→ January 4, 2020
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Stick to baseball, 1/4/20.

Happy New Year! I skipped last week since it was the holidays and I was offline quite a bit, but in the last couple of weeks I had a bunch of year-end board game posts, including my top 10 games of 2019 for Paste, my best games of the year by category for Vulture, and the top 8 board game apps of 2019 for Ars Technica.

My free email newsletter will return on Monday, time and health (I’m sick yet again) permitting. My second book, The Inside Game, will be out on April 21st and is available for pre-order.

And now, the links…

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→ December 31, 2019
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Dark Money (book).

Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right is the most horrifying book I read all year – but it’s not a horror novel, just a work of well-investigated, well-argued non-fiction that details how archconservative billionaires, usually mad over having to pay taxes, have spent hundreds of millions or more of their own money to buy control of our government. Their efforts helped catapult the retrograde right-wing of the Republican Party from the fringes to the party’s new core, gave them control of the legislative and executive branches, and have, for the last two years, allowed them to pack the federal judiciary with judges who agree with their reactionary views on taxation, environmental regulations, and women’s rights. If this book doesn’t horrify you, you must be one of them.

The main target of Dark Money is the Koch brothers, David (who just died this August) and Charles, who run the second-largest closely held company in the United States. Before David’s death, each was worth around $50 billion, each had longstanding individual efforts to avoid paying taxes, and their company had decades of violations of environmental regulations, including dumping benzene, a known human carcinogen that we absorb by breathing its vapors, into the air near their oil refinery in Corpus Christi. The Kochs’ response to these various federal actions against them has been to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into various front groups that donate to legislative and gubernatorial candidates who promise, in turn, to roll back environmental protections or to push tax cuts for the highest brackets; and to fund professorships at various universities where the positions will go to so-called “free-market advocates” and where the Koch brothers may have had say in hiring. Along with other anti-tax, anti-regulation billionaires, including the DeVos family, Wilbur Ross, John Olin, Art Pope, and more, the Kochs helped found the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation; spent hundreds of millions fighting climate reform; and helped fund massive gerrymanders in states from Ohio and Pennsylvania to North Carolina. They’ve packaged most of these policies, which help them directly or indirectly by helping the businesses they own, as issues of “freedom,” while tying some of them to issues that matter to social conservatives, so that they might convince enough voters to swing their way even when those policies (such as eliminating laws or regulations that fight pollution) would hurt those voters themselves.

Even if you agree with some of the positions that these billionaires are pushing, Mayer’s main thesis here is that our democracy has been bought by a tiny number of people, so that fewer than 20 of these billionaires are setting wide swaths of federal and state policies for a country of 300 million. It is improbable that this extreme minority, all of whom are white and quite old, nearly all of whom are male, and all of whom are in the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% of Americans by wealth, would all agree among themselves on policies that are also beneficial to the country as a whole … but even if, improbably, they did so, that’s not how our system of government is supposed to work, and not how most Americans think it works. But, as Mayer describes through her history of the Kochs and of the way money has metastasized throughout our political system, since Citizens United – a Supreme Court ruling that resulted from funding by the Koch brothers and their allies – this is exactly how our government works. Billionaires buying the policies they want is a feature, not a bug.

Mayer also goes into the Nazi roots of the Kochs’ fortune; it is unlikely that the brothers would have become this wealthy had their father not helped Adolf Hitler build a major oil refinery in Hamburg that let the Nazis refine high-octane fuel for their warplanes. Fred Koch, Charles’ and David’s father, also helped Joseph Stalin develop the Soviets’ then-moribund oil industry, helping ensure the dictator’s grip on power and setting the stage for the Cold War after the second World War. It’s estimated they spent nearly $900 million in the 2016 election to try to elect their favored, hard-right Republicans to state legislatures across the country and ensure control of both houses of Congress. Is that possible if Fred Koch doesn’t take Hitler’s money?

There isn’t a simple solution to the problems Mayer details in Dark Money, and she doesn’t pretend there are, instead pointing out every policy change and judicial decision that created this particular monster. Lax IRS regulations have allowed billionaires to funnel money into “non-profits” that don’t have to disclose their donors but manage to skirt rules against such groups funding candidates. Citizens United gave corporations the free speech rights previously reserved for individuals. A lack of federal rules on soft money, donated to groups (like Super PACs) but not directly to candidates, has further enabled the wholesale purchasing of legislators; corporations can’t contribute directly to candidates, but they can fund Super PACs, which can then campaign for or against candidates as long as they aren’t coordinating with the candidates they support. None of this will change soon; it certainly won’t change as long as this version of the Koch-funded Republican Party retains control of the Senate, the White House, and much of the federal judiciary. A huge part of the power of Dark Money is that Mayer channels her obvious indignation into providing more details on the shady (yet legal!) behavior of these billionaires, rather than just delivering a screed on the subject, even though the desire to deliver a screed would be easy to understand.

I don’t think boycotts accomplish a whole lot – they require such enormous coordination, and the presence of viable alternatives – but I am at least trying to avoid spending my money with companies owned by these reactionary billionaires and other companies that support their efforts (such as by funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative lobbying group that goes so far as to write bills for their member legislators to submit). I wouldn’t shop at Menard’s if I lived in the Midwest, not with its owner helping fund fights against unions and saying he “doesn’t believe in environmental regulations.” I won’t buy paper goods from Georgia Pacific, although I’m realistic – if I buy a new house, or do some renovations, I probably have no say over where any plywood or OSB comes from. And I don’t think I’m going to move the needle with any of these companies; I would just rather know my money isn’t going directly to help the subjugation of our democracy.

Next up: I’m reading a pair of Evelyn Waugh novels – first The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, and then Black Mischief.

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→ December 30, 2019
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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Quentin Tarantino is one of the most frustrating filmmakers working today, a brilliant author of dialogue with a unique eye for scene and setting, prone to bombast, pretension, and general excess that nearly always ends up detracting from even his best movies. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (now on amazon & iTunes) is one of the best things he’s done, and it’s also way too long and frequently too clever by half, buoyed by a pair of tremendous lead performances and burdened by the lack of interesting women and a meandering plot.

Once is another alternate history, in a similar vein to Inglourious Basterds and even Django Unchained, although this time around Tarantino’s playing with facts is subtler until the film’s climax. He gives us two lead characters, TV actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double/personal assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), and follows them from the end of Dalton’s star turn on a TV western Bounty Law through a dry spell that eventually leads him to work against type as the ‘heavy’ and to star in some spaghetti westerns, all in the late 1960s. Their paths intersect multiple times with Dalton’s neighbors, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha, his first English-language film role), and with a group of hippies who just happen to be living on the Spahn Ranch under the spell of a charismatic cult leader named Charles Manson (Damon Herriman, reprising his role from Mindhunter and a damn good likeness). Cliff picks up a flirtatious hitchhiker (Margaret Qualley) who brings him back to the ranch, which helps set the plot on its alternate path away from actual events and gives us the most Tarantino-esque part of the film, the over-the-top violence in the big finish.

This movie is quite good, almost great, but it’s way too long. All three of Tarantino’s feature films since the death of his longtime editor Sally Menke have run 160+ minutes; Menke edited all of his films before she died, and none ran that long unless you want to consider Kill Bill as a single film. There is so much fat to trim from this film that you could easily have brought it home in close to two hours; the entire tangent showing Rick working in Italy is wasted time, and many scenes, including most of the driving scenes in L.A. and Rick’s tantrum in his trailer after he flubs his lines on set, could have been cut by half without losing anything of merit.

That criticism shouldn’t take away from how strongly Tarantino establishes this setting from the start of the film. It looks incredible in every aspect – clothes, hair, cars, background – and sounds just as good. If Tarantino was trying to capture a specific moment in time at a specific place, he nailed it, both in terms of this golden age of Hollywood and the post-Summer of Love counterculture movement that helped give rise to the Manson cult. Some exposition early in the movie – the scene at the playboy mansion, which gives us a great cameo from Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen – does help establish the setting, and to try to put the audience under the spell of the film, which might have held all the way to the climax had Tarantino not gone off on multiple needless digressions like Rick’s brief career in spaghetti westerns.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is also full of Tarantino signatures, which is mostly a positive thing. There’s tons of quick, snappy dialogue, especially in the many movie/TV show scenes within this movie, including DiCaprio’s Oscar-reel moment where he’s playing the villain in a western and gets to chew the scenery with the help of a precocious actress playing the little girl his character has kidnapped. There are cameos galore, including Lewis, Bruce Dern, and Lena Dunham (who … doesn’t really work here), as well as the stunt-casting of children of famous actors as many of the Manson followers (Qualley is Andie MacDowell’s daughter; we spotted the children of Ethan Hawke/Uma Thurman and Demi Moore/Bruce Willis, while director Kevin Smith’s daughter is here too). The movie is full of references and callbacks to other Tarantino films, a few of which I caught, including the dead-obvious riff on Inglourious Basterds. And it wouldn’t be a Tarantino film with lots of vaguely creepy closeups of women’s feet, especially the bizarre shot of Margot Robbie’s as Tate is watching herself in a movie theater and enjoying the positive reaction the audience has to her scenes, which is kind of ruined by the way her feet, propped on the seat in front of her, ruin the perspective of the shot and make her head (covered with comically large eyeglasses) seem so small in comparison.

Between the sheer ambition of the movie, Tarantino’s reputation, and the fact that it’s a movie about movies, this feels like a lock for a Best Picture nomination. I’m assuming Pitt will submit for Best Supporting Actor, and will absolutely get a nomination, while DiCaprio seems likely to get one for Best Actor. The most prominent actress in the film is Robbie, whose lack of dialogue has received much coverage already (with merit), and while I think she does the most she can to use body language to infuse Tate’s character with that of the promising ingenue, about to embark on a career of stardom, there just isn’t enough for her to do on screen. Qualley might have more dialogue, and if there was any doubt after The Leftovers that she could be a star, this ought to end it, but she’s also a side character and only in the movie for maybe 20 minutes. Beyond that, I could see Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and definitely Best Cinematography for the unusual shifts in perspective that Tarantino employs to change your sense of scale, including the wide shots of the Spahn Ranch and the party at the Playboy Mansion (where Dreama Walker plays Connie Stevens in a wig that perfectly mimics Stevens’ look in 1969), and one for Best Makeup and Hairstyling too. For what it’s worth, though, I wouldn’t vote for this over Parasite for the top honor.

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→ December 26, 2019
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Girl, Woman, Other.

The Booker Prize committee ignored the rules of their own award when they gave the 2019 Booker to two titles, claiming they couldn’t break the tie. The co-winners, Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, the sequel to her prescient novel The Handmaid’s Tale; and Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, are both ardently feminist works that attack serious cultural issues of our moment in time, the former going after our deteriorating political environment, the latter the singular experiences of women of color, especially those who are also LGBTQ+. I haven’t read the former yet, but the latter is at the same time a thoughtful and engrossing set of intertwined tales of a dozen women spanning multiple generations, and a pretentious bit of prose gimmickry that often reads like a student parody of e.e. cummings.

Girl, Woman, Other is a novel of intersectionality – every character in it fits into at least two cultural minority groups, usually women of color, but also with several characters who are lesbians, trans, or otherwise LGBTQ+, and several of whom are or grew up economically disadvantaged. Evaristo depicts this through their own stories, which vary from the tragic to the darkly comic, which themselves intersect with each other in varying ways, sometimes rather slightly while at other times deeply woven together. Each of the stories, however, at least attempts to depict some aspect of women’s experiences in a modern world that is at the same time the best situation in modern history for women of color and for LGBTQ+ people and also still full of barriers and challenges, often all the more frustrating for how needless and outdated they are, to anyone who isn’t straight, white, male, and well-off.

The hazard of a short-story novel like Girl, Woman, Other is that the form rarely gives the reader time or depth to connect with any individual characters, and I think that is generally true here since characters appear prominently in their own stories and mostly vanish beyond them. Amma, the black lesbian playwright of the opening story and whose major production serves as the connection point for many of the stories herein, is the strongest and most fully developed character, but her own history is more of a foundation in the book than a compelling story in its own right, while that of her ex-girlfriend Dominique, who follows a domineering militant lesbian vegan feminist to a commune in the United States, is the most interesting for plot but also maddening for her own inability to recognize when she’s being gaslit and abused. (Not that these things don’t happen regularly in the real world.) The most balanced stories are those that reach back into the past and follow a character from youth to her old age, such as the teacher Shirley, who is disillusioned by the school where she works and the declining efforts of her students but dedicates herself to working with any student she thinks has the potential to move beyond their current circumstances.

The real downfall of Girl, Woman, Other, however, is the prose style, which mimics stream-of-consciousness poetry but becomes extremely tiresome over 400+ pages. Far too much of the book comprises sentences fragments, missing punctuation or capitalization, or half-finished thoughts, which might work well for a single chapter here but becomes overbearing by the end of the book. Evaristo is trying to imitate a style of thought, but these twelve women can’t possibly all think the same way, and giving them all the same voice through one hackneyed device serves to diminish their individuality as characters when the entire point of the book seems to be to celebrate the uniqueness of each of them, and of every reader as well.

I did fly through the book, since several of the chapters were fascinating and read like strong novellas, and because the prose style leaves so much white space on each page that the book isn’t as long as the page count might indicate. Maybe the cultural import of the book, the exposure of intersectional issues to the wider audience, was enough to justify it winning the prize (along with what sounds like a lifetime achievement award for Atwood). Maybe as a straight white male reader, I didn’t get some of what Evaristo was trying to express. I believe, however, that I understood enough of the points of the novel to know that the way in which she told the story was what kept me at arm’s length from its content.

Next up: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven.

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→ December 21, 2019
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Stick to baseball, 12/21/19.

I wrote two ESPN+ pieces this week, on the Madison Bumgarner contract and the Corey Kluber trade. I didn’t chat this week as I’m preparing for the holidays and had a lot of personal business that required my time.

On the board gaming front, I ranked the top ten games of 2019 for Paste and the best board games of 2019 by category for Vulture. I’ll have a piece up this weekend on Ars Technica ranking the best board game apps of the year. Also for Paste, I ran down the best games I saw at PAX Unplugged earlier this month.

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, comes out on April 21st from William Morrow (Harper Collins). You can pre-order it now through that link or wherever delicious books are sold.

And now, the links…

  • The Mormon Church has built up a $100 billion fund they claimed was for “charitable” purposes, but has hoarded much of the money and only made distributions to two for-profit businesses owned by the church, which if true is a massive case of tax fraud.
  • Professor Julie Sedivy writes about rediscovering her parents’ native tongue, Czech, after her father died, and how the process reconnected her with her roots.
  • I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and have been struck by just how much of a creep Richard Feynman appears to be in his own telling. It turns out I’m far from the only one who noticed, and, worse, his second wife accused him of physical and verbal abuse. To make it worse, the audio version has its own problems, such as the narrator trying to imitate non-American accents, with an especially cringey version of a Japanese accent that might make Krusty the Clown blush.
  • Over at the Atlantic, Amanda Mull says enough with the year-end rankings, and while I agree there are a lot of those posts, I think she misses a large part of the point: They become both conversation starters, which is one of the main reasons I post rankings here, and ways to find new music or books or movies you might not have heard about previously.
  • Clint Eastwood is clearly a chauvinist asshole, with his new film, Richard Jewell, fabricating a story about a real journalist offering sex in exchange for information – a story that never happened, about a journalist who has since passed away and can’t defend herself. Ankita Rao writes in the Guardian how harmful this pervasive stereotype is.
  • I guess one good thing about the ongoing measles epidemic in the U.S. is that it is waking up more media outlets to the existential threat anti-vaxxers pose. Men’s Health has a column from Jacqueline Detwiler on how scientific BS has brought measles back, and how we can fight for science against denialists.
  • A bill in the New Jersey legislature to end non-medical exemptions to mandatory schoolchild vaccinations – which is only rational, since there are no religious prohibitions on vaccinations, and if you have a “philosophical” objection to vaccination then you can just home-school your kid – stalled in the Senate after vocal protests from anti-vaxxers. The Newark Star-Ledger’s editorial board commented by saying that the anti-vaxxer movement has gone off the rails, comparing vaccinations to “hate crimes.” Do you live in New Jersey? Find your legislators and call them Monday to let them know you support this bill.
  • The Washington Post‘s Dave Sheinen profiles fringe relief prospect Gabe Klobosits to talk about how the proposed cuts to minor league baseball might impact players at the margins of organized baseball. It’s a good piece, but I think it’s an anecdotal argument that doesn’t consider how many other players like Klobosits never pan out (and he hasn’t yet) and what the overall cost is to employ and develop those players, and additional coaches and staffers, in the hopes you’ll find one or two hidden big leaguers.
  • A disabled artist designed a hotel room that is deliberately difficult to stay in, trying to mimic the experience disabled people have in rooms designed solely for the non-disabled, for the Art B&B in Blackpool, England.
  • I do like my elite status when I get it, so this New Yorker piece on the madness of airline elite status hit rather close to home.
  • The Department of Agriculture listed Wakanda as a trade partner, trading ducks, donkeys, and dairy cows with the U.S., even though Wakanda is a fictional country. We have handed the keys to our government to the dumbest possible people.
  • China responded too slowly to a pig virus called African swine fever, leading to an epidemic and fears it will spread beyond China’s borders.
  • I’d never heard of Bolze, a French-German hybrid language spoken in a small town in the canton of Fribourg, before finding this BBC Travel post about the language and its associated culture.
  • The Anti-Defamation League now lists the ‘ok’ hand gesture as a symbol of hate, depending on context, of course.
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→ December 19, 2019
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Top 100 songs of the 2010s.

I’ve been thinking about this post for six years, and now it’s here, and I don’t want to be done with it. We’re all watching the decade end, though, and while the world is changing in the blink of an eye, it’s a fine time to draw a line and put my name to a ranking of my favorite songs of the last ten years. It’s a rock/indie-heavy list, as you might expect, and this reflects my personal tastes, not anyone else’s, considering neither commercial success nor critical opinions (although I may refer to either herein). I don’t adhere to previous rankings of songs by year, because while the songs haven’t changed, my opinions certainly have. My ranking of the top 25 albums of the decade went up yesterday.

I’ve put these songs into a Spotify playlist, in ascending order. You can use that link if you can’t see the widget below.

100. Savages – “She Will.”

The best track from the female quartet who brought feminist indignation to their heavy punk debut album Silence Yourself.

99. Mark Ronson feat. Q-Tip – “Bang Bang Bang.”

Ronson will forever be known as the man behind “Uptown Funk” (well, the parts he didn’t steal from the GAP Band), but he’s more than just that one song, having produced Amy Winehouse’s Rehab and released quite a bit of other music, including this 2010 hit with a contribution from one of my favorite MCs.

98. Foster the People – “Are You What You Wanna Be?”

From the maligned Supermodel LP, which did poorly enough that Mark Foster turned his group back towards pure pop music, this track opens the concept album and shows Foster’s idea of incorporating music from different parts of the world in a traditional pop/rock framework.

97. Sleater-Kinney – “Bury Our Friends.”

The best song from the trio’s comeback album No Cities to Love, which was their first record in a decade and was followed by this year’s The Center Won’t Hold.

96. Drenge – “Bloodsports.”

Drenge’s self-titled debut album remains the best distillation of the guitar-and-drum duo sound that had a bit of a moment in the middle of this decade on the heels of White Stripes’ success. There are a half-dozen great songs on the record but this has a particularly good guitar groove that stuck with me.

95. Kendrick Lamar, the Weeknd – “Pray for Me.”

The Black Panther soundtrack earned much acclaim, although the track that took the awards – “All the Stars,” featuring SZA – wasn’t close to the best on the record for me.

94. The Colourist – “Little Games.”

A one-hit wonder from 2014 that probably would have fit better on pop stations than alternative, with two great hooks in the opening guitar riff and the melody in the chorus.

93. Mastodon – “Show Yourself.”

Mastodon has a well-deserved reputation for lengthy, progressive metal tracks that show off their technical prowess, but this three-minute track distills most of what they do well into something far more listeners will appreciate.

92. New Politics – “Harlem.”

It wasn’t deliberate but I seem to have more pop-oriented tracks near the bottom of this list, including this earworm from the Danish trio that crossed over somewhat to top 40 radio.

91. Broods – “Bridges.”

Broods’ best song to date is still this piano-and-vocal number from their first record before the brother and sister duo turned towards poppier, electronic sounds.

90. Prides – “The Seeds You Sow.”

The Scottish indie duo’s first single, which I found similar to Bastille (in a good way), is still their best, although they’ve had some other solid tracks since then including “Say It Again” and “Let’s Stay In Bed All Day.”

89. Christine & the Queens – “5 dollars.”

The album Chris was the Guardian‘s top album of 2018 and was widely acclaimed by critics, but for a record that turned overtly towards pop it was a bit short on hooks. This song, however, should have crossed over, and I wonder if Héloïse Letissier’s accent held it back.

88. Disclosure – “When a Fire Starts to Burn.”

I had no idea until I wrote this post that Disclosure never officially released this song as a single from their debut album Settle, choosing six other tracks instead. The sampled stanza from motivational speaker Eric Thomas elevates this song beyond anything else on this house-music record for me.

87. CHVRCHES – “Death Stranding.”

This list is a little light on 2019 songs for two reasons – I thought 2019 was a down year for music, and I’m trying not to overrate songs that I’ve listened to more in the past few months. I do think this is the best thing CHVRCHES has done since Every Open Eye.

86. Coeur de Pirate – “Prémonition.”

Béatrice Martin may be done recording as Coeur de Pirate, but this lead single from her possibly-final album under that moniker is tremendous start to finish, a tight, upbeat electronic pop number that builds beautifully from the opening piano to the singalong chorus (if you can sing in French, that is).

85. Jake Bugg – “What Doesn’t Kill You.”

Bugg’s self-titled debut album earned him praise as a young Bob Dylan, and this lead single from his follow-up, Shangri-La, showed he was versatile enough to move into harder rock territory, although he’s since pulled back to quieter folk-rock sounds.

84. Bat for Lashes – “Laura.”

Natasha Khan had quite a decade with The Haunted Man, the concept album The Bride, and this year’s Lost Girls, showing great musical versatility, although I find I like her stuff best when the tempo is slower and her voice takes center stage, as on this piano/vocals number from the first of those albums.

83. whenyoung – “The Others.”

The Irish trio’s debut album Reasons to Dream was one of my favorites of 2019 and was an honorable mention for my top albums of the decade, with this and “A Labour of Love” the top tracks, both showcasing Aoife Power’s voice with strong, shoegazey guitars backing her up.

82. Dan Croll – “Bad Boy.”

This is Croll’s last single to date – released on my birthday in 2017, so, thanks Dan! – but I hope we get more from the English singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who seems to have a good ear for indie-pop melodies.

81. Bat for Lashes – “Desert Man.”

When I assemble these year-end rankings, I don’t curate them beyond comparing song to song – I don’t worry about having an artist have two songs too close to each other (like this one), or in this case putting too many songs together from one year. I just compare each song to the ones around it and re-order until I’m satisfied. Anyway, Bat for Lashes is great and it just so happens I have two of her songs, both of which are built around her voice, in the 80s.

80. INHEAVEN – “World on Fire.”

INHEAVEN’s self-titled debut was a bit of a throwback to the kind of mainstream hard rock to which I grew up listening, but without the overproduced glam elements of hair metal to distract you.

79. The Holidays – “Tongue Talk.”

An Australian indie band that I’m pretty sure broke up after this album (Real Feel), the Holidays had a few catchy hits but this one grabbed me right away for the rhythm guitar line that pops in and out over the course of the song, providing a huge textural contrast between verse and chorus.

78. HAERTS – “All the Days.”

I thought HAERTS would be huge after their first album (#20 on my best albums of the decade list) dropped, with so many radio-friendly, catchy tracks and a great singer out in front in Nini Fabi. This track first showed up on the 2013 EP Hemiplegia and then reappeared on HAERTS, where it was the best song by a shade over “Hemiplegia.”

77. Cloud Nothings – “Stay Useless.”

It’s close for me, but I have this as Cloud Nothings’ best song over “Should Have.” This was a sort of peak for their (his) sound, though, as I don’t think the band has evolved at all since this record.

76. DMA’s – “For Now.”

The Oasis comparisons are fair, but a bit insufficient, I think; Oasis was better, but the DMA’s are influences by the Gallagher brothers without being entirely derivative – it’s more like Oasis cut with some shoegaze-era Ride.

75. Cut Copy – “Need You Now.”

Cut Copy had three songs I considered for this list, including “Black Rainbows” and “Where I’m Going,” eventually landing on this track because I think it’s their most complete, well-rounded song, and because my girlfriend and I discovered it’s a shared favorite.

74. Oh Wonder – “Ultralife.”

Oh Wonder hit this list twice, because when this indie-pop duo is on, they’re way on – the five-note vocal twirl in the bridge and at the end of the chorus is a perfect pop earworm.

73. Slowdive – “Sugar for the Pill.”

Slowdive’s self-titled 2017 album was their first in 22 years, but the record felt like they’d barely been gone other than better production quality, as their classic shoegaze sound was intact and as compelling as before.

72. Superhumanoids – “Norwegian Black Metal.”

My favorite track from one of my favorite albums of the decade, Do You Feel OK?, this actually isn’t a metal song at all, but an electropop jewel featuring the majestic voice of Sarah Chernoff, who has since turned to releasing music under her own name.

71. Jade Bird – “Love Has All Been Done Before.”

This Welsh singer-songwriter seems like a future star off this lead single and her subsequent, eponymous debut album, an uneven but promising folk-rock album that shows off her Janis Joplin-esque voice.

70. Frank Turner – “1933.”

If I was of the greatest generation I’d be pissed
Surveying the world that I built slipping back into this
I’d be screaming at my grandkids: “We already did this”

69. Yeasayer – “O.N.E..”

Yeasayer’s high point to date saw the experimental group diving headfirst into electropop, with some slight world music influences more apparent on the album version (the one on my playlist) than the radio edit.

68. Atlas Genius – “If So.”

Atlas Genius had a solid decade for themselves with this cross-over hit as well as “Trojans,” “Molecules,” and “Stockholm,” although we’ve had just one new song from the Australian duo since their second album Inanimate Objects dropped in 2015.

67. Adele – “Rolling in the Deep.”

Adele’s voice is incredible, but most of her music doesn’t speak to me at all – if I never hear “Hello” again it’ll be too soon – so she’s just represented by this one real outlier track, which I think is easily the best thing she’s done.

66. TV On the Radio – “Mercy.”

This non-album single is the best thing TVotR did this decade … but did you know they haven’t released any music since 2014’s Seeds?

65. Portugal. The Man – “So American.”

I think the general music-listening audience first heard of Portugal. The Man with “Feel It Still,” but that came off their third solid album of the decade; this was from 2011’s In the Mountain in the Cloud, with more progressive rock sounds that pack lots of tonal and tempo shifts inside of 4½ minutes.

64. Jungle – “Busy Earnin’.”

The music collective Jungle was founded by two white Londoners but their music is deeply infused with 1970s soul and funk, as on this debut single’s falsetto vocals and memorable synth brass line.

63. Black Keys – “Lonely Boy.”

I think a lot of Black Keys’ music is fine, but derivative, just derivative done really well; this song, off their 2011 album El Camino, won two Grammys, and I think it’s their best song, with no gimmicky production on the vocals or guitars, and that giant guitar hook that opens the track.

62. Arcade Fire – “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”

One of Arcade Fire’s best tracks is this callback to early ’80s New Wave with lyrics reflecting the culturally bankrupting experience of growing up in the suburban sprawl of Houston.

61. A Tribe Called Quest – “We the People….”

The comeback, and the farewell, began with this prophetic song that slammed the white-nationalist turn of the United States electorate just before it took over the White House in 2016.

60. The Wombats – “This is Not a Party.”

“Greek Tragedy” was a bigger alternative radio hit but I’m partial to this track off Glitterbug thanks to the amusingly ridiculous lyrics and shout-along chorus.

59. St. Lucia – “Elevate.”

If I’d kept going on my best albums of the 2010s ranking to about 40, St. Lucia’s When the Night would have shown up, thanks to this incredible pop track as well as “All Eyes on You” and “September.”

58. Django Django – “Default.”

The proggy art-rock Djangos have continued to record similar music since their self-titled, Mercury Prize-nominated debut record, but “Default” remains their big hit and the sound I think they continue to try to re-create. (“Hail Bop” is a great song from the same album.)

57. San Cisco – “Awkward.”

I’m especially partial to this because my daughter, who was just 5 when the song came out, liked it immediately despite having no concept of the lyrics (it’s about a date from hell because the guy doesn’t get the message that she’s not interested).

56. Janelle Monáe – “Tightrope.”

Given what a multimedia star Monáe is today, it’s kind of hard to believe that a song this good, with a guest appearance by Big Boi, could have so little commercial success at the time of its release. The concept album from which it came, ArchAndroid, was at least critically acclaimed at the time, and I still think it’s her best musical work.

55. Childish Gambino – “This is America.”

A rare case of the Grammys getting one right. Also, give Donald Glover credit from taking his Childish Gambino from a fringy vanity project to the level of a legitimate musical artist on this (apparently last) album.

54. Royal Blood – “Lights Out.”

Not their only song on the list, but it’s still heavy and loud and great.

53. Phantogram – “Black Out Days.”

Sarah Barthel’s best vocal work comes on this track off Voices, which I find has the perfect blend of guitar work and electronica elements out of their oeuvre to date.

52. Speedy Ortiz – “Death Note.”

When I did my top 100 old-school hip-hop songs ranking, a couple of people were mad online that the one Mobb Deep song on the list was a non-album track, “Flavor for the Non-Believes,” rather than one of their more popular hits like “Shook Ones (Part II).” Speedy Ortiz have put out some interesting albums this decade, often reminding me of Helium or the Jesus & Mary Chain, but my favorite track from them is also a non-album one, eventually appearing on their Foiled Again EP.

51. Oh Wonder – “Hallelujah.”

It’s new, so I could change my mind, but right now I think Oh Wonder’s best song is their newest one, which is unapolegetically poppy and catchy and generally great.

50. Bombay Bicycle Club – “Shuffle.”

The rhythm of that piano sample never seems to line up with the rest of the song, yet somehow it works no matter what else gets piled on top of it.

49. Chairlift – “I Belong In Your Arms.”

My introduction to Chairlift was “Bruises,” from this same album, but “I Belong In Your Arms” is a better song and does far more for Caroline Polachek’s wide-ranging voice.

48. Temples – “Holy Horses.”

Maybe my favorite guitar riff of 2019, “Holy Horses” was just one of many great psychedelic-rock tracks from Hot Motion album, although that swirling line is what sets this song apart.

47. Milky Chance – “Stolen Dance.”

I suppose history will call these guys one-hit wonders, even though “Cocoon,” from their second album, is a great song in its own right.

46. Kid Astray – “The Mess.”

This Norwegian indie-pop group has had a slew of fun synth-heavy songs since their debut with “The Mess,” including “Diver,” “Cornerstone,” “Can’t Stop,” “Day in June,” and “Joanne.” This song is just a little crazier and fresher and probably easier to dance to than the rest.

45. Mumford & Sons – “Little Lion Man.”

The worst thing Mumford & Sons ever did was get popular; they went from indie darlings to overplayed platinum artists over the span of a few weeks, and it seemed like in April it was cool to like their debut album Sigh No More but by August it was tired. I admit I haven’t listened to any of their music in years, other than this song, their first hit and still their best song, powered by that staccato strumming in the verses and, of course, the once-surprising F bomb in the chorus.

44. Death Cab for Cutie – “You Are a Tourist.”

If you’ve read this far in the list, or just generally read my thoughts on music, you’ve likely figured out that I can be sold on a song if it has a great guitar riff in it, especially if it leads off with that riff. “You Are a Tourist” is the best guitar riff DCFC has ever produced, although I admit having a hard time leaving “Stay Young, Go Dancing” (also from Codes and Keys) off the top 100.

43. Cloves – “Frail Love.”

Cloves was just 20 or 21 when she recorded the first version of this incredible piano/vocal ballad, although she has that Fiona Apple thing going where her voice sounds like she’s actually 40. I have a high standard for quiet, slow songs like this, but “Frail Love” is devastating and nearly perfect.

42. CHVRCHES – “The Mother We Share.”

The first CHVRCHES song I ever heard is still one of their best, although it’s funny to go back to this now and hear how sparse the production is – and how Lauren Mayberry’s voice still cuts through everything else to make it clear she’s the star of this show.

41. Lemaitre featuring Betty Who – “Rocket Girl.”

This song should have been a huge hit, damn it. Betty Who is so perfect for these lyrics, and Lemaitre put just enough music behind her to fuel the engines. I have some hope that eventually there will be a movie about a woman astronaut and the producers will realize the perfect theme song is already out there.

40. Everything Everything – “Kemosabe.”

When I first heard Everything Everything’s album Arc, I thought this was the best song, but over time I ended up preferring one other song from the record. “Kemosabe” is still great, and I think EE are at their best when they’re at their most dramatic, to the point of histrionics. It’s so over the top, and yet it works.

39. Arctic Monkeys – “Arabella.”

Yeah, okay, that’s the two-chord bit from “War Pigs,” but Black Sabbath didn’t sing about Mexican Cokes and a Barbarella silver swim suit.

38. Grimes – “California.”

This is my favorite track from Art Angels, although that album is such a cohesive work that it feels weird to pull any single song out of it and then exclude similarly great tracks like “Kill v. Maim” or “Flesh Without Blood” or “Venus Fly” (featuring Janelle Monáe).

37. alt-J – “Breezeblocks.”

This was the first alt-J song I heard … and I kind of didn’t like it. Joe Newman’s vocals are offputting, at least at first, but the music is clever and surprising, and the song becomes more intricate as it progresses, so I kept returning to it, and to the album, and within a few weeks I was enraptured. Also, the song is full of Where the Wild Things Are references.

36. Tame Impala – “Solitude is Bliss.”

Kevin Parker’s toddler project – “I do it myself!” – wows the critics, but I find a lot of his songs self-indulgent and wearying. This was the first Tame Impala song I heard, which probably affects my opinion positively (primacy bias!), but I also like that he kept his ambitions contained to a shorter length and simpler structure here.

35. Ceremony – “Turn Away the Bad Thing.”

The lead single and best track from my favorite album of 2019. Ceremony’s transition from punk band to post-punk/new wave sensations mirrors the music scene’s own shift, and while I know some folks miss their first incarnation, this is the best new wave album since the genre died out the first time.

34. The Vaccines – “Teenage Icon.”

A punk-pop gem, kind of amusing lyrically, sung with a sneer and a bit of snark, excellent for making you want to hit the gas pedal.

33. FKA Twigs featuring Future – “holy terrain.”

She’s very talented, so much so that we will overlook that she dated Shia LeBouche. I don’t know that Future adds a lot here; her voice is too compelling to make room for anyone else. “Good to Love” and “sad day” similarly showcase her vocals with strong melodies.

32. Arcade Fire – “Everything Now.”

The album, also called Everything Now, was kind of a mess, and even outright embarrassing in parts (both parts of “Infinite Content”), but this song is peak Arcade Fire: thoughtful lyrics, great melodies, a chorus you want to sing, interesting and lush instrumentation. And here they boost it with a sample from Cameroonian musician Francis Bebey playing what sounds like a pan flute.

31. Glass Animals – “Life Itself.”

Glass Animals’ calling card is weird drum/percussion sounds, and they didn’t disappoint with this lead single from their second album, How to Be a Human Being, which sounds a bit like the drum line is being played on bongos filled with Jell-o.

30. Belle & Sebastian – “The Party Line.”

Belle & Sebastian got hammered a bit for Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance, which was their poppiest record to date … but that’s what I liked about it: They tried something different, keeping essential elements of their sound, and it worked.

29. Bastille – “Pompeii.”

Yes, it was played to death, but it’s a genuinely great song, if quite morbid. And now that duh duh duh bit is in your head.

28. Jamie xx featuring Romy – “Loud Places.”

I’m a bit tepid on the xx themselves, but Jamie xx’s proper solo debut In Colour had some tremendous high points, including this and “See Saw,” that showed he has an ear and a style well beyond the trio themselves have ever shown.

27. Turbowolf – “Domino.”

This hard-rock song kicks the door down and plows right into the room, which I guess isn’t shocking when Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr is a guest artist on the track.

26. Stars – “Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Get It.”

Few songs have grown on me over the course of several years like this one has. “Take the weakest thing in you/And then beat the bastards with it” is one of the greatest lines of the decade.

25. CHVRCHES – “Leave a Trace.”

There are so many CHVRCHES songs I like that it’s odd to think of a single favorite, but this one ends up on top because I think it’s the ideal distillation of their sound, better produced than anything from the first record but still essentially Lauren Mayberry and just the right dose of trip-hoppy electronica behind her.

24. New Pornographers – “Brill Bruisers.”

I had to look up the meaning of this song’s title; it refers to the Brill Building in Manhattan, which (according to Wikipedia) housed over 160 music businesses in 1962, and led to the “Brill Building Sound,” where hired songwriters churned out hits for artists who were told what to sing. How much that has to do with the lyrics themselves is questionable – maybe it’s all metaphor – but the vocal harmony line helps make this TNP’s best song of the decade.

23. Everything Everything – “Cough Cough.”

The zenith of EE’s crazy, all-hands-on-deck approach to music, so mad it must be genius, veering into every curve at such speed you think it’s about to go off the rails. I love it.

22. M83 – “Midnight City.”

If Space Invaders was a movie, this would be the score. That whingeing synth line is the part you remember, but there’s a lot else going on in the song, like that apparent laser attack right before the chorus and the competing synth lines behind the one you know.

21. Frank Turner – “Recovery.”

Turner’s paean to the difficulties of getting clean (and the cost of not doing so sooner) is a rollicking folk-punk track that inspired me to learn it on guitar and even play it once on a Periscope chat.

20. Wild Beasts – “Big Cat.”

The best song from Boy King, an album all about toxic masculinity, uses the metaphor of a feline at the top of the food chain to lampoon the male gaze and boys’ attitudes to women. It’s also very catchy.

19. Courtney Barnett – “Pedestrian at Best.”

Barnett’s laconic vocals are an acquired taste, but her lyrics are second to none, and on this track (from Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit) she rocks out a bit more than usual, helping offset the slight monotone to her singing and letting you focus on her knack for wordplay and storytelling.

18. Sleigh Bells – “Rill Rill.”

I heard this and thought I’d found a new band over which I could obsess … but this isn’t representative of Sleigh Bells’ sound. “Wonder what your boyfriend thinks about your braces/What about them/I’m all about them” should be the rallying cry for tin grins everywhere.

17. Little Green Cars – “Harper Lee.”

This Irish quintet broke up in March after ten-plus years and two albums, both hits in their native country, but they leave us this one indie-folk song, my #1 track of 2013, which has a sound like the Mamas and the Papas with a dark subtext to the lyrics.

16. Queens of the Stone Age – “The Way You Used to Do.”

Mark Ronson appeared on this list as an artist at #99, and he’s way up here as a producer, giving QotSA – with a string of strong albums already under their belts – a fresh new sound on this track, which seems like the song Josh Homme always wanted to sing but never could write himself.

15. Of Monsters & Men – “Little Talks.”

This is the cut line for me: From this point up are songs I at least considered at some point for the top 2-3 spots on the list. “Little Talks” remains a favorite of mine and my daughter’s, as we would do the call-and-response together when she was still just 6 years old and the song first appeared, and I don’t think OM&M ever get enough credit for how smart the lyrics are to this track.

14. Foster the People – “Helena Beat.”

I know “Pumped Up Kicks” was the hit, but this was and still is a better song, hands-down – there’s more depth to the music and the song doesn’t rely so much on a chorus that’s annoying/catchy.

13. Royal Blood – “Out of the Black.”

I still can’t get over how Mike Kerr gets that huge, muscular guitar sound from a bass guitar and an octaver pedal, but he does, and this song, my #1 track of 2014, is truly menacing in tone and rage.

12. Belle & Sebastian – “Nobody’s Empire.”

“The Party Line” and “Allie,” both from the same album, are probably more immediately catchy, but this song is just so gorgeous in every way, right up to the last vocal crescendo.

11. Jungle – “Happy Man.”

I didn’t think they’d top “Busy Earnin’,” but they did and then some with this lead single from their second album, which starts out sounding so dark but morphs into something that blends upbeat music with its admonishing lyrics.

10. A Tribe Called Quest – “Dis Generation.”

This is old school rap without apology or explanation. We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service wasn’t a victory lap, or just a rehash of a bygone era, but it did give us one shining moment where the whole Tribe was back together, along with longtime friend and collaborator Busta Rhymes, spitting lyrics like it was still 1992, and it is glorious.

9. Michael Kiwanuka – “Rolling.”

My #1 song of 2019 bundles you up and throws you in a time machine back to 1975, a soulful funk-tinged track with a stutter-step drum line, a walking bass, and an eleven-note guitar riff that is so simple yet so memorable.

8. Chairlift – “Ch-Ching.”

Utterly brilliant, with perfectly crafted music for Caroline Polachek’s quirky vocal style, a pop hit from an alternate universe where every kid sets their combination lock to 27-99-23.

7. Radiohead – “Burn the Witch.”

It’s no secret that I’m in thrall to early Radiohead, up to and including OK Computer, which I’d rank among the greatest albums in rock history. Since then, their experimental sound has often left me cold, or wondering where the damn guitars went, but this particular experiment is an entire mood, and I think it’s one of the best vocal performances Thom Yorke has ever given us. This was my #1 song of 2016.

6. Pure Bathing Culture – “Pray for Rain.”

It’s not possible for me to tire of this electro-pop song, which stands apart from most of Pure Bathing Culture’s output in tone and especially in melody; the chorus is perfect, the tumbling style of the vocals fits the lyrics, and if anything I wish there was more of it all. That new acoustic version, though … woof. No gracias.

5. Beck – “Dreams.”

This stands up there with “Loser,” “Think I’m in Love,” “Girl,” and “Where It’s At” among Beck’s best songs, although it seems to have slipped a bit under the radar because critics want Beck’s more “mature” (read: slow) material. When he wants to go all out, he can rival Prince for playfulness and invention, and he does that here, my #1 song of 2015, a track that eventually reappeared on Colors two years after its release.

4. Portugal. The Man – “Feel It Still.”

My #1 song of 2017 was an obvious hit from the start, and yet I was still surprised when it actually became a hit – and just kept going, carrying other tracks from their superb Woodstock LP to radio play too. It’s not totally indicative of their sound, but “Feel It Still” is built on a couple of great ideas and the band doesn’t try to do too much with them, letting those few hooks stand on their own merits.

3. Arcade Fire – “City with No Children.”

My #1 song of 2010 isn’t everyone’s favorite from The Suburbs, but it’s mine, for the music and for its  straightforward, melancholy story of nostalgia for a childhood that probably looks a lot better in hindsight.

2. alt-J – “Tessellate.”

Putting this at 2 instead of 1 nearly broke my brain, and maybe six months from now I’ll decide I had it wrong, especially since it was my #1 track of 2012 ahead of the song that’s #1 here. They’re both great songs, with this seductive, brooding track off An Awesome Wave, my favorite album of the decade, a perfect marriage of its simple drum line, a repeated keyboard line that’s mostly just three notes, and a break that lets Joe Newman show what he can do at the top end of his vocal register.

1. Arctic Monkeys – “R U Mine.”

Spotify said this was my most played song of the decade, and … okay, it was, I’m completely certain of that. Alex Turner can turn a great guitar riff, and he writes brilliant lyrics, both of which are on full display here, including that little interlude that’s barely a guitar solo and still managed to impress me when I sat down to learn to play it years later. Turner is the only man working multiple times in this song as the bass and drums stay quiet so it’s just his guitar and perhaps his voice, and yet it never feels like the band took a minimalist approach – it’s a full-bodied rocker throughout, still a song I go back to over and over again seven years after I first heard it. I could make some critical argument that other songs are more innovative, or have better arrangements, but at the end of the day this is a ranking of my favorite songs, and I’m going to put the song I love most at the top.

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Top 25 albums of the 2010s.

I’ve said numerous times here, in chats, and on social media that I’m not an album guy – I tend to prefer individual songs, and to assemble my own playlists of songs by various artists, even across genres, that work together for me. It’s uncommon for me to put on an entire album and listen to it straight through, less so now than when I was younger and would just wear out a tape or CD of Apple or Nevermind or Badmotorfinger or It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back or …And Justice for All or Passion and Warfare. So while 25 isn’t a very long list for an entire decade of music, it’s a good representation of my decade of listening to music, because these are albums I will listen to start to finish (or mostly so), and ones to which I go back again and again.

For those of you who enjoy some of the more challenging metal I sometimes put at the end of my monthly playlists, the top metal album of the decade for me is still Carcass’s Surgical Steel, beating out Mastodon’s Emperor of Sand, Alcest’s Kodama, and Insomnium’s Shadows of the Dying Sun.

A few honorable mentions for this main list: TVAM’s Psychic Data, Thrice’s To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere, whenyoung’s Reasons to Dream, Turbowolf’s The Free Life, and Black Honey’s Black Honey.

25. The Horrors – Skying.

I’ve done some kind of year-end music post for every year this decade except for 2011, which was sort of deliberate at the time because I didn’t hear as much music I liked that year as I did each year afterwards, but also I think a function of how much easier streaming services made it to find new music after that point. (I started using Spotify in the fall of 2012.) So I’ve had to go back and fill in the gap in my music memories, and it turns out that 2011 wasn’t a great year for the kinds of music I enjoy. I only sort of remember Skying from the time, but a few readers have recommended The Horrors to me over the years, and I feel like this is the zenith of their sound – still shoegazey and expansive like their earliest stuff, but a bit more accessible and melodic, while less commercial than everything that’s come afterwards. Standout tracks include “I Can See Through You,” “Still Life,” and especially “Endless Blue.”

24. School of Seven Bells – SVIIB.

School of Seven Bells’ final album was a tribute to member Benjamin Curtis, who died of T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in 2013 at age 35. The remaining member Alejandra Deheza went back to their unfinished last record and completed the songs, releasing this album, their best work, in February of 2016. The nine-song LP has seven tracks that sound like their first three records, electronic, atmospheric music with a melancholy tinge even when the music is more upbeat, and then closes with two mournful songs, “Confusion” and “This is Our Time,” that are absolutely devastating in the context of Curtis’ death. My personal favorites from the album are still “Open Your Eyes” and “Ablaze,” but it works so well as a complete experience that I rarely just pull any single song out of it.

23. Superhumanoids – Do You Feel OK?

Superhumanoids appear to be done after two albums, but their second release, coming in 2015, deserved a much wider audience than it received. It’s pop music by another name, just done better and without autotuning or overly slick production – why would you autotune the vocals with a singer as talented as Sarah Chernoff, or overproduce music that’s this smart and builds so well within tracks like “Anxious in Venice” or the wonderfully titled “Norwegian Black Metal?” The electronic/indie trio crafted great pop hooks that would fit on any mainstream radio station, and it’s a shame it never happened for them.

22. Drenge – Drenge.

Lots of duos have tried this same formula – one guitarist, one drummer, a heavy sound made more ominous by the lack of bass – but Drenge did it best on their debut album, which runs just 37 minutes for 12 songs, and just 25 songs for the first ten tracks, after which you could probably put something else on. The album opens with six songs that are all short bursts of energy with great riffs, varying a little in tone and tempo, peaking with “Bloodsports,” “Backwaters,” and “Gun Crazy,” where the brothers make the most of their limited instrumentation to give the songs a full sound, then getting out before the 3:30 mark every time. I also recommend “Nothing” and “I Don’t Want to Make Love to You.”

21. CHVRCHES – Every Open Eye.

I’ll spoil this now by saying that CHVRCHES appear twice on this list, the only artist to do so, with their debut record at #11 and their sophomore album here. The first one was more novel, while this album was more of the same but with higher production values. I liked this album in its initial release, which included the standout tracks “Leave a Trace,” “Make Them Gold,” “Never Ending Circles,” and “Bury It,” and the deluxe edition also includes “Get Away,” released shortly afterwards on the reworked soundtrack to the movie Drive.

20. HAERTS – HAERTS.

I think two factors hurt HAERTS’ debut album commercially/on radio, not including their orthographical issues. The best songs on this album, “Hemiplegia,” “Wings,” and “All the Days,” all appeared on a 2013 EP called Hemiplegia, and by the time this album appeared those songs had sort of come and gone already, and while the album brought more solid tracks like “Giving Up” and “Heart,” it wasn’t entirely ‘new.’ The second is that they sort of vanished afterwards, releasing just two singles/EPs (one of which included a 7-minute song, “Eva,” that was never going to get any airplay) in the next four years before their second album, New Compassion, appeared. Nini Fabi’s voice is superb and there are so many great hooks here that, around 2013, I thought they’d be the next big thing on alternative radio. It just never panned out.

19. Of Monsters and Men – My Head is an Animal.

I wore this album out, and I have a hypothesis that it would be remembered more fondly if it hadn’t crossed over into the mainstream and then been played so heavily on the radio and elsewhere for a good two years after its release. It’s not innovative, but it is perfectly executed, with strong harmonies, the tremendous voice of lead singer Nanna, and, on this album at least, more layered arrangements from the six band members who played instruments (not counting the occasional brass section). Standouts for me are the tracks you know – “Little Talks,” of course, “Mountain Sound,” “Lakehouse,” and “King and Lionheart.”

18. Savages – Silence Yourself.

Silence Yourself could be the soundtrack to the #MeToo movement, although it was released in 2013 and was lyrically ahead of its time, an angry, unapologetically feminist record of modern punk songs punctuated by Jehnny Beth’s vocals, which swing from exhausted to enraged. Their second album, Adore Life, didn’t have the same righteous anger, and while Jehnny Beth has continued to release music on her own (and with her partner Johnny Hostile), we haven’t heard from Savages since 2016. Standouts from this record include “Shut Up,” “I Am Here,” and “She Will.”

17. black midi – Schlagenheim.

The most purely interesting new album I’ve heard since the record that’s #1 on this list, the 2019 debut from these British upstarts is experimental, bizarre, counterintuitive, abrasive, and totally fascinating. I have struggled to describe this record to friends who are into new music; it sounds like black midi has somehow taken rock music and turned it inside out. This isn’t accessible, and sometimes it just doesn’t work, but it’s the kind of record that makes me eager to see what they’ll do next. I was a bit disappointed that their single “Talking Heads,” released in the spring, didn’t end up on the album, as I think it’s the most immediately compelling thing they’ve done so far.

16. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit.

Barnett’s laconic delivery isn’t for everyone, but her lyrics are brilliant, and she showed on this full-length debut that she can craft strong tracks whether uptempo or down, electric or acoustic. Barnett’s best songs tell complete stories replete with tangents and amusing details, along with solid hooks. Standout tracks here include “Pedestrian at Best,” “Dead Fox,” “Depreston,” and “Elevator Operator,” although her two earlier singles “Avant Gardener” (a song about an asthma attack, of all things) and “History Eraser” didn’t reappear, as they were only on her A Sea of Split Peas double EP.

15. The New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers.

It seems like critics and TNP fans will grade every album the supergroup releases as lesser because it’s not Twin Cinema, but that’s hardly fair to the group, especially since they’ve put out some great songs in the fourteen (!) years since that album first appeared. This is their best complete record since then, in my view, although it suffers from the heavy influence of the now-departed Dan Bejar (Destroyer) on some of the middle tracks. Standouts include the title track, “Fantasy Fools,” “Dancehall Domine,” and “War on the East Coast.”

14. Portugal. The Man – Woodstock.

Just a great album from start to finish, Woodstock feels like the culmination of steady growth from P.tM after the uneven but often brilliant In the Mountain in the Cloud (maybe my #2 album of 2011, the year I didn’t do any year-end posts) and Evil Friends. You know “Feel It Still,” one of the top songs of the decade for me, but this album is way more complete than that, with “Easy Tiger,” “So Young,” “Live in the Moment,” “Rich Friends,” and “Tidal Wave.”

13. Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar.

The Mercury Prize-winning rap trio put it all together on their third album, which stands out in a crowded field of contemporary hip-hop records because it sounds so little like everything else. The production is sparse, and the three members aren’t afraid of quiet passages without vocals or with half-sung lines, a clear case here of less is more. Standouts include the incredible “Toy,” “Fee Fi,” “Turn,” and “In My View.”

12. The Wombats – Glitterbug.

For pure pleasure of listening, this was a top 3 album of the decade for me; it’s peak Wombats and just generally peak indie-pop, with smart and frequently hilarious lyrics and plenty of good hooks throughout the record, the kind of stuff I hoped they’d produced when I heard their first single, “Let’s Dance to Joy Division.” It’s a joyous, silly album that overflows with great singles, including “This is Not a Party,” “Greek Tragedy,” “Emoticons,” “Curveballs,” and “Your Body is a Weapon.”

11. CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe.

CHVRCHES’ debut album came after a year-plus of singles and EPs, and, to their credit, they put all of the key songs they’d released in that buildup on the actual album, by which point they’d already cultivated enough of an audience for this record to peak at #12 on the Billboard 200, a remarkable feat for a debut by a Scottish alternative group. Lauren Mayberry’s charisma and voice are the stars here, as they remain even as the music they’ve produced has tapered a bit towards their third album. Standouts here include “The Mother We Share,” “Recover,” “We Sink,” “Gun,” and “Lungs.”

10. Michael Kiwanuka – KIWANUKA.

One of the challenges I have in making any list like this is dealing with my own recency bias, and then worrying I’m overcompensating if I try to, in effect, regress my feelings on a record (or game, or movie) back to the mean a bit. I’ve been listening to KIWANUKA more than any other record in the seven weeks since it came out, often going start to finish and losing myself in the transitions between certain tracks because I’m so enraptured by his voice and the old-school R&B vibe of his guitar work. Standouts here including “Rolling,” my #1 song of 2019; “You Ain’t the Problem,” and “Hero.”

9. Hundred Waters – The Moon Rang Like a Bell.

It sounds like this group, a quartet at the time but now a trio, might be done, which would be a shame given how tremendous this record was. Featuring the ethereal vocals of Nicole Miglis above music that is trip-hoppy, ambient, spacey, or simply a piano line, it was like nothing else out there – adventurous without becoming so experimental that it would push listeners away, never overtly hooky but still melodic because of Miglis’ voice. Standouts include “Xtalk,” “[Animal],” “Murmurs,” “Show Me Love,” and “Out Alee.”

8. Grimes – Art Angels.

On the heels of another album Grimes scrapped, salvaging just one track (“Realiti,” which appears here in a new form), Art Angels was Grimes’ weird art distilled into their most accessible form, with less of the baby-voiced vocals from her previous album and, unfortunately, that seem to be back for her forthcoming Miss Anthropocene. Grimes, also known as Claire Boucher and now called c because that’s what Elon Musk suggested she go by, is capable of brilliance across a wide range of pop/alternative styles, showcased here on the guitar-driven “California,” the hard-edged “Kill v. Maim,” and her feminist collaboration with Janelle Monae, “Venus Fly.”

7. Ceremony – In the Spirit World Now.

My thoughts from KIWANUKA apply here as well – maybe I’m overrating this album because it’s new, and I’ve listened to it so much in the last few months, but I also know I am a sucker for this kind of throwback to the halcyon days of post-punk and nascent new wave. Ceremony have perfectly captured that moment when Gang of Four and Wire were the shiny new things and the synth-based new wave movement was just starting but hadn’t quite gone full Human League. Standouts include the title track, “Turn Away the Bad Thing,” “Further I Was,” and “Say Goodbye to Them.”

6. Beck – Colors.

Beck has two modes – his Prince-like pop mode where he seems to undergo this creative explosion and can barely contain his musical aspirations, and then his folk/acoustic mode that won him two major Grammys for Morning Phase and appeared previously on Sea Change. I prefer the first mode, as Beck is kind of a genius when it comes to creating multi-instrumental pop tracks that still challenge the listener in small ways. This album appeared two full years after the first single, “Dreams,” which was my #1 song of 2015, and features a re-recorded version of that song, along with the excellent title track, “Up All Night,” and “Dear Life.” Critics seem to prefer Beck’s other mode, and that’s fine, but it’s not for me.

5. Wild Beasts – Boy King.

Wild Beasts called it quits after this album and subsequent tour, but what a way to go out, with a perfect album of arty post-new wave tracks built around a common theme of exploring (and outright attacking) toxic masculinity, featuring vocalist Hayden Thorpe’s soaring falsetto voice. (He’s since released one solo album, Diviner, which was interesting but is a big tonal shift from Wild Beasts’ electronic vibe.) The first five tracks, “Big Cat,” “Tough Guy,” “Alpha Female,” “Tough Guy,” and “Celestial Creatures,” are all outstanding.

4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs.

The decade’s first great album, The Suburbs is the last time I agreed with the Grammys on anything, I think, as they were a bit of a surprise winner of Album of the Year, since they were the first indie artist to do so. It might be a bit overambitious, although I think Winn Butler showed this barely scratched the surface of his ambitions on their next two albums; I think The Suburbs hits the right balance between concept album (about growing up in the suburbs and the flattening influence of urban sprawl) and a mainstream, accessible rock record. Standouts include “City With No Children,” “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, “Ready to Start,” “Month of May,” and “We Used to Wait.”

3. A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service.

Phife Dawg may have given his life to finish this greatest of all comeback albums, dying of complications from diabetes eight months before the album was released, but this is very much Q-Tip’s show, with plenty of guests along for the ride and a welcome return from Jarobi White. The seminal rap group’s first album in 18 years is harder, rougher, modern in the right ways but still unquestionably the Tribe, and seems prescient in its lyrical forecast of a national lurch towards white nationalism and hate directed at blacks, Muslims, and gays, while covering plenty of other ground across its 16 tracks. Standouts include “Dis Generation,” the greatest old-school rap track of the decade; “We the People,” “The Space Program,” “Conrad Tokyo,” “Melatonin,” and “Ego.”

2. The Arctic Monkeys – AM.

Alex Turner had at least this one more great pop record in him, and while he turned the band around 180 degrees for the weird-ass follow-up Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, on AM he embraced what he does best: create huge guitar hooks and pair them with clever, engaging lyrics that tell stories while playing with words in novel ways. I prefer this even to their earth-shattering debut, and found that the best track on here, the lead single “R U Mine,” kept growing on me for months after I first heard it. I’m a guitar guy first and foremost, and this record features plenty of that, but in service of great pop songs rather than merely as its own end. Other standouts include “Arabella,” “Do I Wanna Know?,” “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?,” and “Snap Out of It.”

1. alt-J – An Awesome Wave.

This album blew me away when I first heard it, even though I would have told you there were plenty of songs or passages I didn’t care for; the more I listened, the more I fell under its spell and heard new things each time I listened. It is a meticulous album, which the members said they worked on for five years; it shows in the album’s precision and the lack thereof on their subsequent two albums. An Awesome Wave won the Mercury Prize, a decision the British press thoroughly expected, and set a bar alt-J may never reach again, but for this moment they were kings. The entire album is just so good, but if I have to pick standouts, I’ll go with “Tessellate,” “Breezeblocks,” “Taro,” and “Dissolve Me.”

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→ December 17, 2019
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Booksmart.

I wanted to like Booksmart, now streaming on Hulu, and the first twenty minutes were so promising … but I don’t think it lives up to its opening, and while there are some clever running gags and a few good quips, in the end it’s another teen movie that’s just a shade smarter than some of the films it rips off. (You can also rent it on amazon or iTunes.)

Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) are best friends and massive overachievers who’ve spent their high school years studying and doing all the things you’re supposed to do to get into a good college, but never doing anything fun, only to discover that a bunch of their classmates who have partied their way through high school have also gotten into elite schools. Molly’s the Class President and has a crush on her Vice-President, Nick, who appears to be a dimwit but, of course, isn’t. Amy has been out for two years, but has never kissed a girl, and has a crush on a classmate, Ryan, although she doesn’t know if Ryan is into girls. The night before graduation, they decide to go to a huge party at Nick’s aunt’s house, and spend about the half the movie trying to figure out where the party is and then trying to get there. Once they do arrive, they go after their respective crushes, only to have things not go as planned (obviously) and then something else works out for each of them instead.

There’s a lot of promise in this premise, and the two leads are both quite good. Feldstein is wonderfully annoying throughout the movie, and handles the transitions well from earnest to flailing to, at one point, shockingly rude to her closest friend in a way that makes the character feel entirely coherent and three-dimensional. Dever has somewhat less to do until they get to the party, and even then plays an unfortunate second fiddle to Feldstein until she has her unexpected tryst and can be the main character on the screen without her co-star. Billie Lourd is hilarious as Gigi, a prominent side character with the best running joke in the film, and some of the other kids are effective in narrow roles, although half of the actors are in their mid-20s already and look it. There are a couple of gay kids in their class played by Noah Galvin and Austin Crute who play both their characters as if they’re acting in a play within the movie, and most of their scenes are well-written and funny in an absurd way. (I’d watch a movie that starred just those two.) In fact, just about all of the actors playing the students are good at what they’re asked to do – in contrast to the adults in the movie, most of whom look out of place or uncomfortable, and all of whom are poorly written.

The story is nothing you haven’t seen before, unfortunately. A couple of kids want to have fun/drink too much/get laid before they go to college, and have a hard time doing any of these things correctly at first, only to get to the big party and have things go wrong before they go right. There’s some witty banter early in the film, but the script can’t keep up the pace, and things start getting progressively weirder as the film progresses. Their principal (Jason Sudeikis) moonlights as an Uber driver, and the situation gets kind of creepy. Another of their teachers has serious boundary problems, leading to a seriously cringey movement at the party. Amy’s big moment is sort of marred by a bad writing decision at the end of the scene that was unnecessary. One of the girls ends up in jail – seriously, the entire plot is ripped from Can’t Hardly Wait, which isn’t a good enough movie to rip off in the first place – and the way they get her out is a ridiculous plot contrivance. And how are they totally unable to figure out where Nick’s aunt lives in an era where most addresses are listed online and everyone has the internet on their phones? Oh, in the span of a few seconds one of the girls loses her phone and the other’s runs out of charge, because of course it does. These characters deserved a smarter story, right up to the resolution.

It was just too easy a movie to pick apart. Very little of it seemed realistic, and the script couldn’t maintain all the energy from the first few scenes – especially the one scene in a classroom, where the one-liners are flying back and forth and the kids all show their most interesting sides. This movie took in around $22 million at the box office, beating its budget comfortably but spurring a weird social media campaign, led by director Olivia Wilde, that made it seem like the movie was a flop. The better explanation is that the movie didn’t find a big audience because the script wasn’t good enough. Feldstein and Dever did their parts, but this is a forgettable entry in the sad tradition of mediocre teen comedies.

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→ December 16, 2019
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Yellow & Yangtze app.

Yellow & Yangtze is Reiner Knizia’s update to his all-time classic Tigris & Euphrates, which still sits in the top 100 on Boardgamegeek and pioneered the “highest/lowest score” mechanic, where you score in multiple categories, and your lowest score is the one that’s compared to your opponents’. Both are abstract games of area control that are well-balanced so that it rewards strategy but also has mechanisms for preventing runaway winners or leaving someone totally in the dust. Dire Wolf Digital just released an app version of Y&Y that I think is incredibly strong, including quality AI players (on the hard setting), great graphics, and intuitive game-play, and it’s kind of selling me on picking up the original game at some point too.

Yellow & Yangtze makes several major tweaks to the rules of T&E, using hex tiles instead of squares, introducing a fifth color of tiles that you can use like a wild color, needing three tiles rather than four to build a pagoda, and giving each of the other four colors of tiles a unique power. You get six tiles at a time in your hand, plus a ‘leader’ in each color. On a turn, you get two actions, most of which will involve placing two leaders or tiles on the board. You must place a leader next to a black tile. When you then place a tile of the same color as a leader in the same cluster of tiles, you get one point in that color. If you make a triangle of three hex tiles of the same color, it becomes a pagoda, and then gives one point per round to the player whose leader of that color is in the same cluster. Each cluster can only have one leader in each color, but it can have leaders from different players.

The conflicts between players are similar to the original. If two kingdoms (the game’s name for clusters) are connected, there’s a war, and it’s settled by players with leaders in each kingdom contributing red tiles from their hands. If you place your leader into a kingdom that already has a leader of that color, it’s settled by both players contributing black tiles. When you place a green tile, you get to choose your replacement from the display of six tiles; otherwise, you get new tiles after your entire turn, and they’re random. When you place a blue tile, which may only go on a river or shoreline space, you can continue to place more blue tiles for free as long as they’re all adjacent. If you have blue tiles, you can also destroy any tile on the board in a “peasants’ riot;” you blow up a black tile with this and then any leaders adjacent to it are also removed if they aren’t still adjacent to another black tile. Yellow tiles are wild; you get points in the yellow category, but at game-end, those points are distributed to your other four scores to always raise your lowest score.

The app is just great. It looks fantastic, with very bright, clear colors, so that there is no confusion between tiles or about what’s been placed where. The screen shows you your tiles and as much or as little of the board as you want, with smaller indicators for which opponents still have their leaders in hand (five dots under each opponent’s name, with unplaced ones lit up) and what six tiles are on display for players who place green tiles (a ring on the lower right). Your scores are in the lower left – you can’t see opponents’ scores – and if you have an active pagoda that score has a flickering flame behind it, which makes it much easier to track. The easy AI is just tutorial level, the medium is just modestly challenging, but I have a hard time beating the hard AI when I play against two of them. The hard AI loves to use that peasants’ riot feature, which is probably good strategy but feels extremely personal.

The app is $9.99 right now, on the high end for board game adaptations, although with the cardboard game over $40 it’s good value for the game play provided. Dire Wolf Digital does great work, with this their second outstanding app release of 2019 (along with Raiders of the North Sea) and their Lanterns another favorite of mine for its animations; you can add Y&Y to the list, as I think it checks every box for an app, with challenging game play, great graphics, and high ease of use.

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→ December 14, 2019
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Stick to baseball, 12/14/19.

I was busy these last two weeks, with numerous reaction pieces for ESPN+ subscribers.

I also held a Klawchat, probably my last of 2019, on Friday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new small-box game Ankh’or, which plays up to four but works nicely with two, and wrote up the best games I saw in two days at PAX Unplugged (before my daughter got sick and we had to skip day three #sadface).

My second book, The Inside Game: Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves, comes out on April 21st, 2020. You can pre-order it here, and I have tentative appearances for that week at Politics & Prose (DC), Midtown Scholar (Harrisburg), and One More Page (Arlington, VA).

My free email newsletter will return in the next few days – sorry, I got sick, then the winter meetings happened – and you can sign up here.

And now, the links…

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