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johnbazley · 9 months

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My favorite music of 2023

Welcome to the new home of B-Side Collection, a blog by John Bazley. Here is a list of my favorite albums of the year.

Best Reissues

Tyler, The Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost - The Estate Sale

Sabrina Carpenter - emails I can’t send - fwd

Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor's Version)

Honorable mention

The Gaslight Anthem - History Books

The production is a hurdle I simply can’t get over. Go back and listen to Handwritten. That thing sounds immaculate, even today. How does this album sound like a collection of demos? When I look into what I want these songs to sound like, I like them a lot! But how are you finally going to get Bruce Springsteen on a Gaslight Anthem song and let it sound like that? I hope this thing eventually gets re-recorded because the songs deserve a bigger budget.

Matt Rogers - Have You Heard of Christmas?

Much internal debate about whether or not I wanted to count this comedy Christmas album as a real album, but I ultimately landed on the fact that it is the catchiest pop album of the year and deserves a shout.

Troye Sivan - Something to Give Each Other

I don’t think I have a parental bone in my body but I can’t help but see Troye Sivan as my biological son. I am very proud of my boy for making a good album this year. My son is also a gorgeous woman.

Ava Max - Diamonds and Dancefloors

Maxinistas rise up!!! The talk that Ava Max was the next Gaga was always stupid. She is Diet Dua Lipa and that flavor is actually good enough.

Kesha - Gag Order

I found this album hard to get through. It's a tough listen, and it might be higher on the list if I had spent more time with it. But the pitch is “Fiona Apple does Endless” which is frankly stunning coming from Kesha. I’m happy that she’s finally free from Kemosabe Records and Dr. Luke and I hope she dives deeper into some of the sounds she’s experimenting with here.

The Maine - The Maine

This is like…the fourth or so Maine album where my primary takeaway has been “Damn, the Maine is actually very good.” The songs are catchy and they’re structurally sound. It doesn’t really extend beyond that for me! I couldn’t really tell you what these songs are doing beyond being fun to listen to, and liking John’s voice. My favorite will probably always be Lovely Little Lonely, but “how to exit a room” is maybe the best onboarding point to this band’s catalog so far.

Kylie Minogue - Tension

“Padam Padam” is the best song on here by a huge degree, and it’s also track one, and it was also out for months before the album. This is really just my way of saying “Padam Padam” is really good.

Lightheaded - Good Good Great!

Years ago I fell head over heels for a Makthaverskan album and this EP reminds me of that short-lived love affair. I will go to my grave defending Stephen Stec from his many haters and opps.

Jawdust and Grave Heist - Gravedust

I love George Saives and I love a good bleeegghhh in a hardcore song and thankfully this split has both.

And now, for the top ten...

My ten favorite albums of 2023

10. Olivia Rodrigo - guts

guts is the album that I wanted SOUR to be. It is bratty and catchy and theatrical, everything Olivia Rodrigo does well, and it doesn't get bogged down in mid-tempo ballads like her last album did (in my humble opinion). Where that album felt like a rush to capitalize on the massive success of "Driver's License," guts benefits from being a complete artist's statement, a body of work that speaks for itself and places Olivia Rodrigo as the main pop girl (outside of Taylor Swift, who is in her own stratosphere at this point).

"get him back" is my favorite song on here, but "all-american bitch" feels like the legacy track and maybe what Olivia actually does best. I am so glad the biggest new pop star is cementing herself as a pupil of Paramore's first three albums. And Daniel Nigro's production work makes the whole thing sound real, not just a pastiche of better pop-punk music.

9. Mitski - The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We

I am often afraid that I am not a real person. When I’m alone, I eat dinner at 3:30 and watch 10 minutes of several movies before giving up and looking at my phone and pacing around for a few hours before I tire myself out and fall asleep in an uncomfortable position. I wake up in the middle of the night and consider that maybe there is something more deeply wrong with me that my depression, my anxiety, that someone will someday discover that I am not real, never have been, that I’ve been standing in the wrong checkout line for my whole life. I love this short and introspective album from Mitski, and my favorite song here is “I Don’t Like My Mind,” which has the following lyrics: “I don't like my mind, I don't like being left alone in a room / With all its opinions about the things that I've done / So, yeah, I blast music loud and I work myself to the bone / And on an inconvenient Christmas, I eat a cake / A whole cake, all for me.”

8. Danny Brown and JPEGMAFIA - Scaring the Hoes

My favorite mode of Danny Brown has always been “there is not a volume level at which this album sounds correct” and with that in mind, I think this is my favorite thing he’s ever done. The soundscape here is giving Stereo At Urban Outfitters Unfortunately Has Water Damage. Extremely not for everyone and I hesitate to recommend it to anyone who has not already signaled to me that they are an absolute sicko. I’m not sure where this narrative ended up, but the version on Bandcamp sounded a lot better than the version on Apple Music and Spotify so that's the version I would listen to if you're interested.

7. The Menzingers - Some of it Was True

You can observe several clear shifts in The Menzingers’ discography. There’s an obvious one right between Chamberlain Waits and On The Impossible Past where the band decided they wanted to make albums that have more in common with Chekhov novels than Against Me! albums. There’s another line right down the middle of After The Party where Greg realizes he’s 30 now, and the band’s art should reflect that. I’m famously still in my 20s, so the newer material doesn’t always resonate with me. Turns out a fine Menzingers album is still one of my favorite albums of the year. I don’t think I’ll spend a lot of time with this one the future, but “There’s No Place In The World For Me” was a really nice “I had a bad day at work at my new job in a new city and I can’t fall back on my old New Jersey comforts” song this year.

6. boygenius - the record

I don’t think this will go down as my favorite Phoebe (Punisher), Julien (Sprained Ankle), or Lucy (Historian)—might also still prefer the boygenius EP based solely on the classic status of “Me and My Dog,” a song so powerful that this album’s closer references its vocal melody—but this record’s best moments get up there. Tracks 3 through 6 are the heart, and “Not Strong Enough” lands in the top 5 of all members’ discographies for me.

I think I’m ready for a general departure for Phoebe Bridgers. She is poised to explode, that much is clear, the only question for me is whether she’ll “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” explode or “In the same conversation as Taylor Swift” explode. Either way I hope her next album is weird and divisive and risky.

5. blink-182 - One More Time…

My most listened-to album of the year, which is stunning to me! It should be bad. The first single was awful and still is. The production is bad. All of these men are 50. Somehow it works! I want to reject blink-182, and I don’t want to identify as a fan, but listening to this album proved to me that there’s something rotten in my heart feels excited when I hear Mark Hoppus and Tom Delonge sing on a song together.

I have always been happy for Mark that he got to continue being in blink-182 when Tom clearly wasn't into it anymore (and when he eventually quit altogether). Since 2003, Mark's interests seemed to skew more toward the fun, summery, SoCal sound, while Tom was more interested in doing Something Very Important And Perhaps Dark with his music. What I find special about this album compared to the last few blink records is that both of them get to do their thing here without stepping on each other's toes. It's the first time since 2003 that the band feels like a unit, not an inconvenience to each other. Tom gets to make bombastic arena music that lands at the top of the charts and connects with millions of people (always the clear goal of Angels & Airwaves, in my opinion) while Mark gets to make a song like "Bad News," which is easily his best work in 20 years.

In my hopes and dreams, blink-182 will take a page out of Fall Out Boy's book circa Folie a Deux (more on that later) and make something challenging and theatrical next. I believe they still have good albums left in them, but it's hard for me to see how they will once again put out new music without the reunion angle (that they have used near-constantly since Neighborhoods to promote their new albums).

4. Chappell Roan - The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess

To fully appreciate this one, I kind of have to forget that I heard like eight of these songs before the album came out. I don’t get why labels promote new artists like this! There’s all this talk about how hard it is to make a new star these days, and I have to think that a huge part of that is how the labels are holding hostage the debut albums (the material of legacy for artists, the thing that will make you a fan of an artist, not just a song)—I digress.

I think about it because “Pink Pony Club” is just a completely flawless song. It’s catchy and sleazy and melancholy and it makes me miss Tennessee, which feels like my home when I listen to this song. It makes me want to call my mom and also put on high heels and wear a little cowboy hat but leave the club feeling sad about it.

I think this album is about on par with The 1975's self-titled album in terms of how clear it is this artist will be around for a long time. New pop artists with such obvious musical and visual ambitions don't turn out every year, and now that this album is out of record label hell, I hope she'll be able to turn out the next one without the same nonsense that put this one out in piecemeal over the course of like two whole years.

3. Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

Without question my second favorite Sufjan album after Carrie and Lowell. At times it reminds me of A Crow Looked At Me, another album raw with grief, something that I have wondered about whether or not I should have ever heard it or if it should have been kept private.

I can't think of a song that affected me as deeply as "Shit Talk" this year. "I will always love you / I don't want to fight at all" gets stuck in my head constantly. So does the chorus of "Will Anybody Ever Love Me," a song whose intentions seem more clearly placed on making a statement as clearly and precisely as possible than being a catchy pop song, but still manages to make the latter happen with ease.

Something I have thought about a lot this year is the human cost of beautiful art. I know this album came out of a piece of immense grief and at the risk of sounding too familiar, I hope Sufjan is doing okay. I have always loved sad, moving music, and one thing I am working on these days is acknowledging and holding space for the grief that often accompanies it; I hope you'll do the same.

2. Fall Out Boy - So Much (for) Stardust

Few things in this world are as volatile as my Fall Out Boy album rankings, but right now, in December of 2023, So Much (for) Stardust is my third favorite Fall Out Boy album (behind Folie and Infinity on High of course). I can’t guarantee that will always be true, but I do think it will be top three forever, and it’s easily the best thing they’ve done post-hiatus. When I listen to this album, I hear a band that just woke up. It sounds like Pete and Patrick got in a room together and said “what if we made a Fall Out Boy album again?” which I’m sure has actually happened every time they’ve put out music over the past twenty years, but this time they really meant it.

I have spilled a lot of ink over this band. I’ve spilled blood in the discourse. I am famously an enjoyer of Save Rock and Roll in particular. Still, it is as clear as day to me now that those three albums between Folie and this one mostly show a band clawing at what it means to be a rock band in the 2010s; what it means to be Fall Out Boy after the Folie album cycle ran them all directly into the ground; how to be Fall Out Boy when being Fall Out Boy actually seems very out of style. It doesn't really seem like they found the answers to those questions, but it also seems like they don't care anymore and decided to just do what felt right. They haven't seemed this comfortable since at least Save Rock & Roll which somehow came out ten years ago.

"Fake Out," the perfect Fall Out Boy song. It sounds like it could have been written for the Infinity on High sessions. I understand that the idea of Fall Out Boy's music makes people recoil at times but if you are curious about this album, that is the song that will make you get it, if you have the capacity for "getting it."

1. Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd

Beautiful and expansive, Lana Del Rey's ninth album is arguably her best. It also feels like her first, a rebirth for the character Lana Del Rey, the stage name of Lizzy Grant, a persona that has always felt like a construction meant to highlight the sadness nestled within the good times, the darkness and grime that the sunset over the Pacific Ocean can't quite reach. The central metaphor in the title track of Ocean Blvd is clear as day--"don't forget me, like you've forgotten about the tunnel under Ocean Boulevard"--but it also feels like a reference to the part of Lana Del Rey that has been hidden underneath the facade she's spent the past decade constructing. In comparison to her other work, this album feels so much more personal, so okay with being slight, or unadorned, free from what the audience expects from the character.

Case in point is "Margaret," my favorite song on here and one of my favorite songs of the year. It is a celebration of two friends' love for each other. Lana sounds like the master of ceremonies at the wedding here, rousing the band through her audible smile. There is almost nothing in the lyrics that points back at the singer herself. It sounds like she is following the purest desires of art-making in her heart at this point in her career and it is impossible not to meet her there, want to see the world through her eyes.

There are many instances of what makes “Venice Bitch” a perfect song, and maybe my favorite is the simple way Lana Del Rey sings “Oh god” in the chorus. Oh god, I miss you on my lips. The function of “I miss you on my lips” is secondary to the pain held within the carelessness ("Imagine if we actually gave a fuck / Wouldn't that be something to talk about for us?") of Oh god. I think the centerpiece of this album is the outro of "A&W," which itself is like a coda to "Venice Bitch," but I am happy that she went as far as revisiting the way she sings “Oh god” in “VB Taco Truck.”

That's all from me this year. My goal for 2024 is to listen to more music than I did in 2023. If I am missing something here, please reach out to me (I am assuming you know how to do this if you are reading this) and let me know.

#bsidecollection

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nalivaa · 3 years

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I’m curious: what do you think is Michael’s favorite food as a human, and do you think Adam likes it too?

aaahhh that's such a good good question! and one I definitely overthought akdksld

So fun answer! Mango with chamoy sauce and spicy powder! It's healthy, it's sweet, it's spicy, it's perfect! Sure it's more of a snack but he's eating it and therefore it is food, no, you can't change his mind adam. But if we're talking more elaborate food, then I suppose his favorite food would be something without a lot of texture but still pretty savory. Maybe mashed potatoes! I think Adam wouldn't exactly love the mango with hot sauce but hey! He can eat fruit, he's ok with it! And I do think he'd like mashed potatoes too, I mean who doesn't.

And now the not so fun answer: (i may have went slightly overboard with this one so sorry for the read more. also gross awaits below)

I think Michael wouldn't like eating. Period. As an archangel he'd be able to handle a few bites if Adam insisted but as an actual human being who needs to eat everyday to stay alive? he would hate it. Eating is gross! We're used to it because we've done it all our lives but mashing up food and mixing it with saliva until it's a paste perfect for swallowing all in your mouth? Disgusting! And sometimes the same dish will have different textures and there are chunks that you don't recognize and something just crunched and there is something weirdly soft in the back of your throat and bleeegghhh! He'd have a very hard time when he just turned human because Adam would be so excited to show him all of his favorite foods and he doesn't know how to tell him that he's on the verge of throwing up with every bite. Taste wouldn't be so bad but it would be a bit disorienting to suddenly being able to taste stuff instead of just atoms.

Surprisingly I think he would have an easier time with processed food, because it's always the same. No texture surprises waiting for him at every bite. He'd still dislike the process of eating but he'd be able to prepare himself for it. But that would make Adam very sad :c

Until they find out smoothies! There are all kind of smoothies and as long as it is perfectly blended, taste is not a problem! They'd experiment a lot with what is acceptable food to put in the blender, what are good mixes, (what supplements they need for him not to starve ಥ◡ಥ) and which are actually enjoyable for michael!

And for a nice call back, I think his favorite smoothie would be a mango, pineapple and chamoy blend! and maybe it wouldn't be adam's favorite blend but as long as michael enjoys it, he's happy about it

maybe with time he'd be able to enjoy solid foods a bit more, but i think smoothies would still be his go-to food.

so,,, yeah!

#supernatural #midam #michael spn #adam milligan #hey i got an ask #thank you for sending me this it was a lot of fun to think about!#i had a bit of a hard time because... well. i have a lot of thoughts about food.#and there was also the fact that the food i know isnt exactly the kind of food michael and adam would have access to lmao #for example i think adam would enjoy flautas and michael would actually like entomatadas! but i dont know in what situation #they would be able to have those dishes #so im sorry if the answer isnt exactly the most fun one 😅#i dont know american food beyond the most. processed ones. and thats not fun :c #cw food #cw eating mention #i was gonna end this in a bit of a sad note until i remembered smoothies exist #not the most elegant solution but theyre a good substitute for solid food if you absolutely need one #did you know you can blend chicken soup and it tastes exactly as it smells #sorry ive already rambled enough ill shut up now akjsdkjas #one more thing tho! this is exactly why unless specified otherwise michael is still an archangel in all my aus #its sad otherwise :c

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