Right, right. This should’ve been finished before the end of 2025. But between engagements and gastro, it took a bit of a back seat.
YES I KNOW GODDAMNIT.
But now I’m (mostly) back on deck, so here’s your yearly guide to things I perceived. You can check through the previous versions (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) for some more me-review action.
I think this will be less wordy than the usual variant, but we’ll see how we end up.
It’s the last day of 2024. I am tired, but I am also eleven years deep into screaming into the void about the things I liked during the year, so I’m armed with a vat of tea, a container of lollies and the burning desire to see whether the stuff I consumed throughout the year has a hidden message.
Why do I do this? Your guess is as good as mine. And his. Though he’d be having a Bat-Guess.
This one could be a bit wilder (and woollier?) than preceding iterations, so if you’re feeling like something’s missing, you can check through the previous versions (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) for some more me-review action.
Or you could log off and go look at some fireworks. I dunno, I’m not your mother.
(Edit: I got too tired before the actual turn of the year and went to bed. This is a New Year’s Day post now, so I assume you are no longer wearing a party hat as you read this, which saddens me slightly. I did a psych! move and this post still appears to have been written in the dying minutes of the year, so it’s still on time, kinda-sorta.)
Once more, dear friends, it’s time for me to remark that time has really flown this year, and that it seems as if I had only written last year’s one of these a couple of days ago.
Call me Bill. (And call me, Bill.)
Yep, 2023 went fast. It’s been a good year in a lot of ways, and absolutely atrocious in many others. The world continues to go to shit, and so I continue in my mission of providing distraction to those who enjoy it (thankfully, a treasured few do) through writing up what I consumed this year, culturally speaking. If this isn’t you, then punch out now. I’m not sure if this one’s going to be as long as previous editions, but let’s give it a whirl, shall we?
Here we are again at the end of a year that feels like it only began the other week. It’s been a big one for lots of reasons, and I’ve gotten through it OK – I think? – but I have to take issue with my hopeful belief in the last one of these things that I’d somehow get more motivation in 2022.
Hahahahahahaha.
I didn’t.
In keeping with my lack of motivation, this recap may be a little shorter than previous years, but I’m hoping there’s still something in here that might pique your interest. It’s a collection of stuff that I enjoyed (or didn’t) through this year, and is one in a continuing line. Faintly ridiculous effort, but this will make it ten years of this kinda stuff, so let’s go.
SO we grind to the end of another year, and I appear, like some kind of obnoxious groundhog, ready to dispense my wisdom. If, by “wisdom” you mean “half-assed picks of Stuff Which Was Pretty OK In This Terrible Year”.
Difference is that he’s more stylish than I am.
I’ll insert a caveat here: like, well, everyone, this year has been a struggle for me. We’re rolling toward the third instalment of 2020 and increasingly I find that concentration takes a kick in the nuts for every COVID variant found. A lot of the plans I had made at the beginning of the year haven’t come to pass because I’ve either lacked the bandwidth to execute them, or because I’ve been so goddamned tired. I haven’t read as much as I would have liked, and I haven’t listened to as much music as I’d hoped. There’s been a bit of persistent fog around through the year and it’s made it difficult to do anything than just exist, sometimes.
I came to this book as many did, I suspect, because it featured on that list of David Bowie’s 100 favourite books which circulated a couple of years ago. (The list also is explored in a podcast, if you’re interested.)
It makes sense that Bowie would be a fan of this work, given that it’s an enthusiastic, bitchy exploration of early rock. After all, the work is titled for Little Richard’s protean good-time yawp from ‘Tutti Fruitti’, the song that made Bowie “see God”.
And a lot of cocaine, I guess.
After a couple of years of looking, I found a copy replete with terrifying cover. It was written in 1968 and revised in 1972. Kit Lambert, erstwhile manager of The Who introduces the work and sets things rolling: the text covers a brief period in music, but one of supreme importance for everything rock-related that came afterwards. All that’s covered is the period from Bill Haley’s initial popularity until 1966 – that’s it.
I suppose this year hasn’t exactly been kind to my interpretation of, y’know, time, so it’s not a surprise that this has crept up on me. Anyway, for the benefit of me and the dick-pill spambots that flood my comments section, I guess it’s time to chunk out some words about things I liked this year.
As ever, I’m a bit uncertain as to why I do this. It feels like a bit of an indulgence, but I suppose it does allow me a bit of breathing space to look back at the year through the prism of entertainment and formulate some thoughts about it. Whether they’re any good is still up for debate, but before we get too deep in the ontological weeds, let’s get on with it.
So Pulp, eh? Possibly – nah, probably – the best band to emerge from the Britpop years of hype and arse-smacking heroin chic.
The group – in existence since 1978, if you can believe it – weren’t typically sexy. I mean, there was an effort to evoke a certain PR sexiness from lyricist Jarvis Cocker’s gangly frame, but it wasn’t the body that made him sexy: it was the combination of his writing, and of sex itself.
It’s been a long time between drinks, but I’ve written another review for the fine folks at Cyclic Defrost.
This time, I’m reviewing Howard Stelzer‘s enormous collaborative album, Invariably Falling Forward, Into The Thickets Of Closure. It’s a mouthful, but it’s an absolute triumph.
Airport novels. They’re the ideal way to defrag your brain. It took me years to deprogram myself from the literature degree belief that everything I read had to be worthy, had to be a classic.
Sometimes, you just want some brain-popcorn rather than multi-clausal comedies of manners.
Yeah nah. 