2016: My Year In Writing
I wrote a lot this year. Mostly about music, but also TV, movies, and sports. Mostly at Stereogum, but also at The Verge, The Ringer, and Rolling Stone. This collects almost every substantial byline, which means you’ll almost certainly find something you enjoy in here.
My 10 best The Week In Pop columns:
The 2016 State Of Pop Address: An overview of pop music at the dawn of this year.
Will “Indie Pop” Ever Become Pop, Period? Wet, Chairlift, and Zeno’s Paradox.
(Panic! At The) Disco Sucks: Call me old-fashioned, but sometimes it’s fun to just shit on a shitty band for a few column inches.
Views From The Top: The Undying Popularity Of Drake’s Unending Album: How Drake fell off and still had his biggest year ever.
The Rise Of The Producer As A Lead Artist: EDM’s lasting legacy is pop music’s directors gaining equal footing with its actors.
Kanye West, Musical Innovator, Attempts To Transform The Concert Experience: The Saint Pablo Tour was dope.
With gnash, SoundCloud’s Underground Eclecticism Has Found Its Mainstream Poster Boy: i hate gnash, i love gnash.
We Are Living In The Chainsmokers’ America: In 2016, the douchebags win.
Pop Matters: When the douchebags win, you keep writing.
At Least America Can Agree On Bruno Mars: I was later informed that some people don’t like Bruno Mars, but those people are idiots.
TV & Movies for The Verge:
American Murderer Serial: Why Are There So Many Crime Anthology Shows? Fargo, O.J., and the rise of the limited series.
What Was The TV Channel? In the midst of cable TV’s existential meltdown, ABC Family rebrands as Freeform.
The Party’s Over: Madoff, Billions, And A Sober New Wave Of Financial Dramas: Commenters wisely pointed out that I forgot about Too Big To Fail and Margin Call years earlier, but otherwise I liked this piece a lot.
House Of Cards’ Fourth Season And The Meme-ification Of Frank Underwood: If only the rise of Claire Underwood had continued beyond the sixth episode and was, like, more in line with real-life events.
Sports for The Ringer and Rolling Stone:
Kei Kamara’s American Dream: This one is retroactively bittersweet knowing how Kamara’s tenure in Columbus ended, but at the time his future with the Crew seemed bright.
The LeBron James Chamber Of Commerce: On the many ways King James boosts his fellow Ohioans (besides, you know, winning Cleveland’s first professional sports championship in 52 years).
An Old Soccer Rivalry In A Strange New World: A report from a U.S.-Mexico soccer match three days after Trump’s election.
Reviews of new albums:
Weezer’s Weezer (“The White Album”): You and I are going to die someday; in the meantime, we need to let Weezer live.
Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool: If this does turn out to be Radiohead’s last album, it’s as grand a finale as they and their fans could have hoped for.
The Avalanches’ Wildflower: On cashing in your mystique.
Wilco’s Schmilco: A Wilco album used to be an event.
Reviews of old albums:
Phoenix’s It’s Never Been Like That: Behold the glory of the soft-rock Strokes.
TV On The Radio’s Return To Cookie Mountain: We’re howling forever, hoo-hoo.
Thom Yorke’s The Eraser: Revisiting a fascinating detour in a brilliant career.
Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds: Do you remember how weird and bad “SexyBack” sounded the first time you heard it?
The Hold Steady’s Boys And Girls In America: Raise your glass to the Hold Steady’s biggest album, and then walk around and drink some more.
Wilco’s Being There: Behold, the tipping point of Jeff Tweedy’s career.
Joanna Newsom’s Ys: On the world-building power of a truly unique talent.
Other assorted music essays:
The Grammys, As It Turns Out, Are Still The Grammys: Which is to say, they suuuuuuuuck.
Sorority Noise And Pinegrove Save Indie Rock At SXSW: Indie rock as we’ve long defined it may be dying, but the new face of indie rock — emo — is alive and well.
This Is A Low-Flying Panic Attack: What’s At Stake For Radiohead Fans In The “Burn The Witch” Era: On growing old with your favorite bands.
Carman’s Addicted To Jesus Was ’90s Christian Rock At Its Weirdest: Bust the devil! (Bust him up!) / Up in pieces! (I said bust him up!)
Be With Your Friends Tonight: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The LCD Soundsystem Reunion: I went to Barcelona and saw James Murphy’s band — twice!
Paul Is Alive: 10 Quick Thoughts Upon Seeing Paul McCartney With My Dad: Call me “Silly Love Songs” saccharine. I don’t care.
3 Reasons History Will Look Fondly On Blonde: It wasn’t the Frank Ocean album we wanted, but it was awesome anyway.
This Is How You Start A Party: Checking In On Rap’s New Generation At Ohio’s EDM-Heavy Breakaway Festival: I went to an EDM festival to see Chance The Rapper, Rae Sremmurd, Lil Uzi Vert, and the hip-hop youths.
