To start off, let's start with the medium I obviously consumed the most stuff from.
Music
I heard about 200 albums for the first time this year, over 50 of which being from this year. I had a larger amount of artists I planned to get into this year in comparison to last year, and I was able to nail most of them, although there were a few that just didn't click with me. Early on, I tapped into Sweet Trip, LCD Soundsystem, clipping., and Fleet Foxes, all of which clicked with me instantly, although clipping. grew off me over time. I also tapped into King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and James Blake around this time, but they didn't truly click with me until later in the year. I was pretty slow in consuming music new to me until late February, when I had mutuals on Twitter showing off the amount of scrobbles they had this year in comparison to me, leading me to start listening to music more. This led to more consistent first listens, most notably with me finally hearing BROCKHAMPTON's other two SATURATION albums after hearing the first one last year, leading me to grow obsessed with their music for months. Even better, however, a week later I finally tapped into Xiu Xiu with "A Promise," which instantly became a perfect album to me.
NEW 10 pic.twitter.com/3GCJc7EZD2
— • • • (@SaltehTSS) March 4, 2023
As I was slowly checking out more recent albums throughout it, I tapped into more female artists in March (after all, that was Women's History Month), I grew obsessed with Rina Sawayama in April and May (leading to XS being my top streamed song according to my Spotify Wrapped), I notably got well into Parannoul in May as After the Night became a new 10/10 album to me (it's grown a bit off me ever since but still is my favorite album of the year), I got really into Bon Iver over the summer (leading to For Emma, Forever Ago eventually becoming a new 10/10 album for me) and finished listening to some artist discographies including Radiohead's at the time, and my Japanese Breakfast kick started in September as I finally checked out Jubilee and Soft Sounds From Another Planet. In November I got more into metal as the music community on Twitter started a "Only Metal November" challenge I somewhat participated in. Had a great time with that, as I found myself a new favorite metal album (Symbolic by Death) and discovered the metalcore band Knocked Loose, who I got quite obsessed with. For the last month of the year, I caught up on some new music, most significantly from Mitski, as I decided to check out some of her earlier work after hearing her new album, all of which I loved.
Looking back at this year's music in particular, I was able to hear quite a number of new releases, as I found a lot of them on Album of The Year's front page with a short runtime. Found myself mostly loving Parannoul's new projects, feeling more obliged to check out more metal after hearing Agriculture's self-titled debut album, loving the collaboration albums from JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown and Billy Woods & Kenny Segal, finding Sufjan Stevens' new album so beautiful and heartbreaking, and being so pleased with Navy Blue's new album. There were also some notable EPs, such as Quadeca's SCRAPYARD series, Moodring's "YOUR LIGHT FADES AWAY," Maruja's "Knocknarea," and of course, bl4ck m4rket c4rt's "Today I Laid Down." Hope Kai's in a better place.
Some of my favorite artists I got into this year:
- Xiu Xiu
- Bon Iver
- Sweet Trip
- Parannoul
- Lingua Ignota
- Elliott Smith
- LCD Soundsystem
- Ichiko Aoba
- Rina Sawayama
- Knocked Loose
- James Blake
- Janelle Monáe
- Run The Jewels
- Sufjan Stevens
- Mitski
Films
As my film interest that started about halfway through 2022 was dragging into the next year, I watched a lot more films. In February, I was pretty consistent with watching films on my watchlist that I thought were amazing, including Fight Club (though that could probably grow off me), Oldboy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (on Valentine's Day to fulfill my lonely heart), and Blade Runner. Things slowed down a lot, but picked up again during Spring break in April, where I watched Waves, Raging Bull, Stray Dog, Her, The Super Mario Bros. Movie (in theaters), and Akira, then ending off the month with Paths of Glory and Little Miss Sunshine. Things went slow once again though I did see Lady Bird and Ponyo. As my summer break started, I ended up seeing a lot less films than I hoped to see, but I did get to stuff like Lost in Translation, Buffalo '66, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (in theaters, easily my favorite out of the two films from this year that I watched lmao), Eraserhead, Parasite, Aftersun (best film of the decade so far in my opinion!!), Howl's Moving Castle, and My Neighbor Totoro. As the next school year started, I didn't always have the time to watch films, but I did see quite a number of them through film class, including Get Out, Moonlight, Do the Right Thing, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Shoutout to my film teacher for helping me log more films on Letterboxd!
Some of my favorite films I watched for the first time this year:
- Oldboy
- Akira
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Parasite
- Blade Runner
- Howl's Moving Castle
- Aftersun
- Buffalo '66
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Perfect Blue
- Her
Shows
My show interest definitely grew some more this year. Had a good time with samurai shows in the first few months, as I tackled a few more Samurai Jack seasons and finished Samurai Champloo, amazing anime! Felt some burnout as I attempted to keep going with two anime series', You're Under Arrest and Initial D, but it all got better in March when I started watching Daria. Definitely had quite a phase with it and eventually finished it in August, great animated series that aged well. When I was starting to lose a bit of interest in it, I started Violet Evergarden in April, and goddammit, that really hit. After that and going back to watching the other shows I was continuing, I started watching MTV's Downtown in May and June, which was honestly a nice substitute to Daria, cool to see that it's grown a larger cult following online. Over the summer break, I started giving Aqua Teen Hunger Force a shot which was pretty decent, but more significantly I started watching a show that wasn't an anime or an animated series in general: Twin Peaks. In addition to that, I started watching The Last of Us as it was available on the plane monitors when I was traveling to the Philippines. I finished it weeks later on the plane ride back, but still didn't have season 1 of Twin Peaks finished, believe it or not. In fact, I still don't have it finished, the farthest I got was to episode 6 in July, then I wanted to give it another shot in September so I started from the beginning again but only got up to episode 2. I never felt burnout from it, I REALLY liked it, I just never had the time to finish it unfortunately. Anyways, I started Steins;Gate in August and continued in September but didn't finish it for, well, the same reasons for Twin Peaks.
Some of my favorite shows I started watching, finished watching seasons of, or did both to this year:
- Violet Evergarden
- Twin Peaks
- The Last of Us
- Daria
- Smiling Friends
- Steins;Gate
- Downtown
- Samurai Jack
Video Games
If you thought I barely experienced any shows this year, well let me tell you, the were way less games I played this year, and it's all because of Enter the Gungeon. I started playing it near the end of 2022, and carrying it onto the next year, I thought it wouldn't be too hard for me, especially considering it takes, on average, 23 hours to beat according to HowLongToBeat.com. By the end of 2023, however, I had already spent a whopping 175 hours in it without beating it a single time. Anyways, I did play and beat some other games this year, though I also had my fair share of time-wasting browser games. Early in the year, I beat Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, my first game in the series, a pretty decent tactical RPG, although I felt like it was stuffed with a little too much dialogue, had pretty basic plot, and didn't allow me to experience everything it provided before it ended as a lot of it felt like tutorials. I started off my summer beating Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, which was pretty ok. During the break, I started and finished Portal, which I honestly had a lot of fun with and felt that it had clever level design and a unique concept. Tried giving Portal 2 a shot, but it didn't run the best, so I decided not to continue and try another time if I could get my computer to run better. I also started and finished Star Fox 64, which I loved even more. It's a simple classic rail shooter but it has so much replay value to it, with its different level designs, missions, and changing trajectory of your journey based on your playthrough. Not to mention its voice acting and animations, which really feel like a cool time capsule for 90s video games. That was the last game I beat in 2023, some games I started but didn't finish were Banjo-Kazooie, Revita, Donkey Kong (Game Boy remake), and Ib (really good RPG Maker game, could be a 9/10 for me once I finish it). Some games I continued from 2022 and still haven't gotten past are Advance Wars and Super Metroid. I hate backtracking.
Some of my favorite games I started playing, finished playing, or did both to this year:
- Star Fox 64
- Portal
- Ib
- Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
Miscellaneous Media
I started getting into webcomics, starting with The Property of Hate, then branching into stuff like Now Recharging and Megatokyo. On YouTube, I spent a lot of time watching and loving content from videogamedunkey (as always), HIVEMIND, TheTalentlessWriter, Joel Haver, DougDoug, ProZD, onlysmallbites, NakedJakey, matttt, and zombiebeatz2000. I read some books, all of which being from school (some of which I didn't finish...) although I copped myself Hayao Miyazaki's autobiography "Starting Point: 1979-1996" and finally got "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner, so I'll definitely read those in 2024.
That's about it. Unfortunately didn't finish typing up this blog post in time before the new year at home in New Jersey, although I'm in Los Angeles where it's 10:14 PM. Still glad I finished it before the year ended where I am, I had to finish my "Top 50 Songs of 2023" list earlier today. Anyways, had a fine 2023. Hoping to consume more media across different mediums in 2024, but more importantly getting my grades up and working more on my art and music. Here's to (hopefully) a better year.
- Anthony “Salteh” S. • • •
