised for a September surprise in the financial sector. Would not be shocked if one of the rating agencies comes and announces a host of bank downgrades, perhaps starting at the top with a big bank. They did warn us back in March during the banking scare and most recently with the Fitch downgrade of the US credit rating.

Either way, expect any weakness to be temporary and for the market to continue to track the seasonal and 4-year cycle patterns illustrated in these charts as it has all year and since 2021.

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falloutbradreviews · 1 year ago

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Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well

Kacey Musgraves seems to be at a crossroads in her career, but I can’t blame her. Her last album, 2021’s Star-Crossed, was a pretty good album that really leaned into pop, and she seemed to have strayed too far from her country roots. A lot of people noticed that, and that album didn’t do as well as 2018’s critical darling Golden Hour (which also had pop in the mix but it wasn’t the focal sound of the record). It makes sense that her new album, Deeper Well, has a stripped back and sparse sound to it. Instead of going back to a purely country sound, this record is more or less a singer-songwriter and folk-pop album. I’m getting a lot of 1970s Laurel Canyon vibes from this record, but with a modern production sound. This record also shows Musgraves as a “cottagecore” girlie, because this album has a lot of themes and imagery of nature, crystals, wellness, and that whole thing, but it’s told in an interesting way. This album is more or less about healing, and from the looks from it, Musgraves is very burnt out by the spotlight, so this is a quaint back to basics album.

I’ve gotten into more into folk music over the last few years, especially starting to appreciate what it tries to do. Deeper Well is ultimately focusing on Musgraves vocals and lyrics, and like with a lot of folk, the sparse instrumentation is merely a backdrop for it. Truth be told, a lot of folk music can get kind of derivative, especially with how songs can start to sound the same and blend together. It also has a tendency to sound really nice, whether in its production and/or presentation, but not have much of anything else to say or do. Thankfully, Kacey Musgraves has a bit to say, and this album has some wonderful melodies to boot. This album has a lot of lyrics about healing, removing toxic people from your life, and even some existential questions. There’s a song on here where she asks to speak to God, or like the title of the song, “The Architect.”

Musgraves’ voice sounds great within this album, and some of these songs have gorgeous melodies. Songs like the album opener “Cardinal,” the title track, “Sway,” “Heart Of The Woods,” “Dinner Party,” “Lonely Millionaire,” “Heaven Is,” and what may be my favorite song on the record, “Anime Eyes” are ridiculously catchy and have some solid lyrics to boot. There are a few songs that blend together, and don’t do a lot for me, but even those songs are good, whether it’s for her lyrics, vocals, or both. Even when the instrumentation is slightly lacking, the song is still good. If anything, I really appreciate her further retreating into a different sound, versus course correcting and making a country album, because she could have easily done that and people would have loved it.

There was a time when a lot of music fans acted like she was the second coming of Christ, and she was the only good country artist, but times have changed. Not only is country more widely accepted, but there are tons of good country artists out there. I’m glad that she’s switched up her sound over the years, and this album is a nice folksy and bare bones album that shows she has nothing to prove to anybody. It’s a very pleasant record with some solid lyricism, wonderful vocal performances and melodies to match, and instrumentation that may not blow your mind, but in terms of folk-pop, it’s good stuff. This album may end up somewhere on my yearend list, because I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit.

#kacey musgraves #same trailer different park #pageant material #Star crossed #deeper well #rock #country #folk #pop #golden hour #anime eyes #lonely millionaire

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jandyrwoman · 1 year ago

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Bakit bucketlist

2024: Mar04 update

Transfer to own condo - DONE BUY DANCE PAD! NEVER FORGET - christmas gift to self?

Work abroad

Travel EU

Add at least +100K in stocks annually

Buy short term health insurance for travel purposes?

Regularly increase AU account

Invest in career; buy new personal laptop

Save up! Spend less. Cook more. More protein, less fats - K

Skin care - K

Hair care - YEA

Regular exercise!

2023-automation, this time successfully configured setup. FINALLY

2020 - bungee jumping

2019 - Support/Donate to a chosen org ?????

2023

Relearn selenium from scratch, i still have 3 mos to do so

Visa hoarding for yearend(Schengen, japan, and aus)

I DONT HAVE PLAN THIS YEAR! SPARE MEEEE! Lemme just start adding for next year instead!

Okay so maybe… lemme add this one-invest in good book. Just 1 for now - QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE, had Pia signed it too

2021

1. Visit Sagada (maybe not anytime in 10yrs span?) - camp out

2. Visit LU (maybe 2025) - surf up

3. Camotes getaway (Yey 2022!) - Scuba diving (maybe 2026)

4. Master an automation (relearn 2024)

5. Achieve a degree in Toastmasters(2024-stuck at level2)

2020

1. Bungee jumping (move to 2024?)

2019

1. Investment ( Mar2020 )

2. Funeral plan (DONNNE!!!!)

3. Health insurance (DONNNE!!!!)

4. Travel fund account

5. Emergency fund account (to start over)

6. Support/Donate to a chosen org (???)

7. Master a sport (Badmin?)

8. Back to healthy living (k)

9. Scuba diving (not an interest as of 2024!!)

#2024 #bucketli #bucket list #bakitlist #bakit list #goals #manifesting #law of attraction

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disparatevibes · 4 years ago

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2021 time capsule for my memories:

MUSIC

releases i loved from 2021

For Those I Love - For Those I Love

Home Is Where - I Became Birds

Low - HEY WHAT

Loraine James - Reflection

Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee

Helado Negro - Far In

Water From Your Eyes - Structure

Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8

Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime

Porches - All Day Gentle Hold !

Hand Habits - Fun House

Lowertown - The Gaping Mouth

Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders/The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises

Rosie Lowe & Duval Timothy - Son

Black Midi - Cavalcade

Holly Humberstone - The Walls Are Way Too Thin

Indigo De Souza - Any Shape You Take

Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview on Phenomenal Nature

Pinegrove - Amperland, NY

Bartees Strange - Live at Studio 4

Claire Rousay - A Softer Focus

Yves Tumor - The Asymptotical World

Mannequin Pussy - Perfect

Richard Dawson & Circle - Henki

Samia - Scout

Nation of Language - A Way Forward

Matt Sweeney & Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Superwolves

Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE

Hannah Peel - Fir Wave

Lucy Dacus - Home Video

Wiki - Half God

L’Rain - Fatigue

Snow Ellet - suburban indie rock star

Runnner - Always Repeating

Tim Hecker - The North Water OST

great older releases i discovered in 2021

Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again, Cody

Majical Cloudz - Impersonator, Are You Alone?

Out Hud - Let Us Never Speak Of It Again, STREET DAD

Pharoah Sanders - Karma

The Dead Texan - The Dead Texan

Brian Eno & Kevin Shields - The Weight of History/Only Once Away My Son

Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming

Herbert - Bodily Functions, Scale

Bat For Lashes - Two Suns, The Haunted Man

Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe

Huerco S. - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)

Alex G - Race

Burial - Rival Dealer

Matt Sweeney & Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Superwolf

Hiss Golden Messenger - Haw, Heart Like A Levee

Destroyer - City of Daughters

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms

Sam Amidon - All Is Well

Eno & Hyde - High Life

The John Lurie National Orchestra - The Invention Of Animals

BOOKS

books i loved this year

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

Second Place by Rachel Cusk

The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Bubblegum by Adam Levin

To Be A Man by Nicole Krauss

Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard

The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard

The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner

Nutshell by Ian McEwan

Fraternity by Benjamin Nugent

The Country Life by Rachel Cusk

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke (Audiobook)

Gold Custody by Barbara Bloom & Ben Lerner

“Sea Oak” by George Saunders

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

books i liked this year

The History of Bones by John Lurie

So Much Blue by Percival Everett

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Zona by Geoff Dyer

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

No Art by Ben Lerner

Weather by Jenny Offill

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Tuff by Paul Beatty

The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara

Best American Essays 2007 ed. by David Foster Wallace

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

All That Man Is by David Szalay

On Freedom by Maggie Nelson

Remote Feed by David Gilbert