Collective Best/Worst of 2017

[Bosco]

Let's get this rolling...

What are the best albums, tracks, movies, video games, concerts, or anything else you feel like sharing that occurred in 2017?

And if you feel like sharing some disappointing or underwhelming moments from this year, go for it.




I'm gonna start with a negative.

The new Beck album 'Colors' was incredibly underwhelming. I was super excited because I thought all 3 singles that were released before the album, were very good. Had me thinking he was returning to his 'Midnite Vultures' era which I loved. Turns out it was a complete cheese pop album. So disappointing. I know I'm not alone on this! SAD!

[Enjoyed]

I'm going to do a proper end of year list next week some time, but...

Red Velvet have been making me very happy this year. 2 brilliant EPs & a tasty new album to boot.
Not to everyone(/anyone) here's taste but whatever. I love it.

[Conn6orsuper117]

I know I'm gonna get lots of negativity for mentioning politics and my opinion so...

(Giant gasp for air)

its very stupid how currently 40% of these senator candidates around the country have been exposed as either child predators or sexual offenders (and one of them is currently our president too) yet they haven't been pulled from the debates, it truly is a bad time to live in the USA right now. You know what, my country as a whole is what was so bad about this year for me.

on the other hand, last summer was me getting out of school for good. no more judgment, no more 7 foot jock telling me to take my family back over the border, and the best of all, no more Calculus  . its even better considering how I have COD WWII, the Captain underpants movie, and  to keep me busy until I get a new job (going out for job interviews every week)

[Ben_j]

Music:
Best: Soulwax, Rone, Vitalic, Siriusmo, Arcade Fire, Bonobo
Worst: LCD Soundsystem, Gorillaz (although some of the new tracks are good, and their live show is great), Coldcut, Bjork

Movies:
Best: Blade Runner 2049, Baby Driver, Lego Batman
Worst: War Machine

Video Games:
Best: Zelda Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Origins, Ghost Recon Wildlands
Worst: 1 2 Switch

Series:
Best: The Night Of (I know it's not from this year but I've only seen it recently), Rick and Morty (same), Spiral S06 (Engrenages in French)
Worst: South Park (started good, but they're fucking up the last part of the season...)

[Stefan]

Best of 2017:

Music: Soulwax

Movies: Blade Runner 2049

Series: The Good Place

Books (published this year): "Soonish" by The Weinersmiths, "The fact of a body" by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Books (not published this year): "Doubt" by Jennifer Hecht, "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood

Personal: On the occasion of the Solar Eclipse, three friends and I visited the States. And since it wouldn't be worth crossing the Atlantic for just a few days, we planned a packed, awesome four-week trip. We started in San Francisco, then went on a road trip with stops at the Sequoia NP; NASA's JPL; Death Valley, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone NP and Eclipse viewing in Teton Valley. We then flew from Salt Lake City to Orlando, to see the Kennedy Space Center, Disneyworld and the Universal Resort. Last stop before heading home was New York City.

[Bosco]

That trip sounds simply awesome Stefan. I live here in the states and I can't even get my lazy (and broke) ass to do a trip like that.

Enjoyed, buddy, pal.  I know you were, or are engaged, but I hope you have disclosed this k-pop fetish to your soon to be. Troubling  

Conn6or, your beliefs are the majority here. And, I can confirm high school sucks. I'm happy to hear you made your way through. Adult-hood can be exciting and amazingly liberating, but I would be lying if I didn't say I miss the ignorance of my youth.

Ben j, I got a bone to pick on some of your worst albums. Which I will ultimately share later on with a extended view of my summary of 2017!

[rynostar]

Albums: Thundercat, Death From Above, Sampha

Tracks: Klara - These Woods (Bias cause she's a former flatmate), Jagwar Ma - Slippin (Soulwax Remix), Thundercat - Tokyo, Slyvan Esso - Kick Jump Twist, Beat Spacek - Ring Di Alarm, Kiki Hitomi - Yellow Story

Sets: DFA at Union, Tribe Called Red at U Street Music Hall, Patrick Watson with ESO at Winspear

[Csar]

Music:
Best:Siriusmo, Bonobo

Thanks for these, I wasn't aware they'd released records this year. I love both artists. Migration is awesome, sort of a dreamier approach for Bonobo this time. Siriusmo is da bomb. Can't get the catchy title track out of my head.

[Enjoyed]

OK. Here's the full lists I just posted on Facebook for friends and acquaintances to ignore.

As per usual, listings are alphabetical (apart from K-Pop which is heavily weighted towards Red Velvet, for which I had to limit myself to 5 choices) and 'Top Tracks' do not feature anything from albums mentioned in 'Top Albums' - because it should go without saying that those albums have multiple top tracks within them.

Top 10 Albums
• Blue Hawaii - Tenderness
• Dutch Uncles - Big Balloon
• FKJ - French Kiwi Juice
• Grizzly Bear - Painted Ruins
• LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
• Minus The Bear - Voids
• Mutemath - Play Dead
• Phoenix - Ti Amo
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Perfect Velvet
• Vanilla - Moonlight

Top 10 Tracks
• BT - Four
• Cut Copy - Airborne
• Dirty Projectors - Cool Your Heart
• Everything Everything - Night Of The Long Knives
• Glad Hand - Been One Thing
• Katy Perry - Bon Apétite (feat. Migos)
• Perfume - If You Wanna
• Peking Duk & AlunaGeorge- Fake Magic (Gigamesh Remix)
• St. Vincent - Los Ageless
• Tame Impala - List of People (To Try To Forget About)

Top 10 Anjunadeep/Last Night On Earth Tracks
• Aiiso - Gravity
• Auidojack - Equilibrium
• Budakid - Confused
• Ejeca - Tajmahal (Budakid Remix)
• Eli & Fur - Chlo
• Fluida - Not Alone
• Lifelike - Trance Europe Sexpress
• Martinet - Tumble Down
• Matthias Vogt - Nostalgia
• Rhythm Cult - Brutal (Petar Dundov Remix)

Top 10 K-Pop
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Rookie
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Zoo
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - 빨간 맛 (Red Flavor)
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Body Talk
• Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Happily Ever After
• PRISTIN (프리스틴) - Wee Woo
• PRISTIN (프리스틴) - Black Widow
• 소녀시대 (Girls' Generation) - All Night
• 서현 (SEOHYUN) - Don't Say No
• 서현 (SEOHYUN) - Magic

Games wise - Zelda: BOTW is right at the top.
Movies & TV - Honestly can't think of anything that blew me away. I liked Ragnarok but I only saw that the other day so it's fresh. Haven't really had time for TV.

[Earthbound]

Albums:

FJAAK - FJAAK
Pessimist - Pessimist

Tracks:

Lusine - Witness
Blanck Mass - Please
Idles - Well Done
Idles - Mother
Kllo - Downfall
Schwefelgelb - Durch die Haare Die Stirn
Maya Jane Coles - Bo & Wing
Dario Zenker - Koraimer Bro
Letherette - M63
Yaeji - Drink I'm Sippin On

Concerts: Biosphere, Weval, Slaves, Tommy Cash

Movies/TV: Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, Big Little Lies

[Enjoyed]

Lusine - Witness

Nice! I don't know why I don't listen to Lusine more often. I've fallen madly in love with a lot of his stuff. This one is great too.

EDIT: HAWT DAMN. The Lusine album is DEFINITELY retroactively making it into the top albums list. Yum yummy yum-yum.

[Born In Planet Dust]

For a year that Hollywood has been derived (rightfully so) for putting out so much bullshit, I enjoyed every 2017 film I spent money on (* for greatness) EDIT: Didn't mean to put one in front of Sacred Deer.

Get Out *
Trainspotting 2
Alien Covenant
Spiderman Homecoming *
IT *
Bladerunner *
The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
The Last Jedi *

Tv: GOT Season 7 was great, The 1st 1/2 of this season of Walking Dead has been pretty good, but Twin Peaks: The Return was absolutely amazing.  Some of the most incredible moments ever attributed to television and a great soundtrack to boot.

Music: Elbow put out a reliably solid album with great songs and nothing really different from the trajectory they'd been on for the last 3 albums.  Flaming Lips put out an album with some really interesting music, a few great songs, and lots of bullshit as far as lyrics go.  Still saw them twice last year and both shows were tits.  LCD's American Dream had 4 of the best songs of their excellent discography.  Can we admit the rest of the album was shit?  Also saw them this summer and it was one of the best show s I've ever been to. 

St. Vincent's Masseduction is easily my album of the year.  So many gorgeous, heartbreaking songs. 

Edit:  If I didn't include something (i.e. Stranger Things), it could be because I just haven't gotten to it yet...

[Csar]

Nice! I don't know why I don't listen to Lusine more often. I've fallen madly in love with a lot of his stuff. This one is great too.

EDIT: HAWT DAMN. The Lusine album is DEFINITELY retroactively making it into the top albums list. Yum yummy yum-yum.

Thanks to your passionate reply I checked him out. And indeed, that's really cool stuff! Sensorimotor was a "binge-listening" from start to finish for me. What a great feeling it is when you not want to skip anything, a true album experience. Also, his performance on KEXP I came across on YT surely added to that feeling.

This is why I love this place so much, you can always discover something new and exciting that you probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for you forumites! Thank you both.

[ThePumisher]

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer

How was it? Loved Dogtooth, even though it is easily the most disturbing and weirdest movie i have ever seen (followed by 'You, the Living'), but haven't seen Lobster or Sacred Deer yet.

[Wolkenkrabber]

I'm too lazy to do a Best/Worst list, but holy sh*t, did anyone see Mother! ?
Drove me absolutely nuts. And Tom Rowlands has worked for this director?!
I knew nothing about it beforehand, but I actually wish I'd known:

Spoiler

Jennifer Lawrence = Mother Earth, Javier Bardem = God the Creator, Pfeiffer & Harris = Adam & Eve, their sons = Cain & Abel

I only put that under spoiler tags in case someone complains.
Ms Lawrence even started telling people this stuff in interviews so we would know what was going on. Wish I'd seen the interviews beforehand to be honest. I kept saying: "Just kick them all out!!"

have done one on Mother! today, which I might think was bullsh*t if I hadn't actually seen the film. It made Black Swan feel like a walk in the park. And it turned me into this emoji: 

[Bosco]

I had a written list of all sorts of goodies over the Holidays, but I seem to misplaced my written out thoughts (probably for the best, har har). I apologize for not following up on my initial post, but shit has been super busy.


Any who, here is some favorite things I've mustered up, (from what I can remember).


Here is my album list (top 5 in Red, Blue favorite):


Alexandre Desplat - The Shape of Water Soundtrack
The Afghan Whigs - In Spades
Benjamin Wallfisch/Hans Zimmer - Blade Runner 2049 Soundtrack
Bjork - Utopia
Brand New - Science Fiction (Hate to praise a potential pedophile, but it is a pretty good album)
Charlotte Gainsburg - Rest
Daphni - Joli Mai
Elbow - Little Fictions
Gorillaz - Humanz
Hans Zimmer - Dunkirk Soundtrack
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Damage and Joy
LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Murder of the Universe
Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog
Morrisey - Low in High School
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Who Built the Moon?
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Slowdive - Slowdive
St. Vincent - Masseduction
S.U.R.V.I.V.E. - Stranger Things season 2
UNKLE - The Road, Pt. 1



Best Songs:

The Afghan Whigs - Arabian Heights
Beck - Up All Night
Daphini - Tin
Elbow - Kindling (Fickle Flame) [Feat John Grant]
Future Islands - Shadows (feat. Debbie Harry)
Gwar - Fuck This Place
The Jesus and Mary Chain - War on Peace
LCD Soundsystem - How do you sleep?
MGMT - Little Dark Age
Portugal. The Man - Feel it Still
Queens of the Stone Age - Feet Don't Fail Me
Saint Etienne - Take It All In
Slowdive - Slomo
St. Vincent - Los Ageless
Tinariwen - Ittus



Best live shows I saw (I saw a ton this year):

Riot Fest, which includes great shows by : New Order (the crowd was surprisingly awesome for a punk rock festival), Wu Tang Clan (Method Man is crazy-awesome), Nine Inch Nails, and Prophets of Rage.

Jean-Michel Jarre was skeptical, but turned out amazing.

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Wicked

Elbow unbelievably good. This is such a fucking good band, and it needs to be celebrated more in the USA

Pitchfork Festival, which include great sets by: PJ Harvey, A Tribe Called Quest, and Ride.

Gorillaz Perfect Summer night in Chicago which kicked off there State-side tour. Damon Albarn was fantastic.

The Pixies So fucking fun. This band is ageless.

Hans Zimmer Hands down the best show I saw all year. Got really good seats, and did not disappoint. A overwhelming musical experience.



Best Movies:

Dunkirk Said it before, but I think this is Nolans Masterpiece. It should win Oscar for best movie and director, but I think it's lost momentum being a summer release. I know, awards don't mean shit...

Blade Runner 2049 I was one of the doubters when this was announced. I'm not a Ryan Gosling fan, and the previews of the film made it look like another manufactured action packed cash cow. But I came away liking this film just as much as I enjoyed the original: both soundtrack and film.

Get Out this movie is great on so many levels. To go back to Oscar talk, I think this deserves heavy consideration for best original screenplay. I'm so happy to hear Jordan Peele will be incharge of the "Twilight Zone" reboot.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2. - Great Popcorn fun. Great soundtrack. I love Nebula.

[Wolkenkrabber]

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer *

How was it? Loved Dogtooth, even though it is easily the most disturbing and weirdest movie i have ever seen (followed by 'You, the Living'), but haven't seen Lobster or Sacred Deer yet.

Just watched it. It was weird. I had never seen a Yorgos Lanthimos film before. I get the impression (?) that the stilted, deadpan delivery of the script worked well in the semi-comedic Lobster. It didn't work so well here; I nearly gave up on the film after half an hour. Fortunately, once things finally heat up around an hour into the film, Colin Farrell shows a bit of passion and engages us (a bit). Admittedly, some of the stilted dialogue is because people are avoiding the truth, but it gets wearing after a while.

A couple of posts up I mentioned how Mother had some biblical stuff that I wished I had known about (or realised) beforehand. This time it was Greek Myth stuff: You may want to google "Iphigenia in Aulis" before watching this one. Even though the film is set in present day USA, it apparently is meant to be a re-telling of a Greek myth. Which wasn't clear to me.
Although the film is neither a Sci Fi nor a Superhero movie, one of the characters appears to have some sort of superpower. It is never explained how or why that is the case.

I watched a couple of cast interviews after the film and noticed that two of the actors said they watched The Lobster in order to get a feel for how they should act in this film. The director apparently is so minimal in his "no directing" directing style that the cast look elsewhere to see what he wants. This seems odd to me.
Barry Keoghan who is starting to make a name for himself (Dunkirk, Trespass Against Us) did deliver a uniquely memorable performance; his spaghetti eating scene managing to imbue a

Spoiler

sense of menace

that you can't quite put your finger on.

The whole 2 hours and 1 minute of this film probably could have been squashed into 70 minutes. But it is stretched out with lots of "The Shining" type slow shots of corridors with menacing music playing. This film ain't no Shining though.
There are coversations about armpit hair and announcements about Farrell's teenager daughter having just got her first period which don't seem to add much to the film.
There is a moral to the story though:

Spoiler

If you do something bad, you may be punished, and you may have to make a sacrifice

. Complicated stuff, eh?

For anyone who has seen the film, I have a question. Why wasn't Farrell's character

Spoiler

in jail by the end of the film for making the big sacrifice? Where were the cops? Is it because this is all just a Greek myth?

The reviews on IMDB are mostly of the 1/10 variety with the occasional 10/10. Very devisive! The BBC's Mark Kermode did a very positive review of the film

. And in fact I can understand his enthusiasm at having something different to get his teeth into, from a critics point of view. But I can also understand the 1/10 reviews on IMDB.
Still, if you want to see Nicole Kidman give a

Spoiler

hand job

to an

Spoiler

anaesthetist

in a

Spoiler

Range Rover

, this might be the film for you!

[Born In Planet Dust]

It certainly wasn't my favorite, but it was effectively creepy and that justified the $7.00 ticket.  The diner is a block and half from my house and is a very warm and pleasant place.  Since seeing this, I JUST CAN"T EVEN...

Collin's character will have his pre trial after Wynona's trial from her actions in the film Heathers.