Picks of the Year: 2020

The year has been rough, but for me, 2016 was worse for me personally. The pandemic didn't affect me much. I have been telecommuting since 2007, I am an introvert and I live in one of the states that has been handling this crisis very well.  This is more of the same for me. The only big difference is that I have more people at home than usual. 

I saw only one film in the theater this year and attended no concerts. Boredom is this year's hobgoblin. I cannot wait to get to a rock show. We should at least have some outdoor shows this summer, right? 

I made up for it by watching a lot of television, did some reading and bought a lot of new music.

BEST ALBUMS:

I bought 16 albums in 2020 ... that is, all the song in MP3 format on a release by an artist. I am not talking about vinyl. 

There are some surprises. All but five of these artists are fairly new to me. The Eels, Dan Bern, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Bob Dylan are performers I have been listening to for years.

I like them all but if I had to put them in order best to worst, it would be as follows: 

1. Song For Our Daughter - Laura Marling: I never heard of Marling until this year. I heard a few songs on Spotify and I was blown away. She has a Joni Mitchell-ish style of singing with some powerful lyrics. I bought her latest album and I wasn't disappointed. 
2. The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury - Gretchen Peters: This would have been #1 but there is one song that I just don't care for. The entire album is a group of songs by a late song writer that I have never heard of.  I have been listening to Peters for a few years now. I buy a song here and there. This is the first album of hers I've ever bought.  This is great stuff and only one song is "too country" for my taste. 
3. Bonny Light Horsemen - Bonny Light Horsemen: This band is the first folk supergroup that I ever heard of. It consists of Vermont's own Tony winner Anais Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson from The Fruitbats and The Shins and Josh Kaufman from The National and Hiss Golden Messenger. I hope they stay together and continue to make music together because I love their sound. 
4. Sex Education Original Soundtrack - Ezra Furman: One of my favorite shows of the year also a great soundtrack all by the same guy. Do I love the music because I loved the show or did I love the show because of the music? Probably a little bit of both.  
5. LP5 - John Moreland: This is my first Moreland album as well. This is a great bluesy folk singer that can write a great song: "you can't reach salvation from your rocking chair". He's got the Texas sound. 
6. Kingdom in My Mind - The Wood Brothers: Another new one for me. Chris Wood is famous for his other band Medeski Martin & Wood. He teamed with his brother Oliver and this is their eighth album together. It is folk rock, Americana, blues ... I don't know, I call it great. 
7. Rough and Rowdy Ways - Bob Dylan: Dylan is my guy. Whenever my wife says to me, "Did you hear?" I dread that it is about Dylan's demise. He's 79 years old and still putting out amazing stuff. This is his 39th album (if I counted correctly). Not all of them are great, but he's been on a roll lately. His past few albums have been great. 
8. Good Souls Better Angels by Lucinda Williams: I guess I went folk rock this year. She's been one of America's best song writer for decades. This is her 15th album and as good as any of them. 
9. Reunions - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: I love this guy. I love his work ethic, his dedication to the music and to his fans. More importantly, I love his tunes. 
10. Earth to Dora by The Eels: I was a little disappointed in this album by one of my favorite bands. Their songs usually grab me immediately. It hasn't happened yet. 
11. Ghosts of West Virgina by Steve Earle: Lots of songs about coal mining. I like it, I don't love it though. 
12. Rivalry by Dan Bern: I discovered this guy a couple of decades ago at Falconridge Folk Festival in Up-State NY. He is not your typical folk musician, he is over six feet tall, wears fatigues and sometimes scares his audience. He is a painter and an ex-ball player and writes songs about Henry Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Monica Seles and going down on Madonna. He put out three CDs during the pandemic. The one I bought was about baseball. Not as witty as usually, but I am such a ball fan, it almost doesn't matter. 
13. What Are We Frightened Of? - Alberta Cross: I always thought this band was from Alberta, Canada. They're from East London. Nothing on this album has really grabbed me yet. This is their sixth album. They started off as a two piece: Petter Ericson Stakee (singer and guitarist) and Terry Wolfers (bass). But this is the second album after Wolfers left the band. It is really just a Stakee solo album. Maybe that is what is missing. I still enjoy the album but it is not as good as their other stuff. Stakee, give Wolfer a call. 
14. Xoxo - Jayhawks: Alt-country at its best, but I've heard better from them. 
15. Holy Smokes Future Jokes - Blitzen Trapper:  I've heard better from them as well. The songwriter just doesn't seem to be there on this album. 
16. Friendly Figures - KULMA: A little bit of rap, a bit of techno, a bit of jazz. I know nothing about them but I still enjoy it. 

BEST SONGS

I bought 310 songs in 2020 totalling 20 hours and 9 minutes. One of these years, I will have an entire day of new music. Please note, this is new stuff that came out this year. I bought plenty of other stuff from prior years (like Deer Tick, Kamasi Washington, Peter Gabriel, ELP and Gov't Mule). This blog post will talk about just the songs that came out in 2020. It has been great year for recorded music. In an era when musicians can stay home and create an album on their laptop, the pandemic is not going stop creatives from creating. 

Below are all the favorites for the year. Some of my favorite musicians are here (Dylan, Ani, Bird, Bern, Earle and Isbell) and some musicians I never heard of (Coriky, David Alvin, Geek Music, David Dondero and Twisted Pine). Some of my favorites this year came from television shows with Ezra Furman's amazing soundtrack to Sex Education and perhaps, my favorite song of the year, "You're Dead" by Geek Music which is the theme song to What We Do In the Shadows. 

I never heard of Shirley Collins. I don't know why. It bothers me. She's right up my alley, a raspy and jaded folk singer. I may be buying a lot of her stuff in the coming hear. 

I bought some great cover songs this year, some of them I don't know the original version. My favorite cover this year is David Alvin's reinvention of "Highway 61 Revisited". It is a talking blues version with a driving steel guitar. It blows me away every time I hear it.  

Keep the Damage to Myself - Alberta Cross 

Hark! - Andrew Bird

Do or Die - Ani DiFranco

Hard Time Come Again No More - Arlo Guthrie

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan

The Roving - Bonny Light Horseman

Clean Kill - Coriky

The Legend of Yasiel Puig - Dan Bern

Highway 61 Revisited - Dave Alvin

Easy Chair - David Dondero

Thoughts and Prayers - Drive-By-Truckers

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Ezra Furman

You're Dead - Geek Music

The Sailor and The Night You Wrote that Song - Gretchen Peters

Overseas and St. Peter's Autograph - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Living in a Bubble - Jayhawks

Let Me Be Understood and Harder Dreams- John Moreland

How Lucky - Kurt Vile (with the late John Prine)

Look What They Did and Private Lives - Low Cut Connie

Big Black Train - Lucinda Williams

My Brother, My Keeper - Mandolin Orange

Terminal One - Rymden, Bugge Wessenltoft & Magnus Ostrom

Sweet Greens and Blues - Shirley Collins

Black Lung - Steve Earle

Quarantine Blues - Steve Poltz

Papaya - Twisted Pine

Jitterbug Love, Don't Think About My Death and Little Bit Broken - The Wood Brothers

BEST TELEVISION SHOWS

I used to look to HBO for great television, but this has changed. HBO has because pretentious and in love with themselves while the other networks are putting out some great stuff. Here is all the new shows I watched this year. I tried to put them in order. Please note that this does not include shows that weren't new to me. I'm still loving The Crown, it is just not new to me anymore. 

Sex Education (Netflix) - Love this. The son of a famous sex therapist turns therapist to his fellow classmates. Everything is great about this show, especially the soundtrack. 

Ramy (Hulu) - A friend of my wife turned us onto to this. It is a very funny, poignant and educational. It is about a Muslim single guy trying to find a wife. 

What We Do in the Shadows (FX via Hulu) - Mockumentary about vampires. Hysterical. Need I say more?

Ted Lasso (AppleTV) - This is more heart warming than funny. Ted is an upbeat American football coach who gets hired a soccer coach in the England premiere league. It is a funny Friday Night Lights where they say "Wanker" a lot. 

Normal People (BBC3 via Hulu) - I almost forgot about this one. I published and went back to add it. It was very good and shouldn't be missed. This is about two Irish students growing up together and having an on-again-off-again romance. The writing and acting are top notch. 

Derry Girls (Channel 4 via Netflix) - I have to rewatch this with the subtitles on. The accent is a bit much but it is about teenage girls in Northern Ireland during "the troubles." Another one of those shows that is funny but also informative. 

Pen15 (Hulu) - This is cringe comedy. Two adult comedians, play themselves when they were teenage girl losers. It is sometimes hard to watch because you feel bad for them. 

Devs (FX via Hulu) - This is a sci-fi thriller about quantum computing created by the same guy we created the movies 28 Days Later and Ex Machina. I just loved this. It has surprises around every corner. This is a real sci fi. Not a bull shit action film pretending to be sci-fi. This is a mini-series so I guess I'm done with it but I don't want to be. 

The Flight Attendant (HBO) - This one surprised me. A flight attendant wakes up in bed with a one-night stand stabbed to death. Very well done. I wouldn't have guessed it by the trailer. 

The Boys (Amazon) - This is a super hero show outside the DC and Marvel universes. It is very good and profound at times. I had never heard of this series going into it. 

The Morning Show (AppleTV) - This has so many big stars that I expected it to be crap, but it was quite good with Steve Carell playing the bad guy.

Tehran (Apple TV) - This is another surprise that I just found by clicking away.  It is political intrigue between Iran and Israel with lots of spies. You like the characters but you hate the system they are intertwined in.   

Roadkill (BBC One via PBS) - This is a political intrigue drama starring Hugh Laurie which I really enjoyed but it only has four episodes. Come on BBC. 

Perry Mason (HBO) - This is not your father's Perry Mason (TV show from the 50's) but based on the original source material, the novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason is not yet a defense attorney but an investigator. I almost didn't finish this, it took a while for me to get into it but it ended up being very good in the end. It is very gritty and it came close to being cliche, but it never crossed into it. 

Waco (Netflix) - I don't know how accurate this was about the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, but it is thoroughly entertaining. 

Red Oaks (Amazon) - This is very light but enjoyable. It is about a country club in New Jersey 1980's. Think of it as a less silly Caddyshack. 

Defending Jacob (Apple TV) - A kid is murdered in Newton, MA and the assistant DA's son is the suspect. Did he do it?  Honestly, I can't remember if he did or not. 

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) - More people with super powers told in a creative way. As usual, this show suffers from the Netflix second series syndrome ... but not quite as bad as other Netflix series. First season, quite good. Second season, not quite so good. Maybe they've learned their lesson because it isn't as pronounced as some of their other shows. 

F is for Family (Netflix) - I still watch this occasionally. I think it is implied that F is for Fucked up Family. Regardless, it reminds me too much of my fucked up childhood. I love Bill Burr's humor, but it can be a bit depressing at times. Get out of my memories Bill Burr!

The Outsider (HBO) - Another Stephen King horror show. It is fun, it is gross. Not a lot else going on. I just expect more from HBO. 

The Undoing (HBO) - I would watch Nicole Kidman read the phonebook. Hugh Grant is her murderous husband. I liked this until the last episode. What a disappointment. 

Star Trek: Picard (CBS: Access) - But this is the year's biggest disappointment. One of my favorite Star Trek characters gets his own show. When disc one arrived in the mail, I reminded my wife to make time to watch it tonight. Mid-way through episode two - "Do you know what's going on?" You shouldn't have to look up a plot on Wikipedia to understand what is happening.  I am well versed in Trek lore. So far, I am not impressed. I also predicted the ending at around episode six. I hope season two is better. 

Queen's Gambit (Netflix) - I loved this show until she grew up and the show turned into sex and drugs and checkmate. I stopped watching. I am reading the book now. Maybe I'll watch the rest of the show later. 

Reckoning (Netflix) - I had to look this up because I couldn't remember what it was about.It was that unmemorable. Oh ya, that serial killer show. That's all you really need to know. That's all I remember. Nothing new here. 

Killing Eve (BBC America via Hulu) - This is another disappointment. It is okay but I stopped after season one. Maybe I'll return to it again, but it is certainly not as great as people claim.

Away (Netflix) - The personal lives of astronauts on a trip to Mars ... *yawn* Stopped watching.

Castle Rock (Hulu) - Another Stephen King series ... yada yada yada. 

Industry (HBO) - Hateful people doing things I don't understand on computer screens. Stopped watching. 

Lovecraft Country (HBO) - Lovecraft was a racist!? Oh ya, I guess he was. There is some interest stuff in this show but mostly it is over-produced and poorly written. Come on HBO, you can do better. Stopped watching. 

Next (Fox via Hulu) - Another AI is taking over the world. I wish an AI would take over the writing of this show. Stopped watching. 

Schitt's Creek (Netflix) - I'm not sure why so many people likes this show. It is basically Green Acres without the laughs and likeable people. They are annoying and pretentious. Worst of all, they aren't funny. I would  have stopped watching this long before I did (like the second episode), but my wife wanted to keep giving it another try. Eventually, she gave up and I was grateful. 

BOOKS:

I've committed to reading at least one classic a year for the rest of my life. This year's was a small one, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, which I enjoyed. This is the third of his novels that I've read and my second favorite. I've read The World of the Worlds and The Time Machine with the latter being my favorite of his.

I only read eight books this year so it should be easy enough to rate them in order of preference:

Circe by Madeline Miller

Girl at War by Sara Novic 

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern (Vermont writer)  

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Open Season by Archer Mayor (Vermont writer)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The first two books I really loved. Circe is a retelling of Circe's story from Homer's Odyssey. I generally don't like fantasy but this was so well written and since it was based in a story I already knew, it made it more palatable. 

Girl at War is about a war orphan from Yugoslavian civil war and her transition into being an American. 

The Lake House was good, but I've never been a huge mystery fan and everything wrapped up a bit too nicely in the end. 

I have determined that I am not a Neil Gaiman fan. This is the second book by him that I've read and hated. So be it. No big deal. Maybe I'll like his graphic novels. 

2021's classic is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. I'm about a third though now.  Wish me luck. 

Future of Local Journalism and the Collapse of the Fourth Estate

Disruption (or creative destruction) in an economy can be a great thing and an awful thing simultaneously. When the automobile was introduced, this disrupted the livelihood of thousands of people who sold and serviced horses (horse-breakers and blacksmiths) and wagons (wheelwrights). While they all lost their jobs and businesses, thousands of businesses and jobs were created making cars, paving roads and selling gas. Disruption is inherit in capitalism. Technology is not the only disruptor, but it is the most common. The biggest disruptor in my life has been the introduction of the internet and ecommerce. Almost every industry has been affected: music, education, retail, movies and gyms among others. 

Brick and mortar stores are being killed by Amazon, movie theaters are being killed by Netflix and music stores almost don't exist anymore because you can buy a song instantly on your phone or stream for free. Jobs and careers have really been shuffling for the past decade or two. I have benefited by this as well. I have been able to have a high-tech job and tele-commute to NYC each day while living in my rural home in northern Vermont. This wasn't possible twenty years ago when I moved to VT. 

Of all these disruptions, the one that bothers me the most is what is happening with local newspapers. Local news is expensive. Newspapers have to employ reporters who attend town and city counsel meetings, local events, sporting events, car crashes and fires. This is, of course, in addition to their overhead and the expenses of producing the paper. Traditionally their revenue streams are the selling of advertisement space and classifieds. When I was young, if you were looking for a job or looking for a kitten, you had to pick up the local paper. Now you can go on Craigslist for free. Craigslist devastated the classified revenue for papers, which in turn greatly reduced circulation. When circulation is down, it is harder to sell advertisement. Collapse ensued. 

In 2000, the advertising revenue for newspapers peaked to over $70 billion in the US. In 2018, it had dropped to under $15 billion which is lower than the 1950's. As of 2019, 65 million Americans live in a county with one or zero local news sources. How do citizens stay informed if there is no local news source? How can they vote confidently? How do they find out about businesses that is polluting their water or a politician that is stealing from them? They don't. Meanwhile, your local clueless jackoff has a YouTube channel, he's "telling it like it is" and giving it out for free. People are not just uninformed, they are misinformed. 

Some papers are hanging in there with a digital presence, but digital advertising revenue is still very low. There is also an increase of digital subscription in the past few years. Four in ten people under the age of 35 have at least one digital subscription. Young people are figuring out that paying for media means you get better information. Regardless, the outlook for local news to remain local is not good. When is a local paper not local? 

Since its founding in 1906, Gannett has been going around buying up small newspapers and other media markets. In addition to owning US Today, they currently own 260 daily local newspapers and about 300 national papers. These including The Providence Journal, The Cincinnati Enquirer, Detroit Free Press, Indianapolis Star, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, El Paso Times etc.  They own media in 47 states and Guam. This is a lot of power. Gannet is not immune to circulation problems. They are losing circulation even higher than non-Gannett papers. Here in VT, our "local" Gannett paper, The Burlington Free Press, circulation is down more than 36% since 2017. How long can they can survive with numbers like that? 

The Void: In capitalistic societies, the voids left by failing industries and businesses are often filled quickly but not always in desirable ways. The New York Times this week ran an article about how pay-to-play organizations are filling this void. Political and/or corporate PR groups are paying free lance reporters to write articles supporting their agendas. That agenda could be to promote their business or attack their opponents in an election. These articles are then sold to less than credible "news" papers and not labelled as advertisements, which they should be (according to the Federal Trade Commission). Here is a list of them organized by state. You may recognize some of them. Perhaps you get one of them free in the mail or perhaps, you pick one up outside your local market. They look legit because they might have a real article about your local high school soccer team or a local fire, but they are not. In 2010, there were five of these. Now there are over 1200. Something you should always remember, when you get something for free, it is not the commodity, you are. You are being manipulated into voting for someone or buying a product.  It is not journalism that you are reading but an advertisement. 

On a more positive note, David Plotz, one of my favorite podcast journalists, has created a new venture called City Cast. Print may be dead or dying, but podcasting is thriving. He is trying to create a network of local podcasts in cities around the country where the void is at its worst. I listen to podcasts all day at work. When I jump in my car, I put them on. We listen in bed. If there was a local podcast that I liked, about my town or larger local towns, I'd be listening. I feel so clueless about local news and politics. He is trying to get this going, guess what? ... he's hiring.  Contact him if you are interested. I contacted David on Twitter to find what towns they are going to start with and I haven't heard back yet. I assume medium size cities like Portland or Cincinnati. Regardless, I am excited about this. Hopefully it is coming to your town soon. 

Picks of 2019

2019 was an interesting year for us. The big change is that we took in a young foster child. Without going into the details of the child, this is a life changer. I am enjoying it but I am exhausted. I am also going to the movies less and reading less.  Also, I only posted 21 blog posts this year, while the last few years I was in the 40's. I only completed three books this year but one of them was a huge classic, Middlemarch. I have told myself that I would read one classic a year the rest of my life so I will be lucky if I finish one book a year now.

Favorite Trips:
We had a few destination weddings this year with friends getting married in Chicago and the Bahamas. Chicago was fun as usually. After the wedding we drove to some baseball towns and took in four games in Cleveland and Pittsburgh (to see the Red Sox and the Cubs). We also visited Falling Water in the Pittsburgh suburbs. 

We chose not to stay at a resort on the Bahamas and rented an AirBnB in the Nassau suburbs. This was a good idea since we really don't care for the resort experience. We took the local bus all over the island and really enjoyed the local flare. Of course, the beaches were awesome. 

We also took a road trip to Ottawa to go the Ottawa BluesFest. This was a new experience for me, because of severe thunder storm, they moved the entire crowd into a nearby museum to wait out the storm. Only in Canada.

Best Live shows:
We saw some great shows this year. We saw Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, the Avett Brothers, the Fruit Bats, Greg Brown, Jason Isbell and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. Every show was phenomenal.

For my wife's birthday we went up to Ottawa for the BluesFest because she is a big fan of Jason Isbell.  We lucked out in that Rodrigo Y Gabriela, one of our favorites, was playing on the same day.  This was the best show of the year. I have always been a huge fan of Pink Floyd. I never thought I'd see someone cover "Echoes" but Rodrigo Y Gabriela did it and blew me away.

Media:
Best New Podcast:

I discovered a handful of new podcasts this year: 

• The Al Franken Podcast
• Useful Idiot with Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper
• Against the Rules with Michael Lewis
• The Joe Rogan Experience
• The Femsplainers
• An Arm and a Leg

The best is Al Franken's. He got a raw deal and it is great to see him (hear him) bounce back.

Favorite new TV show: 

We never finished ER but we are close.  We will eventually. It does hold up, but it does jump the shark in the latter seasons. 

In the meantime, I discovered a lot of new shows in 2019:
Cobra Kai, The Morning Show, The Watchmen, His Dark Material,  The Girlfriend Experience, The Terror, Mars, Chernobyl, Killing Eve, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, NOS4A2, Catch 22, The Alienist, Living with Yourself, Another Life, Criminal: UK, Unbelieveable, Tuca and Bertie, Black Summer and Counterpart. 

The surprise of the year was Cobra Kai which I expected to hate. It is a sequel to The Karate Kid which is a movie I liked when it came out 30 years ago, but doesn't really hold up now that I am a discernible adult. But the show is a lot more nuanced than the movie. Daniel is not necessarily the hero and Johnny isn't all bad. Both characters are middle aged and living in the past. It is portrayed by the same actors which is impressive. It still has karate but it is less melo-dramatic than the fairly awful movie from my youth. 

But the best show may be Unbelievable which is a story about a young girl who is raped who believed by no one. The story and the acting are top notch. At times, I didn't believe her story.  

Favorite Albums:
I bought six albums/CDs from 2019.  "Gold Past Life" by The Fruit Bats is my favorite. It reminds me of their performance at the ArtsRiot in Burlington. The Avett Brothers album was a disappointment with the lyrics taking a right turn and The Flaming Lips album is as weird as ever, a bit too weird this time. 

"Closer Than Together" by the Avett Brothers
"The Flood in Color" by Joe Pug
"Gold Past Life" by Fruit Bats
"Come What May" by the Joshua Redman Quartet
"King's Mouth: Music and Songs" by The Flaming Lips
"Mettavolution" by Rodrigo Y Gabriela

Favorite Songs:
I only bought 127 MP3s this year that were new songs from 2019.  These are some of my favorites:

Manifest - Andrew Bird
We Americans - Avett Brothers
World Gone Crazy - Beans on Toast
Mint Condition - Caroline Spence
Special Announcement - The Felice Brothers
The Bottom of It - The Fruit Bats
Go Crazy - G. Love and Special Sauce (featuring Keb Mo)
Overexcited - Guster
The Stranger I've Been - Joe Pug
East October - John Moreland
Unwed Fathers - John Prine with Margo Price
How We Do - Joshua Redman Quartet
Golden Embers - Mandolin Orange
Rikers Island - Raphael Saadiq
Morse Code - Reina del Cid
Echoes - Rodrigo Y Gabriela
Confessions - Sudan Archives
This Life - Vampire Weekend
Alabaster - The Wood Brothers

There are a lot of brothers in there. While Echoes does blow me away, I am so impressed with Sudan Archives and her use of the violin.  My favorite original song of the year is Confessions by Sudan Archives and Echoes is my favorite cover. 

2020 promises to be a great year. We will hopefully get rid of Trump this year, more like by election than removal from office but either one will do for me.