1. Beyoncé, Renaissance
Her seventh solo release is a multilevel achievement: an effortless excursion into half a dozen permutations of dance music, a seamless playlist, and a loud reminder that Black auteurs and their experiences are the soil from which the art form grew. It's equally a face-melting display of vocal excellence, full of flawless runs and perfectly placed harmonies. Every beat delivers a musicology lesson. And while its technical dexterity will be studied, so should Beyoncé's ease in honoring Black queer history while singing about heterosexual monogamy in marriage.
2. Vince Staples, Ramona Park Broke My Heart
An album that embraces regionality, diving into the musical and sociopolitical history of Southern California, it's a worthy scion of the gangsta-rap tradition. The writing is vivid and achingly tired but steadfast, never more so than on "When Sparks Fly," which anthropomorphizes a gun better than Nas's "I Gave You Power."
3. Bad Bunny, Un Verano Sin Ti
The Puerto Rican superstar keeps global streaming charts in a choke hold not just as an emissary of the intercontinental of reggaeton but as a prodigious writer of love songs and a restless musical aesthete. Here, he spends nearly two dozen tracks having fun, showing off, and drilling it into your head that he understands both the breadth of his intersecting audiences and the generations of developments that make his career possible.
4. The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin December 19, 2022 - January 01, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin December 19, 2022 - January 01, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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.
