2014 was SportsAlcohol.com‘s first year of true existence. After years of us joking about the most perfect domain name, I bought it last December and made our first post this past January. Even though we didn’t have much of a plan, things kind of snowballed from there. Branching out from our core group of founders, we got a lot of our friends to contribute articles, blurbs, lists, comments, and their voices (to our podcast). Without checking with anyone else, I decree the following to be the best SportsAlcohol.com content of 2014!
Reading in the #YesAllWomen Year and the Best Fiction of 2014
This was a challenging year for many reasons. But it was also a year where many of us rose to those challenges, shaking off our complacency and examining our biases to become better cultural participants. Or at least more aware ones. Which is partly what made reading so exciting this year. Inspired by the still disappointing VIDA numbers, which track gender representation in print media and review outlets, 2014 became, for many, the year of reading women. At a time when the question of likability is still on everyone’s tongues, I was struck more than ever by the risks so many female authors are taking, which may be why so many of them made my final list. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good year for the men too, particularly those making their debuts with big sweeping books of America, as a place and a concept. But ultimately what made reading in 2014 such a pleasure was the sheer variety of stories begin told. So without further ado, here are my five best fiction books for the year:
Continue reading Reading in the #YesAllWomen Year and the Best Fiction of 2014
BEST TV OF 2014 RECAP!
In recounting the Best TV of 2014, we…
…counted down the top ten best TV shows. This year will be remembered as a year of comedy!
…provided alternatives for those who are so sick of hearing the rest of us gush about our No. 1 pic.
…noted that Comedy Central has really been living up to its name lately.
…lamented that no one else was watching Peaky Blinders (well, at least one of us complained about that).
…did a podcast about The Newsroom. How that show smarmed its way into a best-TV round-up is anyone’s guess.
Your Sad-Bastard Christmas Songs of 2014
When it’s seasonally appropriate, I love all types of Christmas music. I don’t care if it’s the hokey Andy Williams stuff or the cash-in “Last Christmas” covers or the well-meaning but wrong-headed charity songs that don’t realize that it totally does snow in Africa because there are mountains. But if there’s a particular sub-genre of Christmas music I love the most, it’s sad-bastard indie rock that’s only tangentially about Christmas.
If you didn’t realize that was a particular sub-genre of Christmas songs, I direct you to some of my favorites: “Xmas Cake” by Rilo Kiley (on perhaps my favorite Christmas compilation ever), “Christmas TV” by Slow Club (from an amazing Christmas EP that has the best “Christmas, Baby Please Come Home” I’ve ever heard), “It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop” by Frightened Rabbit (which looks like it’s free right now if you have Amazon prime), plus any of those Sufjan Stevens Christmas originals (though I’m especially partial to “Get Behind Me, Santa”). And even though “Christmas Number One” by the Black Arts (aka Black Box Recorder and Art Brut) sounds mostly happy, it does sort of criticize the way holiday music is slapped together in August in hopes of making money in December (and it laments the loss of Top of the Pops).
So, every year, I seek out more sad-bastard indie Christmas music to add to the ever-growing playlist. Here are the best selections for 2014.
THE CHRISTMAS _________ GAME
November 22, 2013: Jesse was musing on Twitter about the Fathom Events presentation of Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater, which we’d seen advertised every time we’d been to a movie that month. Sensing a need, he put out a call on Twitter for a similar story he could call his own and ride to seasonal riches. By that evening, he’d received the following list.
Continue reading THE CHRISTMAS _________ GAME
BEST TV OF 2014: Comedy Central is Living Up to Its Name
An observation about the SportsAlcohol.com Top Television of 2014 list: only one network comedy made the list. We’re a pretty comedy loving bunch, but I’ll admit to being a little surprised, not because there’s only one network show on our list, but that there are any at all. I like the show on our list a lot, and I can think of other worthy contenders (my darling, my Bob’s Burgers), but network comedy is in fairly dire straits at the moment. NBC’s once hallowed (and then hallowed by comedy nerds, if not general audiences) Thursday night comedy block is no more, and the other broadcast networks seem to have similar trouble developing and keeping interesting comedies. And while the age of the incredible cable drama has provided more quality hour-long television than anybody can reasonably keep up with, the comedy offerings on cable haven’t entirely kept pace (not that you’d know it from the great comedies that made our list). But allow me, for a moment, to join in the growing chorus of people trying to draw your comedy-seeking attention back to Comedy Central. Perhaps you think (like I did!) that Comedy Central had given over to a schedule made up entirely of stand-up specials, MadTV reruns, the occasional new episode of South Park, and waves of Tosh-esque smirky misanthropy. But it turns out that in 2014 the network had maybe its strongest collection of original programming ever. In addition to the vital-as-ever Daily Show and Colbert Report, over the last two or three years Comedy Central has amassed a handful of shows with distinctive, well developed comic personality. Sara makes a great case for Broad City (I haven’t seen it! I’m hoping the first season goes back up on Hulu in advance of the second season’s January 14th premiere). But here’s a quick look at five other terrific shows: Continue reading BEST TV OF 2014: Comedy Central is Living Up to Its Name
Best TV of 2014: Alternatives to True Detective
Let me begin by saying that I didn’t start out disliking True Detective. For the first couple episodes I found it mysterious and compelling, and obviously I was curious enough about the outcome to finish the whole series. But the longer it sat in my memory, the lower it sank, until the least mention of it in conversation would set me off on a rant about its inescapable overratedness.
Continue reading Best TV of 2014: Alternatives to True Detective
BEST TV OF 2014: OUR TOP TEN
There is a lot of stuff on TV; as diverse as our music and movie and book tastes might be here at SportsAlcohol.com, probably no end-of-year voting offered as many different hours as our collective list of the best TV of 2014. Nearly fifty different shows were mentioned across our ballots, which is something like 500 hours of television, give or take. Yet a clear consensus did emerge, and that was that we pretty much all watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine but don’t quite love it the best. Here, below, is what we do love the best (maybe next year, Samberg).
BEST TV OF 2014: Nobody Will Watch ‘Peaky Blinders’ with Me but Everyone Should
When Peaky Blinders debuted across the pond, it seemed like it was tailor-made for me—and possibly only me. I can see why other people wouldn’t seek it out the way I did, because they might not share:
- My love of Boardwalk Empire, which I think exceeds most people’s, at least until that deadly fourth season.
- My demonstrated, um, interest in Cillian Murphy.
- My love of what’s rapidly becoming my favorite genre of TV and movies, which I can only describe as “Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro” (or British petty crime thingies that seem like they have “a lot of killing over a very small amount of money”).
So, yeah, I resigned myself to watching the first season of the show—about a gang of toughs trying to seize control of the horse-race betting racket in post-WWI Birmingham—as a solo venture.
Everything changed for the second season. It was available on Netflix almost right away, so it didn’t require as much effort to watch. The show expanded its focus to interest people other than me and only me (and by “expanded its focus,” I mean “added Tom Hardy”). More people were watching Sherlock than ever (at least on my Twitter feed), so they were more used to checking out BBC shows for quality entertainment. And…I’m still the only one I know who watches Peaky Blinders. D’oh!
But someone out there should watch this with me. Here’s why.
Continue reading BEST TV OF 2014: Nobody Will Watch ‘Peaky Blinders’ with Me but Everyone Should
BEST MUSIC OF 2014 RECAP!
For our coverage of the Best Music of 2014, we…
…crowned St. Vincent’s St. Vincent as the best album of the year, doing a track-by-track analysis of her greatness (and also a quick study of her magnificent hair).
…also celebrated four other albums as the best of the year: Teeth Dreams by The Hold Steady, The Voyager by Jenny Lewis, Complete Surrender by Slow Club, and Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs.
…called out the best-of-the-best, our very favorite songs from our very favorite albums, including “Blue Moon” by Beck, “Goshen ’97” by Strand of Oaks, “Nothing but Trouble” by Phantogram, “Lazerray” by TV on the Radio, “Seasons (Waiting on You)” by Future Islands, “Your Love Is Killing Me” by Sharon Van Etten, and “Lights Out” by Angel Olsen.
…stumped for our favorite songs that didn’t come from our favorite albums, including “I’m Not Part of Me” by Cloud Nothings, “Bury Our Friends” by Sleater-Kinney, “Water Fountain” by tUnE-yArDs, “Mr. Tembo” by Damon Albarn, “Lariat” by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, “Bright Eyes” by Allo Darlin’, “Backseat Shake Off” by The Hood Internet, and “Scapegoat” by The Faint.
Is there a Spotify playlist for all this?” you ask. Of course there’s a Spotify playlist.