For a man known for his ego, Kanye West has always done a remarkably good job of drawing the best out of other people and giving them space to shine. In fact it was very hard to narrow this list down to just five. But with apologies to Nas on “We Major”, Taleb Kweli on “Get Em High”, Kendrick Lamar on “No Parties in LA”, and Jay-Z, Cyhi the Prynce, and Pusha-T on “So Appalled” here are the best guest verses from Kanye West songs (tracks from his solo albums only):
5.) Rick Ross - “Devil in a New Dress” What really elevates this isn’t even so much the lyrics themselves, but Rick Ross’ delivery of them. Kayne uses Ross’ deep baritone voice and crisp articulation like a another instrument in the song. And he deploys it to perfection. The transition from Ross’ voice at end of “Devil in a New Dress” to the single spare piano note that starts “Runaway” is hands down my favorite moment on a Kanye West album.
4.) Chance the Rapper - “Ultralight Beam” As is already being talked about all over the internet, this feels like a star making verse. Kanye letting Chance steal the song from him almost feels like Eminem stealing “Renegade” from Jay-Z. And the expression of joy Kanye had on his face while watching Chance spit the verse on SNL is the same expression I have whenever I listen to it. It’s a good verse lyrically, but its real greatness is in its energy. Excited to see where Chance goes from here.
3.) Pusha T - “Runaway” Kanye famously made Pusha-T keep rewriting this because it kept not feeling brutally honest enough. Thank goodness he did. It’s now the best part of the best song on Kanye’s best album. The lesson, as always, is never question Kanye.
2.) Jay-Z - “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (remix)” “I’m not a businessman I’m a business, man”
Most people forget, but one of the most iconic lines in rap history, and perhaps the most famous line of Jay-Z’s career was actually from a guest verse on a Kanye song.
1.) Nicki Minaj - “Monster” As if #1 would be anything other than the ne plus ultra of guest verses. Nicki owes her entire career to this verse. It will never be topped.
It was busy year for me personally and so there are a great many things I'm sure would have made this list if I had only had time to experience them: Frances Ha, Short Term 12, American Hustle, Haim, Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, Time of Death, Six by Sondheim, Mark Rylance’s "Twelfth Night", the list goes on and on. But that being said, there were 20 terrific things I did experience that helped make 2013 a pretty great year culturally.
1. Liz’s speech to Tracy in the 30 Rock finale I wish I could post a clip of this because the performances are really what put it over the top, but rights issues prevent me from doing that so here's the transcript of it:
“We were forced to be friends because of work. And we’re probably not gonna hang out after this. You’ll say you’re gonna invite me to your house, but it's never gonna happen. And I’ll see on TV that it’s your birthday and I’ll forget to call. And working with you is hard. Tracy, you frustrated me and you wore me out. But because the human heart is not properly connected to the human brain I love you, and I’m gonna miss you.
(pause)
But tonight might be it.”
Did the most heartbreakingly honest and emotionally true observation about human relationships seen on TV this year happen on a four-punchline-a-minute comedy? Of course it did. What could be more indicative of our 2013 post-genre America than that?
Comedy is dead; long live comedy.
(While we’re on the terrific 30 Rock finale, shout out to the Rural Juror song. It should have won all of the Emmys.)
2. Girls – “Boys”
I wrote about Girls last year. And I'm sure I’ll write about Girls next year. I'm sure on my death bed I’ll grip my wife’s hand and with my last dying breath whisper softly in her ear “I should have written more about Girls”. But all we have is the here and now, and what I want to say this year about Girls concerns “Boys”. Because while so much of the talk around season two focused on the Patrick Wilson episode, "Other People's Trash", for me "Boys" is the episode the best showcased what Girls does better than any other show and that is showing how people at their worst are only human.
In the age of the anti-hero, Girls represents the next step in the evolutionary process by giving us no heroes at all. Everyone on the show is just a person, flawed and imperfect, sometimes trying to do their best and other times not trying much of anything at all. They're petty and considerate, selfish and giving, honest and guarded, and most of all just trying to get through to the next moment just like everyone else. No character comes out of "Boys" looking good, but your heart goes out to each and everyone of them. And if the final phone call between Hannah and Marnie doesn't hit you deep in your soul then you probably don't have one.
3. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
Speaking of Girls, if Hannah Horvath wants to be the voice of her generation she might have to get in line behind these guys. Now I might be defining "generation" very narrowly as "white American coastal-dwelling creative types in their late 20s to early 30s", but still. Vampire Weekend is the sound of my people. A sound that has evolved from a Paul Simon knockoff to something much deeper, yet somehow still totally the same. Seriously, has any band ever changed its sound more while still sounding exactly like itself? It's music that speaks to the times, is urbane yet lived in, drenched in anxiety and intellect, gets in your bloodstream, and is very very white. Modern vampires of the city indeed.
4. Daft Punk - “Get Lucky”
A wise person once said opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one. Which is interesting because an asshole is also what you're being if you have the “opinion” that anything other than “Get Lucky” is the song of 2013. And nobody likes an asshole.
5. 12 Years a Slave
To take the preceding concept one step further, there are opinions and then there are facts. And "12 Years a Slave is the most powerful, well-made, and important film of 2013” is definitely the later.
Crazy that it took 150 years and a bunch of British guys to make the first mainstream film to deal honestly with the horror and brutality of American slavery, but then again, not crazy at all.
Speaking of which…. 6. Fruitvale Station
I know asking white people to watch and care about one whole movie per year about the problems of black people that doesn't also feature a white protagonist is tough. And it appears asking them to watch three (THREE!) of them is impossible (see also: The Butler). Which is a shame because...well...where do I even begin? But in this case specifically because the least mainstream of the three is in many ways the most vital.
Due to the amount of time it takes for a movie to go from idea to a finished product it’s rare to see films address current events in anything approaching real time. But in a sadly not that unbelievable twist of fate, Fruitvale Station was released a day before the George Zimmerman verdict. And that verdict made watching the film an almost unbearably heartbreaking experience. It’s the only film I’ve ever attended that when the movie ended and the lights came up not a single person had yet gotten out of their seats and all you could hear was complete and total silence punctuated only by the sounds of sniffles. There were sadly not that many of us in the theater, because while everyone rushes out to see a big spectacle like Gravity on the big screen, the masses aren’t that into the best reason to cram yourself into a dark room with a bunch of random strangers for a few hours: to experience a group catharsis.
At my screening the first person to finally get up from their seat, wipe the tears from their face and leave the theater was a black man who looked old enough to have a son the same age as Oscar Grant was when he was killed. The next person to follow his lead was an old white woman who had trouble even standing up. The first man was almost out of theater, saw her at the last second, and turned back in her direction to try and help. She kindly waved him off and he went on his way. It was a moment that meant nothing really, but in the context of what we had all just been through it felt like it meant everything. And if that’s not a reason to go the movies then I don't know what is.
7. Kanye - “Blood on the Leaves” I already wrote extensively about my thoughts on Yeezus as a whole, so allow me to take a moment to discuss “Blood on the Leaves”. Because has anything ever been more Kanye than “Blood on the Leaves”? I mean, he used an iconic Nina Simone song about lynchings for the backdrop of a song about knocking up a groupie? Why would he do that?? Is he trying to make some sort of statement? Did he just like the way it sounded? Is he simply trolling us all? It’s provocative and ridiculous and offensive and touching and honest and manipulative and you can think about it all til your head bleeds and still be no closer to solving it. But then the beat hits for the first time at the 1:07 mark and none of that matters. Because, goddamn, that beat, that moment, that contradiction of sounds, they render all human thought completely irrelevant.
Maybe Kanye really IS the black Jesus.
8. Shailene Woodley in The Spectacular Now I didn't love The Spectacular Now as much as I hoped to. Also, Kyle Chandler gives the movie’s most awards worthy performance. And Miles Teller is getting the most breakout star hype (although for my money a little bit of Miles Teller goes a long way). But years from now what the movie will be remembered for, if anything, is for being Shailene Woodley’s Mystic Pizza. Whether she finds her Pretty Woman or not who knows, but if there’s any justice in the world she will be America’s new(est) sweetheart. I would say our next great actress too, but it’s unclear if she’s even acting in this movie. I’m not totally convinced she was aware that cameras were rolling or that a movie was being made around her. I know a screenplay allegedly was written, but I'm pretty sure she was just saying whatever words came into her head. So natural and unaffected was Shailene Woodley in The Spectacular Now that she transcended “acting” and existed on some other plane of being. I would say she’s primed to be the biggest female movie star in the world, except for the fact that there is one minor, tiny little thing standing in her way…. 9. Jennifer Lawrence ...And that is Jennifer Lawrence, the queen of 2013 and the queen of our hearts. Other than maybe the Pope, no one owned 2013 quite the way Jennifer Lawrence did. Suffice it to say that when WINNING AN OSCAR seems like a forgotten footnote on the list of things people remember from your year then that year was a pretty good one for you. And you know you're in a rarefied place when the actual walk up to receive the biggest honor possible in your industry does more for your fame and your career than the actual honor itself. Jennifer Lawrence is officially on some Michael Jackson-in-1983 shit. There's no way it can last, but really, in this day and age, there's nothing Jennifer Lawrence will ever be able to achieve that will be more impressive than keeping it going this long. Culture moves so quickly now and the backlash machine is so fast to pounce that we might never see anything like it again. There are still two more Hunger Games to promote and a possible nother Oscar win for American Hustle so who knows what greatness we still have in store for us, but no matter what happens from here we'll always have 2013 and J-Law telling Letterman a story about shitting herself.
10. "Stonehenge"/"The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)" videos Allow me to plagiarize myself:
To take nothing away from “The Fox" which is obviously an incredible work of artistic genius, but the best thing about "The Fox" is that it has lead to the discovery of the existence of "Stonehenge". And "Stonehenge" is the best. (The best!)
Now do any more countries have their own versions of Flight of the Conchords that we should know about?
11. Breaking Bad First off, can we just stop with this nonsense that Breaking Bad is the greatest show of all time? That’s just the recency bias talking. Plus haven't we established that The Wire is forever the best show of all time? I didn't realize this was still a discussion. But all that being said, Breaking Bad is probably the most suspenseful, the most masterfully plotted, the most well directed, and the most well acted TV show of all time. And it unquestionably had the greatest final season of any TV show ever. That is definitely not still a discussion. So while Breaking Bad ultimately may not have had a lot to say about the world other than dealing meth is a bad life choice and power corrupts absolutely, it all the way til its very end remained a masterpiece of storytelling and TV’s ultimate thrill ride. And it proved that in the quest for artistic immortality and respect, going out on your own terms is finally the new premature cancellation. To paraphrase Jessie Pinkman: closure, bitch! 12. Mad Men – “For Immediate Release” Here’s a show though that had TONS to say about the world. Yes it addressed power, and strangely enough drugs, but also so much more. It's hard to pick just one episode from a brilliant season that featured Bob Benson, Peggy and Abe and Ted, the return of Betty, Sally walking in on Don and Sylvia, Roger being Roger, and the now legendary climatic Hershey’s speech. But for my money this midseason game changer was the finest of the year. If drama is the story of change than there wasn't a more dramatic hour of television in 2013. I've never seen a show firing on all cylinders so unexpectedly hit the reset button in the middle of a season before, and it's doubtful I ever will again. As the end credits rolled I was shocked, disoriented, and full of all the emotions. I loved it.
13. Kacey Musgraves - “Merry Go Round” I enjoy Taylor Swift. I own all of Taylor Swift’s music. I listen to it often. Because I am a fan of all things Taylor Swift. But Taylor Swift...you just GOT SERVED (as the kids still presumably say).
Now if you’ll excuse me Taylor Swift, I’m off to get the lyrics to “Merry Go Round” tattooed on my face.
(Thank god this song didn't come out when I was a 16-year-old living in the Houston suburbs or there's a very real chance I might have actually done that)
14. The Manti Teo/catfishing scandal
The Dick Chaney shooting his friend in the face/Clint Eastwood berating a chair of 2013. Only better. And perhaps twitter’s finest hour.
15. Her This movie should win all of the awards. And I mean that fairly literally. Not just Best Picture and Best Director, but, like, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, Best Casting, Best Location Scouting, and Best Everything. Because there's no element of this movie that isn’t perfect. Particularly perfect though: the otherworldly screenplay, the decision to have Shanghai stand in for Los Angeles, Joaquin Phoenix who might be best American male actor working today, Scarlett Johansson who absolutely deserves an Oscar nomination for a role in which she never appears on screen, and Amy Adams who has quietly become a fairly reliable signifier of quality. But most perfect of all is Spike Jonze. He’s now made four films and three of them are all-time classics (and the 4th isn't far off). Her though is without a doubt his masterwork. He took a seemingly comical and ridiculous premise - man falls in love with his computer - and crafted it into not only a searingly honest and heartfelt apology to his ex-wife, but into one of the most heartbreaking explorations of the quest for human connection in years. It’s both incredibly of its time and way ahead of it. It’s a master filmmaker at his absolute apex both as an artist and as a human. And it’s one of my all-time favorite movies.
16. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey at The Golden Globes
Serious Question: Why aren’t all awards shows just like this?
Serious Question Two: Why is it so rare that things are exactly as good as you know that they will be?
17. Orange is the New Black
Was there anything more 2013 than Orange is the New Black? It checked all the boxes - multiracial, gay-friendly, empowering to women, a sprawling ensemble cast, gave voice to people not normally represented in popular culture, on Netflix rather than "TV", designed for binge watching, a comedy without hard jokes, a drama with big laughs, hip-hop, NPR, mustaches. OITNB was 2013. But more importantly, at a time when culture seems obsessed with teaching old dogs new tricks, OITNB showed us all a different way forward: get a new dog.
18. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - “Same Love”
Some generations have their “Change is Gonna Come” sung by Sam Cooke, and some have theirs sung by a guy whose most famous song is a novelty record about thrift store shopping. But then that’s not giving Macklemore enough credit. Because when I was young person the uber-popular zeitgeist-capturing white rapper du-jour was known for his misogyny, homophobia, violence, and nihilism. And today’s version on the other hand is known for his consciousness, his sobriety, his rejection of consumerism, and his LGBT activism. So while I’ll always have a place in my heart for Eminem due to what he meant to me during my formative years, without a doubt Macklemore, culturally, represents progress. And this is his "My Name Is".
19. Before Midnight
In a year when complaining about sequels and prequels and comic book adaptations reached a fever pitch, ironic that one the year’s best movies and one of my all-time favorite films (that's two in one year!) was part of a trilogy and a super hero franchise. And you better believe that Celine and Jesse are super heroes. They're super heroes of language. Super heroes of honesty. And my personal super heroes for proving once again that all you truly need for great art is two people talking.
Finally, nothing resonated more deeply and personally with me in 2013 than this simple article in the New York Times. It articulates the complexity, contradiction, and difficulty of being a person in a relationship with other people more clearly, beautifully, and succinctly than anything else I've ever read.
“If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known” should be recited by school kids like the Pledge of Allegiance.
Noah Goldstein: I really like the fact that people are
loving this album or they're like, "This is trash!" I don't really
like up-the-middle music, because where's the opinion in that? I'd rather have
people hate it than be in the middle
---------------------------------------- It’s been almost two weeks now since I first heard Yeezus
and I still don’t quite know what I think of it. I still can’t decide if it’s
Dylan going electric or Dylan converting to Christianity. If it’s a masterpiece or disappointing. If it excites me or if it
makes me sad. I’m almost positive I love it. But I’m still not sure I like
it. And only Kanye could provoke that reaction. ----------------------------------------
Noah Goldstein: "On Sight" sets a new bar.
Nobody's doing that. There's no chance in hell that anybody's gonna put that on
and be like, "Oh, that's J. Cole"-- not to diss J. Cole. But there's
only one person who can do that kind of shit.
------------------------------------------ Yeezus really says it all with its first track: “On
Sight”. The moment that best defines the album comes halfway through the song
when Kanye asks “How much do I not give a fuck / lemme show you right now
before you give it up” then the song completely stops and launches into an
extended sample of a completely different song, "He'll Give Us What We Really Need". That’s
not something you do if you remotely give a fuck. But as Kanye just said, he
clearly doesn’t. And really the whole song itself is a middle finger to giving
a fuck, to melody, to convention, to hit singles, to music. It doesn’t ease you
into the album, it assaults you. It’s almost literally Kanye shooting lasers at
you. It's robots having sex in an abandoned warehouse just before the world
ends. It’s not only not commercial, it’s actively anti-commercial. It's Kanye
taking known hit-makers and pushing them to their furthest artistic extremes. “On
Sight” is what Daft Punk wishes they
were bold enough to sound like on Daft Punk records. “On Sight” is new. It’s
like nothing Kanye has ever done before. It’s like nothing you were ever expecting him to do. After “On Sight”
literally anything is possible. All options are now in play. “On Sight” is
scary and daring and innovative. It’s challenging and original and in your
face. I can’t stop thinking about it. I also don’t particularly like “On
Sight”. And it’s definitely my least favorite song on the album.
Only Kanye could provoke that reaction. --------------------------------------------
Travi$ Scott: You gotta be really dialed in to understand
something like "On Sight".
-------------------------------------------- In a world where every person in a position of power’s
sole obsession seems to be holding onto that power or expanding it, in music, a few
times a generation, we get people who have so much power that they seem to only be
interested in what they can do with it. They don’t care about staying popular
as much as they care about staying relevant, and that's a huge difference. One is
about success, the other is about achievement.
Jay-Z released the promo video for his new album recently and the buzz was about all the big names in the studio with him. The clip shows off that he is working with well-known producers, that he is trying to give us more of what we like, more of what has worked in the past, from reliable established brand names. With Yeezus on the other hand, Kanye has given us things we weren’t even aware existed. He's created a well curated trip through the edges of the underground. But it doesn't stop there. Kanye found new things, sure, but he took it a step further by reshaping what he found in his own image. He breathed life into clay. He made woman out of a rib. He IS a God. But a God who possibly hates us. A God who is (often literally) yelling at us to leave him alone. A God who would kill off his whole audience if it meant he could make purer art. He's like an underground indie band selling out, only completely the opposite. But paradoxically, chasing less popularity is making music fans love him more.
Only Kanye could provoke that reaction.
------------------------------------------
Hudson Mohawke: A lot of the record is trying to avoid obviousness. Through the entire process of putting it together, there were tons of easy slam dunks, but rather than just going for the hits and having an album that nobody's going to give a fuck about in a month or two, he intentionally sidestepped the obvious route each time. I think that's what going to give it more longevity and put it in a category of records that you'll go back to in 10 years time.
------------------------------------------
Nearly everyone now agrees that Kid A is a masterpiece, but Kanye makes his version of Kid A and people complain that it doesn’t contain any singles or songs you can dance to or play at your parties. Which says a lot about where hip hop is at, and where Kanye is trying to take it. After all 808’s & Heartbreak was considered similarly difficult and uncommercial, yet it almost directly gave rise to Drake, one of the most popular and commercial rappers working today. Things often seem difficult and new, until they don’t. Yeezus leaked on a Friday and sounded completely inaccessible. By that Saturday "Black Skinheads" was soundtracking a Martin Scorsese trailer. By this week I’m sure it’s being played in clubs. And maybe it's Stockholm Sydrome, but after listening to it non-stop for two weeks Yeezus doesn't even sound that "out there" to me anymore. It sounds normal now. And that's because Kanye just changed the sound of music. He just created the future out of whole cloth. Maybe he is the new Steve Jobs after all.
I fear that Kanye is tearing music apart, and I simultaneously celebrate that he's making it stronger. Only Kanye could provoke that reaction.
-----------------------------------------
Hudson Mohawke: It takes him out of the realm of so many other mainstream rap artists who only focus on the bragging side of things; you don't necessarily feel like you have any personal connection with a lot of those artists, whereas Kanye puts so much of his own personality into his music.
-------------------------------------------
Yeezus isn’t just Kid A though; it’s In Utero, it’s The Marshall Mathers LP, it’s Plastic Ono Band, and it's Rumours. It's music that actually sounds better the more you know about it. It's music that only the Kanyes of the world can give us. Because it's art that has context. If Yeezus had been released by, say, Wiz Khalifa, not only does no one listen to it, but it has no impact and no meaning. But since it comes from Kanye, not only will everyone who is serious about music at least hear it and think about it and give it a chance, but its songs and themes and sounds are all richer and more meaningful because of the way they build off of and respond to Kanye's past work and his life. Does "Blood on the Leaves" sound the same without "Gold Digger" and Kim Kardashian and a lifetime of soul music samples? Is "Bound 2" resonant without The College Dropout? Does "I Am A God" mean as much with "Jesus Walks"? Does Yeezus even exist if Kanye's mother had never died?
After hearing Yeezus so many people have asked where Kanye goes from here. And thats a great question. But ultimately there's nowhere to go if you haven't come from anywhere.
I may not love Yeezus. I may very well never listen to it again after this week. But I love that I had to listen to it. And that its an absolutely essential part of the musical journey of a lifetime. I may not always like the ride, but I wouldn't miss it for the world.
Only Kanye could provoke that reaction.
--------------------------------------------
Justin Vernon: There's no pedestrian fuckery on this album. People are working their asses off to make the best shit, and Kanye's leading the pack.
--------------------------------------------
A wise man once said "theres leaders and theres followers / but I'd rather be a dick than a swallower". It's a ridiculous line of course. But it's profound in its own way. Better to be an asshole, difficult, unlikable, and less popular, if it means leading the culture in new directions rather than allowing it to be jammed down your throat. (That metaphor got a little ridiculous there at the end as well.)
Leaders lead, but every once in awhile someone comes along who creates new trails, not knowing if anyone else will ever follow along behind them. It's an essential job, but it's a hard choice to make. It's a hard life to live. You know who can do it though?
After one of the worst years for pop culture ever in 2011, 2012 was one of the best. So much so that I couldn't cut my annual "Best of the Year" list down to less than thirty, and thats even with leaving off things likeZero Dark Thirty, Perks of Being a Wallflower, "Tig Notaro Live at Largo", the final monologues of The Dictator and Killing Them Softly, Channel Orange, Louie, 30 Rock, and the cast of Happy Endings that I feel like would make this list only I either haven't had a chance to experience them yet or they are ineligible due to appearing on a previous year's list (gotta spread the love). So without further ado here are my top 30 favorite things from 2012, in relatively random order.
30. “We Found Love” at the Brit Awards
Questions:
Why werent there more people talking about this? Have I not been giving Rihanna enough credit? Have we all not? Is this what raves are like? Is this what dubstep is like? Is this the solution to all the world’s problems? More
dubstep raves? It would appear so. In that case...DUBSTEP RAVES 2013!
Also, why are all award show performances not like this?
29. Adele at the Grammys
Answer: Because some awards show performances are like this.
I never actually watched this show which is something I never thought I would say about a Ricky Grevais project. But this one just seemed like a half-hearted attempt to redo Extras and I don’t need a poor man's Extras. Watched Extras, loved Extras, but I’m all good thanks. For five glorious minutes though Lifes Too Short was better than anything Extras ever produced. Yes, including the Ian McKellan bit.
Also, how did Liam Neeson not win an Emmy for this? Or did he? I really don’t know. But this is probably his finest work. Suck it Schindler’s List.
28. Kristen Bell’s sloth story on Ellen
Before watching this I had absolutely no opinion on
Kristen Bell. In fact I wasn’t entirely certain that she wasn’t Kristen
Chenowith. But now I know exactly who she is – she’s the greatest person on
Earth.
(And who said talk shows were a dying relic, a vestigial
limb from woebegone entertainment industry age? Oh, everyone? Okay then…)
A friend of mine once said that their favorite song was
“Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” because “you get three songs for the price
of one.” And there’s an element of that in my love of this song certainly. But still, all I know is that if I had heard this song at age 16 it
would have blown my mind off. I would have gotten it tattooed on my face. Even
at 30 I can’t fully believe it exists and I didn’t make it.
As with the shins and Phoenix before them I’ll gladly
take down my “First!” flag with regards to fun. (I had a conversation about fun. with a friend the
day BEFORE their FIRST EVER live appearance together as a band) and cede
ownership of them to the masses for the greater
good of the band and all mankind. So while this song is mine, it’s also
everyone else’s.
But mostly it’s mine. 25. Searching for Sugar Man This is why fact is better than fiction. Because there's no way you could make up this story if you tried. And if you somehow did there's no way it's climax could provoke as emotional a reaction from the viewer as the real thing does. I'd love to say more, but the less you know about this music documentary going in the better. Just know you wont have seen a more unbelievable story in a long long time. (Semi-pseudo-spoiler: If you have seen the movie, or know the story, then I'd just like to add that one of my main thoughts is that with how interconnected the world is today a story like this one wouldn't be possible anymore. And if this story had instead unfolded the way it would today, would that have been a better or a worse thing for all involved? It's really hard to say.)
24. Girls
This show. This fuckin’ show.
What is there left to say about Girls? No seriously, because whatever there is left to say I’d like to say it.
If you take all the articles about Girls
off the Internet there’d be nothing left but cat videos and pictures of Ryan
Gosling, and yet I still feel like we should be talking about this show more. I
could talk til the end of days and still not be satisfied. Because this show
isn’t just perfectly in my wheelhouse it’s in my Hearst Castle surrounded floor
to ceiling with nothing but my wheels.
Let me just say though that with all the talk about this
show the one thing I don’t hear near enough is how good Allison Williams is. “Revelation” feels too minor. Tour de force doesn’t really capture
it. All I know is that she should win all the Emmys ever. And then Lena Dunham
should win all the rest.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to look into the legality
of human/TV show marriage. Because I’m in love with Girls. 23. Anne Hathaway in Les Miz My best friend adamantly believes that Anne Hathaway is the best actress of her generation. It's one of those statements that sounds crazy until you realize that it's totally not. Who else could, in the same year, be by far the best thing in both a Batman movie and Les Miz. And be as heartbreaking and unglamorous in one as they are sexy and funny in the other. Anne's "I Dreamed a Dream" will not only win her an Oscar, but it also got her officially named Prom Queen of Theater Camp. So step off haterz, cuz I'm ride or die Team Hathaway. 22. "Caine's Arcade"
This is the anti-"Kony 2012". A simple issue, a simple task, enormous sized joy and good. The world is indisputably better by mere virtue of this video’s existence. No further action required. And it’s exactly the kind of thing we should be using the Internet for.
More things like this please, Internet People.
21. "Gungan Style"
More things like this as well.
(Stick with it, it's not what it seems like at first)
20. Twitter's response to Clint Eastwood at the Republican convention
Continuing the theme of great things from the Internet, we now have the answer to one of the great questions of our lives: what would it have been like if twitter had existed when Dick Cheney shot that man in the face? Only this was even better because it lasted longer and unfolded in real time. It was the original "premiere of Liz and Dick" only more meaningful and universal (all words in this paragraph are being used loosely). It was twitter's finest hour. And it was the crowning achievement of my generation.
Our grandparents may have defeated the Nazis, but we made perfectly crafted jokes in 140 characters or less about those very same grandparents. Suck it Ghost of Hitler! #greatestgeneration
19. Episodes 4-13 Of Mad Men season 5
After starting out slow, season 5 of the second-greatest
TV show of all time went on one of the greatest run of episodes television has ever seen. Nearly
every week the episode would end and I would think “that was the best episode Mad Men has ever done” only to feel the exact same way the very next week.
With all due respect to Breaking Bad, a show I dearly love (because I am a human being with
a brain), what separates Mad Men from the other Sub-Wire Greats is that it’s actually about something. And not just "selling meth will corrupt you", or
“the mafia is a metaphor for America” but about us. All of us here in America. Our shared past. Our social
structures. Our morality, our aging, and our lives. In the past few weeks alone
I’ve referred to someone as “his Meghan”, wondered out loud if my experience
of listening to dubstep is what Don felt when he heard “Tomorrow Never Knows”,
and compared Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign to Joan Holloway.
Because of Mad Men I can never look at the past the same
way. Which means I can never look at the present the same way. Or the future. Which means I’ll
always expect Mad Men to hit the same heights in did the last half of season 5.
So good luck Matthew Weiner. 18. FUDS menu
I’m often prone to hyperbole but I feel confident that
this is not one of those times: I have never laughed harder at anything in my
life than I laughed (and continue to laugh) at the FUDS menu. I laughed so hard
I couldn’t see straight. I laughed so hard I was actually falling out of my chair. I
laughed so hard I had to stop reading several times because it was hurting too
much. I literally couldn’t take it. If I could travel back in time to do one
thing, I wouldn’t stop the Holocaust, I would read the FUDS menu again for the first time.
This is the Citizen Kane of 21st century menu parodies. This. Is. Comedy.
I know it’s been said ad-nauseum at this point, but the
rapping on this thing is so good it almost feels like HAS to be ghost-written.
Yet it’s so clearly authentically from a tween’s perspective that there’s no
doubt it wasn’t.
But seriously, lines like “I’m on point like an elbow/hands
red like Elmo” and “boatloads of them skittles starburst fritos and Doritos/but
nothing can compare to the H-O-T Cheetos” and “I look and I said ‘no ma’am’/I
go HAM in the grocery store”? Rick Ross hasn’t ever written anything even half as
good as any of those and he "scoop Emmy winners like kitty litter".
Mr. Holland only wishes his kids could produce an opus
like this.
16. Usian Bolt One of my earliest clear memories is of watching the 1988
Summer Olympics. And yet I recently had to Wikipedia who exactly Jackie Joyner
Kersee was. In the summer of 1996 my life revolved around the Atlanta Olympics, yet I recently couldn’t recall what events Michael Johnson ran. And although I watched every night of coverage of the Sydney Olympics I was legitimately
stunned to read that Nastia Lukin won overall gold that year and not Shawn
Johnson. The point is that even being the best of the best at something that
the whole world watched, being an icon, being a national sporting hero doesn’t mean you’ll
be remembered very long. But I know with absolute certainty I’ll remember
everything about Usain Bolt until my dying day.
Usain Bolt is why we sit through the millions (billions?)
of hours of often boring and meaningless and forgettable sporting events. So
that every once in awhile we will see perfection. See a human being do
something that literally leaves us speechless. See something that we know we
will never see again and will remember always. Usain Bolt makes it all worth
it.
Perhaps the greatest thing I can say about Usain Bolt is
not that when faced with the greatest 100m final field of all time there was
absolutely no doubt he would win, or that no one in history has ever made
greatness look so effortless, or that he made winning one race seem like a much
bigger deal than winning the most medals in Olympic history. It’s that I and
every other non-Jamaican on the planet were/are such big Usain Bolt that
we were actively rooting for him against our own countries. If one of the US
sprinters had beaten him I would have actually been angry with them, not proud.
I doubt we’ll
ever have that experience again in our lifetimes. Which is the very sentence
that keeps us watching sports. So thanks Usain Bolt. We’re now all off in
search of our next fix.
Speaking of which…
15. Linsanity
Sometimes sports are perfectly imperfect.They’re euphoric, and uniting, and
heartbreaking, and messy, and unsatisfying in all the ways the life truly is.
And like the first weeks of true love, or landing a dream job, or selling that
first screenplay, or holding a newborn child in your arms Linsanity was magical
and blissful and made being alive the only thing you’d ever want to do forever. But it couldn’t last because nothing does. Love becomes routine, and the job
is stressful, and words get changed without your consent, and your kid needs
things and talks back and it’s all still good, but now it’s real, and real is
less fun. But also it’s the most fun there is. Because what other than reality
could give birth to an event like Linsanity?
Now that it's over, maybe we’ll run into each
other at a party, Linsanity and us, and it will seem strange that we were ever together. Like some half
remembered dream that happened to someone else. But we’ll reminisce about old
times and smile, because those were the days weren't they? And no matter
what else might pass between us we’ll always have the Laker game.
14. Mark Harris' "Oscarmetrics" columns for Grantland One of my favorite writers writing for my favorite
website on my absolute favorite topic? It’s shockingly not too good to be true.
In an alternate reality writing this exact column is the
exact job I have, only I don’t do it half as well. I would be mad at Mr. Harris for stealing so many thoughts straight out of my head, if only they
weren’t so enjoyable to read. Plus, I beat him in Oscar predictions so it all
evens out.
This is the sound of speeding down a nearly empty
freeway, either heading to or coming from an epic night out.
It’s the sound of The Hold Steady covering an Andrew
WK song.
It’s the sound of my ears bleeding with joy.
12. "Eye of the Sparrow: A Bad Lip Reading of the First 2012 Presidential Debate"
This shouldn't be on the Internet; this should be in an art museum.
11. Bobby Cannavale on Boardwalk Empire Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an alternate reality from everyone else. Watching Boardwalk Empire is one of those times. I watch Boardwalk Empire and I see a perfectly crafted, well written, expectly acted show that's only the slightest step down from the Greatest TV Drama Mount Rushmore level. And yet the world at large treats Boardwalk Empire like an empty, unremarkable slog that no one cares about. And I, for the life of me, cant figure out how I and the world at large are watching the same show.
Never has that been more clear than in the case of Bobby Cannavale. In a cast full of great actors Bobby Canavale burst onto the scene this year and from his first appearance on screen towered over all of them with a Pacino-in-his-prime intensity. I thought no actor alive could top the dearly departed Michael Pitt, but Bobby Cannavale made me forget he even existed. Watching Bobby Cannavale this year I saw a superstar giving one of the all-time great TV performances. And yet his mainstream buzz was minimal at best. Just like the show itself.
Wake up people. The new Sopranos is happening in front of you and you're looking right through it.
10. SNL - "Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney" Another case of "Are We Watching The Same Thing?". I've seen multiple "Best Of 2012 SNL" lists and this sketch hasnt been on any of them. But to me it's clearly and indispuatbly one of the best post-More Cowbell sketches the show has done. There's nothing about it that's not perfect.
I’m always a sucker for earnest white person covers of hip hop songs, but this is a whole ‘nother level. I’ve watched this far more than any other YouTube clip this year, and yet no matter how many times I watch it, when the crowd all yells “Beastie Boys” together it gets me every time. Every single time. It’s magic and it’s Coldplay’s finest moment and it’s the best MCA tribute that will ever exist.
Thank you Chris Martin.
8. Felix Baumgartner
The most 2012 thing to happen in 2012 is that a man jumped from outer space. A MAN JUMPED FROM OUTER SPACE. We may not have flying cars or hoverboards, but a man jumped from outer space and we watched it live on the internet. Welcome to the future.
7. PSY - “Gangnam Style”
Looking back, it was quite the year for
YouTube-fueled pseudo-novelty pop song phenomenons. Or maybe that’s
just how the music industry works now. Perhaps, at long last, video finally HAS
killed the radio star.
I’ve often made the case the lyrics don’t really matter.
I mean good ones can enhance a song, obviously. But so can a good sax solo. And
bad lyrics can ruin a song, as every Black Eyed Peas song ever can attest. But
really, they don’t matter all that much. And Exhibit A in defense of that
theory is “Gangnam Style”, a song with exactly four English words, which was
nevertheless a huge hit.
Pretty crazy that one of the biggest new pop stars of
2012 was a 31 year old slightly pudgy very average looking South Korean guy.
It’s almost like ANYONE can be famous these days…
6. The processing scene in The Master The movie itself was kind of a mess. A lot of sound and fury signifying what I'm not quite sure. But it was worth the price of admission and then some for the acting in this scene alone. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best non-Daniel Day-Lewis actor alive, and he's at the apex of his powers here. And Joaquin Phoenix transcends classifications like "good" or "not good" and operates in this scene on a level where I actually fear that he himself is mentally not well. Like the eternal question - "would you want to be able to paint like Van Gogh if it meant that you would be so unhappy and unstable that you would cut off your own ear" - I almost don't know if I would want to be able to give Joaquin Phoenix's performance in this scene. Because being able to act that well would likely mean that I was insane. And I dont think any art is worth my sanity. But then I think about the scene again and it's so incredible that I think "maybe it would be worth it...". So while I cant say for sure whether his performance is "good" or not I can say that it makes me seriously question the value of sanity. And if that's not high praise then I don't know what is. 5. This is 40
Any money over zero dollars that this movie made was a minor miracle. It’s a comedy without “jokes”, it’s depressing and “slow”, and it’s target audience is like maybe 1,000 rich middle-aged couples who live on the west side of Los Angeles. Yet my main complaint was that it was too commercial. The whole time I kept wishing that Judd Apatow had had the balls to go all the way and completely do away with the concept of plot altogether. Plot is only holding him back at this point. He should release himself from it and fly free, before he has to veer back in a more conventional direction in order to make enough money to pay for his daughters’ sure-to-be-massive therapy bills. Which will be a shame because the more he alienates his audience, the more interesting his movies get. I’d rather watch forty This is 40s than one 40-Year-Old Virgin. I only wish it had been 40 times longer. I’m probably alone in that but whatever. If Judd Apatow is our Woody Allen this is his Manhattan. And I can’t wait for his Interiors.
4. Lincoln
Movies never live up to the hype. But sometimes they do. Sometimes they exceed all expectations.
Strangely Lincoln feels nothing like a Spielberg movie, yet it also totally does, in the absolute best way possible. Tony Kushner somehow beat Aaron Sorkin at his own game by writing the best episode of The West Wing ever made. Tommy Lee Jones somehow made me totally okay with him likely beating out a career-best Philip Seymour Hoffman performance for an Oscar. And Daniel Day-Lewis was somehow, improbably, able to make "Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln" even better than "Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln" sounds on paper. Is Daniel Day-Lewis the greatest film actor of all time? Is that a legitimate question? Or is it not even a question any more?
Most importantly though, before I saw this movie I always thought Abraham Lincoln was overrated as a president. Now I think he might be one of the greatest and most interesting human beings who ever lived. The power of drama at its finest.
3. Kanye ft. Big Sean and Jay-Z - "Clique" By Kanye standards, it wasnt a huge year for Kanye, but nevertheless "Clique" is a worthy winner of this year's "Best Thing By Kanye West Of The Year" slot on my year end countdown 2. The Daily Show, 11/15/2012 And the winner of this year's annual "Best Thing By The Daily Show of The Year" award is this!
1. “Call Me Maybe” Lastly....
It’s a "Call Me Maybe" world, we just live in it. It’s a world in which we are now subservient to our Canadian musical overlords (lordesses?). A world where Carly Rae Jepsen’s #occupyyoureardrums movement united the 99% in a show of solidarity not seen since “Hey Ya” (btw, in this case the 1% was deaf people). Resistance was futile. And also un-American-Canadian. It’s a world where a mainstream pop song was the biggest thing to happen to the Internet since cats. It’s a world I never want to not live in. And I know that from here on out whenever I hear “Call Me Maybe” it will always be 2012.
Hey Carly Rae, you got the ability to single-handedly revive mono-culture? Well, then call me definitely.
