2016
Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Knowles house over Xmas dinner.
Not just for the obligatory disses from the distant third-cousin-twice-removed who's clearly had a few too many Carlton Dry's and is ready to tell Jay Hova that he reckons Stillmatic > Blueprint any day of the bloody week, but also for the side-by-sides between Solange and Big Sis B over their individual album placement finishes in all that really matters — end of year music lists.
Solange says she got Pitchfork and that's worth a bit. Beyonce recants with references from Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Guardian, Wired, NPR and every Wordpress install worthy of its $8.90 retained Google Adsense monthly revenue.
Personally, I'd argue it's doubtful many of those who have spent such bandwidth petitioning for the latter have put up serious play repeat numbers, given that Lemonade is exclusively unavailable across streaming networks and the promo physical I received was unable to play in the compact disc player of my 2010 Suzuki Swift due to some sort of Advanced Multimedia Content which, unless it's the long overdue sequel to the Wu-Tang Mansion digi-game from Forever, it's impossible to imagine it being worthy of such CD-to-CD-R effort.
Over here, however, Xmas dinner debates take on different focuses, those of Ceres or Camp Cope or Car Seat Headrest or Cat Stevens. Give it a rest Dad. But also that's cool, and I'm glad to see who'll put that Apple Music gift certificate to good use, again. As we repeat once more through Christian ceremony, with the only notable discrepancy this year being the split effort over dual days for the first time in five-or-so because cancer is a cunt.
Which, ironically, despite being a dominate part of the year, settles as a mere side-note in the scheme of the two days of events, replaced by the unwrapping of good news and the bad jokes of bon-bons and slabs of beer and slabs of prize-won ham. At air-conditioned family homes and pergola-sheltered spots in suburbs separated by more than a few hundred postcode digits, we don't argue over audible offerings from the year but count blessings, curse government plans and plan for futures a few months back didn't quite look as hopeful.
As such, that debate of artistic worth is left for this spot, servient to the success of a little experiment, with just a few fourth quarter additions (A.B. Original, Weak Boys, A Tribe Called Quest) and some reminded omissions (Blood Orange). You can perv through that catalogue of URLs and clickable things for thorough (and not-so) analysis and put your own numbers next to each as you see fit.
Elsewhere, it was a year of cool haircuts eventually sidelined for these current, unanimously-agreed beautiful flowing locks. Hikes and photos of hikes — still requiring hours of effort to transfer from raw-to-right via the correct cocktail of contrast and brightness and shadows and etc — was almost all our saved days of annual leave could afford, so for the most part we stayed put, discovering our city wasn't yet completely lost, bbq-ing new things and bingeing not on booze but streamed entertainment. And we fucked without protection and drunk, mostly, without conscience. Hardly spewed, either from both experimental dishes nor diving head first into ales and single malts. Spent hours starting and re-starting and editing a sci-fi novel that'll likely never be publicly seen. Old cars were traded for new and the same done for well-worn New Balance 576s, both of which are on identical 5.5 year schedules, simply a coincidence. Attended zero funerals, instead digi-mourned weekly as another celebrity R.I.P-ed, watched all debates of each's artistic contribution and value, exclusively as it compared to our own lives — and mortality.
Meanwhile, leaders didn't die, instead living and debated for zero minutes over their lifetime pensions being scrapped and savings repurposed for genuine candidates, unless of course that purpose was investment in a fourth-party code company to create a debt recovery system aimed at an algo-selected few (vulnerable == true) thought to be stealing cents from their once-deemed-deserved dole accounts.
And both sides of the fence held firm on their selected stands of murdering innocent people for their unforgivable crime of being born beyond the invented outline of this country and fauxed outrage and surprise over indigenous youth treatment, calling for commissions of Royal-stamped authority until the media-cycle moved on to another issue of class-divide or dole-cheating or terrorism-plots or not-so-subtle racism against Everyone Else for stealing something from someone who deserves everything, including a 4-bedroom new build on the fringes of the far-west outskirts of this town.
And everyone agreed that everything was too expensive — avocados and automobiles made in South Australia and abodes in pissing-distance of the coathanger. And commented as such, on news-blog-outlets and on company time, that it was the migrants' fault for that single digit productivity rating year-on-year.
Somehow, amongst all those terrabytes of uploaded hate, some found bytes of strength. Personal courage from a courageous few was inspiring, watching them bravely reclaim identity with pride — displayed by them, felt by everyone else.
But mostly, these were but mere silver-lined seconds. And the echo-chamber echoed at full volume. All measurable manners of hysteria vs. hyperbole were calced, and collectively, the masses up-voted 2016 as the worst.year.ever. Because don't forget, Bowie died and Bernie failed to lead us to salvation and views almost completely polarising to everyone surfaced as popular.
And we invented applicable hashtags for all these woes, and still failed to conquer up a cure for cancer.
And we oscillated between hating ourselves and hating everyone else as Trump trended and we watching him troll his way through, empowered by the selfish, universal fear that tomorrow might be shitter than today (for us) and the fact that nobody understands what a secure server actually is.
And we booed as he RT-ed all things previously left un-RT-ed and booed louder amongst all the like-minded when he T-ed his own fiction, both anti-Cold War and sexually-deviant sentiments. Empowered by such, he trended more, with more trend. And with the unfortunate climax of our evolution from amusement to outrage, we collectively sulked across all available www platforms as the world beyond our insulated universe surprised us, once more.
We boycotted beer brands while people were bombed to oblivion, on television, in different worlds, worlds away. Saw those trapped in the middle of oceans and debates, punished for staying put or pushed to the side for seeking refuge. Amongst which, we somehow managed to convince ourselves these were adaptable entities, both unlike and yet alike those we'd built the Border Force Wall to protect ourselves against.
And we marched for our rights to never be told no and our privilege to watch DJs perfect their cross-fades in specific parts of this rarely-been vibrant city.
A city where there's no drug dogs at the Star City Casino and, just like Newtown train station on any given weekday peak, there shouldn't be. A cop city where tax paid time is spent troll-commenting state-elected members without consequence. A city cold from the shadows of that crane-covered skyline. And a city hell-set on replacing Sirius with an ugly high-roller hotel.
Because the underdog trend of twenty-sixteen only stretched so far. For hair-piece prez-elects and nationalist Brits and, unfortunately, even adapted during annual wraps for thy beloved Cronulla Sharks. Proving this year, or more specifically, its occupants, was able to sour anything, even sweet success, nearly half-a-century in the making.
So, let's print out an obituary list of famous folk we all admire and add that to the binder of our own personal annual achievements — status updates of algorithm-skewed success and humblebrag snaps that were borderline too braggy and a select few things that are too fresh to talk about with clarity just yet. Burn that folder or file away for future, hopefully contrasting, comparison. Because this one's done.