The 2023 Lists
Some of my favorite records, films, and other such things.
Hello, and welcome to the second annual “Lists” edition of Something New. Like I said last year, my relationship with lists is fluid, and mostly involves avoidance. But doing hard things is fruitful, and lists are a simplified way of getting something across to a reader. So, yeah, fine, let’s list.
My Favorite Records of the Year (Alphabetical, by artist)
bar italia - Tracey Denim
This was the leader in the clubhouse all year. A random find from someone’s Instagram story, Tracey Denim is a delight of production and weird sounds. Eclectic indie rock with a dark average tone, great textured vocals from multiple vocalists, and great variety of sound throughout. I’ve gone on a million walks while listening to this thing. I’ll listen to anything they make (like a second album they released in 2023). This also wins the “I couldn’t care less about what the lyrics are actually saying, the vocals just sound good” award.
Black Belt Eagle Scout - The Land, The Water, The Sky
This record is magic. There are emotions and stories living inside of here that I haven’t experienced before. Katherine Paul, a Native American and the voice and creator behind Black Belt Eagle Scout, created the record after returning to her home land when the pandemic took hold. There is a massive sense of place and people within, and the blending of traditional Native vocal sounds and contemporary rock is gorgeous and innovative. Every year I make sure to buy a record to commemorate the contemporary stuff I loved during those twelve months. This is my selection this year.
Editor’s note (It’s me, Bobby. I’m the editor): I’m just now seeing that BBES are touring with Sleater-Kinney later this winter/spring. They aren’t playing in Portland or Seattle, but I am thinking about a travel show…?
feeble little horse - Girl with Fish
Back to back years of female voiced bands with “horse” in the name. Horse girls are everywhere, and they stay undefeated.
Kelela - Raven
This came out pretty early in the year, and just stuck with me. I love the sonics and soundscapes that lay underneath Kelela’s vocals. I find it exquisitely produced, so spatial and spacey. It goes many different places, but always has a warmth in its sound.
Ratboys - The Window
This was my favorite indie rock find of the year. How have I not listened to this Chicago group before? The Window is so fun and explorative and great. My musical moment of the year was someone in front of me at a local Portland coffee shop talking to the barista, their friend.
barista: “what did you do last night?”
customer: “I was at the Ratboys show”
me: “YOU WHAT”
I screamed that line. I scared that man. I missed that show.
The Replacements - Tim
This year’s remastering of Tim was my introduction to The Replacements, and hot damn, this record is so good. The remastered release contains several full versions of the record, and listening through each of them is a wonderful journey in fidelity and history, and it was the best remastered experience I’ve had with music. I will absolutely be running through this entire discography.
Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS
I thought this record might make this list, and only because I hosted a vinyl release party, where we listened to the record in full, and voted in real-time on our favorite songs. It was one of the best nights I had in 2023. Such a simple act, listening to music together with friends, and talking about what you like about it. But I’ve listened to this record several times since, and I find the entirety of it to be great. It’s my favorite huge pop album released in a long time. I really don’t listen to the most massively popular artists out there. Rodrigo is an exception.
Romy - Mid Air
If there are 20 versions of me that still exist somewhere in my current self, this is one of those’s favorite record of the year. Catch me in the club (my living room) vibing to this until the sun rises.
Sampha - Lahai
The most impactful Tiny Desk concert, for me, is Sampha’s 2017 performance. I’ve been waiting for this record ever since, and it surprised and challenged me in ways I was not expecting. There’s so much fun and interesting stuff in the depths of the production, and absolutely no one has a voice that can float atop a song like his. Angelic and playful, and used so well. This is the nerd version of me’s favorite of the year.
Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
I was ready for this to rock before it came out, and guess what? It does. This soundtracked my spring/early summer adventures, and that means its carved into my brain forever.
Here’s some other stuff that I also really liked:
Mitski - The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We
This will be my favorite in 5 years
Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
I haven’t given it the space I know it deserves.
no name - Sundial
basically the only new hip hop that I returned to this year
Caroline Polacheck - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
just outside my wheelhouse, still great
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
more great indie rock with “rat” in the name
2023 was a great year for movies: tons of great small productions, some all-time work from some of the best filmmakers to ever do it, and a complete personal lack of Marvel movies. Things are looking to be okay after the pandemic, especially here in Portland, where repertory screenings continue to add unmeasurable value to my life.
Here are my favorite new-to-me movies I saw in 2023 (Alphabetical, by director)
True Stories - David Byrne (1986)
One of the strangest and most clear, loving movies I have ever seen. Byrne is such a treasure, and his ability to cast his silliness and strangeness into a million different characters in this movie is grand and so purely enjoyable.
Stop Making Sense - Jonathan Demme (1984)
A magical, brilliant experience. I got to see it for my first time on a new 4K print in a theater full of fans of all ages, people dancing in the aisles. Cinema is alive.
The Killer - David Fincher (2023)
I’m going to say this several times, but the ever-growing rareness of filmmakers making movies about what it is like to be alive RIGHT NOW, rather than at some point in the past, makes present-set movies so much more thrilling and dangerous and welcomed. THE KILLER is an outright comedy, if you ask me, about the commercial and economical world we live in right now, and the values and perspectives that motivate and move us towards our goals. It’s also a tightly wound thriller and assassin movie. David Fincher makes movies that can do it all.
Watch it now, on Netflix.
May December - Todd Haynes (2023)
This was the most unique movie I saw this year, in its subjectivity and filmmaking tricks, its mimicking melodrama, and its bizarre (great) performances. This thing is icky, damning, sympathetic, and digs into something about our past and our present that I loved chewing on.
Watch it now, on Netflix.
Cure - Kiyoshi Kurosawa (1997)
I watched this during Halloween season, not knowing a thing about it. It is one of the most precise films I’ve ever seen. This would have been 21-year-old me’s favorite movie of all time, probably. Incredible, dark, twisting storytelling.
The Boy and the Heron - Hayao Miyazaki (2023)
Miyazaki, the king of making movies about what it’s like to be alive right now — or what it could and should be like — returns with a lofty and loose non-response to the question at its core, and the question of the Japanese title, “how do you live?”. I don’t want to get into specifics, because I want you to be overwhelmed by it, and find your own way in and through it, just like I still am.
Showing Up - Kelly Reichardt (2023)
Another movie about being alive right now, especially as a creative person, especially as a creative person in Portland, OR. Recihardt makes a very specific kind of movie each time she works, and they just work for me. There’s a reality and humanity in this, and each film, that no one else is aiming for or achieving.
Killers of the Flower Moon - Martin Scorsese (2023)
Easily the most massive movie that I saw this year, in its run-time and its, more importantly, its content. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a movie that was so clearly a choice, made by its filmmaker, to start and to continue a conversation about America, storytelling, colonialism, ownership, and dozens of other important ideas. This film has inspired so much thoughtful and sharp writing, and the reactions and responses, as well as the film itself, have taught me so much about the world, this country, its peoples, and myself.
Past Lives - Celine Song (2023)
My favorite announcement of a new filmmaker this year, a wonderful film about my generation, about connection, and so lovingly and beautifully made.
The Apartment - Billy Wilder (1960)
The first movie I watched in 2023. Another installment in the “it’s exactly as great as everyone says it is” canon.
Some more movies that I really liked:
Asteroid City - Wes Anderson (2023)
Wes is up to something in this one. I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but I like what he’s up to.
Priscilla - Sofia Coppola (2023)
Coppola makes movies for me. She will never miss.
The Iron Claw - Sean Durkin (2023)
What if boys were sad? The Movie
Barbie - Greta Gerwig (2023)
A truly remarkable social phenomenon.
Oppenheimer - Cristopher Nolan (2023)
A lesser part of a truly remarkable social phenomenon.
The ‘I’m glad they still make them like they used to’ awards:
Dungeons and Dragons - Daley and Goldstein (2023)
BOTTOMS - Emma Seligman (2023)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One - Christopher McQuarrie (2023)
The Holdovers - Alexander Payne (2023)
In the other formats, I listened to audio versions of several classic movie books, and on the television side, I bounced through THE BEAR seasons one, and mostly just rewatched 30 ROCK or live sports. My disinterest in the entire format of television remains strong.
Thanks, as always, for reading. I had a restful and restorative break between this and my last entry. I am fascinated and thankful for the world-wide phenomenon that is “the holiday season”, where people agree to stop abiding by our work schedule, and to buy each other gifts and spend time with family. The society we’ve build for ourselves is so strange, isn’t it?
Looking forward, I have absolutely nothing planned to write about. The slate is blank. I can’t wait to find what takes up that empty page.
TTFN,
Bobby
What I listened to while writing this:
my bloody valentine - loveless (1991)
Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day (1970)