Best Book: ‘Misbehaving’ – Richard Thaler. ‘Between The World
And Me’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which I’m reading currently, is getting the most
plaudits, and it is good. Thaler’s ‘Misbehaving’, which recounts the history of
behavioural economics, has stuck with me more though. Based on Coates’ book,
that’s probably very white of me.
Best Album: ‘My Love Is Cool’ – Wolf Alice. It seems sort of
wrong to give best album to this over Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’.
‘… Butterfly’ sounded like Album Of The Year the first time I heard it, but the
problem is I haven’t really listened to it that much since. In contrast, for a
while there I couldn’t stop listening to Wolf Alice’s album, and that’s why it
gets the nod.
Best Song: ‘King Kunta’ – Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick gets best
song though. ‘ … Kunta’, with its strong beat, is the first track that will pop
into my head when I think about music in 2015.
Best TV Show: ‘Mad Men’. My favourite show
of the past ten years came to a satisfying end, with all of the main characters
ending up in places that made some sort of sense for them.
Best Film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This is more my
favourite film of 2015, rather than what I think is the ‘best film’. I doubt
that this will be a serious contender for any Best Picture gongs. But it was
the best Star Wars movie for 30 years, and had me all revved up afterwards for
the next instalment.
Best Comic: ‘Sex Criminals’ – Matt Fraction and
Chip Zdarsky. I almost gave this to ‘Saga’ for the fourth year
in a row, but I enjoy ‘Sex Criminals’ just as much, so I’ll give it to that
instead. It’s a very funny (and very dirty) series.
Best Sporting Event: National Rugby League Grand Final. I
did almost pick the Cricket World Cup final, which fulfilled one of my life
dreams to see Australia win a cricket World Cup in person. The final though
wasn’t particularly memorable in its own right, whereas the NRL Grand Final
between the Broncos and the Cowboys definitely was, to the point where people
were wondering if it may have been the best grand final ever. The last ten
minutes – which saw the North Queensland team score the tying try just as the
siren sounded, miss the conversion that could have won it, and then win the
match in extra time in any case – was definitely the most intense ten minutes
of league I’ve seen.
Best Sportsperson: Stephen Curry. Bill Simmons
called Curry’s first 20 games this NBA season – which his Golden State Warriors
won all of – the best 20 game streak by anyone in the history of basketball.
His numbers, particularly his three-point shooting, were all insane. Already
the best shooter ever, and there has never been another player quite like
him.
Best Website: Grantland. Sadly missed.
Best Post: AFL Club Songs Ranked By Ambition and Boastfulness. Read this and you’ll never listen to
some AFL club theme songs in the same way again.
Best Twitter Feed: Titus O’Reily. I do like his clever
one-liners about AFL and cricket.
5.Blackstar
– David Bowie
It took about fifteen years but, with ‘The Next Day’ album
and this track, David Bowie has finally got his creepy goth elder statesman act
right. It is one of those ten-minute long patchwork tracks, which Bowie of
course has done himself before with ‘Station To Station’. Unlike that classic
track ‘Blackstar’ doesn’t really go anywhere much, but it seethes, and that
keeps the listener going through its longer-than-usual duration. Just before
writing this I have heard his next new track ‘Lazarus’,
which clocks in at six minutes itself, making me wonder if Bowie is going back
to the 1970s style of only having seven or eight tracks on an album.
4.One Million Bullets – Sia
Despite generally appearing on radio stations I don’t care
for I’ve always kind of liked Sia, with her early track ‘The Fight’ getting a fair amount of plays on my old iPod. She’s had
bigger hits since then, but her new track ‘One Million Bullets’ may be my
favourite of hers since then. The chorus – ‘Under your moonlit gaze/I know I’d
take one million bullets for you babe’ – could be seen as more cheesy than
powerful, but it makes the neck hairs slightly stand up for me. I hope this one
becomes an anthem for her, though it also sounds like one of those tracks that
clocks in at No. 35 or so on the charts, and then because of nostalgia, is
treated more fondly ten years later.
3.To The Top – Twin Shadow
I heard this song when I recently played Telltale Games’
excellent, and quite funny, ‘Tales From The Borderlands’ series. Each of the five episodes
had a credit sequence a couple of scenes in with a relatively recent track
playing over it, and the choice of music was great. James Blake’s ‘Retrograde’, for example, turns out to work
really well for the desolation of space.
Even better though is the fourth episode’s use of Twin
Shadow’s ‘To The Top’, which I hadn’t heard before, and could have believed was
a lesser-known ‘80s power ballad. It plays over one of the funniest sequences
in the series, which is the cast doing a slow walk towards a spaceship. It’s
the type of scene that has played for laughs before, such as the ‘Guardians of
the Galaxy’ movie, but this is better. But it’s hard to explain its amusement
value if you haven’t played the game itself, so I’ll just add that you should
play the game, and then it’ll be hard to think of this song without thinking of
that slow walk credit sequence.
2.Sentimental Wilderness – Bop
English
This year’s album by Bop English, a side project to a band
that is not that well-known in the first place, is great. Every track gets me
actually listening to it, which is what my favourite albums do. Each track also
has a slightly different style, with ‘Sentimental Wilderness’ recalling the
late-‘60s folk-rock songs, both with its finger-picking and verboseness. Its
beautiful what-sounds-like-the-chorus (but it only occurs once) is the
highlight.
1.Fight The Start – The Kilians
In the past couple of weeks I decided to look into which were
some recommended European indie bands, starting with French bands, and then
German bands, and then Spanish. I heard some really good stuff, but the track
I’ve played over and over again is ‘Fight The Start’ by German band The
Kilians. It had a British indie rock feel to me, with the lead singer’s voice
reminding me of Jamie T and Miles Kane (although the video clip made me
think they were going for The Strokes – whatever, it sounds like the kind of
track NME would usually go mad for). It’s fun, it’s vital – it’s also nine
years old – but oh well, I’m still happy I found this catchy little track.
Other tracks by German indie bands I recommend: ‘You Don’t Have To Shout’ by The Robotic Klaus, ‘Ein Kompliment’ by Sportfreunde Stiller, and ‘Chemicals’ by
The Notwist. For French bands I recommend Stuck In The Sound’s ‘Tender’.
