So it’s that time of year again – mince pies, turkey and end of year round ups 🙂
My gaming article will be up in early January 2024 but for now here’s the best of the rest.
MUSIC
There was so much amazing new music this year, I really struggled to get my playlist down to 40 tracks! There is plenty of great stuff that didn’t quite make the cut – new Metallica and Sparks, as well as Nia Archives and Chxrry22. Lots of brilliant new and returning artists.
My favourites from this year were The Warning, boygenius, Noah Kahan, Chris Stapleton, Flowerovlove, Kaeto, Olivia Dean, Olivia Rodrigo, The Last Dinner Party and NewJeans.
Playlist for the year below (in alphabetical order), hope you find some new favourites in there yourself 🙂
Also, I’ll go into more detail in my gaming specific blog, but I wanted to shout out the excellent soundtrack to Goodbye Volcano High. The fictional band in the game has some brilliant songs!
My favourite gigs were The Warning at the Islington Academy and The Last Dinner Party at eartH. Two nights where I was just in awe of the action on stage – gigs like that remind you of the power of live music.
TV
It’s been a stellar year for TV, though I have to be honest the sheer volume of new programmes is becoming problematic for me in terms of time. I just can’t get to as many shows as I’d like.
Programmes I started and enjoyed were The Bear, Stranger Things S4, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Only Murders In The Building S3 and Who Is Erin Carter? I’ll no doubt return to these and finish them up at some stage!
I really liked Season 5 of The Rookie, it’s definitely become my go-to comfort watch. Good performances and an enjoyable, easy watch. I saw the first season of The Boys (finally!), which was brilliant. I also enjoyed the National Treasure Disney+ show more than I thought. We watched it as a family and had a blast!
But my favourite shows were Poker Face, The Last Of Us and Bodies. Three different vibes but equally enjoyable. The Last Of Us, having played the game, was a very pleasant surprise – game adaptations are not known for their success but they did a fantastic job here, adding a few things but mainly sticking to the plot of the first game. The acting was phenomenal and I look forward to seeing how they handle Season 2!
Bodies was also a fun, if slightly disturbing, watch. The story of four police detectives from different eras (one in 1890, one in 1941, one in 2023 and one in 2053) who all find the same exact dead body on the same street in London. If that sort of sci-fi mind bending sounds like your cup of tea then check it out! I absolutely loved Poker Face, a Columbo style show in which the main character has an innate gift – knowing when someone is lying. As she moves from town to town across the US, trying to escape her past, she encounters a new mystery each week. With a killer soundtrack and some brilliantly structured episodes, this is up there as one of my favourite shows of all time.
FILM
I saw some really impressive films this year. Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis, the story of the company that made lots of legendary album sleeves in the 70’s was a fascinating watch. I thought They Cloned Tyrone was a fun, offbeat film with a great score and soundtrack. Definitely a different take on your regular clone film. On a more UK centric trip, Polite Society, the story of teenager Ria Khan, who believes she has to save her older sister Lena, was an action film that had a lot of heart and well choreographed fight scenes.
I enjoyed The Killer, which seemed to lean heavily on the Hitman game franchise, though it was too long and the heavy handed use of The Smiths music (probably not a problem for most people, I just thought it was lazy and didn’t fit) grated a little. On the superhero front I thought Guardians Of The Galaxy 3 was a fitting send off for the team and I would 100% watch a spin off with Drax and Mantis off doing their own thing 😀 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was brilliant on the big screen, what an experience! The film’s sense of style remains unchallenged and it set up the story for a third film really well.
Nimona, from creative genius N.D Stevenson, was a wonderful film about a shape shifting demon that befriends a Knight who is sworn to kill them. When he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit who else can he turn to? Very funny and with a killer soundtrack, this was great fun. You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah was one of those family films that tugs at the heartstrings in the right way. Universal themes of young love, teenage angst and embarrassment run through it, most enjoyable. We also watched Family Switch, which only hit Netflix recently, and that was another fun watch. Essentially it’s Freaky Friday but both parents swap with their kids – silly but funny and with some good performances.
However my favourite film from 2023 was Barbie. We went as a family to watch it and I genuinely wasn’t sure what to expect. I was blown away – the music, the tongue in cheek writing, just the general idea of doing something this risky with such a huge brand. They could easily have pumped out a generic action/adventure where Barbie goes to the ‘real world’. Instead we got Barbie having an existential crisis and Ken, well he’s just Ken – as the song goes. The film holds up a mirror to some of society’s current issues – it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen, of course, but it carries an important message for young (teenage) boys and girls. And it does it in a fun way.
BOOKS
I managed to get through quite a few books this year. One title I was reading turned into a slog to get through, just one of those I didn’t click with which sadly held me back a bit. That’s not on my favourites list but these are!
I really enjoyed the languid pace of A Month in The Country by J.L Carr and I finally got around to reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen which was good. I also read A Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins for Halloween, which definitely gave me some spooky vibes for late October!
In terms of factual stuff I loved the Chris Blackwell autobiography – hearing first hand about the origins of the legendary Island record label… just brilliant. I also enjoyed Appetite For Self Destruction by Steve Knopper, which tells the story of the music industry’s struggle to move to digital – an excellent read if you’re a music industry nerd like me!
I didn’t get to many graphic novels this year but two that really stood out were Revival, the story of people coming back from the dead in a small US town, and Critical Role: The Legend Of Vox Machina (Volume 3). The latter continues the origin story of the characters from the online show of the same name. With a wonderful art style and some interesting back story, I’d recommend for fans of the show.
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima was recommended to me by a friend a while back but I finally got to it and it was a fantastic read. A forbidden romance in Japan in the early 1900’s, it is the first in the series so I look forward to checking the other entries out. Another recommendation, this time from my mum, was Diary Of A Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, which turned out to be one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. The tale of a clerk who has ideas above his station, it’s told in the style of a diary and I have not laughed this hard at a book for years.
But my favourite book of 2023 was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – the story of three friends who form a game company and hit the big time. As their friendship begins to unravel can they keep their personal and professional lives on track? A phenomenal read.
So there you go – another year finished and favourites catalogued.
As always let me know what I’ve missed or your recommend over on Twitter or Threads – both @greghorrorshow
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