COLUMN: Best of 2022 - TV

Well, here we are at the end of the year, when we're supposed to look back and celebrate all the great events of 2022. There was, umm, let's see... well, that part wasn't so great. Oh, then there was that time when... oh yeah, that was pretty terrible, too.

Let's be honest. The past few years have been rough. Sometimes the best parts of 2022 involved IGNORING 2022, turning on the TV, and being taken away to fictional lands of other people's problems. 

Life may be a tad sucky in the 2020s, but television's never been better. I read a recent article that claimed our new golden age of TV may be winding down, and that's a bummer. Recent cutbacks at Netflix and HBO may be indicative of streaming having jumped the gun and invested too much in quality shows without paying attention to profits. There's a chance we may have been overly spoiled the past few years. So before good shows go the way of the dodo and we're left with nothing but America's Next Top Masked Chef Model Can Dance, let's celebrate some of the amazing TV fare that 2022's brought us. These are my picks for the five best shows of the year.

#5 - THE GREAT NORTH (Fox) - Ever since the pandemic hit, I've yearned for heartwarming TV fare. My usual tastes are a combination of snarky comedies and esoteric arthouse dramas, but when we were in lockdown and feeling hopeless, I didn't want jaded jokes or depressing realism. I mostly just wanted fluffy shows where people hugged each other a lot. Ted Lasso became my hero. The Great British Baking Show became my comfort food. Positivity is important. I just never thought I'd find it in a quirky animated sitcom from the Bob's Burgers team. Each week on "The Great North," the plucky Tobin family faces life in rural Alaska with togetherness, fortitude, and unpredictable jokes that land faster and harder than you'd expect. Add an outstanding voice cast of Will Forte, Jenny Slate, Paul Rust, and Nick Offerman at his most Offermanic, and you've got the feel-good show of 2022.

#4 - DERRY GIRLS (Channel 4 / Netflix) - This year also saw the third and final season of this global treasure of a show. "Derry Girls" was always funny, but taking a year off for the pandemic must have allowed creator Lisa McGee to fine-tune the writing, because this wonderful farewell of a season is SO next-level funny that I found myself hitting pause so I didn't miss anything over my own laughter. It's a giant love letter to friends, family, and growing up in the 90s in Northern Ireland. Its humor is only matched by its heart. "There's a part of me that doesn't really want to grow up," says lead character Erin in the final episode. I couldn't agree more, and I don't want to say goodbye to any of these characters.

#3 - STRANGER THINGS (Netflix) - 2022 featured a slew of acclaimed series at the height of their creativity and passion. Shows like "Better Call Saul" and "Barry" deserve every accolade thrown their way. BUT honestly, sometimes you just wanna put the heady stuff aside, make some popcorn, and watch kids fight aliens from a parallel dimension. Critics have never been especially kind to "Stranger Things," but has there been a show that's left a bigger dent in our pop culture landscape this year? "Chrissy, wake up!" memes flooded the internet all year, Metallica got a huge bump in sales, and the show's soundtrack even brought Kate Bush an unexpected #3 chart hit some 37 years after its original release. That's got to mean something. The Hawkins saga IS great television. Is "Stranger Things" going to win an Emmy for its nuanced writing and relevatory character studies? Nope. But will it be one of my favorite shows of all time? Absolutely. The Duffer Brothers have been able to perfectly straddle the line between teen adventure and sci-fi horror for four seasons now. When the fifth and final season drops next year, it'll be the talk of the globe.

#2 - LOS ESPOOKYS (HBO) - It came as a surprise to no one when HBO cancelled "Los Espookys" mere weeks after its second season debut. It's a miracle that something this weird even got two seasons in the first place. But what gloriously bonkers seasons they were. Created by SNL and Portlandia alum Fred Armisen and writer/co-stars Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega, "Los Espookys" is a surreal workplace comedy -- except the workplace is four friends who stage horror events (fake exorcisms, bloody Quinceneras, etc.) for fans of the macabre. Oh, and did I mention that the show is entirely in Spanish? And that one character works as a Shakira impersonator while another can talk to the moon and has a demon called Water's Shadow living inside his mind? It's bonkers in the very best of ways, and you can still see every episode on the HBO Max app. 

#1 - SEVERANCE (Apple TV) - I'll say it right now. "Severance" might just be my favorite TV show since "Twin Peaks." I've watched the first season three times now, and I'm about to embark on my fourth. Each viewing is like peeling back an onion and discovering a new layer. You can't do justice to a show like "Severance" in a quick blurb. In fact, it sounds downright stupid: "A dystopian tale where willing participants consent to a brain-altering medical procedure wherein their work and home lives can be separated into two distinct personas." On paper, it sounds ridiculous. On the screen, it's genius. Creator Dan Erickson has crafted a complex and tense thriller that also somehow manages to be a treatise on grief AND a meditation on workplace culture. The script is brought to life in the most claustrophobic of manners by director Ben Stiller (yep, THAT Ben Stiller) and a dizzyingly sparse visual aesthetic that makes me yearn for a visitor's pass to Lumon Industries just so I can experience it for myself. Above all, though, it's just downright deliciously weird, with twists and turns and even Christopher Walken thrown in for good measure. It's funny, unsettling, and downright horrifying (sometimes in the same scene.) It's the kind of show the internet was invented for - I guarantee there's people in chatrooms right now dissecting scenes. I should know, I'm one of them. It's the best show of the year by a country mile.

Happy New Year, all! And even if its not, here's hoping there's good TV to distract us from it.

COLUMN: Best of 2022 - Music

Everyone has their favorite part of the holiday season. Maybe it's sitting down for a delicious meal with family. Maybe it's the look on someone's face as they open gifts. Maybe it's the spirit of togetherness, love, and joy that brings us all together. 

Me? My favorite part of the holidays is right now, when I get a few precious inches of column space every year to pretend I'm an important entertainment critic and offer my picks for the best records of 2022.

In many ways, it was a turbulent and trying year, and pop culture can often reflect that in unpleasant ways. But there WERE a handful of records this year that redeemed our cultural landscape and proved that creativity still runs wild, waiting for its moment to shine. 2022 produced some serious bangers, from the sunshine dance bliss of Sofi Tukker's "Wet Tennis" to the seedy underbelly of Taylor Swift's "Midnights." There were triumphant returns from stalwarts like The Boo Radleys and Suede, and admirable debuts from new faces like Horsegirl and Yard Act. 

But five records really stood out for me as 2022's best:

#5 - Andy Bell - Flicker - As guitarist for Ride and bassist for Oasis, Andy Bell has soundtracked my life for decades. For his second proper solo album, Bell went the extra mile and dropped a double-album that takes a multitude of seemingly disjointed ideas and crafts them into a cohesive record that ruminates on the passage of time and coming to terms with yourself: "Now time's not on our side / See the flicker as a fire starts to burn / It's not enough / Burn down the world for me / Use a mirror to remember, and look back with something like love." Whether its an introspective acoustic instrumental or brilliant hooks coming through a psychedelic haze, "Flicker" contains some of Bell's finest work and secures his rightful place as one of indie's great songwriters. A triumph of a record and an absolute treat for long-time and new fans alike.

#4 - Wet Leg - Wet Leg - Seemingly coming out of nowhere (but actually hailing from the Isle of Wight), Wet Leg hit the ground running in 2021 with a handful of ridiculously catchy singles that perfectly embodied the fun and care-free bliss of jaded youth. Wet Leg reject any attempts to take themselves seriously, and swear in interviews that they're embarassed by all the fuss being made over them. After all, they're a band formed on a lark while sitting atop a Ferris wheel at a music festival. But people SHOULD take them seriously, because the pop hooks flow like caramel on their frenetic debut album. If it's all a schtick, it's a very GOOD schtick, and almost justifies the overexposure they've received this year. The million-dollar question will be whether they've got the ability to convert this one magical musical moment into a triumphant career or if it's all just one brilliant flash in the pan -- but if it's destined to be just a fleeting firework, it's one of those shells that burns in a dozen colors and ends with a surprise explosion. 

#3 - Let's Eat Grandma - Two Ribbons - In 2016, I declared the debut album of Norwich duo Let's Eat Grandma to be the best record of the year, and rightly so. At the time, it was incomprehensible how a pair of young teenagers could have possibly crafted an amateur album so captivatingly weird and otherworldly in their bedrooms (often using non-traditional toy instruments.) At the time, the duo of Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth explained their creative success as having been best friends from age four and operating on a shared wavelength. A few years down the road, and that friendship has now been tested. Hollingsworth lost her boyfriend to a rare form of cancer, while Walton moved to London and suffered a nervous breakdown. The tracks for Two Ribbons were written separately and contain lyrics of loss and failed friendship. Their charming ethereal kookiness might not be as pronounced as their earlier records, but this newfound lyrical honesty and depth serves the duo well, and the resulting record is an emotional synthpop rollercoaster and yet another triumph from a collaborative team that never seems to fail.   

#2 - Pale Blue Eyes - Souvenir - It was a couple months ago when my friend Stuart texted me a simple Youtube link with a text message that simply said, "!!!!!" That link ended up being to "Honeybear," the achingly beautiful centerpiece of the debut record from Pale Blue Eyes, a band that had previously been 100% off my radar. It was so captivating that I ordered the entire record on the spot. Hailing from a home studio in the small market town of Totnes in southern England, Pale Blue Eyes have somehow managed to fuse the best bits of vintage indiepop together into a modern masterpiece that wears its influences proudly but doesn't just sound like a 1980s nostalgia trip. The result is breathy dreampop atop quirky synths, Krautrock rhythms, and angular guitar lines clearly inspired by classic alternative bands like The Cure and New Order. I'd love a peek at their record collections, because I have a feeling they share a lot with mine. Far and away, they're my favorite discovery of 2022. "!!!!!," indeed. 

#1 - Alvvays - Blue Rev - Usually my favorite record of the year has to be some pretentious beast of an album trying desperately to make an artistic statement. This year, the accolade simply goes to a great band who just put out their greatest album. Alvvays (pronounced "always") are a Canadian indiepop band fronted by Molly Rankin, daughter of the late John Rankin, fiddler for the acclaimed Celtic folk band The Rankin Family. Until now, Alvvays were known for intelligent jangle-pop pierced by Rankin's resonant and languid vocals. When Blue Rev first arrived, I threw it on in the car, expecting a nice little slice of smartly dour pop bliss. But at exactly six seconds into the lead track "Pharmacist," the guitars explode out of the gate into a dizzying circular shoegaze epiphany that literally made me stop and replay the song a good half-dozen times as I drove around dumbfounded. The record simply soars and soars again, with pop hooks meeting sonic grandeur at every turn, but still with the signature underproduction that's always made Alvvays charming and homey. It's the kind of record that has at least five or six spots where I forget to breathe because I don't want to miss a second of its fuzzy grace. It's not an album that's going to change the world, but it's one that still captivates even after the umpteenth listen, and it's easily the best thing I've heard this year.

Next week, let's talk TV.           

COLUMN: Christmas Flu

Every year, I have but one holiday mission: to do my very best to find that elusive yuletide spirit. It really IS the most wonderful time of the year, and I yearn to recapture that Christmas magic I felt as a kid. Without fail, I will annually commit to the absurdly idealized Hallmark version of Christmas wherein everyone exudes happiness and love, true love could be waiting around every snowy corner, and all the world needs is some tinsel and twinkly lights to make everyone's problems go away forever. All you need to do is find a little Christmas magic.

This year, however, I've given up. The Grinch has won. There's no holiday magic to be found, people are pretty much horrible, and the tinsel and twinkly lights are just covering up the dark and glum reality of December. Fa la la la la. Perhaps the Constanzas had it right. Maybe Festivus is the holiday for me. If nothing else, it's high time I gave the Airing of Grievances a try.

It all started two weekends ago. I needed to pick up a few gifts, and what better activity than retail therapy to find that Christmas magic? I picked up my best friend and together we set off in search of holiday adventure. Earlier that day, another friend had texted that the Made Market at the Bend XPO was a haven for parental gift ideas, so we headed thataways. We walked in the door, and sure enough, the place was PACKED. Holiday crafts and a hundred potential gift ideas for Mom and Dad were everywhere! Most impressive, though, was the hustle and bustle of people running around all over the expo center. 

"Are you guys here for the market?" a helpful girl at the front table inquired.

"Yep," I replied in a voice that, dare I say it, was both holly and jolly.

"Too bad," she replied. "We just closed."

I had no idea it only lasted until 3 p.m. It turns out the hustle and bustle we were seeing were all the vendors quickly tearing down their booths. Sorry, mom. We spent the rest of the afternoon hitting up the downtowns of Moline and Leclaire, but gifts for mom and dad were still eluding me. No worries, the best was yet to come. I had a plan. 

Anyone who's ever seen a Hallmark Christmas movie knows that if you want to find Christmas magic and maybe even have a meet-cute with your soulmate, all you need to do is find an outdoor night-time Christmas market after dark. It's literally a factory for Christmas magic. That's why I was heading for the Davenport Freight House Christkindlmarkt with purpose and intent.

"That's weird," my friend suddenly said. "What's with all the people?"

Sure enough, we were miles from downtown but there were small crowds gathering along the roadside in places where crowds tend not to gather, especially in the December cold. "It's almost like they're... trainspotting or something." We looked at each other with instant realization. "CHRISTMAS TRAIN!"

Every year, Canadian Pacific rolls holiday-themed trains across North America adorned with Christmas lights. At select stops, the train rolls to a halt, the cars open up, and musicians jump out for surreal quick holiday concerts. It's fun and a great fundraiser for food banks. But as we drove along the highway, it quickly became clear that as we were aiming for downtown Davenport, so was the holiday train. And so, too, were thousands of other Quad Citians. 

You know the 1.5 minutes it usually takes to get across downtown Davenport? Thanks to holiday train traffic, it was more like 1.5 hours. Instead of romanticizing the holiday crowds, I quickly wanted to murder them. Pedestrians were just absent-mindedly strolling in front of traffic, cars were honking and getting exasperated, and Christmas magic was literally evaporating in front of my eyes. By the time we found parking (which I'm pretty sure was in Bettendorf) and hoofed it to the Christkindlmarkt, the band aboard the holiday train was hitting its last notes and the 2.3 kajillion people in attendance all converged upon the market en masse.

Suddenly things were less Hallmark-y and more Outbreak-y, as my mind flashed to newscasters warning of the "tripledemic" as I was bumping elbows with hordes of sniffling, snotty strangers. Add to that some overly-aggressive vendors ("HAVE YOU EVER HELD A REAL IOWA PORK CHOP IN YOUR HANDS, SON?") and suddenly the only place I wanted to be was HOME.

My spirit may have been dampened that night, but my yearning for Christmas magic carried on. The next day, I talked my friend into heading for the Christmas celebrations at Bishop Hill, and we spent the afternoon browsing handmade goods, baked deliciousness, and little stuffed Swedish gnomes that are supposed to lend a hand with chores -- but thus far, the one I bought just sits on my shelf like a lazy good-for-nothing. Oh, and if you happen to hear locals tell tale of a couple city slickers who accidentally bumped a table causing a model train to derail and emit sparks and almost burn down the most historic building in town, I'm sure they're talking about someone else.

But I'm happy to announce that the next morning, I woke to discover I'd caught Christmas magic. Oh, wait, no, that wasn't Christmas magic. Instead, what I caught was H1N1 swine flu. By mid-day, I was bedridden with a fever of almost 103. I spent the rest of last week scouring the Quad Cities for that most elusive Christmas gift of all: Tamiflu. I'll spare you the lectures, but seriously, get a flu shot. You don't want this. It was so gross in so many exciting and festive ways. And since I spent most of that bedridden week binge-watching Hallmark movies, I'm pretty sure I will now forever associate Christmas romance with nausea.

So apologies for my humbuggery, but Christmas magic is lost this year and the world is terrible. Or maybe that's just what Santa WANTS me to think. Please refrain from sending three ghosts my way, but if anyone has any Christmas magic to spare, I'm fresh out.  

COLUMN: Instafest

Ah, finally -- it's December. 'Tis the season for chestnuts roasting on open fires, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, and music geeks fighting across the battlefields of social media.

December is a great time to be an obsessive music fan. It's that magical month when you can pretend you're a critic and sit around figuring out all your favorite records of the year. Back in the day, I used to keep a mixtape in my car filled with my favorite songs of the year, in hopes of getting to explain my picks in lengthy detail to any of my friends unfortunate enough to ask for a Yuletide ride. 

In the modern era, though, we don't need mixtapes. Nowadays, music nerds can post their picks to social media and spend the entire month bickering with one another over their assorted merits. It's a grand and glorious time to be a geek. This year, though, a new app has thrown a ridiculous monkey wrench of silliness into our annual squabbles.

Instafest.app is a gloriously pointless time-waster that looks at your Spotify listening history and uses that information to curate a professional-looking flyer for an imaginary three-day music festival based entirely on your personal listening habits. The bands performing at your phony fest, and the order in which they're appearing, are all based on your Spotify plays and which artists you've listened to the most. It's the kind of thing music nerds drool over, and the results have been pretty epic. 

Take my friend Sharon, for instance. Her dream festival line-up includes a resurrected Prince showing up to throw down a set. That'd be pretty awesome. I'm guessing if Prince came back from the dead to headline a festival, tickets for that shindig might be hard to come by. But the BEST part about SharonFest? Prince isn't even headlining. As it turns out, the ghost of Prince, alongside the ghosts of David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, are all turning up to SharonFest to OPEN for the big headliner -- who is, you guessed it, 70s teen-pop idol Shaun Cassidy.

There's no lying to Instafest, that's what makes it so great. Music snobs like me pride ourselves on telling the universe that our favorite artists are weird esoteric bands that only a handful of music critics and record store clerks have even heard of. We don't tell anyone that we secretly get in our cars and blare Shaun Cassidy and Britney Spears when no one's looking. But on these Instafest line-ups, there's no hiding your secret shames. If you secretly listen to a bucketload of Nickelback, they're gonna be headlining your imaginary festival for all to see. 

For example, let's look at ShaneFest, the imaginary festival that Instafest curated for me based on my Spotify history. Out of all the countless musical acts on Earth, ShaneFest is being opened on the first day by... Bananarama. Clearly ShaneFest is going to have to invest in loads of security, because the crowd rush would be intense as fans try not to miss a second of Keren, Sara, and Siobhan breaking into "Cruel Summer." And yes, fellow nerds, I'm well aware that Siobhan left the group in 1988, but if it's MY imaginary festival, it's most definitely MY imaginary Bananarama original line-up reunion.

Day Two is where ShaneFest takes a turn for the odd. We start with the Northern Ireland pop-punk band Ash, and then go straight into a much-anticipated reunion set from 80s coffeeshop-soul heroes The Style Council. I'm pretty sure the Style Council were the second band to take the stage at the legendary Live-Aid festival, so kudos to the ShaneFest organizers for paying homage. After their polite set of catchy tunes, it's straight on to the industrial metal fury of Ministry. Style Council songs have choruses like, "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me or my world." Ministry songs have choruses like, "I'm chewing on glass and eating my fingers / Stigmata!!!! / You've run out of lies!!!!" This should be a smooth transition.

And what do Ministry fans clamor for right after their favorite band? Why, the jazzy noodling and clever wordplay of Steely Dan, obviously. Then it's back to more obscure indiepop for the rest of the day, until we get 80s indie darlings The Smiths to reunite at the end of the day. Note: If you know nothing about The Smiths, know this: They HATE each other. I mean, HATE each other. Pigs will fly and hell will freeze before The Smiths ever reunite. But they're doing it at ShaneFest, in order to open for the Trash Can Sinatras, a fairly obscure Scottish band often unfairly derided by critics for being, you guessed it, derivative of The Smiths.

On the third and final day of ShaneFest, I'll probably have to stop the show for a bit to explain to the crowd of indie fans why Chicago are taking the stage mid-day (my dad listened to them ALL the time.) Then, naturally, it's time for the Monkees. I'm hoping the SharonFest rules of resurrection are in play here as well, otherwise it's sadly going to be poor Micky Dolenz on stage by himself singing, "Hey, hey, I'm a Monkee," so I'm hoping I get to conjure up Davy, Pete, and Mike. They're opening for R.E.M., who are in turn opening for My Bloody Valentine. It's a banger of a day, people.

I'd certainly go to ShaneFest. I realize not everyone might appreciate the Pet Shop Boys opening for Weezer, but it's not called EveryoneFest, is it? Like all the other music nerds out there, I posted my fake festival flyer online, and within hours, I had numerous friends saying they'd certainly attend. In fact, two of the bands on the fake lineup even commented and said they'd be thrilled to be there. Weirder yet, 48 hours after I posted my silly fake festival line-up, two of my fake headliners (Ride and The Charlatans) announced a REAL joint double-headlining U.S. tour. Clearly, it must've been my fest that gave them the idea. I guess we'll know for sure if Bananarama or Steely Dan turn up.

Find out your own ridiculous festival lineup at Instafest.app. Another one of my friends just did it and his fest has the Beatles opening up for Kanye West, so hurry and make your fake fest quick, because I'm pretty sure THAT line-up might just herald the Apocalypse.