Best 2016

I really don’t know how folks release their lists before year’s end.

Here are my 50 favorite songs of last year, ordered for (with luck) listening pleasure rather than rank, bracketed by two compositions from Undertale.

Be warned: this is sugar through-and-through. There’s not much on here that I’d consider quiet or introspective. Certainly nothing you could call acoustic. I’m embarrassed by the hip-hop portion’s tiny size. There’s no overlap with either Pitchfork’s top 100 tracks or top 50 albums. Nelly shows up twice. Yeah, that’s what this is like.

Best 2016

 

It’s wild to me that writing is understood to be difficult enough that “writer” is a full-time job/title that few of us hold and yet, when we end up in an online argument, we almost exclusively use writing to tackle topics so complex that thousands of published books still haven’t put them to rest.

 

I can’t think of a discussion on this platform, even between people in agreement, that isn’t rife with misunderstanding & miscommunication. What’s worse, any argument lacks charity on the grace of it being an argument. I can’t count the number of times over the past year that I’ve started a comment or reply and realized my participation is 100000% hopeless.

 

I don’t mean to share well-worn directives like “discussions on the internet are unimportant” or “Facebook pales in comparison with a head-to-head heart-to-heart.” But does anyone else feel the same way? That you can’t win an argument here because an argument never existed, the win conditions are unknown, and you’re also incapable of winning due to your own personal limitations?

Home Alone With Blood #1

 

No, no, he hasn’t been left alone WITH blood- You know what this is about. Stop being coy.

December 2016

“Aces High” makes me want to watch Empire, “Immigrants (We Get The Job Done)” makes me want to see Hamilton, Steve Aoki’s remix of “Welcome to the Black Parade” makes me want to be sixteen again, “DMT and Whiskey” was the last song Jacosa played for me before she died.

The Best of 2016 is just around the corner. This will do more than merely tide you over.

December 2016

 

“Popeyes is Perfect and You Are The Problem” by Spencer Hall

American Idol loser Bo Bice doesn’t seem to understand that Popeyes is a metaphysical force.

World War 1 seen through Battlefield

This may be my favorite glitch video of all time.

I don’t say that lightly. Each glitch highlighted could be its own video, but the editor never lets any shot outstay its welcome. Not to mention the variety of glitches on display! You have incidental game fuck-ups (tracers hovering frozen in the air, characters falling through floors) and forced reality-benders resulting from player input (anything involving planes colliding, soldiers riding on biplanes). Took me until about halfway through to realize that the audio track is from a commercial for the game.