It’s the advice-giving time of year: New Year, New You, 6 Things You Should Never Do, 25 Items Under $25 To Revolutionize Your Life. While I am generally not a fan of either advice or recommendations, what are rules for if not for breaking them? So here’s my best of…not basketball moments or memes or highlights but of songs and words.
If you’ve been reading A Game at a Time you know every post includes the books I read during commercials and the songs that pop in my head when I’m writing. Those are not necessarily recommendations - those are simply the things that happen. Some of the books and songs are fabulous - for me, at that particular moment in my life, but maybe not for you, who can tell? Some of the books were meh and some of the songs bug me but invade my head anyway.
This is different - these are the books and songs from last year that I love. Not like. Love.
What I Heard
After many painful decisions and last minute cuts, these are my songs of 2024: Are You Looking Up spotify playlist. All songs were released in late 2023 or 2024 (with one exception). And in every instance, each of these songs causes me to stop what I’m doing, turn the volume up and listen. And then listen again. This is a dangerous playlist for me because any song on it I instantly want to listen to 17 times in a row and then it’s 2 am and I’ve spent hours with one song on repeat, trying to uncover the exact places where the song reaches its greatness - one song on this list does it in its first three seconds. I’m treating the playlist like kryptonite today because otherwise I will never ever finish this or anything else.
I’m secretly super proud of listening to new music - this is a new habit for me. It’s really easy to stay in the same musical paths, and it turns out that our brains are programmed for it. There’s a thing called neural nostalgia, that says that the songs we heard when we were teenagers stay wired in our brains the longest, no matter how old we get. I am certain I would live a happy life listening only to Thunder Road. I just unsuccessfully argued with my brother that In A Big Country is a great song in the present day. (It’s not.) In spite of all the past music I will always love - Stevie Wonder’s Saturn anyone? - I’ve made an effort to regularly listen to new music and along the way met songs that have become new friends.
What’s my strategy? At first I relied on the Spotify algorithm and its Daylist but it’s too easy to fool - one night listening to one too many Paul Simon songs and and then you’re in a perpetual Cat Stevens playlist. So as I’ve been doing a lot these past few years, I deferred to Hanif Abdurraqib, a writer who also listens to many hours of new music every week and turns them into playlists of favorite songs for each week. The bonus here is that Abdurraqib listens across many genres. I would imagine 80% of the new songs I’ve heard this year have come from his lists. And the rest came from music playing in the background of tv shows or IG reels. I mean - I’m a middle aged woman - I’m not hearing music at shows or the club anymore.
Anyway - I don’t expect you to like the songs I like - that would be so strange if we did! People have specific listening preferences! But I am advocating for new music, new songs, new artists. Find your new songs - they are out there waiting for you.
For those of you who don’t do the Spotify thing, here’s the list of songs on youtube:
Any Time of Day: The Lemon Twigs
Amahoro (Don’t Get Angry): Les Amazones d’Afrique
Take Me Where Your Heart Is: Q
My Kink is Karma: Chappell Roan
What I Read
As for books, this is a little more challenging because although I read 60ish books a year, they aren’t all new, and I’m a really bad rememberer of plots and characters. Please don’t quiz me on the details. These are the ones that I will read again at some future date, that I wrote down a passage or two from, that let me see the world differently. I might not recommend all these books to each of you - again it would be really strange if we all liked the same books and I don’t know all of you that well. But dang did they leave an imprint on me.
Which I am going to make a special plug for because Hanif Abdurraqib is appearing on my music lists and my book list. In full transparency, I’m only halfway through the book but that’s because it’s so beautiful that I would never read it during the commercials or when I have brain fog or when I’m sleepy which is most of the hours of my day. And when I do read it’s usually a half page at a time. Shall I continue? I have a copy by my bedside, a copy in my car and I’m listening to the audiobook. This book is literally always next to me. It came out in early April at a time when I was particularly unwell. When I picked it up it was the first time I had left my house in 15 days. Getting it made me sick for the rest of the day. Worth it. I already know that this is one of those books (like Revolutionary Road, like Love in the Time of Cholera) that whenever I finish it, I am going to immediately start reading it again.
Abdurraqib started as a poet but also writes nonfiction. In the last handful of years, the books I have been most stunned by, staring out the window for hours after reading, are all written by people who are also poets - On Earth, We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, Clint Smith’s How the Word is Passed, Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!, everything by Ross Gay. As far as I can tell, whether they are writing poetry or not, these authors are always hearing the sound and rhythm of words, and it puts their sentences on a different level than most writing.
Is it wrong to recommend a book I haven’t finished? Might never finish? Whatever. It’s the best thing I read all year in a year of great reading.
Here’s my real advice: chase your obsessions. When you find a favorite writer - read everything they’ve done. Then find their favorite authors and read them. Then, once you know your obsessions, find a way to get some money to your favorite artists - especially the musicians - music isn’t free even though we consume it freely.
See - I can be obsessed about more things than basketball teams - songs, writers, the way that a great bridge can make a chorus feel both familiar and brand new. It’s not only Jordan Poole and Steph Curry in my head!
But on that note - the teams and their injuries! Jonathan Kuminga out for at least 3 weeks, Steph working with two bad knees and a sprained thumb, Jordan Poole in and out with a hip contusion and then Paige Bueckers of UConn crying on the sideline. I don’t ever want to see Paige Bueckers in tears. Heal up folks and don’t come back sooner than you should.
Here’s to art, in all its many forms, from Chappell Roan’s high notes on My Kink is Karma to Steph Curry’s lay-ups and JP’s step backs. Beauty comes in many forms and this year, I have a feeling we’re gonna need as much beauty as possible.
The Unrivaled League starts next week! More basketball please!