Well, the old bell curve was bit flatter this year.
During 2017, I heard a lot of very good records but just a few that were great. 2018 had more great stuff but also more disappointments. (How can I be such a pessimist and still manage to get disappointed by things?)
But before getting into the music, let’s see how I did with my 2018 resolutions, broken down by category:
General Classiness:
- Cutting down on saying “Awesome”: A-, but
- I still say “Let's get on the same page” way too much. B-
Health:
- 10,000 steps in a day: C+ (It’s more like 7500.)
- 1,000 words per day. D (It’s more like 75, unless you count talking.)
- More Exercise: B- (Hey, I like to walk but anything else requires too much...exercise.)
- More Vegetables: B- (Do eggplant parmigiana heroes count?)
- Fewer Sweets: B+
- Less Drinking: B+ (Yeah, I'm just a barrel of laughs now.)
Music:
- Fewer CDs, and more mp3s: A- (It’s going great, but I miss CDs! Vinyl, too.)
- Getting current year music: C (Not so good, but then current year music wasn’t so good, either.)
- Guitar: A I got a guitar! And I practice, too! (C- for that, though.)
2019 Resolutions:
- All of the above.
- Oh, and impeachment.
Top Ten Albums:
- Beach House: Bloom (2012) A lotta beauty here. Irridescent
- Superchunk: Majesty Shredding (2010) A lotta joy here. Irresistible
- Beach House: Teen Dream: (2012) Super dreamy, and healing.
- Max Richter: Infra (2010) A modern requiem. Heart wrenchingly sad, but never sappy
- Waxahatchee: Out From the Storm (2017) Tight and tuneful.
- Lori Mckenna: The Bird and the Rifle (2016) Simple, direct. A female, country Neil Young.
- Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: The Nashville Sound (2017) Jason Isbell bares his soul, with a great band to watch his back. Keep going Jason! We’re all rooting for you.
- Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (2008): So modest you could ignore it, so generous it just chips away at your resistance. They combine the sound of the Stones with genuine country, and excellent songwriting.
- Amadou and Mariam: Welcome to Mali (2008) African music but with rock n' roll guitar.
- Mount Eerie: A Crow Looked at Me (2017) Even more devestating than Intra.
Honorable Mentions:
Favorite Songs: can be found here.
Most Work (But Worth it): Drive By Truckers
Most Work (And Possibly Not Worth It): Speedy Ortiz
Most Surprising: Beach House
Most Disappointing: Superchunk
Best Artist: Beach House
Best Books:
So if you think I missed out on 2018 music-wise, wait until you get a load of this, thanks mostly to the World History Project:
- Hamilton by Ron Chernow: An amazing book. An amazing guy. He makes the biggest workaholic you know sound like a slacker. He should have written a book on productivity.
- Burr by Gore Vidal: A delight, as always, and in the context of the WHP, Vidal clearly worked his ass off.
- Freedom by Jonathan Franzen: It’s been a long time since I read a “good old novel” that kept me involved all the way through to the end. Brainy, but more importantly, lots of heart.
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon: Dark, and yet funny as hell.
- Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar: Eloquent, beautifully written
- Washington: Ron Chernow: Great history.
- The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendahl:Funny, cynical, kind of nuts. Very refreshing.
- Thomas Jefferson by Christopher Hitchens: Okay, Tom, Vidal and Chernow - not to mention Hamilton and Washington - think you’re an asshole. So who but Christopher Hitchens could rise to your defense?
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet by David Mitchell: History and love.
- The Life of Johnson by Boswell: Even the smartest guys have their blind spots.
Observations:
Like I said, 2018 itself - at least what I heard of it, was less than great. But I’ll be working on the stuff I missed, because I suspect it was a much better year than my ears heard.
Up Next:
Ludvig Van and the 2010s.
