My Year In Lists, 2010
This year is ending on a strange note. I'm attending a memorial service on my way out of town for Christmas--it's been that kind of a week. But we're heading upstate tomorrow and, hopefully after that profound sadness, there will be good holiday cheer. Since this is probably the last chance I'll get to check in before the New Year, I'm doing my annual compiliation of giant, way-too-long year-end lists. Here we go: play 2010 out, keyboard cat.
Photo by Melissa Moseley, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
MOVIES
My favorite movies this year dealt with fantasy worlds, like dreams-within-dreams, paranoid delusions, Underland, and video-game universes. Fun stuff.
The Ten Best Movies of 2010
This year had some fantastic films-but I feel like the first half of my list is far better than the rest. The bottom selections are lucky; they wouldn't have made it onto my year-end list in a stronger year.
1. Inception
Is the top spinning?! Is Dom the one being incepted?! And how can I book a room in the hotel where the hallways twist upside-down? (Preferably the room with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.)
2. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky's still got it! And by "it," I mean the ability to be simultaneously obsessively cringe-inducing, cripplingly depressing, and strangely beautiful.
3. Alice in Wonderland
I just found out that the Internet apparently hates this movie, but I think the nerds are just intimidated by its muchness. Off with their heads.
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
A movie that speaks my language: 8-bit Nintendo.
5. The Social Network
Despite-or is it because of?-all of those Ardsley-related t-shirts. (Note to Daviid Fincher: I still think it could've used a shot that went into the keys/computer wires, but otherwise it was a good effort, I guess.) Like.
6. Toy Story 3
Ah, yes, the obligatory Pixar spot. I hope Cars 2 doesn't make me cry as much as the past few have.
7. I Love You, Philip Morris
So strange that it has to be true-but the directors found the exact right tone to convey its strangeness/trueness. Another reason why directors are better in pairs.
8. The Fighter
I'm not sure what makes this inspirational comeback boxing story different from any other, but I think it must be the Boston accents. Or Amy Adams. Both are good.
9. The Town
Even if I was the only one in the theater who burst out laughing when John Hamm said, "It's like Townie Christmas!"
10. Easy A
Finally! A teen-girl movie where the main teen girl doesn't sound like a total idiot. Doesn't anyone notice that people really like it when this happens? (See also: Mean Girls.)
The Next Five
Rabbit Hole
Iron Man 2
Tiny Furniture
Despicable Me
Tangled
The Four Worst Movies
It's true what they say: Romance is dead. Or, at least romantic comedies are. The worst movies I saw this year are all stabs at the genre, emphasis on the word "stab." They are, in chronological order (because there's no point in thinking about them long enough to rank them): Leap Year, When in Rome, Valentine's Day, and Sex and the City 2.
”Children of Men" Award Nominees
I haven’t seen True Grit, The Company Men, Blue Valentine, Somewhere, Biutiful, Carlos, or Mother because I didn’t get a chance to see them before I posted this. I refused to see Yogi Bear, because that shit is vile.
Overrated
They still haven't found a way to make a great current-wars movie yet. I was vaguely disappointed by The Messenger (technically a 2009 movie, but I didn’t see it until this year) because it seems like such an insubstantial movie for the amount of praise it was getting, and I was flat-out not into The Green Zone because I don't see how shaking the camera makes Paul Greengrass a better director than my cousin when he was 17 and had a really heavy, boxy home recorder. It's cool: Apocalypse Now didn't come until a few years after the fall of Saigon, so we just need to wait for these wars to be over before we can get some good movies about them. I mean, they are going to end, right? Right?
Underrated
Even among movies loaded up with superfluous nudity and gore, I don’t think Piranha 3D got the respect that it deserved. Of all the minorly exploitative 3D splatter picks out there, only this one had Adam Scott cocking a shotgun while on a jetski. That has to count for something, right?
Guilty Pleasure
The Crazies, and, you know what, I don't feel all that guilty about it. I see a lot of schlocky horror films, so I'm actually proud when I get to shout-out a good one. The Walking Dead would do well to watch this a few times before starting its next seasons.
Pleasant Surprise
Just when I thought I'd seen every iteration of vampire movie possible, Daybreakers comes along and is a teeny bit more thoughtful and interesting than it had to be. It also looked pretty good, too, with a cool color palette-and no god-awful sparkling in the sunlight.
Biggest Disappointment
I love you, Marty, but Shutter Island just didn't do it for me. It could be that I was burned out from seeing the trailer a billion times ("…for the criminally insane"). But, usually, when I see a movie with the twist, I like to think things through from the beginning of the movie to see how well it hangs together. With this one, I didn't even want to bother. "Who cares?" is not the reaction you want to inspire with your twist.
Best Performance Outside of My Top 15
Anthony Hopkins is amazing in The Wolfman. Pretty much everything he said was gold, to the point where I’m actually a little surprised that there hasn’t been some kind of meme set up around his scenery-chewing. I really wish someone would put a reel together of all his best lines and put it on YouTube-but, that would be looking back into the past and, as we know, the past is a wilderness of horrors.
Most Anticipated Movie of 2011
I am very excited for Sucker Punch. I probably like Zac Snyder more than the rest of you and, as I told Jesse after the first time I saw the trailer, he looks like he loaded up his crazy fantasy girl-power movie with lots of tough-looking pigtails, and I have always been pro-pigtail.
Photo credit possibly by Aaron Richter?
MUSIC
In 2010, music moved so fast that I could barely keep up.
Favorite Album of 2010
So, so many! The theme of 2010 was “Too much music, not enough movies.” But, when I think back on 2010, the album I’ll associate with it the most is Treats by Sleigh Bells. It is an instant energy boost, short and intense. And, forget overexposed songs from pinup wannabees: “Rill Rill” was my song of the summer. Which brings me right to...
Favorite Songs of 2010
(Right-click to download from other music blogs.)
1. "Tell 'Em" - Sleigh Bells
Not only because I walked down the aisle to this song at my wedding. (I totally walked down the aisle to this song at my wedding!)
Runner up: "Rill Rill"
2. "Romance Is Boring" - Los Campesinos
Like “Miserabilia”, LC!’s best songs are the ones that you can just kind of shout in the car.
Runner Up: "These Are Listed Buildings"
3. "Hurricane J" - The Hold Steady
Never thought it would be possible: a song about a “Jessie” that’s way better than “Jessie’s Girl.”
Runner Up: "The Weekenders"
4. "Horchata" - Vampire Weekend
I seriously listened to this song so much at the beginning of this year that I started to annoy myself. But that didn’t stop me from listening to it again.
Runner Up: " Run"
5. “ City with No Children” - The Arcade Fire
I like how the Arcade Fire seems, unlike most indie bands, to genuinely like children, and I can easily pretend that this song is about Brooklyn (at least some parts of it).
Runner Up: “ Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
6. "This Too Shall Pass" - OK Go
Rube Goldberg machines are cool, but this time the song is much better than an excuse for a cool viral video (no offense, “Here It Goes Again”).
7. "Fuck You" - Cee-Lo Green
Sorry, Mom, for posting a song title with an obscenity in it-but if you listened to the song, I think you'd like it, too!
8. "Write About Love" - Belle & Sebastian
For a band whose members probably never had to work office jobs in their entire lives, Belle & Sebastian sure writes great songs about 9-to-5 drudgery.
9. “ You Should Know Me” - Liz Phair
The reason the people who haven’t kept up with Liz Phair since Exile in Guyville are missing out.
(The link is to a youtube non-video. The Hype Machine is lacking in “You Should Know Me.”)
10. "Blue Blood Blues" - The Dead Weather
I don't know about all the white girls, but I certainly trip when they sing for Sunday service.
The Next 10
“Boyfriend” - Best Coast
"Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National
"A More Perfect Union" - Titus Andronicus
"Swim" - Surfer Blood
“Just Like Zeus” - Jenny & Johnny
"Best Friend" - The Drums
“Younger Us” - Japandroids
"Memories" - Weezer
"We Are Having a Hootenanny" - The Magnetic Fields
“Over It Over Again” - She & Him
Overrated
Obviously, the entire genre of chillwave is overrated because, as much as everyone everywhere talks about it-including me-I'm still not sure if I've ever actually heard it.
Underrated
Where was the love for the Hold Steady this year? I feel it among my friends, but Heaven is Whenever didn’t show up on nearly as many end-of-year lists as I expected it to. That’s a shame, since I wouldn’t say Stay Positive is significantly better, but I think it got more attention.
Guilty Pleasure
I admit, I don’t always turn off Ke$ha when she's on the radio. I far prefer bratty, drunken, overconfident girl singers to pretty ones who wait outside the house of the boy they like in hopes of being noticed. (Yeah, that's right: Ke$ha is a better role model than Taylor Swift. I said it.)
Biggest Disappointment
Ben Folds put out an album this year, too. Notice how it didn’t make my top 20 songs? Yeah, that made me sad, too. Nothing is really wrong with Lonely Avenue, and bringing in Nick Horby was a smart idea to get over his lyrical writers’ block, but I’m waiting for him to write another “Philosophy,” and, at this rate, I’ll probably be waiting for a long, long time. But, what he lacks in inspiration for the album, me makes up for in his ability to judge The Sing-Off, so there’s that.
A Special Note
I have a deep, abiding admiration for The Heavy's "How You Like Me Now." That's not to say that I like it-that's beside the point-I just marvel at how it seems perfectly engineered to play under any commercial/trailer/movie/tv show ever. It has a quiet-but-rockin' part that can vamp under any scene, then kick into the HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?! part when it's time to get loud. It's perfect. I feel like scientists will try to do tests on that song and pick out how they were able to create something so trailer-worthy, only to find that it isn't of this Earth-that the Heavy came across the song fully formed in a desert somewhere after it landed here. Either that, or that it was inevitable that society was going to create "How You Like Me Now," the way electricity was kind of inevitable.
Live in '10
The Hold Steady (x4)
Los Campesinos (x2)
Liz Phair
They Might Be Giants
Belle & Sebastian
Pavement
The Dead Weather
The National
Ted Leo*
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart *
Surfer Blood*
She & Him
Titus Andronicus
The New Pornographers
OK Go
The Magnetic Fields
Vampire Weekend
The Felice Brothers (on NYE, so technically)
*festival sets
Best in Show
It's hard to choose this year because, with a few exceptions (Pavement, the Dead Weather, She & Him, Vampire Weekend, and the kids I saw at Siren), I've seen all of these bands before. Yes, I had an amazing time at some of the Hold Steady shows (the middle two), and the last Los Campesinos show (with Johnny Foreigner opening)-but wouldn't it be totally anticlimactic if my 14th Hold Steady show is the best one I saw all year? OK Go and TMBG switched it up by bringing a bunch of new toys, which was nice, but I'd feel bad for giving it to them for lasers and confetti cannons over the actual music and performance.
Really, I guess I'm saying that I wish I had seen Sleigh Bells this year. (Can you tell that I really got into Sleigh Bells?) Rob said the Sleigh Bells concert was the closest he's been to feeling like he was in a music video. That would've been new and cool and different. (So what if they only have 30 minutes of music if they charge $15?) But, alas, it just didn't work out for me this year.
So, in the absence of a Sleigh Bells concert, I'll say the best one I went to this year was also the first: Vampire Weekend. It was straightforward. They didn't re-arrange the songs. They didn't have special effects. They just went out on stage and played they're music-almost all of it! Including "Ottoman!" (Thankfully, they *do* have more than 30 minutes of music now because, unlike Sleigh Bells, they charge more than $15-and did even when they only had one album.) But, since I pretty much love every single song they have-with maybe one exception, which they did play-I have to hand it to them this year.
Most Anticipated Music
Is there anyone left who didn’t put out a record this year? I think only the Mountain Goats and They Might Be Giants. They win by default.
TV SHOWS & BOOKS
It’s been said that the new golden age of TV is over, and the new shows this season didn’t really give much evidence to the contrary. There are two shows I picked up, though, that I really like. Despite my continued inability to distinguish Timothy Olyphant from Josh Duhamel-my very specific case of prospagnosia-I really fell hard for Justified. And, as much as I love the textured Elmore Leonard world and the easy charm of Olyphant-not-Duhamel, I think the reason I was so thoroughly entertained by the show was the crazy, crazy characters like Boyd Crowder. Certainly not good, but not a villain, impossible to tell if he’s sincere and imbalanced or phony and sly, I wish there were more characters like him on television. (The Walking Dead, you should also be taking notes on this.)
My other favorite show of the year is Boardwalk Empire, because corruption is funny when it’s not happening in real life. Plus, New Jersey has never looked prettier.
I didn't do as much reading as I should have this year. I know I say that every year, but this is another bad thing that I'm just going to blame on the wedding. (See also: Why I spent too much money this year.) Still, of the books I did read, my favorite by far was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. After I read it, I went back and read An Invisible Sign of My Own, and I still liked Lemon Cake way better. I think it's because the characters are neurotic and full of tics in both books, but I felt that the ones in Lemon Cake had more of a justified reason to be neurotic and full of tics. Plus, the premise was totally strange in a way that takes a lot of guts to write.
Photo by Chris Ware.
ETC.
The year 2010 seems like it was a big one for everyone. Almost everyone I know went through some sort of major life change this year: moving apartments, starting a new job, getting married, having babies, dealing with family deaths, or some combination of the above. As far as milestones go, getting married seems almost like the least of them, at least for me. That’s because, with the exception of putting on some additional jewelry in the morning, my day-to-day life remains essentially unchanged: I wake up in the same apartment, go to the same job, and come home to the same (awesome) guy. My name is even the same, despite what most of my mail has said since I got married.
But! I can’t say that having a wedding wasn’t a fun way to kill a year. Obviously, if you talked to me at all during 2010, you could tell that--despite some stresses--I was into it: finding a fun venue and putting together a BBQ menu, coordinating all of the little details, making boutonnieres and place cards, having a bowling shower, listening to Jesse and Rob pick out a playlist, etc. It felt great to see how amazing and helpful and interested and supportive everyone was to us. (Prime example: our cupcakes!) And, while I hope that the wedding doesn’t turn out to be the best day of my life, it sets a really high bar: It’ll be hard to top getting everyone together all at once just to celebrate and eat and have fun on a gorgeous day. So, in short, everything I said at the end of my recap post still holds true.
Also, if I can be permitted to do more patting on the back, I loved all of the weddings I went to this year-not just mine. People complain when a group of weddings comes in waves, and I can certainly understand why. But this crop for me-I went to four this year, counting my own-was enjoyable from start to finish. I think it’s because everyone really showcased their personalities in their weddings, going for personal over traditional. I can see what I love about all of my friends in their weddings, from Bayard & Alex’s heartfelt ceremonies and toasts (at both the wedding and rehearsal), to Tom & Maggie’s self-determination in marrying each other (sans officiant, Quaker-style), to the meticulous way Shane & Spencer chose all of their vintage details (and awesome temporary tattoos). Good job, everyone!
So: more of these for 2011, please. (I only have one wedding on the schedule, but there’s still time for some NYE proposals, right?) And more of the good life changes for the people I love, and none of the bad ones, thank you.
Photo by Melissa Moseley, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
MOVIES
My favorite movies this year dealt with fantasy worlds, like dreams-within-dreams, paranoid delusions, Underland, and video-game universes. Fun stuff.
The Ten Best Movies of 2010
This year had some fantastic films-but I feel like the first half of my list is far better than the rest. The bottom selections are lucky; they wouldn't have made it onto my year-end list in a stronger year.
1. Inception
Is the top spinning?! Is Dom the one being incepted?! And how can I book a room in the hotel where the hallways twist upside-down? (Preferably the room with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.)
2. Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky's still got it! And by "it," I mean the ability to be simultaneously obsessively cringe-inducing, cripplingly depressing, and strangely beautiful.
3. Alice in Wonderland
I just found out that the Internet apparently hates this movie, but I think the nerds are just intimidated by its muchness. Off with their heads.
4. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
A movie that speaks my language: 8-bit Nintendo.
5. The Social Network
Despite-or is it because of?-all of those Ardsley-related t-shirts. (Note to Daviid Fincher: I still think it could've used a shot that went into the keys/computer wires, but otherwise it was a good effort, I guess.) Like.
6. Toy Story 3
Ah, yes, the obligatory Pixar spot. I hope Cars 2 doesn't make me cry as much as the past few have.
7. I Love You, Philip Morris
So strange that it has to be true-but the directors found the exact right tone to convey its strangeness/trueness. Another reason why directors are better in pairs.
8. The Fighter
I'm not sure what makes this inspirational comeback boxing story different from any other, but I think it must be the Boston accents. Or Amy Adams. Both are good.
9. The Town
Even if I was the only one in the theater who burst out laughing when John Hamm said, "It's like Townie Christmas!"
10. Easy A
Finally! A teen-girl movie where the main teen girl doesn't sound like a total idiot. Doesn't anyone notice that people really like it when this happens? (See also: Mean Girls.)
The Next Five
Rabbit Hole
Iron Man 2
Tiny Furniture
Despicable Me
Tangled
The Four Worst Movies
It's true what they say: Romance is dead. Or, at least romantic comedies are. The worst movies I saw this year are all stabs at the genre, emphasis on the word "stab." They are, in chronological order (because there's no point in thinking about them long enough to rank them): Leap Year, When in Rome, Valentine's Day, and Sex and the City 2.
”Children of Men" Award Nominees
I haven’t seen True Grit, The Company Men, Blue Valentine, Somewhere, Biutiful, Carlos, or Mother because I didn’t get a chance to see them before I posted this. I refused to see Yogi Bear, because that shit is vile.
Overrated
They still haven't found a way to make a great current-wars movie yet. I was vaguely disappointed by The Messenger (technically a 2009 movie, but I didn’t see it until this year) because it seems like such an insubstantial movie for the amount of praise it was getting, and I was flat-out not into The Green Zone because I don't see how shaking the camera makes Paul Greengrass a better director than my cousin when he was 17 and had a really heavy, boxy home recorder. It's cool: Apocalypse Now didn't come until a few years after the fall of Saigon, so we just need to wait for these wars to be over before we can get some good movies about them. I mean, they are going to end, right? Right?
Underrated
Even among movies loaded up with superfluous nudity and gore, I don’t think Piranha 3D got the respect that it deserved. Of all the minorly exploitative 3D splatter picks out there, only this one had Adam Scott cocking a shotgun while on a jetski. That has to count for something, right?
Guilty Pleasure
The Crazies, and, you know what, I don't feel all that guilty about it. I see a lot of schlocky horror films, so I'm actually proud when I get to shout-out a good one. The Walking Dead would do well to watch this a few times before starting its next seasons.
Pleasant Surprise
Just when I thought I'd seen every iteration of vampire movie possible, Daybreakers comes along and is a teeny bit more thoughtful and interesting than it had to be. It also looked pretty good, too, with a cool color palette-and no god-awful sparkling in the sunlight.
Biggest Disappointment
I love you, Marty, but Shutter Island just didn't do it for me. It could be that I was burned out from seeing the trailer a billion times ("…for the criminally insane"). But, usually, when I see a movie with the twist, I like to think things through from the beginning of the movie to see how well it hangs together. With this one, I didn't even want to bother. "Who cares?" is not the reaction you want to inspire with your twist.
Best Performance Outside of My Top 15
Anthony Hopkins is amazing in The Wolfman. Pretty much everything he said was gold, to the point where I’m actually a little surprised that there hasn’t been some kind of meme set up around his scenery-chewing. I really wish someone would put a reel together of all his best lines and put it on YouTube-but, that would be looking back into the past and, as we know, the past is a wilderness of horrors.
Most Anticipated Movie of 2011
I am very excited for Sucker Punch. I probably like Zac Snyder more than the rest of you and, as I told Jesse after the first time I saw the trailer, he looks like he loaded up his crazy fantasy girl-power movie with lots of tough-looking pigtails, and I have always been pro-pigtail.
Photo credit possibly by Aaron Richter?
MUSIC
In 2010, music moved so fast that I could barely keep up.
Favorite Album of 2010
So, so many! The theme of 2010 was “Too much music, not enough movies.” But, when I think back on 2010, the album I’ll associate with it the most is Treats by Sleigh Bells. It is an instant energy boost, short and intense. And, forget overexposed songs from pinup wannabees: “Rill Rill” was my song of the summer. Which brings me right to...
Favorite Songs of 2010
(Right-click to download from other music blogs.)
1. "Tell 'Em" - Sleigh Bells
Not only because I walked down the aisle to this song at my wedding. (I totally walked down the aisle to this song at my wedding!)
Runner up: "Rill Rill"
2. "Romance Is Boring" - Los Campesinos
Like “Miserabilia”, LC!’s best songs are the ones that you can just kind of shout in the car.
Runner Up: "These Are Listed Buildings"
3. "Hurricane J" - The Hold Steady
Never thought it would be possible: a song about a “Jessie” that’s way better than “Jessie’s Girl.”
Runner Up: "The Weekenders"
4. "Horchata" - Vampire Weekend
I seriously listened to this song so much at the beginning of this year that I started to annoy myself. But that didn’t stop me from listening to it again.
Runner Up: " Run"
5. “ City with No Children” - The Arcade Fire
I like how the Arcade Fire seems, unlike most indie bands, to genuinely like children, and I can easily pretend that this song is about Brooklyn (at least some parts of it).
Runner Up: “ Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
6. "This Too Shall Pass" - OK Go
Rube Goldberg machines are cool, but this time the song is much better than an excuse for a cool viral video (no offense, “Here It Goes Again”).
7. "Fuck You" - Cee-Lo Green
Sorry, Mom, for posting a song title with an obscenity in it-but if you listened to the song, I think you'd like it, too!
8. "Write About Love" - Belle & Sebastian
For a band whose members probably never had to work office jobs in their entire lives, Belle & Sebastian sure writes great songs about 9-to-5 drudgery.
9. “ You Should Know Me” - Liz Phair
The reason the people who haven’t kept up with Liz Phair since Exile in Guyville are missing out.
(The link is to a youtube non-video. The Hype Machine is lacking in “You Should Know Me.”)
10. "Blue Blood Blues" - The Dead Weather
I don't know about all the white girls, but I certainly trip when they sing for Sunday service.
The Next 10
“Boyfriend” - Best Coast
"Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National
"A More Perfect Union" - Titus Andronicus
"Swim" - Surfer Blood
“Just Like Zeus” - Jenny & Johnny
"Best Friend" - The Drums
“Younger Us” - Japandroids
"Memories" - Weezer
"We Are Having a Hootenanny" - The Magnetic Fields
“Over It Over Again” - She & Him
Overrated
Obviously, the entire genre of chillwave is overrated because, as much as everyone everywhere talks about it-including me-I'm still not sure if I've ever actually heard it.
Underrated
Where was the love for the Hold Steady this year? I feel it among my friends, but Heaven is Whenever didn’t show up on nearly as many end-of-year lists as I expected it to. That’s a shame, since I wouldn’t say Stay Positive is significantly better, but I think it got more attention.
Guilty Pleasure
I admit, I don’t always turn off Ke$ha when she's on the radio. I far prefer bratty, drunken, overconfident girl singers to pretty ones who wait outside the house of the boy they like in hopes of being noticed. (Yeah, that's right: Ke$ha is a better role model than Taylor Swift. I said it.)
Biggest Disappointment
Ben Folds put out an album this year, too. Notice how it didn’t make my top 20 songs? Yeah, that made me sad, too. Nothing is really wrong with Lonely Avenue, and bringing in Nick Horby was a smart idea to get over his lyrical writers’ block, but I’m waiting for him to write another “Philosophy,” and, at this rate, I’ll probably be waiting for a long, long time. But, what he lacks in inspiration for the album, me makes up for in his ability to judge The Sing-Off, so there’s that.
A Special Note
I have a deep, abiding admiration for The Heavy's "How You Like Me Now." That's not to say that I like it-that's beside the point-I just marvel at how it seems perfectly engineered to play under any commercial/trailer/movie/tv show ever. It has a quiet-but-rockin' part that can vamp under any scene, then kick into the HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?! part when it's time to get loud. It's perfect. I feel like scientists will try to do tests on that song and pick out how they were able to create something so trailer-worthy, only to find that it isn't of this Earth-that the Heavy came across the song fully formed in a desert somewhere after it landed here. Either that, or that it was inevitable that society was going to create "How You Like Me Now," the way electricity was kind of inevitable.
Live in '10
The Hold Steady (x4)
Los Campesinos (x2)
Liz Phair
They Might Be Giants
Belle & Sebastian
Pavement
The Dead Weather
The National
Ted Leo*
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart *
Surfer Blood*
She & Him
Titus Andronicus
The New Pornographers
OK Go
The Magnetic Fields
Vampire Weekend
The Felice Brothers (on NYE, so technically)
*festival sets
Best in Show
It's hard to choose this year because, with a few exceptions (Pavement, the Dead Weather, She & Him, Vampire Weekend, and the kids I saw at Siren), I've seen all of these bands before. Yes, I had an amazing time at some of the Hold Steady shows (the middle two), and the last Los Campesinos show (with Johnny Foreigner opening)-but wouldn't it be totally anticlimactic if my 14th Hold Steady show is the best one I saw all year? OK Go and TMBG switched it up by bringing a bunch of new toys, which was nice, but I'd feel bad for giving it to them for lasers and confetti cannons over the actual music and performance.
Really, I guess I'm saying that I wish I had seen Sleigh Bells this year. (Can you tell that I really got into Sleigh Bells?) Rob said the Sleigh Bells concert was the closest he's been to feeling like he was in a music video. That would've been new and cool and different. (So what if they only have 30 minutes of music if they charge $15?) But, alas, it just didn't work out for me this year.
So, in the absence of a Sleigh Bells concert, I'll say the best one I went to this year was also the first: Vampire Weekend. It was straightforward. They didn't re-arrange the songs. They didn't have special effects. They just went out on stage and played they're music-almost all of it! Including "Ottoman!" (Thankfully, they *do* have more than 30 minutes of music now because, unlike Sleigh Bells, they charge more than $15-and did even when they only had one album.) But, since I pretty much love every single song they have-with maybe one exception, which they did play-I have to hand it to them this year.
Most Anticipated Music
Is there anyone left who didn’t put out a record this year? I think only the Mountain Goats and They Might Be Giants. They win by default.
TV SHOWS & BOOKS
It’s been said that the new golden age of TV is over, and the new shows this season didn’t really give much evidence to the contrary. There are two shows I picked up, though, that I really like. Despite my continued inability to distinguish Timothy Olyphant from Josh Duhamel-my very specific case of prospagnosia-I really fell hard for Justified. And, as much as I love the textured Elmore Leonard world and the easy charm of Olyphant-not-Duhamel, I think the reason I was so thoroughly entertained by the show was the crazy, crazy characters like Boyd Crowder. Certainly not good, but not a villain, impossible to tell if he’s sincere and imbalanced or phony and sly, I wish there were more characters like him on television. (The Walking Dead, you should also be taking notes on this.)
My other favorite show of the year is Boardwalk Empire, because corruption is funny when it’s not happening in real life. Plus, New Jersey has never looked prettier.
I didn't do as much reading as I should have this year. I know I say that every year, but this is another bad thing that I'm just going to blame on the wedding. (See also: Why I spent too much money this year.) Still, of the books I did read, my favorite by far was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. After I read it, I went back and read An Invisible Sign of My Own, and I still liked Lemon Cake way better. I think it's because the characters are neurotic and full of tics in both books, but I felt that the ones in Lemon Cake had more of a justified reason to be neurotic and full of tics. Plus, the premise was totally strange in a way that takes a lot of guts to write.
Photo by Chris Ware.
ETC.
The year 2010 seems like it was a big one for everyone. Almost everyone I know went through some sort of major life change this year: moving apartments, starting a new job, getting married, having babies, dealing with family deaths, or some combination of the above. As far as milestones go, getting married seems almost like the least of them, at least for me. That’s because, with the exception of putting on some additional jewelry in the morning, my day-to-day life remains essentially unchanged: I wake up in the same apartment, go to the same job, and come home to the same (awesome) guy. My name is even the same, despite what most of my mail has said since I got married.
But! I can’t say that having a wedding wasn’t a fun way to kill a year. Obviously, if you talked to me at all during 2010, you could tell that--despite some stresses--I was into it: finding a fun venue and putting together a BBQ menu, coordinating all of the little details, making boutonnieres and place cards, having a bowling shower, listening to Jesse and Rob pick out a playlist, etc. It felt great to see how amazing and helpful and interested and supportive everyone was to us. (Prime example: our cupcakes!) And, while I hope that the wedding doesn’t turn out to be the best day of my life, it sets a really high bar: It’ll be hard to top getting everyone together all at once just to celebrate and eat and have fun on a gorgeous day. So, in short, everything I said at the end of my recap post still holds true.
Also, if I can be permitted to do more patting on the back, I loved all of the weddings I went to this year-not just mine. People complain when a group of weddings comes in waves, and I can certainly understand why. But this crop for me-I went to four this year, counting my own-was enjoyable from start to finish. I think it’s because everyone really showcased their personalities in their weddings, going for personal over traditional. I can see what I love about all of my friends in their weddings, from Bayard & Alex’s heartfelt ceremonies and toasts (at both the wedding and rehearsal), to Tom & Maggie’s self-determination in marrying each other (sans officiant, Quaker-style), to the meticulous way Shane & Spencer chose all of their vintage details (and awesome temporary tattoos). Good job, everyone!
So: more of these for 2011, please. (I only have one wedding on the schedule, but there’s still time for some NYE proposals, right?) And more of the good life changes for the people I love, and none of the bad ones, thank you.