Music

Music I most enjoyed discovering this quarter:

• Gregorio Allegri: “Miserere” (c. 1635)
• Dimash & Chanté Moore: “Lose Control” (2024)
• Clark: Playground in a Lake (2021)
• The Last Dinner Party: “Call Me” (2024), Prelude to Ecstasy (2024)
• Varijashree Venugopal: Vari (2024)
• Ske: Insolubilia (2021)
• Ni: Fol Naïs (2023)
• The Octopus Project: Hexadecagon (2010)
• Foals: Total Life Forever (2010), What Went Down (2015)

Rediscovered or revisited, and really liked:¹

• Glitch Mob: Drink the Sea (2010)
• Fiona Apple: Tidal (1996), When the Pawn… (1999), The Idler Wheel… (2012), Fetch the Bolt Cutters (2020)
• Heather Duby: Post to Wire (1999)
• Shannon Wright: Dyed in the Wool (2001)
• Creed: “Pity for a Dime” and “One” (1997)
• Queens of the Stone Age: “Avon” (1998), “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” (2000), Songs for the Deaf (2002)
• Meshuggah: I (2004)
• Opeth: “Blackwater Park” (2001)
• Ulver: “Gnosis” (1999), Perdition City (2000), Blood Inside (2005), “Glamour Box” and “Son of Man” (2013), The Assassination of Julius Caesar (2017)
• Deftones: White Pony (2000)
• Kid Rock: Devil Without a Cause (1998)
• Rammstein: “Du hast” (1997), Mutter (2001)
• Nightstick: “Ultimatum: ‘Cut It Off, Then Kill It’” (1988)
• System of a Down: System of a Down (1998), Toxicity (2001), Steal This Album! (2002), Mezmerize (2005), Hypnotize (2005), “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz” (2020)
• Linkin Park: “Crawling” and “In the End” (2000)
• Dredg: Leitmotif (2001)
• Isis: Panopticon (2004)
• Live Human: Live Human featuring DJ Quest (1997)
• DJ Logic: The Anomaly (2001)
• Yohimbe Brothers: Front End Lifter (2001)
• Eminem: “Kill You” & “Stan” & “Kim” (2000)
• Subtle: A New White (2004), For Hero: For Fool (2006), Exiting Arm (2008)
• Alias: Muted (2003)
• André 3000: The Love Below (2003)
• Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (2010)
• Dakah Hip-Hop Orchestra: “Pisstissimo / Baptissimo / Sacristy” (2004)
• Gnarls Barkley: “Crazy” (2006)
• Beyoncé: “Halo” (2008)
• Edit: Crying Over Pros for No Reason (2004), “Down for This” (2021)
• Kanye West: “Love Lockdown” (2008), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), “No Church in the Wild” & “Why I Love You” (2011, w/ Jay-Z)
• Cadence Weapon: “Oliver Square” (2005)
• Astronautalis: “Down and Out in the Bold New City of the South” (2006)
• Georgia Anne Muldrow: “New Orleans” (2006)
• RJD2: “The Horror” and “Ghostwriter” (2002)
• Cut Chemist: The Audience’s Listening (2006)
• Flying Lotus: Cosmogramma (2010), You’re Dead (2014)
• M.I.A.: “Paper Planes” (2007)
• The Streets: “Turn the Page” (2002), “Fit But You Know It” (2004)
• Burial: Burial (2006), “Shutta” (2007), Untrue (2007), Kindred (2012), Truant / Rough Sleeper (2012), Rival Dealer (2013), “Temple Sleeper” (2015)
• Clark: Clarence Park (2001), Empty the Bones of You (2003), Body Riddle (2006)
• Regina Spektor: “Fidelity” (2006), “Two Birds” (2009)
• St. Vincent: Marry Me (2007), Actor (2009), Strange Mercy (2011), St. Vincent (2014), “Reckless” and “Flea” (2024)
• Joanna Newsom: Ys (2006), Have One On Me (2010), Divers (2015)
• Bon Iver: “Flume” (2008), “Holocene” (2011)
• Dear Hunter: The Lake South, the River North (2006), The Meaning of, and All Things Regarding Ms. Leading (2007), Life and Death (2009), “Whisper” (2013), Hymns With the Devil in Confessional (2016), Antimai (2022)
• Owen Pallett [Final Fantasy]: Heartland (2010)
• Beirut: Gulag Orkestar (2006), The Flying Club Cup (2007), Artifacts (2022)
• The Week That Was: The Week That Was (2008)
• Santigold: “Les Artistes” (2009)
• Julianna Barwick: The Magic Place (2011), Nepenthe (2013)
• Manitoba/Caribou: Start Breaking My Heart (2001), Up in Flames (2003), The Milk of Human Kindness (2005), Andorra (2007), “Odessa” (2010)
• Ed Harcourt: “Beneath the Heart of Darkness” (2001), “Ghostwriter” (2003)
• Grizzly Bear: “Two Weeks” (2009)
• Daniel Rossen: You Belong There (2022)
• Lykke Li: “No Rest for the Wicked” & “Never Gonna Love Again” (2014)
• Imogen Heap: “Hide and Seek” (2005)
• Emilie Simon: “Graines d’étoiles” (2003), “Antarctic” & “Attack of the Killer Birds” (2005), Vegetal (2006)
• Royksopp: “Happy Up Here” (2009)
• My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade (2006)
• Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
• The Shins: “New Slang” (2001), “So Says I” & “Fighting in a Sack” (2003)
• The Polyphonic Spree: The Beginning Stages of… (2002),² “Hold Me Now” (2004), “Mental Cabaret” (2007)
• Beach House: Teen Dream (2010), Bloom (2012)
• Love Is All: “Talk Talk Talk Talk” (2006), A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night (2008)
• Elbow: “Grace Under Pressure” (2003)
• Fleet Foxes: “White Winter Hymnal” & “Your Protector” (2008), “Helplessness Blues” & “The Shrine / An Argument” (2011)
• Okkervil River: The Stage Names (2007)
• The Beat Circus: Dreamland (2008)
• Battles: Mirrored (2007), Gloss Drop (2011)
• Parts & Labor: Groundswell (2003), Mapmaker (2007), Receivers (2008)
• Toby Dammit: Top Dollar (2001)
• Explosions in the Sky: Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die… (2001), The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003), All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (2007)
• Kopernik: Kopernik (2003)
• Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights (2002), Antics (2004)
• TV on the Radio: Young Liars (2003), Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (2004), Return to Cookie Mountain (2006), “Shout Me Out” (2008)
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs: “Maps” (2003), “Heads Will Roll” (2009), “Zero” (2009)
• The Strokes: Is This It (2001), Room on Fire (2003), “You Only Live Once” (2006)
• Yeasayer: All Hour Cymbals (2007)
• Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend (2008), Contra (2010), Modern Vampires of the City (2013), “Harmony Hall” (2019), Only God Was Above Us (2024)
• The Octopus Project: Identification Parade (2002), One Ten Hundred Thousand Million (2005), Hello, Avalanche (2007)
• Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand (2004), You Could Have It So Much Better (2007)
• Foals: Antidotes (2008), Holy Fire (2013)
• Holy Fuck: Holy Fuck (2005), LP (2007)

Movies/TV

Ones I “really liked” (no star), or “loved” (star):

• Various, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, season 12 (2017) ★

Games

All games I finished or decided to stop playing:

• [none]

Books

I post book ratings and reviews to my Goodreads account instead of here.

Five-star reads this quarter were: Words of Radiance, Kindred, World Without End, Best Served Cold, The Heroes

I’ve learned more about my fiction tastes:

• My favorite tense is third person limited.
• I prefer books that show much more than tell, i.e. books that spend almost all their time in specific scenes, described in enough detail to play a movie in my head. So, more like (what I’ve read of) Stephen King or Joe Abercrombie, rather than authors like Ken Liu or Pierce Brown who flip frequently between scene-like writing and summary-like writing.
• I typically prefer relatively plain, easy-to-process, “transparent” prose. Though best of all is when someone can write rich, witty, and funny prose that is still very easy to process, like Joe Abercrombie or Terry Pratchett. I do not like elaborate purple prose, which unfortunately describes a lot of literary fiction that I might otherwise love.
• A lot of my favorite books are epic in scope, stakes, and themes.
• I’m surprised to learn I’m a character-first reader. Before I began reading fiction again in late 2023, I guessed that plot was most important to me, then character, then prose. Instead, it turns out that character is most important to me, then prose (but mostly as a factor that can quickly ruin a book for me, not one that can elevate it much), then plot.
• I now think my favorite genres will probably be fantasy and historical fiction.³ First, I like epic stories, which largely narrows the list of contenders to historical fiction, fantasy, or science fiction. Second, I prefer books that are strong on all four of character, plot, world-building, and themes. Of the frequently-epic genres, historical fiction and fantasy often hit all four, or at least try, whereas science fiction often does not even try to have strong characters, and sometimes doesn’t have much plot either, in favor of a focus on the world-building and themes. There are exceptions, of course, and indeed my #1 favorite novel so far is sci-fi: Project Hail Mary. But in the long run I’m guessing my favorite genres will be fantasy and historical fiction.

1. I think I hadn’t heard some of the classical pieces before, but I’m not sure which ones. [↩]
2. Not counting the long boring final track. [↩]
3. For convenience I’ll lump “alternate history” under “historical fiction”; it’s a small genre anyway. [↩]