Dan’s 2023 Tops

Obsessions, Albums, and Nerdery

Published in

FridaySwell

9 min readJan 1, 2024

I had some deep dives this year. Turns out, when I get into something, I really get into it (see biking section). If I like someone’s art, I want to learn about the creator from every possible angle (see Little Simz). When I find a new field of learning, I tend to plow it deep (see Data Science).

Here’s a few of my 2023 fixations:

e-Biking

Buying an e-bike this summer changed my outlook for even the most simple trips. We rode cheapie Lime Bikes around Atlanta when we visited in May — which only sealed the deal on how fun and freeing it was to drop the car and feel the air. In June, we bought bikes of our own. It felt like being a kid again. Before long, I was riding everywhere, getting pretty close to replacing a car for all the short errands around me, as well as longer trips to friends or downtown once/week for work.

Biking is saving me more than gas money — it’s saving me. Riding has slowed me down, forcing me to leave earlier, consider the weather, and plan ahead. I notice each neighborhood I ride through in a new way; After riding for 6 months around this town I feel closer to imagining what the land looked like before development, with a little hill here, a creekbed cold spot there, overgrown bushes and fallen branches. I love looking across the airport runway to the ocean, imagining I’m on a small island; I love seeing the stars as I ride home after dark; I love a quick look at the ocean or the student energy of campus as I ride near both. I love seeing people I know along the route and stopping to say hi — something I’m unlikely to do in a car. I also love proving to myself that I’m not too old to ride in the rain or come home with cold fingers.

This new joy even led me to a biking-centric trip to Portland where I found a love for urban rails-to-trails adventures. (former railroad tracks converted to bike paths are usually level, paved, and pass near city sandwich shops and breweries). Among other rides, I tried out a new separated bike path along the Columbia Gorge, past color-changing trees, hundred-year-old arched bridges, small-town AYSO game, and a 5-minute freight train; stopping for chowder and beer before riding back.

All of which has me searching for more trips to take and better ways of getting around town.. which perhaps leads to my next obsession:

City Nerd

Watching this urban planner turned youtube mapper is an example of my growing appreciation for walkable cities and public transportation. My favorite vacations have always involved leaving the car behind, like New York, a small beach town, or most European cities. The gears in my brain get excited about the efficiencies of trains or subways (even though the comfort-seeker in me wants my own space).

This year I’ve sought out public transport on trips to Portland, Atlanta, and even Los Angeles, along with bike shares and walking. I even took the bus in my own little city last month (and got shut out a second time when my bike didn’t fit on the bus-bike rack; :sigh:).

All of this strikes me as extremely nerdy, which is perhaps why I like watching the you-tuber simply named CityNerd, because in comparison to his dry sense of humor I’m not that nerdy after all. He reviews North American cities for their walkability and public transportation, usually with a Top 10 list built by a thoughtful grid of data analysis. He does “google map flyovers” through interesting sections of a city and devastatingly horrific intersections. He also pokes fun at ridiculous traffic projects and the government inefficiencies, and who doesn’t enjoy that? check it out @CityNerd on YouTube.

Data Science

If that last section broke the ice on my nerd-dom*, this one is going to blow the pencils right out of your pocket protector. 2023 saw the culmination of a five-year journey to spend more time looking at data, and maybe even get paid for it. My next move is to find better visualizations to help others see that data in ways that make sense for their interests.

In 2018 I made a job change to leave my highly glamorous post to become a ditch digger for the data team, guarding and governing the privacy of customer data. In 2019, I moved into Data Engineering, and started a supposedly 2-year Masters’ program at Georgia Tech. Four years later (cough, cough) I flew out to Atlanta to wear the cap and gown.

Celebrating that was a highlight of my year, and grew me further in my newish belief that we need to actually celebrate and enjoy the good things in life; turns out holding back does not make the bad things less bad! Life is full of joy and pain (Thank you Rob Base), sometimes within the same year, sometimes within the same day.

As I’m already veering dangerously away from nerdery and into the territory of feelings, I’ll ride the momentum into my last and perennial obsession: Music.

Music and Live Music

It’s hard to believe that recorded music is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of humanity; I rely on it so much. Until the past 100 years or so, if you heard music at all, the actual musician was playing it nearby.

Seeing live music is a return to that past, and one of the best food sources for those seasons when my soul is hungry. And my stomach was growling for the first half of this year, but I made up for it this fall! One of my hopes for this year was to see more smaller venue, lower cost concerts rather than saving up for the big arena shows. I saw five such concerts in a few months, in small venues with crowds of about thirty, or three hundred, or the largest which was about three thousand.

Since three of those were also artists whose albums are my favorites I’ll combine my album and concert reviews together:

Top Albums

No Thank U, by Little Simz

1.I was blown away by one small powerful person on stage this year when I saw Little Simz this fall. Backed by simple but moving on-screen silhouettes singing her gospel soundtrack, Simz rapped for a full solo hour before bringing on a band for a second hour.

At the show, a song from this already-obsessed-over album No Thank U, hit me in a new way, as the healing strands of her song Silhouette :

Find your way
Find your faith
God’s with you always
If this is evolution, I’m in luck
Cause I don’t wanna be here and be stuck
Wish we could have transitioned together
I gave you all I had, gave you my trust
No one ever tells you when it’s fucked
No one ever tells you it’ll probably leave you crushed
Growing is painful, we cannot be rushed
Time will heal you, Time will heal you

The song ends with a gospel choir repeating the last line over and over, til you believe it.

Little Simz’ previous album made my Top5 list just last year, but that wasn’t enough I guess, and when I found out she acts in a gritty London based show on Netflix called Top Boy, it led me to another cultural corner to explore, as that show is filled with other musicians and threads to follow.

Big Dreaming Ants, by Nana Adjoa

2.When I first heard KCRW playing She’s Stronger Than You which was written to her future self, visualizing the person she would like to become, I was in. From there, the album’s honesty only grows, culminating in the aspirational closer, I Want to Change, with my favorite line being, “To change our future, my future, from my couch.” Ouch.

With solid production and tight band play, Nana Adjoa is ready for your kitchen Alexa play, along with plenty of lyrical depth to back up late night listens. This is the one act on the list I could not see live this year, but I did discover their covid-era house concert, recorded in an old church in their hometown of Amsterdam — it felt like sneaking in on band practice, complete with bad notes and nervous laughter, but also giving insight into their apparently shy personalities. I’ve watched it a ton since then, but I recommend starting with the album:

The Sun and Her Scorch, by Dizzy

3.Most times I see a concert, I’m already familiar with the music. But every now and then the joy of discovery doubles the sweetness, as was the case with Dizzy. Invited by Hannah to see them at the Echo in Silverlake, I was immediately won over by the earnest innocence of the lead singer, and delicate consistency of the band. (After a few pre-concert listens, I only hoped that whoever handled the guitar hooks would be present — I was not disappointed)

Hanging around the small-but-perfect-venue-to-get-discovered after the show, I watched the band players chill while the lead singer Katie said hello to Hannah and other fans of the band. Listening to podcast interviews on the drive home, we learned the guitarist, bassist, and drummer are all Mackenzie brothers, and that along with lead singer Katie Munshaw, all are from a Toronto suburb — a suburb my cousin confirmed is one Canadians generally aspire to escape from, and indeed the song Roman Candles (A true eighties throwback) is about exactly that. The Magician is a moving song about a friend who died far too early, only made more powerful by hearing that friend’s father called Katie after the album’s release to thank her for the song without even knowing it was about his daughter:

One trip to Amsterdam
Four trips around the sun
Has it really been that long
Since your name was on my tongue?
And I would wait all night, glass-eyed
By the back door like the way we did
Meet me at midnight
Crack me up good like the way you did

There’s a newer album, but this is the one I’ve attached to in the month since meeting Dizzy for the first time. If all my other favorites are too far afield for you, check out Dizzy living in the space between Lorde and Phoebe Bridgers:

Sundial, by Noname

4.Noname’s twisted album cover is the first sign she’s not out for popularity contests, but to use her music to rattle some cages. Calling out everyone from the NFL to fellow artists, Noname is not afraid to include herself in that self-criticism (song: namesake), nor the myth that any particular group can be both victim and perpetrator (song: hold me down).

The music is engaging and varied, as Noname raps over gospel, funk, and basslines that hook you from listen one. It’s quite a distance from her beloved and nostalgic debut album Telefone (still my favorite of hers). I love a deep dive and this was no exception, seeing Noname at the Wiltern this fall and diving into her storylines, one of which is that she considers herself an activist first and rapper second. Let’s hope she can continue to do both.

Top Shows

I have to list my top shows, because that’s what I do, because this is my scrapbook, but I must say they seem less important than being out in the world biking and seeing live music, so I’ll spare the words and just remember them this way: