Because the unexamined musical taste is not worth indulging.
And yes, a lot of stuff off of soundtracks this year, along with stuff I was listening to on KROQ when I moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago this past August. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
I hope there will be more looking forward musically in 2018, rather than looking back.
1. “Love Is” – Dude York
2. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Dropkick Murphys
3. “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
4. “Talk to Me” – Run the Jewels
5. “I Love Seattle” – Tacocat
6. “Nowhere to Run” – Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
7. “Big Time” – Peter Gabriel
8. “Fight the Power” – Public Enemy
9. “The Power” – Sweet Spirit
10. “Love” – Lana Del Rey
11. “Add It Up” – Violent Femmes
12. “Little Blue World” – Jeremy Messersmith
13. “Morning Glory (iTunes Live: London Festival)” – Oasis
14. “Everywhere” – Ex Hex
15. “Gamma Knife” – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
16. “Cigarettes & Alcohol” – Oasis
17. “Fox on the Run” – The Sweet
18. “Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes
19. “Der Kommissar” – After the Fire
20. “Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin
21. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” – Oasis
22. “Baby Driver” – Simon & Garfunkel
23. “Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles
24. “The End of Things” – Bob Mould
25. “Nightmare” – Bruise Violet
In 2017, I did something I haven’t done since 2013, which was abandon an unreadable book. Despite that, I easily beat my goal of reading 17 books over the course of the year, in part because my fifth grader and I started our own book club, to help him reach his reading goals in school.
Ironically, A Wrinkle in Time is an easier read, according to the Accelerated Reader website than the Warcraft and Minecraft novels we read, despite being much meatier in all the most important ways. And yes, he and I will be there opening weekend for the movie this spring, so we can play compare and contrast with the book.
This year’s goal is 18 books. I had never intended to have these synch up with the calendar year, but that’s an easy way to remember the goal, I suppose. (It’s going to be grim in 2100, though.)
Like so many other things 2016-related, I’m not going to even try to justify that title making sense any more. This is also the first one of these lists to feature a band I first heard playing live at a presidential candidate’s rally. And finally, also true to 2016, there’s a lot of dead people on this year’s list.
1. “Never Come Back Again” – Austin Plaine
2. “Sleep When Dead” – A Giant Dog
3. “All Work” – Fever High
4. “I Shall Rise (From ‘Rise of the Tomb Raider’)” – Karen O
5. “Ain’t I a Man” – The Foghorns
6. “This Land is Your Land” – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
7. “Let’s Be Still” – The Head and the Heart
8. “I Can Be Afraid of Anything” – The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
9. “Make the World” – Lee Fields & the Expressions
10. “Lady Liberty” – Dressy Bessy
11. “Tangerines” – The Gods Themselves
12. “Stop” – Jane’s Addiction
13. “Authority Song” – John Cougar Mellencamp
14. “Girl From Conejo Valley” – M. Ward
15. “Runaway” – Nice As Fuck
16. “I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man” – Prince
17. “Drive North” – SWMRS
18. “Kirby” – Aesop Rock
19. “Grown Man” – Full Moon Royalty
20. “Nothing More to Say” – The Frightnrs
21. “Bad Reputation” – Joan Jett
22. “Video Games” – Lana Del Rey
23. “Katmandu” – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
24. “Good Girls” – Elle King
25. “Hurt” – Johnny Cash
26. “Hole in My Soul” – Kaiser Chiefs
27. “Tiki Hut” – Miles Corbin
28. “You Know I’m No Good” – Arctic Monkeys
29. “Fishing Blues (feat. The Grouch)” – Atmosphere
30. “One Big Holiday” – My Morning Jacket
31. “Guns” – Nice As Fuck
32. “California (Tchad Blake Mix)” – Phantom Planet
33. “Can’t Hardly Wait” – The Replacements
34. “I’m Still Here” – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
35. “Hey You” – The Thermals
36. “California Kids” – Weezer
37. “Valerie” – Amy Winehouse
38. “Space Oddity” – David Bowie
39. “Mujer Moderna” – Fea
40. “You Want It Darker” – Leonard Cohen
41. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – The Martini Kings
42. “Little Red Corvette” – Prince
43. “Awkward Waltz” – Acapulco Lips
44. “Bravado” – Aqua Velvets
45. “Shame” – Big Bad Hats
46. “Hightimes” – The Big Pink
47. “Keep on Keepin’ On” – Bleached
48. “No Sleep Till Brooklyn (Daft Science Remix)” – Coins
49. “The Midnight Special” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
50. “Changes” – David Bowie
51. “Green Peppers” – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
52. “Blue Jeans” – Lana Del Rey
53. “Take Five” – Martini Kings
54. “Galaxy Song” – Monty Python
55. “1999 (Edit)” – Prince
56. “Killing in the Name (Live)” – Prophets of Rage
57. “Taurus” – Spirit
58. “Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah)” – White Denim
59. “Gringo” – Aqua Velvets
60. “Jockey Full of Bourbon” – The Blue Hawaiians
61. “Daydream” – Britta Phillips
62. “Alive/Intergalactic (Daft Science Remix)” – Coins
63. “Three Packs a Day” – Courtney Barnett
64. “Life on Mars?” – David Bowie
65. “Too Soon” – DMA’S
66. “Dancing With Myself” – The Donnas
67. “Where the Night Goes” – Josh Ritter
68. “Bone” – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
69. “Soul Bossa Nova” – The Martini Kings
70. “Angel” – Nice As Fuck
71. “Take Me With U” – Prince & The Revolution
72. “100 Days, 100 Nights” – Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
73. “Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Live)” – Sonny Knight & The Lakers
74. “Black Hole Sun” – Soundgarden
75. “Swampbilly Hop” – Aqua Velvets
76. “The Kingdom of the Universe” – Ashley Park
77. “Red House” – Chase Walker Band
78. “Fame” – David Bowie
79. “Radio” – Lana Del Rey
80. “Hurtin’ (On the Bottle)” – Margo Price
81. “Cantaloupe Island” – Martini Kings
82. “Door” – Nice As Fuck
83. “Numb” – O.J.R.
84. “Killer” – Phoebe Bridgers
85. “Darling Nikki” – Prince & The Revolution
86. “Prophets of Rage” – Prophets of Rage
87. “Dark Necessities” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
88. “Another Lie” – Stewart Lindsey
89. “L.A. Girlz” – Weezer
90. “Beauty and the Beach” – Aqua Velvets
91. “Ain’t It a Sin” – Charles Bradley
92. “Nothing But Love” – James
93. “Homerun” – Nice As Fuck
94. “Raspberry Beret” – Prince
95. “No Sleep Til Cleveland (Live)” – Prophets of Rage
96. “Good Man” – Raphael Saadiq
97. “All For One” – The Stone Roses
98. “Orange Color Queen” – Ty Segall
99. “Bulletproof Love (feat. Method Man)” – Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad
100. “Surf Boogie” – Aqua Velvets
Previous editions can be found here: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. This is now a long-term longitudinal study with data that no one but me cares about.
I’ve done the impossible and read a whole 16 books in a year. (I know, I know, but I have two small children and an increasingly demanding job.) My goal for next year: 17.
And yes, I read a lot of J. K. Rowling this year. She was busy in 2016.
Note: Turn to the last page of the book, and there I am, a Kickstarter backer of this book.
“In Other News: Reporters on Reporting” fills a valuable role for new or prospective journalists, particularly reporters, looking for some career guidance. As newsrooms have shrunk, which nearly all of them have, so to have the number of available mentors, in part because even would-be mentors often find themselves too busy to help out, even when they want to.
So this book fills that gap, with interviews with a dozen journalists from across the United States, and at a mix of print, online and broadcast outlets. Stephanie Forshee and Rosie Downey also interviewed a good number of female journalists and journalists of color, the latter of whom are still in woefully small supply across most outlets, and whose voices are especially needed by new journalists looking for advice.
The interviews tend to be about their career paths, and include other voices from the journalists’ paths, although in the cases of particularly interesting pieces they’ve worked on, the interviews may end up focusing on a particular story or series instead.
The book’s not perfect. It could use at least one more good edit, for one thing: The first interview uses “self-admittedly,” which would cause most copy editors I’ve known in the past 25 years to scream, and the last piece includes quotes from a former co-worker of the subject, but never gives their first name or an explanation why it’s not included. But those errors are a lesson for new reporters, as well.
And despite the fact that the two authors both work for smaller outfits themselves, the book is entirely focused on larger, more famous publications — I think all of the newspapers mentioned in the book are in the top 25 in the nation by circulation, despite the fact that there are more than 1,200 newspapers being published today. That gives the unfortunate impression that these larger market publications are what “real” journalism is about and that it’s what new journalists should aspire to, despite the fact that most of the journalists at those publications aren’t going to be leaving any time soon (and if they are, there often won’t be a job opening left when they do), and that there isn’t any good work being done at small publications. (Daniel Gilbert of the 39,000-circulation Herald Courier in Bristol, Virginia, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and my colleagues won the Pulitzer for Local Reporting in 2015 while at the 57,000-circulation Daily Breeze in Torrance.)
But those, honestly, are quibbles, and maybe something to be addressed in a second edition. Because this is a book that new and aspiring journalists should be reading, especially those who weren’t born with a passion to become a journalist or who didn’t take the route through a prestigious undergraduate journalism program and an expensive graduate degree program. There are journalists in this book, some of them household names, who didn’t decide on journalism until decades into adulthood and many others who took circuitous paths to get to where they are today. The big lesson of this book — that there’s no one “right” way to make it in journalism — is one I think every journalist at the start of what is still an immensely satisfying, if challenging, career path ought to hear.
Ironically, A Wrinkle in Time is an easier read, according to the Accelerated Reader website than the Warcraft and Minecraft novels we read, despite being much meatier in all the most important ways. And yes, he and I will be there opening weekend for the movie this spring, so we can play compare and contrast with the book.
I’ve done the impossible and read a whole 16 books in a year. (I know, I know, but I have two small children and an increasingly demanding job.) My goal for next year: 17.
