1. Sampha, Lahai
The U.K. singersongwriter-producer's sophomore LP is a celebration of family and fatherhood but also an alluring development in the ongoing quest to blur the lines between compositions crafted with machines and music made on traditional instruments. It's a delicate musicology lesson about the sounds that connect cultures across continents couched in a contemplation of man's place in the cosmos.
2. Iris DeMent, Workin' on a World
DeMent reacts to the tumult we've seen since 2016 with a song cycle about mustering the bravery to love and fight for what's right even when it feels radioactive to do so. I'm going down to sing in Texas, where anybody can carry a gun, she huffs in a meditation on paranoia and Islamophobia. Her weapons of choice are wit and warmth.
3. Sufjan Stevens, Javelin
Dedicated to Stevens's late partner, Evans Richardson, Javelin balances songs touching on loneliness and resolutions to treat loved ones better, simplifying matters of the heart while consolidating contrasting musical ideas into a unique patchwork. He's revisiting the moods of past releases, but the Christian folkie who made Seven Swans couldn't hack the crispness of the electronic and orchestral breakdown that this album's faithful Everything That Rises explodes into at the end.
Esta historia es de la edición December 18, 2023 de New York magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición December 18, 2023 de New York magazine.
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THE BEST ART SHOWS OF THE YEAR
IN NOVEMBER, Sotheby's made history when it sold for a million bucks a painting made by artificial intelligence. Ai-Da, \"the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork auctioned by a major auction house,\" created a portrait of Alan Turing that resembles nothing more than a bad Francis Bacon rip-off. Still, the auction house described the sale as \"a new frontier in the global art market.\"
THE BIGGEST PODCAST MOMENTS OF THE YEAR
A STRANGE THING happened with podcasts in 2024: The industry was repeatedly thrust into the spotlight owing to a preponderance of head-turning events and a presidential-election cycle that radically foregrounded the medium's consequential nature. To reflect this, we've carved out a list of ten big moments from the year as refracted through podcasting.
THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - BEST BOOKS
THE BEST THEATER OF THE YEAR
IT'S BEEN a year of successful straight plays, even measured by a metric at which they usually do poorly: ticket sales. Partially that's owed to Hollywood stars: Jeremy Strong, Jim Parsons, Rachel Zegler, Rachel McAdams (to my mind, the most compelling).
THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
2024 WAS one big stress test that presented artists with a choice: Face uncomfortable realities or serve distractions to the audience. Pop music turned inward while hip-hop weathered court cases and incalculable losses. Country struggled to reconcile conservative interests with a much wider base of artists. But the year's best music offered a reprieve.
THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE YEAR
IT WAS SURPRISING how much 2024 felt like an uneventful wake for the Peak TV era. There was still great television, but there was much more mid or meh television and far fewer moments when a critical mass of viewers seemed equally excited about the same series.
THE BEST COMEDY SPECIALS OF THE YEAR
THE YEAR IN CULTURE - COMEDY SPECIALS
THE BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR
PEOPLE LOVED Megalopolis, hated it, puzzled over it, clipped it into memes, and tried to astroturf it into a camp classic, but, most important, they cared about it even though it featured none of the qualities you'd expect of a breakthrough work in these noisy times.
A Truly Great Time
This was the year our city's new restaurants loosened up.
The Art of the Well-Stuffed Stocking
THE CHRISTMAS ENTHUSIASTS on the Strategist team gathered to discuss the oversize socks they drape on their couches and what they put inside them.
