2015: A Year.
I’m hoping that 2015 will be one of those years that I will look back on and think, “I did a lot. I grew a lot.” There were ups and downs and whiplash-inducing emotional rollercoasters; I visited Switzerland and South Carolina for the first time, made my first summertime trip to Montauk, revisited Seattle and Chicago and New York, hosted a bunch of people on my soon-to-be-former couch, sat on said couch and wondered about Where Things Might Be Going, got a new therapist, went to a couple of WWE shows, watched the Mets in the NLDS and the NLCS and the—what??—World Series, bought three Halloween costumes after years of staying away from the holiday (and wound up only wearing two). I met a lot of wonderful people from around the world. I handed the reins of Maura Magazine over to my partner in crime Brad Nelson, and I was delighted by the results. I taught—three classes this year, each of which was full of smart people who had tons to say. I still marvel at how teaching has changed my life, and I am grateful to NYU for helping me come to this realization and to Boston College for letting it continue to bear fruit.
I also wrote a lot—for the Boston Globe, Time, The Concourse, Rolling Stone, the Independent Weekly, and many other places. (I did not write enough emails, however; my apologies if you are one of the many people to whom I owe a missive, or to whom I owe a less dashed-off note.) My editors at these venues have been incredibly patient and amazingly wise, and I look forward to working with them more in the coming years.
This is a sampling of what I published in 2015.
My review of Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION was probably my favorite piece of 2015. Second place goes to my commemoration of Billy Joel’s final show at Nassau Coliseum. Third goes to my oral history of Extreme’s “More Than Words,” the research for which led to me chatting with Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt about the purpose of rock criticism. Honorable mention: My assistance in establishing the hair-metal canon.
I gave American Idol the postmortem it deserved: Talking about how it went from finding big-voiced belters to giving white dudes with guitars a prime-time platform. I wrote about Season 13 winner Caleb Johnson’s fight to bring butt rock back to the pop world, and about the strata of musical celebrity that the show has created. (Call it the MJ-list, in honor of Idol’s best blogger.)
I imagined the fighting-for-art future that would result from a Kanye presidency.
I wrote about Taylor Swift, thinkpiece steamroller.
I wrote about the resilience of Janet Jackson and Kelly Clarkson, a piece that I’d probably been low-level working on since I saw Kelly cover “If” a few years ago. Janet’s comeback album wound up being a delight — jubilant but aware of the hard times, catchy and fun and wise.
I wrote about Tidal and tech boosters’ gross, hubristic antipathy toward artists.
I wrote about dime-store pop covers designed to capitalize on streaming services’ wonky search functions and managed to sneak Fall Out Boy into Pitchfork.
I eulogized Scott Weiland, whose frontman stylings were consistently underrated because of ’90s nostalgia’s distorting prism.
I talked to Screaming Females’ Marissa Paternoster, one of my heroes of 2015, about dealing with crisis through art.
I interviewed Mackenzie Scott, who as Torres put out one of the year’s most bracing albums.
I interviewed Sadie and Darl from Speedy Ortiz, a wildly talented group made up of some of my favorite people on the planet. (Their drummer fronts a pretty good band, too.) I spent one of this year’s snowier days as an extra in their video for “The Graduates” and wrote the bio for my fellow extra Ellen Kempner‘s triumphant project Palehound.
I interviewed Miguel, one of the greatest new artists to emerge this decade. (His sprawling, vibrant Wildheart did not disappoint.)
I chatted with Ryan DeRobertis of Skylar Spence, fka Saint Pepsi, about music and life and Long Island. A couple of weeks later we went to a Long Island sports bar to watch a Mets playoff game.
I went to Hassle Fest and saw a lot of great bands (Ono! Obnox! PALBERTA!!!), and at one point David Yow, pinch-hitting as Flipper frontman, danced me around the Brighton Music Hall.
I saw Kraftwerk’s eye-popping 3D show with perhaps the most grateful audience I’ve ever been a part of.
I saw Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson, and my only complaint was that the gig wasn’t double the length.
I saw AC/DC and marveled at Angus Young’s resilience.
I experienced the adolescence I never had at New Kids On The Block’s Boston show, and I wrote about how their song “Tonight” was given the odd tag of “Beatles-esque” for a paper presented at the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle.
I saw an unexpectedly emotional One Direction concert—the last stop on their 2015 U.S. tour.
I saw Tokio Hotel, and the fans who turned out seemed to be as devoted as they were back when they could make Idolator’s Sitemeter shudder.
I saw a lot of other shows that made my heart flutter and my mind race: Alcest, Son Lux, Hundred Waters, The Replacements, Belle and Sebastian, Torche and Nothing, Jazmine Sullivan and Jordan Bratton, Ledisi and Raheem DeVaughn, Alvvays, At the Gates with Converge and Pallbearer and Vallenfyre. There were others. (There were some not-great ones, too, but let’s not dwell.)
I fell in love with the cheekily named Girl Band, whose approach to making music defies most of the rules imposed upon rock.
I devised a couple of Filthy 15 lists (for 1993, 2001, and 2015) in honor of the PMRC’s 30th anniversary.
I wrote a lot more for the Globe, Time, Rolling Stone, IndyWeek, Billboard, and other places. I still feel lucky that I can say this. Thanks to the generosity of WZBC, I hosted a for-the-most-part-weekly radio show where I played a lot of the aforementioned artists, as well as others I hope to write about someday.
It never felt like enough. Regrets, you know.
