4B — Thursday, January 7, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Best 

Albums of 

2015
2. Currents
Tame Impala

Apparently, 
people 
actually 

take the time to stalk my music 
preferences on Tinder because I 
got a message from Luke, eager to 
know what I thought of Currents. 
Both Tame Impala fans, Luke and 
I hit it off immediately. We both 
agreed — Currents is the Austra-
lian band’s best album to date. But 
unfortunately for us, we disagreed 
on the album’s best songs. Luke 
jams to “Let It Happen” and “Past 
Life,” but when I claimed that 
“The Moment” and “Eventually” 
are the best songs on the album 
I was promptly unmatched. It’s 
whatever; I’m over it. I’m over it 
because obviously I’m right. “The 
Moment” and “Eventually” are 
both smooth indie classics that 
have already secured a tenured 
spot on my “car tunes” playlist and 

my “summer vibes” playlist. These 
songs, like the 11 others that com-
prise Currents, demonstrate just 
how ephemeral psychedelic indie 
rock can be. Tame Impala man-
aged to produce a magical 13-track 
album that’s perfect for any occa-
sion. You can play it when you 
~chill~, you can burn incense and 
dream about Coachella to it and 
you can even use the soundtrack 
to justify buying things you can’t 
afford at Urban Outfitters. Addi-
tionally, it makes for the perfect, “I 
don’t want to go to class but let me 
walk melancholially to class any-
way” album. You can even *gasp* 
just lay in bed and listen to the 
album on repeat without wanting 
to look at your phone to Snapchat 
the moment.

-DANIELLE IMMERMAN

3. Sometimes I Sit and Think 

and Sometimes I Just Sit

Courtney Barnett

Last March I volunteered to 

review Courtney Barnett’s debut 
album Sometimes I Sit and Think 
and Sometimes I Just Sit with-
out knowing anything about her 
music. In the review, I gave it a B+. 
Almost ten months later I can only 
think “what the fuck?” My review 
wasn’t wrong, I thought her album 
was good, but it’s stunning. It’s 
without a doubt an A+.

Sometimes I Sit … is a lyri-

cal masterpiece. Barnett throws 
11 short scenes at listeners and 
expects them to keep up through-
out the entire ride. Every track is 
lyrically dense no matter the speed 
of delivery. “Pedestrian at Best,” 
“Nobody Really Cares If You 
Don’t” and “Debbie Downer” are 
the catchiest and offer the most 
insight into Barnett’s internal (and 
beautiful) ramblings.

Others offer less catch and 

drone on. “Small Poppies” morphs 
rock star guitars and monotone 
delivery of “an eye for an eye for 
an eye for an eye,” creating one 

of the most weirdly pleasurable 
tracks on the LP. “Kim’s Caravan” 
is soft-spoken reflection on Aus-
tralia’s coral reef that builds with 
repetition and tone. “Depreston” 
does the opposite — Barnett talks 
through a story of looking to buy 
a house in Depreston that “seems 
depressing.” The track ultimately 
finds its center on the repetition 
of the realtor’s line “If you’ve got 
a spare half a million, you could 
knock it down and start rebuild-
ing.” Each delivery drives home 
Barnett’s point. It emphasizes 
the ridiculousness of the trip and 
exemplifies Barnett’s ability to 
beautify the mundane.

Barnett killed 2015. Her debut 

album was praised. She was one 
nomination the VMAs got right. 
She played killer shows across the 
world. (I saw her at Bonnaroo and 
it was transcendent.) Now, in 2016 
she’s going for “Best New Artist” 
at the Grammys. It should be a no-
brainer who wins this year.

-CHRISTIAN KENNEDY

4. Carrie & Lowell

Sufjan Stevens

Listening to Sufjan Stevens is 

great for when you need a good 
cry, when you miss someone or 
when you suddenly remember that 
abandoned cat you saw three years 
ago and can’t stop wondering 
what happened to it. But really, he 
makes you think. Playing Stevens’s 
record requires a confrontation 
with your being — it’s impossible 
to take in his signature spry instru-
mentation and delicate vocals 
without at least being prompted 
to think about something big-
ger than yourself. Carrie & Lowell 

tackles Stevens’s relationship with 
his mother and stepfather — their 
lives, struggles, deaths and beliefs. 
Stevens holds nothing back, tack-
ling the most intimate of questions 
regarding what it means to be in a 
family, both the good and the bad. 
The album is gentle and beauti-
ful, with Stevens’s pleasant voice 
contrasting his emotionally heavy 
lyrics. Carrie & Lowell is a master-
ful, standout addition to Stevens’s 
already impressive body of work.

-CARLY SNIDER

5. Art Angels

Grimes

Artist and producer Claire 

Boucher, better known for her 
most recent project as Grimes, 
delivers in her highly anticipated 
follow-up to her 2012 release, 
Visions. Released in November, 
Art Angels is avant-garde; it’s 
kawaii; it’s horrifying; it’s incred-
ible. Grimes ushers listeners to 
their seats with “laughing and 
not being normal,” violin and 
synth chords clashing against one 
another, a sinister organ and her 
vocals verging on choral yielding 
a sonic aesthetic that places 19th-
century gothic in the present. But 
straightaway we’re brought into 
“California,” which plays with 
juxtaposition once more, its fluid 
guitar and sugary sound pushed 
against melancholic lyrics of the 
ephemeral 
and 
dehumanizing 

nature of hype. Juxtapositions 

and contradictions are every-
where in this album: “California” 
sounds sweet but then we get 
“SCREAM,” an ice-hot and semi-
horrifying nu-metal collaboration 
with Taiwanese DJ Aristophanes. 
She’s avant-pop but unrelentingly 
claims to represent the alternative, 
to press against what we think 
of as going together. Art Angels 
shows us that women can do the 
technical work of producers, that 
producers can be experimental 
artists, that cute can be “too scary 
to be objectified” (in the artist’s 
own words), that happy and angry 
can coexist, that pop can be alter-
native, that the individual can be 
whatever they want to be, and that 
life is fucking confusing and dark 
and fun all at once, all the time.

-REGAN DETWILER

Best 

Community 
 

Events of 

2015

2. Audra McDonald

On the evening of Septem-

ber 17, Hill Auditorium was 
packed with an audience eager 
to see the widely known and 
beloved 
Audra 
McDonald, 

who returned to UMS for her 
sixth appearance in concert. 
McDonald is a six-time Tony 
Award winner and has found 
her place both on the stages 
of Broadway and the opera. 
Her concert’s set list borrowed 
from various works, opening 
with “Sing Happy” from Flora 
the Red Menace, and including 
Sondheim’s “Moments in the 
Woods” from “Into the Woods,” 
“Maybe This Time” from “Cab-
aret,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” 
from “The Sound of Music” 
and concluding with “Over the 
Rainbow” from “The Wizard 
of Oz.” The concert also fea-
tured music from McDonald’s 
most recent recorded work, 

an album titled Go Back Home. 
UMS ticket holders responded 
to McDonald’s performance 
with raving reviews, describ-
ing the concert as “amazing” 
and 
“fantastic,” 
believing 

McDonald to be someone who 
has an “incredible understand-
ing of what drives the human 
soul.” McDonald’s vocal range 
is remarkable and audiences 
are continuously amazed by 
the range of musical theater 
pieces she is able to perform. 
Her most compelling gift, aside 
from the inordinate talent she 
already demonstrates, is her 
storytelling 
through 
music 

which leaves audiences cap-
tivated and in awe of not only 
her vocal abilities, but also the 
stories she tells through them.

-BAILEY KADIAN

3. Patti Smith

On October 8th at the State 

Theatre, musician and writer 
Patti Smith read from her new-
est book “M Train,” a book that 
serves as something of patch-
work, chronicling moments of 
her life spanning from Café Ino, 
a lower Manhattan coffeeshop, 
to Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul in 
Coyoacán, Mexico. Smith invites 
the reader to explore various 
settings, historical moments and 
landscapes that influence the 
writing and music she has pro-
duced. The stories are punctu-
ated by Smith’s black and white 
photographs 
and 
moments 

where the lines between poetry, 
prose, reality and imagination 
are blurred. During the event, 
she read from a couple of chap-
ters of the book and an audience 
Q&A followed. In her responses 
to the Q&A, Smith was blunt and 
direct, providing unvarnished 
insight into the philosophies 
that have inspired her work as 
an artist. She spoke of her art 
as an obligation, one that she 
had always managed to fit in 

around raising a family, work-
ing odd jobs and coping with 
the loss of her beloved hus-
band, Fred “Sonic” Smith. She 
boldly denied the notion that 
art is a mere hobby or profes-
sion — stating that to artists it is 
like food or shelter, a need that 
is crippling when unfulfilled. 
When asked about the practice 
of well-known artists pursu-
ing activism, Smith, who has 
often called for an alleviation of 
injustice in her music and writ-
ing, suggested that artists were 
not responsible for activism. She 
did suggest, however, that pop 
stars should “pool together their 
money and bail out our cities.” 
Although only the reading and 
Q&A were advertised, Smith 
surprised the audience with 
a performance of her 1983 hit 
“Because the Night,” accompa-
nied by her son Jackson Smith, 
leaving her signature mark as 
the godmother of punk.

-MARIA ROBINS-SOMER-

VILLE

4. Sankai Juru

As the lights slowly dimmed, 

an audible diminuendo spread 
throughout the Power Center, 
which was filled to capacity with 
people 
sitting 
collectively 
in 

stilled breath. There in the quiet 
and 
semi-darkness, 
the 
lone 

source of light emanated from 
the stage before the audience, in 
the form of a soft glow reflecting 
off a pillar of falling sand, which 
gracefully streamed from the 
ceiling to the floor. If one were 
to listen closely enough, the soft 
sound of the earth-bound par-
ticles landing could be heard; as 
the minutes passed, the shift-
ing pile beneath the pillar began 
to multiply. Into the light of the 
stage stepped a figure of some-
what androgynous appearance, 
bald and covered in white powder, 
wearing long flowing garments. 
Slowly, the figure began to dance, 
and over the course of the evening 
he was joined by others similarly 
adorned. The dancers were all 
members of the Japanese dance 
group Sankai Juku. The ensemble 

is dedicated to Butoh, a Japanese 
avant-garde dance form which 
originated in the 1960s as a means 
to express the intensely grotesque 
and perverse. Throughout the 
performance, the dancers embod-
ied numerous moods and ideas, 
often juxtaposing extreme still-
ness with rapid movement, mov-
ing in and out of shifting scenes 
of colored light, as ethereal music 
enveloped the space. At one point, 
the dancers opened their mouths 
and seemed to scream silently at 
the sky in a moment of cathartic 
release. At another moment, they 
lay on the floor, curled fetus-like 
into balls, periodically scrabbling 
against the ground in order to 
shift their position. At the end of 
the evening, the audience walked 
away from the performance with 
a melancholy mix of emotions, 
having witnessed something pro-
foundly sad, yet undeniably beau-
tiful.

-DAYTON HARE

Best Viral Videos of 2015

1. Drake’s “Hotline Bling” 

Music Video

It seemed like the Internet 

was imploding when Drake 
blessed us with his flashy new 
moves in the “Hotline Bling” 
music video. The minimalistic 
set allowed viewers to gawk 
indefinitely at the 28-year-old 
rapper’s quirky dancing, which 
quickly racked up over 307 mil-
lion views and infinitely more 
imitators. In true 2015 fashion, 
fans took to social media to 
share their interpretations of 
Drake’s choreo. Memes circled 
the web of Drake tossing pep-
peroni slices, destroying at 
Wii tennis and playing with 

light sabers. Even Democratic 
presidential candidate Bernie 
Sanders joined the revolution 
as Ellen DeGeneres super-
imposed his Drake-inspired 
moves onto the “Hotline Bling” 
music video stage, yet another 
example of the way politics 
were taken just as seriously as 
this generation’s most promi-
nent rappers. Drake taught us 
to pair turtlenecks with sweat-
pants and reminded everyone 
in 2015 to dance like no one 
was watching.

-DANIELLE YACOBSON

2. Alanis Morissette sings 
“Ironic” with James Corden

2015 was the last year of a 

period of upheaval in the late 
night space, as staples such as 
Jon Stewart and David Letter-
man said goodbye, and new-
bies, like James Corden, took 
the reins. Cordon treats his 
show like a variety show, with 
similarities to the current ver-
sion of “The Tonight Show.” He 
is best known for his Carpool 
Karaoke segment, where he 
and a singer will drive around 
in a car. However, my favorite 
segment was this one where 
Corden and Alanis Morissette 
updated the lyrics of Moris-
sette’s hit “Ironic” for the 
digital age. Instead of “rain on 

your wedding day,” there’s “An 
old friend sends you a Face-
book request / And you only 
find out they’re racist after you 
accept.” Or, “It’s a traffic jam 
when you tried to use Waze.” 
He and Morissette have a clear 
chemistry, which makes their 
mid-song 
interactions 
even 

more fun. Corden is an under-
the-radar talent and is actually 
beating Jimmy Fallon at his 
own game. Hopefully 2016 is a 
year where more people notice 
his talent because he’s only 
going to be creating more seg-
ments like this.

-ALEX INTNER

3. “Things Everybody Does 
But Doesn’t Talk About, Ft. 

President Obama”

BuzzFeed has no shortage of 

hilarious videos to distract us from 
our responsibilities, but this video 
takes the cake. The video, featur-
ing the leader of the free world, 
promotes the launch of health-
care.gov, but mostly reminds us 
how cool the President is. No plat-
form is out of bounds for Obama to 
reach constituents, and BuzzFeed 
is no exception. In under two min-
utes, the President shows us how 
relatable he is by practicing his 
finger guns and checking himself 
out in the mirror, taking pictures 

with a selfie stick, stumbling over 
the pronunciation of “February,” 
doodling a picture of Michelle in 
a notebook and practicing some 
fake free throw shots while no 
one’s looking. He even sarcasti-
cally mutters “Thanks, Obama” 
after he fails to dunk a cookie in 
his glass of milk. Though 2015 was 
filled with criticism for Obama, he 
takes amusement in it while get-
ting a message out, making this 
one of the year’s most entertaining 
videos.

-SHIR AVINADAV

4. “Close Encounter”

“Saturday Night Live” might 

not be as funny as it once was 
— according to my parents and a 
bunch of other people who were 
watching it before I was born, 
etc. — but every once in a while, 
they come up with something 
truly hilarious. A sketch titled 
“Close Encounters” is one of the 
best that “SNL” has seen in the 
past few years, and it went viral 
for good reason. Cecily Strong, 
Kate McKinnon and host Ryan 
Gosling are interrogated by 
government officials (Aidy Bry-
ant and Bobby Moynihan) about 
their alien abduction. While 
Strong and Gosling had experi-
ences with a creature made of 
“pure light,” McKinnon’s char-
acter had a different ordeal, 
with 40 gray aliens, steel bowls 

and a lack of pants.

McKinnon’s 
performance 

is what makes the sketch an 
instant hit. Breaking character 
is something “SNL” ’s actors 
generally try to avoid, but 
“Close Encounters” wouldn’t 
have been nearly as funny if the 
actors didn’t break. The mirth 
in McKinnon’s eyes as she ashes 
her cigarette and gently begins 
“batting” Strong’s “knockers” 
as a demonstration is reason 
enough to press “replay.” Gos-
ling just gives up, laughing into 
his shirt. They are having just 
as much fun performing as we 
are watching, and that’s what 
makes it great. That, and Kate 
McKinnon.

-SOPHIA KAUFMAN

5. DJ Khaled’s 
Inspirational 

Video

I 
watched 
DJ 
Khaled’s 

“Motivational 
Speech” 
on 

YouTube for the first time 
before finals in December. My 
roommate, her sides splitting, 
grabbed me as I was heading 
out to study and handed me her 
phone. Just under two minutes, 
the video centers on Khaled, 
wearing a sweatsuit and bling, 
as he delivers an inspirational 

speech 
that’s 
absurd 
and 

uplifting at the same time. 
The gist of the speech is this: 
“We the best. You smart, you 
very smart. You loyal,” and his 
catch phrase, “Another one.” 
As he explains, “another one” 
refers to push-ups or crunches, 
where you get on the floor while 
Khaled coaches you to your 
better self. The “All I Do is Win” 

producer repeats the phrase 
several 
times, 
emphasizing 

that we should “win no matter 
what,” whether it’s finishing a 
set of push-ups or buying houses 
for our mamas. Ridiculous? Yes. 
But exactly what we needed 
to get through the semester. 
Another one!

-HAILEY MIDDLEBROOK

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ONLINE AT 

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