Best Music of 2023

*Playlist: Best Albums of 2023 (Apple); 

*Playlist: Best Albums of 2023 - B Sides (Apple)

The wait is over.  With 2023 still fresh in all our minds, let's dive into the best music from that year.

But first, allow me to temper your excitement with an exposition on the ground rules for how I rate the albums.  

I pay particular attention to the quality & cohesiveness of the overall album--it's not enough to just put out a great track or two.  While I don't punish my perennials (e.g., Radiohead iterations, Sigur Ros, Arcade Fire) I do give bonus points to new voices that strike me with something unique and fresh.  But the new voices do face an uphill battle, as it's hard for them to overtake the established veterans who consistently just make high quality music.  

Another point is that I'm now in my 40's so my musical tastes are probably evolving a bit.  I place more value on artists that can hit me with that complex though still rewarding / user-friendly sound.  And I've been placing more weight on artists that have a poetic bent to their work.  I pay more attention these days to the lyrics and the ability of the album to transport me to a mood.  

Regarding my methodology, I start with an iTunes playlist of the albums I picked up on my own throughout the calendar year in question.  Then I scope out some 'best albums of the year' playlists from various curators (e.g., Pitchfork, Variety, Sound Opinions podcast, Bob Boilen, and various Reddit forums, like one that created a meta best-of list by scraping the internet for all critics' reviews and coming up with a top 50).  From there I spend many hours (especially during long roadtrips) sifting through the albums that have depth to them.

One random observation: I've noticed that so much of the good new music is female.  Where have all the rude boys gone?

Best Albums

1. Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

• I had never heard of her before.  She's been around since 2012 or so.  She was born in Japan but is an American. I started exploring this album and I noticed that track after track was just really solid.  And I'm drawn in by her voice.  Her song, "My Love Is Mine All Mine", is amazing.  Bonus points for some nice music videos to accompany the album as well.  I think I'll be listening to this album for a long time.  It has staying power.      

2. Sigur Ros - ATTA 

• Solid album to add to their incredible catalog.  This album feels appropriate for this phase of their career.  It's like Sigur Ros in their 40's.  Nothing as edgy or experimental as what we've seen from their past projects.  But this is good stuff.  Every time I come back to it I find that it's stronger than I had remembered.  

3. Lisa O'Neill - All of This Is Chance

• This was a late addition to my playlist.  It's very traditional Irish.  Feels like poetry.  Beautiful sounds and enchanting melodies.   

4. Ratboys - The Window

• Some of their sound skews a little youthful / angry, but for the most part I really dig the edginess.

5. Gorillaz - Cracker Island

•  Their formula still works.  Love the album.  Some great collaborations    

6. Morgan Wallen - One Thing At A Time

•  Some great country music.  A few too many songs on the album, but there are several that are really fun.  His lyrics make me chuckle a lot.  And even when you know what the chorus line is gonna be, he still knows how to hit you with it hard.

7. M83 - Fantasy

•  Not nearly as good as some of their other albums, but it brings the energy.

8. boygenius - the record

•  A fun new supergroup of some female solo artists.  A couple of their songs really rock, but they don't sustain it for the whole record.  

Other Good Albums

• Caroline Rose - The Art of Forgetting (2 good songs)
• Joanna Sternberg - I've Got Me (Amazing title track)
• Youth Lagoon - Heaven Is a Junkyard
• Palehound - Eye on the Bat
• Wednesday - Rat Saw God
• Lana Del Rey - Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd
• Slowdive - everything is alive
• Jess Williamson - Time Ain't Accidental
• Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good! (Kind of reminds me of Janelle Monae, but the album gets boring)
• Blue Lake - Sun Arcs
• Sufjan Stevens - Javelin

My Favorite Stuff in 2024

I spent the last 18 months in Singapore, where my wife is originally from, and where her parents and siblings live.  Now that I think about it, in a meta way, my best thing of 2024 would have to be living in Singapore for the whole year.  It was incredible (and I highly recommended) living in a different city / country for a while so you can look back at your usual life with fresh & broader perspectives.  Of course, the food was amazing, and the traveling to other SE Asian countries was fantastic.  Working remote on U.S. hours meant I was usually working from 9pm-4am (plus some other odd hours), which allowed me to have some more free time during the middle of the day while kids were still at school.  I got in a great rhythm of picking up my youngest from her kindergarten class at noon each day by talking a long walk in the hot sun / tropical rain while I listened to podcasts, sat and read, or caught Phoenix Suns games.  Anyways, I managed to consume / experience a lot of great stuff throughout the year, and I thought I'd share my favorites.  

(This is not an official list of the best new releases in the calendar year, but mostly things that I enjoyed during the year.)

Best Music

• Fleet Foxes - I went on a big kick at some point early in the year after getting one of their old familiar song stuck in my head.  Then the rabbit hole went deeper and deeper and I listened to all their stuff over and over, and also got inspired to do some guitar and singing of their songs, though I became painfully aware of how not high my voice is able to go.  The album, 'Shore' (2020) is a masterpiece, and it has a great hour-long YouTube movie thing to go along with it.  I enjoyed watching some of their live material on YouTube which also led me to their 'Live on Boston Harbor' (2024) performance and accompanying album.  Transcendent stuff.  I've really taken to live performances lately as there's something about the human achievement aspect that I love witnessing. 
• Alan Sparhawk - 'White Roses, My God' (2024) - With the tragic passing of his wife and musical partner, Mimi, Alan Sparhawk was able to put out an excellent solo project. Very stylistic album with a lot of muffled, voice-filtered vocals
• Bob Dylan - 'Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series' (1980-1985) - I discovered a clip on YouTube of Bob Dylan singing "Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight" with Mark Knopfler on guitar ,and the veteran ease of their skillful jamming really drew me in.  Then I checked out the Bootleg album and really dug it, listening on repeat for a while.  
• The Smile - 'Cutouts' (2024) - Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood continue to put out incredible music, adding to their percussive and guitar complexity with each new project.  The song, "Eyes & Mouth" is an amazing specimen of what modern, understated guitar solos can be.  It makes me a little less grumpy about the disappearance of rock-out solos in today's music.  
• Sufjan Stevens - 'Come on Feel the Illinoise!' (2005) - After not listening at all for maybe 15 years, I had an excellent experience putting on the headphones and enjoying the album from start to finish in one sitting.  I hope to have the experience again in 15 more years.  
• Taylor Swift - 'THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT' (2024) - It's super mainstream to like Taylor Swift, but I have to acknowledge the skill in her music.  This album and her last one, 'Midnights', really appeal to me.  Great beats, perfect sound-mixing, and her skillful songwriting and confident singing all combine to make quality music.  

Best Tweet

Best Books

I'm proud to say that I supper upped my reading game in 2024.  I'm surrounded by a bunch of readers in my family, so that helps.  But also, as I mentioned earlier, I had time everyday to sit on the playground while my daughter played with her classmates.  And I found physical books to be a great way to force myself to get away from my phone, and to give my eyes a chance to rest from the bright screen.

• Earthsea Series - Ursula Le Guin - Wow.  I'm so glad my wife hipped me to this series.  A different kind of wizards and dragons saga.  I love the sacredness of language throughout the books.  The characters have so much wisdom and courage.  I hope to read the books again.  
• Exhalation - Ted Chiang - Super cool sci-fi short stories.  There was one fascinating story about a middle-aged father and his college graduate daughter and how the dad misremembers things that are so fundamental to their relationship that it had me feeling floored about how my own relationships might be skewed in my version of events. He spliced this story with a tribal story about people that don’t write words (don't even have a word for “word”) and allow their truth to shift based on what feels right. 
• Dune Series (Books 2-4) - Frank Herbert - I decided to properly read Dune Messiah--I had previously only audiobooked it--and it opened up some new views on the book to me.  Then I got to discussing the book with my cousin which I so thoroughly enjoyed that I decided to keep going in the series and to do a bit of a long-distance book club with my cousin.  The series got me thinking about the difference between villains and heroes, the difficulty of knowing the past ("The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you."), and the different strengths of men vs. women.  And I generally love a good hero's journey story. 
• Underland - Robert Macfarlane - I had audibooked this before, but the allure and mythos of the world beneath our feet drew me back in.  His writing is amazing and his accounts transport me out into the great outdoors.  

Best TV

• Shogun - Episodes 1-6 or so were riveting and fresh.  It started to drag a bit toward the end for Val and me, but it was overall a great show.
• 3-Body Problem - Good SciFi show.
• Better Call Saul - I rewatched this whole show.  It's a masterpiece.  It works for me like a great literary classic, like a Dostoevsky novel where I'm seeing the raging conflict in the characters and how the law is imposing its will.
• Lost - Now that the show has run its course I thought I'd try revisiting it.  Season 1 especially, and 2 to a slightly lesser extent, are incredible TV.  Emotional, philosophically fascinating, and revolutionary for the genre.  Seasons 3 through 4 (where I am now) slow down a bit but there are some real gems in there too.  I have the benefit of seeing which episodes are worth skipping.  I'm interested to see if I can make sense of the finale when it comes to that.   

Best Movies

• Dune - A lot of Dune in my lists, but this movie was awesome.  The cliche term of "visual storytelling" is right on the nose for what Denis Villenuve is doing with this project.  Coupling the reading of the books with the watching of these movies has been a thrill for me.  I love the complicated hero arc we get with Paul Atreides.  
• The Taste of Things - This was one of those rare experiences where I was really glad we watched a non-blockbuster movie in the theater.  Val and I were transported as soon as there was a 20-minute or so wordless opening scene of a small cooking team preparing a decadent meal for a fancy 19th century feast.  
• Furiosa - I saw this on the airplane.  I loved the Dementis character.  For having the appearance of a sand-dune gear-head movie about violence and fast cars, there was actually a lot of plot depth about being trapped into your harsh circumstances.  

Best Games

• Crew - A card game that draws on principles of trick-taking games like bridge, but makes it collaborative and gives you 50 different missions that build up in difficulty, and adds other interesting curveballs like "broken communications".  4 of us tracked our score on completing all 50 missions over the course of a few months and had a great time doing it.
• Dune - My brother-in-law bought this 1960's game for us to play as a group of 6.  It is INTENSE.  You become one of 6 factions (Atreides, Bene Gesserit, Harkonnen, etc.) and you can form alliances and bargain while you try to get a majority of the 5 strongholds on the board while avoiding the great sandstorms and harvesting spice and on-worlding enough troops to engage in battles.  We played twice and it took us like 5 or 6 hours each time.  
• Tetris (Game Boy) - 2024 was a great year for me as my brother and I reached new heights of accomplishments, particularly in B-type play.

Best Films of 2017-2023 (2023)

 Back by popular demand (i.e., my brother-in-law asked me if I have made my 2023 list), here is my list of the best movies for each year going back to 2017.  (My last best-of movies list was in 2016 (which I slighly updated (Best Films of 2016)).)

My method is to look at the top 200 grossing films for a given year and then filter for my favorites starting from there.  Although, now that a lot of movies are coming direct to streaming it throws off the box office figures so I have to scan through some other year-end lists and rack my brain a bit to make sure I capture everything.  

I show the box office ranks in parentheses.  No spoilers.  

Best of 2023

1. Oppenheimer (5) - A solid Christopher Nolan installment.  I appreciated the stylistic choices to lay out the drama (e.g., political intrigue, different color palettes, tense interviews, sciency transition shots, etc.), and I was moved by the scene where he's giving his "victory" speech immediately following the detonation.  
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (3) - Very pleasantly surprised by this film.  It was kind of a throwaway movie-watching experience since I was on a road trip in Idaho with my pre-teen daughter and we were looking for something fun to do.  But then when the movie started I remembered that this is part of the Spiderman graphic novel-type series I'm currently digging and not the interminable series with a revolving-door of lead actors and stakes that are getting so cosmically grand that I can't manage to keep caring much.  Anyways, the villain is fun and the artistic design and creativity is astounding.  The scene where Miles and Gwen are hanging upside down in Manhattan with the beautiful skyline behind them is gorgeous.  Gwen also reminded me of my daughter and her hard-core rock-climbing buddies so that made it fun.  
3. Wonka (20) - Based on the previews and the abysmal Tim Burton / Johnny Depp "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie a few years back, I was really not expecting to enjoy this movie.  But it was light and fun, and it had great music, and I loved the set design and the look & feel of all Wonka's gadgetry.  Chalamet had a lot more charisma here than I anticipated.  It was a fun Christmas movie for our whole family.  
4. Asteroid City (66) - Maybe a bit overly stylized.  I had to watch it over 3 sittings.  Beautiful, and some great chuckles at times.  But I don't find the magic in Wes Anderson's recent films like in the old ones.  
5. Creed III (16) - I loved the first Creed, but this one was just "good".  
6. Elemental (17) - Decent Pixar film.  Their films are getting a little formulaic, but I still ended up liking this movie a little more than I expected based on some "meh" reviews.  
7. M3GAN (26) - A.I. stuff.  A quirky, scary film.  

Movies I'm Eager to Watch (In Order)

1. The Boy and the Heron (58)
2. Anatomy of a Fall (146)
3. Past Lives (100)
4. The Taste of Things (?)
5. Killers of the Flower Moon (36)

Movies I'm Not that Eager to Watch

1. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (13) - I feel like I already saw the movie based on some of the social media campaigns they did showing Tom Cruise jump off a cliff on his motorbike.  
2. Barbie (1) - Val and my oldest daughter watched this and didn't care for it much, so I'll probably pass.

Best Films of 2017-2023 (2022)

 Best of 2022

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once (27) - An incredible turn by Michelle Yeoh.  Being married to a Singaporean, I especially loved hearing her Malysian mannerisms / accent come out, and her harshly playful relationship with her husband.  I think it helped that Val and I watched this over 2 sittings as I've heard some people complain that the movie dragged a bit.  Overall, the movie created that cinematic magic I hope for in a movie where I'm transported in a deep or whimsical way.  
2. The Banshees of Inisherin (83) - The opening scenes had some of the best cinematography I've seen in a while.  The movie really makes you feel like you've taken a trip to a remote island in Ireland.  The story stays simple & tight with dramatic conflict and excellent acting.  The conflict part of the story wasn't so enjoyable for me since it kind of evoked some thoughts about the annoying conflicts my kids go through where I can't find a good solution to make things fair.  But the fact that this story was an allegory of the Irish Civil War makes me appreciate the need for messy conflicts in the story.  
3. Top Gun: Maverick (1) - It was fun getting to watch this in Air Force country: San Diego.  It did a great job of making the viewer just appreciate the beauty and power of fighter jets.  No CGI (or at least minimal if they did).  
4. The Fabelmans (67) - A good Spielbergian experience.  
5. Matilda The Musical (Netlix) - A treat of a movie out of nowhere.  Our family really enjoyed it and we're looking forward to watching the musical in March.  
6. The Menu (42) - This one kinda lost me, but it was OK.  The protagonist's commitment to his foodyism was comical.  
7. Turning Red (60) - OK
8. Minions: The Rise of Gru (6) - Fun for the kids.  I can't keep track of which plot belongs to which movie.  

Movies I Didn't Much Care For

1. Ticket to Paradise (28) - I kinda don't love their onscreen chemistry.  My least favorite parts of Oceans 11-13 were their scenes together.  This movie was kind of a dud for a date-night.  
2. Glass Onion (62) - I totally loved Knives Out but I found this follow-up installment too... I don't know, self-indulgent, politicized, faux clever.  Really didn't like it.  
3. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2) - Pretty lousy follow-up, and way too long.  
4. Avatar: The Way of Water (4) - For someone that absolutely loved the first movie, I was surprised that I couldn't even get through the first half hour of the film.  And on a long plane ride no less.

Movies I'm Eager to Watch (In Order)

1. Aftersun (156)
2. Nope (14)
3. Tár (95)

Movies I'm Not that Eager to Watch

1. The Whale (100) - Val saw this and said it's pretty disturbing but that Brendan Fraser is quite convincing in it.  So that's probably all I need to know.  

Best Films of 2017-2023 (2021)

Best of 2021

1. Dune (13) - One of my favorites in a long time.  This got me super into the novels and the whole Dune world.  I loved the look of the movie, the world-building, the casting, all of it.  Can't wait for the sequel(s).
2. Power of the Dog (Netflix) - A harrowing story in multiple ways.  Beautiful landscapes.  
3. The Tragedy of Macbeth (Netflix) - Not my favorite version of the story, but some neat interpretations of various scenes--in particular the 3 witch sisters.  Denzel's personality was a little too overbearing for us.  
4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2) - Given my expectations, this was actually a really cool movie.  My Asian in-laws don't care for it, but I thought it was cool the way the movie bridged the gap between traditional martial arts films and the Marvel machine, and it was fun to see Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh reprise some action / romance sequences from their younger glory days.  The ending was messy, but there was a lot to like up until that point.  
5. Sing 2 (17) - Fun family movie.
6. Encanto (15) - Ditto.

Movies I Didn't Much Care For

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home (1) - I went into this with a good attitude, and was digging it for the first 20-30 minutes but then the plot got a little out of hand / long and I didn't care for it as much.  

Movies I'm Eager to Watch (In Order)

1. The French Dispatch (52)
2. Drive My Car (175)
3. King Richard (57)

Movies I'm Not that Eager to Watch

1. No Time to Die (7)
2. West Side Story (38)