Some call it the Holiday Season. Some the Christmas Season. The more corporate-minded may refer to it as End of Year. The glass-half-full crowd would refer to it as almost the beginning of the year. Not me.
I like to call those final weeks of the year List Time.
I’ve been a list man all my life. I love making lists. I love reading other people’s lists. I love discussing and debating lists. What should be on them. What should be excluded. Before I made lists professionally I made them for pleasure. It’s no coincidence that this column, in a way, is formatted as a list.
But my favorite lists of all are the end of year lists they proffer and proclaim the best of the year past. Best songs. Best movies. Best books. They are in truth, never perfect. But they are always fun. Here’s a list of some of my 2021 hits and misses.
Album of the Year
“Crawler” by Idles: It seems like a long time since a proper rock band was making proper rock records on the regular. This British band, yet to really break in the United States, clearly comes from the punk polemic school of music – a contemporary Clash if you will. What’s incredible is the dynamic range. Bruising slow burns or amphetamine bursts of accelerated guitar rave ups, IDLES manages to make every shade feel authentic. And while much was made of last year’s Ultra Mono LP, I find myself preferring the more personal and musically diverse Crawler.
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Runner Ups: “Sour” by Olivia Rodrigo, “New Long Leg” by Dry Cleaning, “An Evening with Silk Sonic” by Silk Sonic and “Call Me If You Get Lost” by Tyler, the Creator
Movie of the Year
“Summer of Soul:” It’s easy to pin the success of “Summer of Soul” on the music – which is outstanding. But this documentary/concert film is much more the vintage sets by classic artists performing at their pinnacle. The movie, which tells the story of the 1969 Harlem Soul Festival, is about communities both official and unofficial. About the power of an engaging performance and an engaged audience. It’s about a brief moment – a few hot summer months in New York City – when questions of race seemed both urgent and unimportant. It’s also an unanswered question. How did the debacle of Woodstock overshadow such an incredible cultural moment?
I’ve gone back to this riveting movie a few times over the past few months, pondering that very question. I don’t have an answer, so I suspect I’ll return again.
Runner Ups: “Power of the Dog,” “Belfast” and “Dune”
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Television Show of the Year
“Reservation Dogs” (FX on Hulu): It takes an episode or two to get acclimatized to the unique rhythms of “Reservation Dogs.” The show, which chronicles the schemes and swindles of a very young Native American gang striving for criminal dominance on a reservation, is both wildly funny and touching. It perfectly plays the comic ideal of playing funny as truth. The result is an engaging and illuminating peek into a culture marginalized not only by the television industry, but American culture as a whole.
Runner Ups: “Bo Burnham: Inside,” Season 2 of “For All Mankind” and “Hacks”
Local Event of the Year
The Great Reopening: Let’s face it, once theaters, galleries and performances spaces threw open those doors we were all like Castaway Tom Hanks at the Golden Corral. It didn’t matter if it was good, bad or even something we would ordinarily be interested in seeing – we gorged. And while I must admit attending an event or two that was not as COVID cautious as I would have liked to have seen, the opportunity after so many months to be part of an audience made me almost delirious. Here’s hoping we can keep our creative community open for business. I mean, I do love my couch, but being able to experience this communities creative culture in the wild is something I feel certain I will never take for granted again.
What about you? What are some of the things you fell in love with this year? What’s on your best of list? Hit those comments below.
Steven Uhles has worked as professional journalist in the Augusta area for 22 years, and his Pop Rocks column ran in The Augusta Chronicle for more than 20. He lives in Evans with his wife, two children and a dog named after Hunter Thompson.
