Rob Mentzer’s certified finest, 2023
BOOKS
I read a number of excellent books this year but not very many of them were released this year. Because I often take book recommendations from professional critics’ year-end lists, I did read some good books that were published in 2022, so here are my favorite books from the last two years that I read this year.
Victory City by Salman Rushdie
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois
The Wager by David Grann
What’s that? You want to know what some of the best non-new books I read in 2023 were? Well, they were The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price; Kindred by Octavia Butler; Empire by Gore Vidal; The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James. I also read a ton of history about the Progressive Era for a secret project that I worked on all year.
MOVIES
The best movie I saw in 2023 was Killers of the Flower Moon, a masterpiece, a story about what evil actually looks like in the real world. Actually I think it was the best movie I have seen in some years. Martin Scorsese is an up-and-coming filmmaker to watch.
I will follow up that very conventional sort of opinion with a contrarian take: I kind of hated Oppenheimer, which I found over-written and over-directed in the extreme. My objections are not only about the score, but the fact that the music is so constant and so loud is a fine example of the broader problem of Christopher Nolan never allowing himself to step out of the frame and just let the story work on its own. There were of course some fantastic scenes. I suspect the book it is based on is excellent.
(Because I watched this with my son this year, I will share a more positive but equally contrarian Christopher Nolan take, which is that Tenet is an all-time great action movie, simply one of the most exciting movies ever. It is my favorite of his movies by a wide margin.)
I am in favor of the concert-movie trend. I saw Stop Making Sense and it was practically a religious experience. Taylor Swift movie, Beyoncé movie, bring them on. It’s fun to see a concert at the movies.
Other good movies this year: Barbie, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, No Hard Feelings, The Creator. I kind of enjoyed Cocaine Bear but I watched it on my phone, and I was playing chess or whatever, so who knows. In the past week, I watched the only comedy special I watched all year, it was Gary Gulman’s Born on 3rd Base, which I do highly recommend.
MUSIC
The big story in pop music in 2023 is the new dominance of country music. Morgan Wallen had the number one album for 16 weeks, twice as long as his nearest competitor, and his ode to unhealthy alcohol consumption, “Last Night,” likewise spent 16 weeks at the top of the Hot 100 chart. The Oliver James song “Rich Men North of Richmond” that was the subject of a bunch of news segments for some reason made number one this year; so did the pro-mob violence song “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean.
For at least some people who are not already country music fans, the existence of more or less right-wing cultural figures in country is a reason to avoid the genre altogether. But that is wrong! It’s a big genre with a lot of good songwriting. Zach Bryan’s “I Remember Everything” with Kacey Musgraves also hit number one, and it is gorgeous, I guess my favorite song of the year. Bryan’s album Zach Bryan is also one of the best albums.
If you are lucky, you do not recall an extremely annoying round of takes about whether the existence of racism meant that Luke Combs shouldn’t have recorded a reverent and completely affecting version of “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman. It is a perfect song, and while there’s certainly no need for a cover, the cover is also great. Other country recommendations: “Watermelon Moonshine” by Lainey Wilson is lovely, and I even think there’s something fun about the hair-metal/gospel fusion of Jelly Roll and “Need a Favor,” though it wears a little thin after a couple of listens.
But I guess if I’m honest country isn’t my first genre of choice. I had lots of other favorites this year, for example the lo-fi, avant-rap weirdness of the Pitchfork-approved Maps by Billy Woods and Kenny Segal, or the aching Barbie-movie theme “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish. Killer Mike’s Michael was just okay to me, it really feels like almost a retro attempt to make a ’90s rap album.
In recommending Lil Yachty’s Let’s Start Here to a pop-skeptical friend, I said the thing to do is listen to all seven minutes of “The Black Seminole,” and you will either be bought in or you will not. I am bought in. The whole album is a prog-rock odyssey.
The other great psychedelic prog-rock record of the year was Sufjan Stevens’ Javelin. I honestly believe Sufjan Stevens is some kind of musical supergenius and it is more or less my fault that there are very many of his albums I do not love. But whew this is one of the beautiful ones, even to a philistine like me, with its praise-music choirs and its noisy crescendos. I especially love that is 42 minutes long, a perfectly reasonable length for an album to be.
The Age of Pleasure by Janelle Monae is so great; my favorite song is “Float.”
I also want to mention the worst song of the year, which is “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Fall Out Boy. Listen, the original was already a dumber, deironized “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” homage/rip-off. Fall Out Boy manages to do the impossible and become, in turn, even dumber than the original. Instead of a chronological list of things from the 1950s through the 1980s, they just do a random list of References You Might Remember. A sample line: “Balloon Boy, War on Terror, QAnon.” Makes you think.
Albums
Age of Pleasure, Janelle Monae
Zach Bryan, Zach Bryan
Maps, billy woods and Kenny Segal
Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, Caroline Polachek
Let’s Start Here, Lil Yachty
Javelin, Sufjan Stevens
Raven, Kelela
Scaring the Hoes, Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA
Singles
“Calm Down,” Rema feat. Selena Gomez
“Kill Bill,” Sza
“What Was I Made For?” Billie Eilish
“Cruel Summer,” Taylor Swift
“If We Ever Broke Up I Would Never be Sad,” Mae Stephens
“bad idea right?” by Olivia Rodrigo
“Float” by Janelle Monae/Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
“I Remember Everything,” Luke Bryan and Kacey Musgraves
“Stadium Love,” Carly Rae Japsen
“Heroes,” Macklemore & DJ Premier
“Bravo,” Tobe Nwigwe
“Paint the Town Red,” Doja Cat
“In the City,” Charli XCX feat. Sam Smith
“Flowers,” Miley Cyrus
“A&W” by Lana Del Ray
“America has a Problem,” Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar
“Fast Car,” Luke Combs
TELEVISION
Watched very few TV shows, but did watch a lot of Star Trek, in the form of Picard (fine), Lower Decks (delightful) and Strange New Worlds (best). Cunk on Earth made me laugh. Succession helped me understand why rich people think the job of inheriting money and companies is work. I loved Lucky Hank, Telemarketers, Reservation Dogs and I Think You Should Leave. I watched The Bear when I had COVID and I don’t remember that much about it. Liked Jury Duty and Bodies. And of course that leaves many TV shows I probably would have liked if I had seen them.