This article is part of our VICE Weekends summer series, presented by Weis
Hoo boy! 365 days filled with songs, movies, and a lot of binge-worthy television. Some of it very good, some of it completely fine. Let’s look back at what entertained us the most in the very surprising year that still is 2016.
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MUSIC
2016 was rough, but it had an amazing soundtrack. Here are some choice cuts from the pointy end of Noisey staff’s pick of the year’s 100 Best Albums, go here for the full list.
Lemonade, Beyoncé
Beyoncé’s sixth solo studio album is deeply personal. Through the pop, rock, country, and blues genre shifting, the pointed lyrics, and of course the accompanying visuals, Queen Bey proves her immense power yet again. Lemonade also served as timely reminder that “personal openness can be political, too,” writes Sarah MacDonald.
ANTI, Rihanna
ANTI hops between themes and emotions and “confidently shows its hand from the get-go,” writes Jabbari Weekes. The album deals with love, hurt and relationships with a heady mix of casual disregard and utter heartache. “There were a lot of albums-as-narratives this year, every song delicately placed for structure. The charm of ANTI, then, is how it deals with love, hurt, and relationships; it all feels sonically messy, leaving us with songs that don’t naturally ebb and flow from the next.”
Coloring Book, Chance the Rapper
Look at Lil Chano from 79th! Not only did Chance the Rapper have the best verse of the year with his turn on Kanye’s “Ultralight Beam”, he also went and released a soulful, compelling, and wholly independent album. “Like “Ultralight Beam,” Coloring Book is transcendent: it rises out of chaos and pain, sings through the darkness, and reaches for resolution,” writes Alex Robert Ross.
A Seat at the Table, Solange
A Seat at the Table “stands as one the year’s strongest musical statements,” writes Lawrence Burney. It blends elements of soul and indie rock, features the likes of Lil Wayne, Q-Tip and Tweet amongst many others, and it “shows what black life is like in its full complexity.”
Blond, Frank Ocean
“With Blonde, Frank Ocean presented something calm in a tumultuous world, and forced us to do one thing: pause,” writes Eric Sundermann. Frank’s eagerly-anticipated album is sombre, sprawling and immensely introspective, and it keeps you sonically transfixed for 17 tracks.
TELEVISION
Keep your TV set to VICELAND and pull out your computer, because the best shows of 2016 were online.
We were graced with a lot of good streamable content this year. There’s Donald Glover’s profound first season of Atlanta, the Alia Shawkat-starring comedy noir Search Party, the exquisitely painful third season of Transparent, stoner web series turned nuanced HBO show High Maintenance, Issa Rae’s awkward BFF hit comedy Insecure, Abbi and Ilana’s awkward BFF hit comedy Broad City, and Westworld–that show that we all watched but we don’t know why. The Marnie episode of Girls and the underwater episode of BoJack Horseman were sophisticated and smart and deserve a shout out too. Then there were these three.
Telling the story of a black superhero with indestructible skin, Luke Cage was the hip-hop comic-book show you’ve been waiting for. The show is complex, subverting expectations by depicting its hero in a hoodie, and in doing so, it provides a necessary story about black empowerment. “Told in hour-long segments, it blends the comic-book world with both the noir and blaxploitation genres, successfully creating a stylish and compelling season of television,” writes Morgan Jerkins.
Lady Dynamite was easily the funniest show about mental health. “Comic Maria Bamford sweeps her biographical story of mental illness into an absurdist, quick-fire comedy show that feels like a revelation,” writes Rob Bastanmehr. The show, executive produced and co-created by Arrested Development‘s Mitch Hurwitz, chronicles Maria playing a fictionalised version of herself, in the aftermath of a bipolar episode. The true-ish tale of life after the psych ward involves fame, romance, and talking pugs, which makes it both emotionally deep and radically absurd.
Stranger Things was terrifyingly good 80s nostalgia. The aesthetically flawless series wears its references on its sleeve as it turns a bunch of wise and kind nerd kids into a pack of heroes. Those kids really steal the show, which is huge because Winona Ryder is in it.
FILM
Fans frothed for the new additions to old fandoms with this year’s release of Rogue One and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but not everything old is new again. There was a lot of notable new cinema in 2016, so let’s talk about some of that.
Barry Jenkins’ film Moonlight is a work of art. A stunning and powerful coming-of-age drama about a boy grappling with his identity and sexuality in a rough Miami neighbourhood. Wilbert L. Cooper sat down with Barry to talk about how he taps into his empathy by creating films, the way Moonlight‘s music is used, and how the director’s childhood in Miami influenced the casting and cinematography.
Arrival was sci-fi at its smartest and weirdest. Director Denis Villeneuve delivers an understated slice of cinema with, of all things, gigantic spaceships and a protagonist who is a linguistics professor. “This is a sci-fi film built on people as much as spectacle, especially the alabaster-hued face of Amy Adams, who carries nearly every frame,” writes Brandon Harris in his review.
Then there’s 31-year-old director and screenwriter Damien Chazelle’s spectacular musical La La Land. The romantic musical comedy-drama tells the story of a jazz pianist in the form of Ryan Gosling who falls for an aspiring actress in the form of Emma Stone. It’s about everyday life and the joy and pain of pursuing your dreams, and it’s an Oscar contender if ever there was one.
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos made his English-language debut with The Lobster. While this was easily the worst first date movie of the year that doesn’t mean this absurdist dystopian romantic dramedy was not good. The film is unflinchingly strange, ambitious, black-hearted and weirdly profound. What better place to end this list?
This article is presented by Weis
