Weclome back to The Vibes! This is the inaugural, slightly rambly yearly wrap up of some cultural highlights of 2021. If this is your first time reading the newsletter feel free to read more here.
Good morning!
I am sorry!! I have not been productive re: newsletter recently idk why! Summer is here and I have been trying to spend as much time as possible making money and lying in the sun when not making money (perfect time is approximately 4pm when the sun fully hits the exiled Ikea couch on the deck outside). Instead of sending out my usual Ten Vibes, I thought I would start the new year looking back on some of my favourite cultural additions of 2021.
(p.s. I know people are moving past the word Vibes and I personally hate saying it in a structured environment but we’re all stuck with it now)
Let’s start with books.
I read 30 books this year which is more than I thought but much less than last year (47) and the year before (52) (no I am not just trying to brag here). I think a common theme for this year was that the in-and-out-of-lockdown really made me lose motivation for doing a lot that I had planned for, getting a Proper Job, moving out, etc. etc. it also meant that somehow I just didn’t want to read as much and I couldn’t find the right tone of book that spoke to me in the same way that the ones I read last year did.
For the past three years, I have been cataloguing the books I read in a notes app page on my computer, bolding my favourites. My favourites are not necessarily always objectively good but they all felt like they did what needed to be done, you know? (that sentence was a disclaimer to the fact that Ethan Hawke’s book is in this list). This year, the bolded books were as follows: The Topeka School (Ben Lerner, 2019), A Bright Ray of Darkness (Ethan Hawke, 2021), Fake Accounts (Lauren Oyler, 2021), No One is Talking About This (Patricia Lockwood, 2021), Animal (Lisa Taddeo, 2021), Eve’s Hollywood (Eve Babitz, 1974), Beautiful World, Where Are You (Sally Rooney, 2021), Happy Hour (Marlowe Granados, 2021), Trust Exercise (Susan Choi, 2019), Slow Days Fast Company (Eve Babitz, 1977), Sorrow and Bliss (Meg Mason, 2020), and What Artists Wear (Charlie Porter, 2021). Of those, only three are non-fiction (the Charlie Porter + the two Eve Babitz—RIP—which read like fiction anyway) although you could make a case for the Ethan Hawke novel being a thinly veiled memoir about his and Uma Thurman’s divorce (Heartburn Vibes!!). The other non-fiction books I read this year, while most were interesting, they always came across as a little too dense for what I was in the mood for. I do think it’s interesting that a lot of the fiction I thought was really great could be considered autofiction or in conversation with the concept of autofiction. Someone smarter than me would make a point about how I have gravitated towards truth in my fiction and stories in my non-fiction but that’s corny!!
Some recommendations — if you lean towards character/relationship studies then of course I’d say to read the new Sally Rooney, more Vibes based? Happy Hour or Eve’s Hollywood is for you! If you are in a book club (v cool)— Trust Exercise made me want to read + listen to everything anyone had to say about it. I think my favourite novels of the year (apart from BW,WAY) were Fake Accounts and No One is Talking About This. They felt in conversation with each other— both garnered reviews calling them ‘Internet’ or ‘Social Media Novels’ and there’s a style of writing used in NOiTAT that gets (?) parodied (?) by the narrator in Fake Accounts. But, important to keep in mind that I think both would require internet/Twitter literacy (especially for NOiTAT) and Fake Accounts could annoy you if you want to Get Something out of your books.
On the music of 2021.
Due to my commitment to the concept of an Album, I find my music consumption has a yearly pattern. One year I’ll have an influx of music come out by artists I’m already a fan of—that was last year—and then the next year will maybe have some new releases from old favourites but everything else will either be a conscious effort to develop a new favourite artist (my deep dive into The National in 2019) by becoming consumed by their catalogue or it’ll be a scattering of albums where I have no inclination to go further in an artist’s discography than that collection of songs.
I’ll go chronologically with some of my favourite music I consumed this year. First up, maybe embarrassingly if you are someone who is not me, was a collection of songs recorded for the Juliet Naked film soundtrack by Ethan Hawke. Written by a bunch of middle-aged, popular-in-the-90s/early-2000s, indie-rock artists, the songs are maybe only enjoyable because they are sung (acted) by Ethan Hawke. Because of only this, it was my 5th most-listened-to album of the year1.
Then, my second most-listened-to album which, again, did not come out in 2021 is Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud. It truly is just a perfect album, there isn’t a song that should be cut or that doesn’t belong to the sonic landscape. I wrote briefly about the song “Arkadelphia” in the very first Ten Vibes but the song that has really stuck with me since my very first listen is “Lilacs”—
—I remember Chris Black sharing the above performance on Twitter and the conviction with which she sings the opening lines of the chorus, “If I’m a broken record, write it in the dust, babe/I’ll fill myself back up like I used to do” grabbed me straight away. Not even just the way she sings them, the words themselves. On their own they’re just as strong. The album itself sounds like sunshine and a new spring and the lyrics keep you relistening, always discovering new meaning in lines you’ve heard many many times before.
I’ll also touch on Faye Webster’s I Know I’m Funny haha, I listened to it after she appeared on How Long Gone in June (lol). On the first few listens I was mostly responding to the vibe of the album—dreamy and slidey guitars, laid-back but compelling momentum—then I started focussing on the delicate, funny voice that cuts through the atmosphere created by the music. When I added it to my library I was sure it was going to be one of those albums I listen to a few times and maybe return to a couple of songs but it’s stuck around and slowly but surely become one of my favourites of the year.
I want to talk about the three albums that came out this year from some artists I was already a fan of— Julien Baker’s Little Oblivions, Lucy Dacus’ Home Video, and Lorde’s Solar Power. Obviously, I’ve gone on about Solar Power a lot in the newsletter—
—so I won’t say too much more on it other than that I still really like it!! It held the top-listened album position and 7/10 most-listened-to songs. My fav 3 songs, in no particular order, are “Dominoes”, “Oceanic Feeling”, and “The Man With The Axe” which I think covers the gamut of the album. I will never!! Get over!! The sincerity with which she sings “I should’ve known when your favourite record was the same as my fathers/You’d take me down”!!! Very Funny!!!
The Lucy Dacus album is definitely one of my favourites of the year, in a similar way to the Lorde album, I always find it interesting when artists start unpacking events from their teen years a few albums into their careers. The nostalgia never feels too twee or hammered in here (although I could go without the laughter/chatter after “Going Going Gone”) mostly because it feels like Dacus is immersed in the songs; a strange hybrid of her looking back through her memory and at the event in realtime. I love “Brando” a lot but “Hot and Heavy” seems to remain my favourite, if only for the lead up to the lyric “You’re better than ever, but I knew you when”. huh!!!
Although I really liked it and rinsed it when it came out, Little Oblivions is slightly more difficult to praise. I haven’t returned to the majority of the album as much as I did Sprained Ankle and Turn Out the Lights but I think that’s because what I liked in Baker’s music was the sparseness of sound. There are moments of that here—“Song in E” in particular, just JB and a piano—but the album as a whole is about building out the arrangement, and so even the stripped-back songs don’t feel like they fit in the rest of the catalogue because they stand out on this album if that makes sense. I find the songs that work the best for me meet in the middle, “Heatwave” strips back in the bridge, and “Relative Fiction” sounds like a natural evolution from the songs on Turn Out the Lights. It’s not a bad album by any means I just think the complexities in the arrangements made Julien Baker lose a little bit of the magic that occurred when it was just her and a guitar or piano.
Albums that I’ve written briefly about in various Ten Vibes newsletters— God’s Favourite Customer (still think it’s a good album but like the Julien Baker haven’t returned to it that much), When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog (remains one of my favourite discoveries), Come Stay At Mine (perfect EP!), Leftovers (still obsessed with its simplicity + timelessness) and Letter Blue (been returning to a few songs— “Clementine”, “Larabar”, “Bound”—but not as much to the album as a whole).
Movies.
I have a problem remembering all the films I watch each year. Maybe this year I’ll remember to write them down but mostly I remember the films I either loved or rewatched a lot.
I think my favourite film I saw this year (and I only saw it a few weeks ago) was The Worst Person in The World. Essentially, to put it in very reductive terms, the film is a Norweigian Frances Ha. A late-20s early 30s coming-of-age movie focussing on Julie who, in the opening 5 or 10 minutes changes university course and career options 3 times and spends the majority of the film working in a bookstore completely unrelated to any of those occupation goals. The film mainly focuses on the biggest relationship in her life, the one with an older comic book illustrator which then (you can see this in the trailer but ~spoiler alert~ if you are boring) ends because of the chance to start something else with someone else. The first few scenes with this someone else are maybe some of my favourite scenes of the past few years, meeting at a wedding (that she gatecrashes), testing the boundaries of what they consider cheating, time passing then her realising he is in the bookshop she works at and trying to watch him while remaining inconspicuous (that feeling when you are conscious of every move you make), and then her running to reunite with him in a beautifully shot sequence where the whole world is frozen except for her and him. Truly a perfect film!! Go see it now in cinemas!! Here’s a clip featuring the best cable knit jumper since Harry’s in When Harry Met Sally—
Some other favourites that I saw for the first time this year— I promise I’m not in my Film Bro era but Shiva Baby and Licorice Pizza were two films I liked a lot for different reasons. SB was less than 90 minutes of anxiety infused comedy set across the course of one day while LP [TJ voice] was over two hours of nostalgia-infused vignettes spanning maybe one, maybe two years. I don’t wanna get into all the age-gap discourse surrounding Licorice Pizza because a) depiction is not endorsement! and b) it’s boringgg!!! but I think the two leads were perfectly cast and I personally will be on the frontline for the Alana Haim Lead Actress Oscar campaign!!
From earlier in the year, aka films nominated for Oscars past, I loved Another Round and Sound of Metal. For me, Sound of Metal felt so overwhelming to watch, I think because of the sound design, you feel so immersed in the Riz Ahmed character’s journey with his loss of hearing. Maybe it was just Oscar Bait Manipulation but it worked on me!! I loved how, on the other hand, Another Round didn’t try to manipulate the audience. There wasn’t any Drinking Is Bad or Drinking Is Good, it was presented as the effects it had on the main characters’ lives and, for some, it was Bad but for others it allowed them to let go of their neuroses. The film is really worth watching (on SBSOnDemand atm) for the final scene which, as I have written before in this very newsletter, is the most cathartic scene I have seen in film.
Some of my favourite articles from the year.
I spend too much time jumping between various New York based publications + newsletters so it seems only fit to highlight some of my favourite and most memorable reads of the past year.
Movies/TV— This One Line From The Undoing Plays on a Loop in My Head (Hunter Harris, Hung Up), Faith is like LSD [Mike Mills Interview] (Jonah Weiner/Erin Wylie, Blackbird Spyplane), The Roys Summer in Italy (Hunter Harris, Vulture), Mike White Accepts the Criticism (Kathryn VanArendonk, Vulture), Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny (RS Benedict, Blood Knife), Martinis and Red Meat With Kieran Culkin: The ‘Succession’ Star on Childhood, Co-Stars and Fame (Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter), golden hour (Helena Fitzgerald, Griefbacon), On “Succession,” Jeremy Strong Doesn't Get the Joke (Michael Schulman, The New Yorker), ‘It Was Like Hosting the Ultimate Party’: An Oral History of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (Keaton Bell, Vogue)
Music— On Matt Doran’s apology to Adele and the bizarre deification of celebrity (Eleanor Halls, PassTheAux), Real ones have been on their Phoebe Philo s**t since '04! [Danielle Haim Interview] (Jonah Weiner/Erin Wylie, Blackbird Spyplane), Music Copyright in the Age of Forgetting (Nate Rogers, The Ringer)
Fashion— Dirty Laundry: The First & Last Pairs of White Underwear (Sophia Giovannitti, SSENSE), Who Owns Quilted Clothing? (Rachel Tashjian, GQ), Menswear Has Finally Caught Up to the Muppets (Tyler Watamanuk, GQ), The case against "perfect" jawns (Jonah Weiner/Erin Wylie, Blackbird Spyplane), Will Buying These Expensive Pants Change My Life? (Tyler Watamanuk, McSweeney’s)
Essays/General Features— How Disgust Explains Everything (Molly Young, New York Times), Great Jones Cookware and the Illusion of the Millenial Aesthetic (Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker), three in the morning (Helena Fitzgerald, Griefbacon), Kitchen Person (Dayna Tortorici, SSENSE), The Great Irony-Level Collapse (Hanson O’Haver, Gawker), Creativity is dead, long live curation (Ana Andjelic, The Sociology of Business), The great American cool (Safy-Hallan Farah, Vox), Essay: The digital death of collecting (Kyle Chayka, Kyle Chayka Industries)
Finally, a few things I just Could Not Stop Thinking About over the year
Kermit on the masked singer!!!, the “Pee Stain Pants” by Di Petsa that no article mentioned when all the publications did write ups on the brand after Bella Hadid wore one of their wet dresses!!, Haim wearing The Row on the BRITs red carpet, no it wasn’t this year but for the past two Christmases I cannot stop thinking about the Truly Insane ending of the film Last Christmas—iykyk, Al*c B*ldwin + his wife dressing themselves and all their children (including the one that came mysteriously 6 months after the one before it) as Boss Babies to go to the Boss Baby 2 premiere, how truly terrible Don’t Look Up was, the truth behind maraschino cherries (via Molly Young via Perfectly Imperfect).
Thank you for reading this silly little newsletter over the past almost-a-year! Hopefully I’ll send the next one out soonish (I actually have an idea :o)
Until then :)
Bianca
also, shhh you didn’t hear this from me but there’s a song on the soundtrack—“LAX”—written by Conor Oberst and I will eat my proverbial hat (I am not a Hat Person) if it is not about Phoebe Bridgers