Colin’s Top 10 Shows of 2021

Like Sean and John, I spent a decent amount of last year watching older shows, though I think I was less successful. I started out watching The West Wing before losing interest around the time that Rob Lowe (and slightly before Aaron Sorkin) left the show, while I also tried to slog through watching the later seasons of Friends, which I also gave up on. Those projects kept me a bit from staying on top of new TV, though I feel better about this list than I thought I would. I didn’t even have to marathon a season of a show in the week leading up to making this list, which is often the case. Still, there are some big shows I wish I’d caught up with, the most notable being Succession, Squid Game, and the final season of Insecure. But regardless, here’s what I did watch… Continue reading →

John’s Top 10 Shows of 2021

There were great shows this year. Seems like there are great shows every year. Did the Golden Age of TV ever end? Are we forever doomed to be subjected to too much good TV? Why god?! WHY? Anyways, I spent a good chunk of this year only watching The Sopranos. So by the time October rolled around, I had to haul ass and catch up. That being said I’m happy with my list. Though there are definitely shows I wish I’d caught up with.
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Sean’s Top 10 Shows of 2021

When I think back on the TV shows I watched in 2021, frankly all of them will pale in comparison to the most ambitious television project I ever took on: watching every single episode of ER in one year. Michael Crichton’s medical drama was a staple of NBC’s Must-See TV Thursday night lineup from 1994-2009, a run that encompassed 331 episodes over 15 seasons. At a minimum of 45 minutes per episode, that’s more than 10 days of screen time. So whenever I ate, whenever I was getting ready for bed, whenever I had a project, I would put ER on. I lived and breathed Chicago’s County General Hospital from January until I finished the show in late November.

What did I learn from all that watching? TV has really changed! Not just the obvious shift from shows being only being on TV to wherever we are now, but all the little things. ER was a “water cooler show” that people watched and talked about for like half the year every year. Now we’re lucky if we can find one other person tweeting about a show we like at the same time as we’re watching it. ER was big enough to attract A-list guest stars, which at the time were people like Sally Field and Ray Liotta because there was still a stigma that movie actors don’t do TV. Now it almost seems reversed – actors do shows and miniseries to flex their talent. Remember 22 episode seasons? Remember how networks used to hate serialized storytelling? Remember the disappointment you’d feel when an episode ended in “to be continued”?! Those were they days.

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John’s Top Ten Albums of 2021

I listened to a lot of cool music in 2021. The problem is all the “new” artists I got into were artists who had released albums in 2020. So not only did it fuck this year’s list, it fucked last year’s list too. If you’re curious those bands were Beach Bunny, Vulfpeck, and Khurangbin. Thanks a lot 2020.

The hard part of listmaking this year was I had no road map. I gave up on Pitchfork about a year ago cuz they think they’re so big. YouTube turned out to be helpful. I follow a couple of indie record labels and try to keep tabs on up and coming artists. KEXP’s YouTube channel is incredibly helpful. Those guys r kewl.

And I’m not embarrassed to admit I still check the Billboard Hot 100. Well, maybe a little embarrassed. I say all this and I didn’t end up with that crazy of a list. At least it’s not crazy to me. I’m not crazy. Anyways, here’s my not crazy list.

Honorable Mention
I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.

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Sean’s Top 10 Albums of 2021

(The featured image comes from the best live performance of 2021: Final Fantasy XIV composer Masayoshi Soken’s rendition of the “La Hee” meme. You might need to hear the real song for context.)

For the second year in a row, I find myself feeling disconnected from the annual top 10 process. I can think of a few possibilities for that, and, first and foremost of them is the fact that I’m in my thirties now and therefore much less cool and getting lamer by the day. But also there’s still this whole thing going on and that prevailing despair definitely effects my mood. Plus, that situation means a lot of media is still getting delayed, cancelled, or changed as we learn to adapt – which ultimately makes the idea of confining years feel less essential than ever before. But now I feel like I’m getting all Neil deGrasse Tyson on you, so I’ll stop and say: check out some awesome music below!

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Colin’s Top Ten Albums of 2021

Unlike the past few years, 2021 didn’t particularly feel like a stand-out year for music. The easiest thing to blame this on would be the (still) ongoing pandemic, which continued to disrupt the ecosystem of the music industry in various ways, from artists having to cancel already-rescheduled live dates to indie labels having trouble getting their vinyl releases pressed. It was a year that had a lot of good albums, but only a handful of great ones. Also, it was a year where music felt less essential as we got further into it and we humans felt a little more free to go out and do things with other humans instead of hiding in our homes and hoping a good collection of songs could give us some comfort. Yet here we are, tucked back inside our homes with the cold weather and another wave of the virus raging, while these albums still feel like a suitable respite from it all. Continue reading →

2021 Music Resurrections: Blue Banisters

Lana Del Rey – Blue Banisters

Since I left things a little open-ended with my short review of Chemtrails Over The Country Club, I feel compelled to at least offer some thoughts on her second album of this year that often felt like a Lana Del Rey song. Blue Banisters also feels like another important chapter in 2021’s saga of Jack Antonoff’s falling from favor as pop’s most reliable producer. As I emphasized in that piece as well as my Solar Power review, I still believe that Antonoff should only be employed by any singer for one album, and then the artist should move on. Blue Banisters proves this theory somewhat, as I’d say that it’s a slightly better album than Chemtrails (though it is a little long) even if the reasons for this mostly have to do with LDR’s songwriting. Continue reading →