A Few of my Favorite Things

And the series “Better late than fucking never begins.”  Admittedly it’s not my fault, I had family until the first then I’ve been dying of the plague for the past week.  But good news for my fan and his 6 Twitter followers, my lists aren’t like any you’ve read on the internet in the past ten days anyway so it’s not like I’ve been made redundant—not until they can upload my consciousness to a George Forman grill.

We’re kickin’ shit off with the small business.  These are a few of my favorite things.

City/Region of the Year

The Mid West

 

 

Chicago is officially running rampant.  Not only is Chance having his way with the rap game right now.  But SAVE MONEY has everyone but Pro Era quaking in their 98 Tims.  Not to mention Open Mike Eagle and Chicago’s drill scene which is quickly becoming the next big thing.

Honorable Mention: The South… I know I’m not happy bout it either.  If there’s one regret I have about the Civil War, it’s that we still have to keep Alabama, Mississippi, and all their kin down below the Mason-Dixon.  But the good thing about the south in 2014 is that it is home to many of the scenes most prolific talents including Killer Mike, Mick Jenkins, Childish Gambino, Big K.R.I.T., and many others.

Sub-Genre of the Year

Trap Rap

 

 

 

It makes sense doesn’t it?  Trap is the hip-hop version of dubstep and dubstep has clogged everything from Target commercials to middle school mixers at this point.

Honorable Mention: Gangsta Rap thank you Chicago.  Behind the strong early release of Welcome to Fazoland this year has seen the triumphant return of Republican pundits’ most loathed genre of music.

Music Site/Blog of the Year

Earmilk

The reign of the champ continues.  Even though 2014 saw a change to the design of the site that broke the amazing functionality.  The content continues to outpace every other “underground” music site.  Earmilk continues to release music that is better than the competition while serving the underground community.

Honorable Mention: Pot Holes in My Blog I think it may be the only place on the internet you can find a review of Brian Eno & Karl Hyde’s High Life. And that’s all I feel I need to say about that.

Distributor of the Year

HBO Studios

This was the most highly contested of the small categories.  The one thing we can be sure of though is that it’s pretty much a lock for the foreseeable future that a record label will not win this again.  Unless Pro Era, OFWGKTA, TDE, or one of record labels masquerading as a crew has a tremendous year there’s little chance its not going to someone like HBO Studios.  With Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, the admittedly overrated True Detectives, and if I’m cheating a little bit The Knick ,just to name a few–HBO cemented itself as the undisputed king of content in 2014.

Honorable Mention: BBC/Marvel Studios I wouldn’t have felt right giving the award to the BBC because in America they basically get rights to every English and pseudo-English television shows even if like Broadchurch one of the best shows on TV to day it is actually produced by ITV.  Marvel Studios, as usually, is just doing it big–Guardians of the Galaxy alone might have been them enough to land them this mention.

My Favorite Things

2014 sucked, I’m glad to see her go.  But there were a few things I loved in the past 12 months and here they are.

Honorable Mention: Suicide Girls

All my favorite things in one convenient place: short hair, tattoos, and naked women.  What’s not to like?

10: Football

Not, the NFL, plagued by its hatred of women, black men, and human beings in general no. The actual football the one the rest of the globe plays, that football.  I got caught out during the world cup when my boys in Orange from way up in the Netherlands tore there way through the cup… well almost.

9: Skateboard Rappers

I probably should’ve seen it coming back in 1999 when everyone in the cul de sac was buying skateboards, even though none of us could ride them for shit.  And now the face of 2014 hip-hop has become 20 year old geniuses with skateboards.

8: Logic- “Gang Related”

 

 

 

 

 

Not the best track of the year.  But holy shit that sample!

7: Bennedict Cumberbatch

The year literally kicked off with three of the best Sherlock episodes we’ve gotten from Cumberbatch and it wasn’t downhill from there at all.  He just closed off the best year of his career with an Oscar-worthy performance in Alan Turning’s biopic The Immitation Game, one of the year’s best.

6: Mick Jenkins-The Water[s]

We all know my soft spot for concept albums.  I ran the grooves raw on this LP after its release playing it over and over again until I was almost sick of it, but I never figured out how many plays that would actually take.

5: Marvel Unlimited

For $65 a year you get “Unlimited” Marvel.  I feel like I really shouldn’t have to explain much more than that.

4: British TV

The Missing, Happy Valley, The Musketeers, Sherlock, Peaky Blinders, Doctor Who, along with being late on Broadchurch and slightly confused about the actual origins of Orphan Black it was just a fantastic year for the United Kingdom.  I continue to plan my escape from this country, and unlike my plan to move to Switzerland I don’t have to go through the hassle of learning any new languages.

3: Goldlink- The God Complex

I really missed DC hip-hop.  Take notes Wale, honestly, take notes.  A little bit of character and some originality is all we really wanted from you.

2: Hannibal Burress’s Verse on Doug Stamper

 

 

 

 

“Don’t buy a Honda Civic, that’s a girl’s car.” “In loving memory of Doug Stamper”

1: Sable

 

Who knew a gay (maybe), Australian, electronic producer could be my new spirit animal? Not me.