Happy New Year, Culture Lusters. Today is a day of new beginnings,
bucket lists and resolutions, diet plans and newly purchased gym
memberships. It's a day of football, boring parades on television, and nursed hangovers. In the south, it's all about
black-eyed peas
. The media does a lot of recapping on this day and the internets are full of "best of" lists. I compiled some of my favorites off-beat lists for you to read couchside.
NPR has a great list of the 10 Best Unknown Artists from the year, with music included. I love Liz Durrett's (pictured right) voice and am going to spend some quality time listening to Benji Hughes. The A.V. Club publishes its band names from the year , possibly my favorite year-end list. The metal genre always features some real doozies, like Engaged in Mutilating and Cemetary Rapist. Band names from various other genres: Your Kisses Cause Crashes, Funkmaster Cracker, Anthony Smith's Trunk Fulla Funk, and Shitty Shitty Band Band. The list is long and truly magnificent!
If you're a big tv fan, than the A.V. Club has another list for you: the best episodes from the best shows of the year. I don't watch a lot of the shows on the list so I can't vouge for the curation, but the episode they picked from The Wire is a good choice so hopefully it's reflective of the overall quality.
Videogum has the Worst People of 2008 , which includes Kim Zolciak from Real Housewives of Atlanta , my one guilty pleasure, train wreck viewing experience of the year. And here's a list of the 10 Worst DVD's of the Year . I'm pretty sure KPBS film critic Beth Accomando would disagree with the inclusion of Sukiyaki Western Django .
The LA Times has the year's best and worst from the web. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog gets the props it deserves, as does Little Bill O'Reilly. Cool Hunting chose their top five t-shirt designs of the year , as well as the top five art shows , buildings and green projects . Those Cool Hunting folks know their stuff.
And finally, here are the New Yorker's most popular cartoons from the year. Enjoy and cheers to a new lusty year in culture!
