As another year approaches
its end, I find myself both
thrilled
and
saddened
at
the thought of making my
personal
“Albums
of
the
Year” list. It’s a time of
contemplation and discourse,
with myself and my peers. It’s
a time to hash out our guilty
pleasures and undying loves
that
blossomed
throughout
the past 365 days. Music has
an intrinsic connection to
time, history and memory,
and regardless of how great a
track or album might be, every
individual who gives them a
listen will naturally tie the
emotional experience to their
explicit memory at the time.
Every year, I create a new
note on my phone where I jot
down every album I at least
enjoyed listening to, and I can
always tell which ones most
greatly affected me by the
power of the memory tied to it.
Lorde’s masterful Melodrama,
an obvious entry, calls to
mind the night I literally
ran back to my apartment
at midnight to rendezvous
with my friends and listen to
it for the first time; my jaw
hit the floor during the sonic
transition in “Hard Feelings/
Loveless,”
and
“Supercut”
brought tears to my eyes due
to its pop perfection. Brand
New’s Science Fiction knocked
me on my ass as the longtime
fan in me devoured every nook
and cranny of the album, only
to have my heart shattered by
sexual misconduct allegations
against the band’s frontman.
As the new year approaches,
this rollercoaster of emotions
has become an occurrence as
natural as the changing of the
seasons.
The worst part of it all is
finding out which releases
were
heinously
overlooked
by major music publications
(Rolling Stone, Consequence
of
Sound,
Pitchfork,
etc.)
whose lists can range from
frustratingly
comical
to
almost
perfect.
Beautiful
albums that were destined
for major attention include
Paramore’s After Laughter and
St.
Vincent’s
Masseduction
— they’re artists who have
deservingly made a name for
themselves to wide audiences
— but my heart can’t help but
break for The Menzingers’s
After
The
Party,
a
damn
near perfect reflection on
adulthood and aging. I ached
alongside the humanism of
Mt. Eerie’s A Crow Looked
at Me and Phoebe Bridgers’s
Stranger in the Alps, albums
whose lyrical content is as
intimate as their compositions
are astoundingly unique. The
Maine’s Lovely Little Lonely
and Oso Oso’s The Yunahon
Mixtape were two of the best
rock albums I’ve heard in
recent memory, only to be
overlooked in lieu of bigger
names.
Despite their lack of critical
attention, these are albums
I’ll cherish for years to come,
affecting
me
in
different
ways throughout the course
of this year. As I write this,
I fondly reflect on the music
that made 2017 special for
me: screaming along with my
friends to “Black Butterflies
and Déjà Vu” at The Maine’s
headlining show in Pontiac;
watching Oso Oso play to 50
kids in a basement; moshing
to “Tellin’ Lies” during The
Menzingers’s
set
at
Riot
Fest. Without regard to their
media attention, this music
will indelibly mark the way I
experienced the past year.
Every year has its highs
and lows regardless of the
music released, and 2017 has
undeniably been a tumultuous
year politically and socially.
But it’s also a blessing to be
saturated with such incredible
music over such a short period
of time. Music that keeps
us grounded and nostalgic,
comforted
and
thoughtful
— music that ranges from
powerfully
political
to
emotionally groundbreaking.
So
every
December
I’ll
continue
my
ritual
of
reflection
and
growth,
staying thankful for all the
new releases, both good and
bad, that carried me through
another year.
6A — Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
FILMRISE
A tag team of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel stars in a not-too-bad film
‘My Friend Dahmer’ both
an origin story & biopic
The adaptation craftily unveils a tale of murder and horror
There is something morbidly
fascinating about getting inside
the mind of a serial killer, about
plunging into a twisted psyche
of macabre impulses. Trying
to
understand
something
completely beyond the moral
scope of most people is an
impossible task, but “My Friend
Dahmer” attempts to do just
that. The film works as both
an origin story and an eerie
portrait of Jeffrey Dahmer,
chronicling his last year in
high school as it attempts to
understand how his early life
contributed to his infamy as a
serial killer and cannibal.
“My Friend Dahmer” doesn’t
necessarily probe the mind of
Jeffrey Dahmer as much as
follow him around. His most
intimate
desires
are
alien
to us, but are hinted at in a
slow and eerie progression of
moments. Dahmer is largely
a tragically lonely figure who
is ostracized at school and
neglected at home. We see him
spending hours on end in his
lab, dissolving roadkill in acid
and indulging his fascination
with bones. We also see him
trying to get the attention
he craves by “spazzing,” or
imitating bouts of epilepsy in
disturbingly prolonged scenes.
Dahmer’s place as an outcast
humanizes him, and while
his foray into the grotesque
is unsettling, he appears as
a
misunderstood
character
deserving of sympathy.
The film is an adaptation of
the graphic novel of the same
name by John ‘Derf’ Backderf,
the
real-life
character
that
befriends
Dahmer.
Played
well by Alex Wolff (“Patriot’s
Day”),
Derf
is
intrigued
by
Dahmer’s
spazzing
and
welcomes him within the ranks
of his prankster friends group,
heralding him as the class
clown.
With
Derf,
Dahmer
finds the companionship he
desperately
needs.
But
the
film is careful to sprinkle in
red flags that shatter Derf’s
innocent view of Dahmer and
hint at something more sinister
and dangerous. The film does
an incredible job at navigating
moments of implicit tension,
coloring a sixth sense where
you know something isn’t quite
right and creating fear from that
tension. “My Friend Dahmer”
explores the dynamics between
people and the gravity behind
the social scene of high school.
The
undeniable
backbone
of the film is Ross Lynch’s
(“Teen
Beach
Movie”)
portrayal
of
Dahmer.
The
former Disney Channel star
is wholly unrecognizable as
the
shuffling,
hunch-backed
and hooded-eyed outcast who
moves like a clunky shadow.
Lynch communicates Dahmer’s
bottled
homosexuality
with
grace,
showing
his
lustful
fantasies
of
the
neighbor
with just the right dash of
eeriness that hints at his later
masochistic
sexual
desires.
There’s a sense of entropy
to
Dahmer’s
existence;
his
impulses and fantasies escalate
uncontrollably, and he cannot
find his way back to the simple
reality of the other boys. There’s
a sense of relatability there, in
fighting to quell desires that
ultimately win, but there is an
overarching mystery that the
film doesn’t try to explain.
The
movie
doesn’t
make
excuses for Dahmer, who would
go on to infamously murder and
eat seventeen people. Many
scenes feature him excessively
drinking, butchering animals
and rubbing their bones. “My
Friend Dahmer” isn’t trying
to argue that he could have
been saved had his friends and
parents paid more attention.
The movie merely wants to get
inside the mind of a serial killer
and humanize him, exploring
the factors that contributed to
the actions of one of the world’s
most infamous killers.
PAX AM
Yes
The thrills and pains of
‘Albums of the Year’ lists
The trouble of consoling commercially successful albums with
smaller, personally important albums as 2017 comes to a close
DOMINIC POLSINELLI
Daily Arts Writer
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
BOOK REVIEW
SYDNEY COHEN
Daily Arts Writer
Every year has its
highs and lows
regardless of the
music released
Recent ‘They Can’t Kill Us’
explores music & identity
Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay
collection “They Can’t Kill
Us Until They Kill Us” is as
expansive in scope as it is rich
in content. Abdurraqib is a
music writer, but his subjects
— sonic landscapes, fandoms
and
performance
—
are
only his starting points. His
writing is alive and breathing,
criticism infused with stories,
lived experience and emotion.
For Abdurraqib, it’s never just
a song, never just an artist;
music is a lens through which
he sees the whole world.
Life,
death,
music,
loneliness,
media,
politics
and
love
are
necessarily
intertwined
in
his
work,
because
he’s
striving
for
something bigger than a book
of thinkpieces. He weaves
together personal narrative
and rigorous critical thought
so
naturally
you
almost
forget that these ideas are
ever
considered
separate
methods of writing. His book
does the extraordinary work
of capturing a moment in
time, piecing together the
fragments of life and death in
modern America.
“They Can’t Kill Us Until
They Kill Us” is itself a phrase
from a sign plastered to a
Michael
Brown
memorial.
The title serves as an informal
thesis to Abdurraqib’s work,
which grapples intently with
what it means to be Black and
alive in 2017. A lot of the time,
it comes down to this: “It’s
summer and there is a video
again,” he writes. “A black
person is dead on camera
again.” For him, survival is a
delicate and precious thing,
not a given.
Abdurraqib isn’t able to
separate his love of the music
from this fundamental fact
of his life, and it shapes his
perspective and his criticism
because, as he puts it, “Once
you understand that there are
people who do not want you to
exist, that is a difficult card to
remove from the table ... there
is no undoing that knowledge.”
There’s a piece about a
Bruce
Springsteen
concert
Abdurraqib attended the day
after seeing Michael Brown’s
memorial,
he
contemplates
the way Springsteen’s music
operates on a narrative of
survival. He writes: “What
it must feel like to imagine
that no one in America will be
killed while a man sings a song
about the promise of living.”
It’s a harrowing observation,
but it’s evocative of the way
Abdurraqib
so
precisely
articulates
the
nuance
of
the
intersection
between
identity and experience. It
lends credence to the idea
that
Abdurraqib’s
Bruce
Springsteen is not my Bruce
Springsteen is not your Bruce
Springsteen.
But
that
just
makes
Bruce
Springsteen
better — and more interesting.
His range is impressive:
He writes about everyone
from Carly Rae Jepsen to
Prince, Schoolboy Q to The
Wonder Years, Future to My
Chemical Romance. It’s clear
he has a wholehearted love
of the music, in all the times
it’s pulled him back from the
brink. Music isn’t a catch-all
cure for the heartbreak and
the fear, but it’s powerful
nonetheless.
“The
great
mission of any art that revolves
around place is the mission of
honesty,” he writes. For him,
music and art exist with the
purpose of being as honest as
possible — so they’re a way of
making sense of the world, his
life, his very survival.
Abdurraqib uncovers some
truths of his own in “They
Can’t Kill Us Until They
Kill Us,” peeling back the
layers of a performance, a
moment in time or a feeling
to find the core of it, what it
really means. It’s a beautiful,
carefully layered book, full
of sharp insights, carefully
realized emotions and stories
told with a gentle voice that
grows ever more important in
these times. And in the vein of
complete honesty: I hope he
never stops writing.
ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer
“They Can’t
Kill Us Until
They Kill Us”
Hanif
Abdurraqib
Two Dollar
Radio
November 7,
2017
His range is
impressive: he
writes from Carly
Rae Jepsen to
Prince, Schoolboy
Q to The Wonder
Years, Future
to My Chemical
Romance
FILM REVIEW
The movie doesn’t
make excuses
for Dahmer,
who will go on
to infamously
murder and eat 17
people
Abdurraqib’s new essay collection meditates on their intersections
“My Friend
Dahmer”
FilmRise
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