2018: Best-Ofs Pt. 1
There are but six hours left in this year and it is the first time I’ve been back to this blog since I set it up on a whim this time last year (could this unintentional, habit-less hiatus be more of a cliché?). Perhaps this will be a mere annual receptacle for end-of-year lists and reflections. We’ll see. I’m used to typing in Word documents for postgrad study and Google Docs for work, but for any kind of free-wheeling, purposeless observation I am usually tapping on a phone keyboard. And it is usually in the setting of an Instagram caption or story. But I am keen to get out of those squares more often. We need to create the internet we wish to participate in. And I do not want to be a scrolling, dribbling, red-bubble-attention-gobbling automaton. I love blogs. I keep a tight selection on Feedly and eagerly await each update. So why not create as well as consume. An over-sharing, over-critical, weird mix of sincerity and irony could be coming with more regularity to a blog reader near you. But again, we’ll see.
For now we have some lists to consider. 2018 was the year that I ‘remembered’ the pleasure of music. Ryan and Grace each composed a delicious playlist during our time in Chianti and from that point on I wanted to be that person that could dial up a playlist for a party. I didn’t ever want to be in that position of bluetooth-ing yesteryear’s tired old tracks. Age is not the factor, of course not, it’s a matter of taste. I wanted to be the person that reminded everyone of a heyday song that had been unforgivably forgotten. That is so often the way for me: my gateway motivation is shamefully narcissistic. Or, to put it another way, I am motivated by a crystalline image of the person I want to be. But, by some stroke of grace, I am delivered from my stupid self and am allowed to dissolve into the identity of the creation. No party ego. Just joy. This music list is pretty redundant because I technically don’t have to rely on memory or discretion any longer. I could just passively repost the list that Spotify generated for me. But – I promise – this is a list from my heart, not my data.
This year I loved listening to:
Badbadnotgood – after their show at the King’s Arms and then their Laneway appearance I was transfixed. I played all of their tracks an embarrassing number of times. I would annoy Ryan by singing saxophone solos – the most maddening kind of earworm to replicate with the humble human voice. Not cool.
Sufjan Stevens – on the back of my Dad’s motorbike I listened to the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack and the Carrie and Lowell Live album all around the South Island, Te Wai Pounamou. Something about being in transit, being at the mercy of my Dad’s driving (not being flippant here – my life felt in his hands in a big, healing kind of way) made me well up with tears as these humble little string picks washed over me.
serpentwithfeet – in the kitchen at Turakina Street I played this song as I cooked meal after meal and drank supermarket chardonnay from my ceramic beaker. I wasn’t intentionally concealing my alcohol consumption. Or maybe I was. Less drinking occurred in the second half of the year.
Marlon Williams – if 2017 was all about Aldous, this year was all about Marlon. This album was another heavy feature on my motorbike playlist. Especially in the South. Listening to this as we rolled down the West Coast via my silly little red Beats buds layered underneath my silly motorbike balaclava underneath my silly sporty Schuberth helmet was one of the biggest joys of my whole year. Tears are always a metric of success when evaluating a work of art, right?
Moses Sumney – another Laneway introduction. Wow, so much for being a taste-maker. Luckily that ego dissolution kicks in pretty quick and I give into the art form of the festival curator. 2018 is where the word curation officially went to die an ironic death in a fire of non-ironic fervour. This death makes me really feel for those that practise curation earnestly. So I will practise precision and use the word where it is deserved. Thank you, festival curators! Sumney was a god on stage – robbed of a later slot but holding his own in the afternoon stupour. We love this song because of the personal telegraphing to the political and back again. Like every relationship.
BROCKHAMPTON – Okay so I’m officially giving up on my dream to become a taste-maker by this point in the list. Beautiful little teens have known this for a long time, but this boy band extravaganza just gets me every time. Love this track in particular for its emo truth, but equally love the twitchy bangers. Ryan went to see their all-ages show this year at the shitty Logan Campbell Centre and for all the reported sound woes and typical underage behaviour it remains the biggest regret of my year that I did not also hustle for a ticket. What an old lady.
Steely Dan – Still going hard on dad rock. Really hope this isn’t Freudian.
Nina Simone – Got a lot a livin’ to do before I die, she says in the intro. This song is so potent that it makes me wish, masochistically, that I could live through a heartbreak again. The current trajectory of my life doesn’t make that likely but, hey, perhaps such an overly-confident comment will serve as the ultimate hubris and precipitate an undignified fall. Upon which this song will become personally relevant rather than just observationally perfect.
BRB for more lists.