schweblog

In celebration of the new year, I’ve decided to give the ol’ blog a new coat of paint in addition to upgrading to the most recent version of WordPress.  The redesign is still in progress and I’ll likely be tweaking it for several weeks to come before I’m happy with it.  It will be pretty one day.

I’ve abandoned resolutions altogether.  There are certain things that I wanted to accomplish before the year started; I still want to accomplish them.  I don’t see the wisdom in attaching some weighty meaning to a mildly uncommon chronological event.

The new year is good for one thing, though, and that’s the unavoidable “best of” lists that everyone and their mother produce.  I’m not going to give you a top 10, though.  Top ten lists are for indecisive individuals that can’t make their mind up and/or hope to pad their lists with obscure items to give themselves hipster cred.  Top threes are the new top tens in this, the era of information overdose.  So, here are three lists of top threes:

Best Albums of 2008

• M83 | Saturdays = Youth: I love this album.  They’re pulling you back into the ’80s, but it’s not the ’80s as we look back upon it.  It was the ’80s as it was lived.  Sentimental.  Youthful.  Kind of innocent.  Excellent.
• Bon Iver | For Emma, Forever Ago: I was introduced to this album late in the year.  It’s really the only one from 2008 that I foresee myself returning to repeatedly in the future.  It’s superb.  Mellow.  Acoustic-y.  Sort of dreamy and secluded.  Probably my favorite album from 2008—I’m pretty sure everyone who has listened to it feels this way.
• Deerhunter | Microcastle: I wasn’t particularly taken with Cryptograms, but Microcastle really grabbed me and gave me a lot of hope for Deerhunter’s future work.  There’s an awful lot going on here.

Biggest Disappointments of 2008

• The death of David Foster Wallace: I received the news while attending a post-wedding after party.  The young bridesmaid that had been hitting on me found me far less charming when I started crying over the death of an author I had never met.
• Ron Paul losing the Republican nomination: I loved Ron Paul for everything he could have been.  Conservativism—real conservatism, mind you, not the washed-up, Reagan-era bullshit—truly needs to be given a voice in DC and Ron Paul is really the last, best hope.
• Barack Obama voting for telecom immunity after he said he wouldn’t support it: I wanted to believe.  I remain hopeful for his presidency, but in a single act he convinced me that he was just another politician.  Is he an improvement?  Yes.  Groundbreaking?  Besides the race thing, no.

Most Annoying Trends of 2008

• At Mount Zoomer: I loved Wolf Parade’s first album so much and their second full album was a total let down.  This was probably the album I was most looking forward to in 2008—and the one I was most let down by.
• Synthesized voices in hip-hop: Who thought this was a good idea?  I realize that this started in late 2006, maybe earlier, but it really seemed to catch this year.  Kanye West’s album almost convinced me that it could be done tastefully, but further review forced me to reject that hypothesis.
• Anti-homosexual adoption legislation: While everyone was up in arms about Proposition 8, I was even more upset by Arkansas banning gay adoption—while the law technically bars all unmarried couples from adoption, it was largely designed to prevent same-sex couples (who—surprise!—can’t get married in AK).  As someone who regularly assists gay and lesbian couples adopt children who desperately need stable, loving homes, this really rubbed me the wrong way.

That concludes my 2008 wrap-up post.  In 2009, I’ll likely be taking my blog in a slightly different direction—I’m tired of the super-serious, entirely academic tone that seems to have dominated (all 12) posts in the last year.

Here’s hoping 2009 isn’t nearly as shitty as 2008…