Twenty Thirteen

My Favorite Songs

Autre Ne Veut – Play By Play
CHVRCHES – The Mother We Share
Daft Punk – Get Lucky
Disclosure – White Noise

Fall Out Boy – My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)

The Front Bottoms – Au Revoir (Adios)

Kacey Musgraves – Follow Your Arrow
Kanye West – Black Skinhead

The Killers – Shot At The Night

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball
Pixies – Bagboy

St. Lucia – Elevate

Surfer Blood – Weird Shapes

Vampire Weekend – Diane Young

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Sacrilege

My Favorite Albums

EP) The Colourist - Lido
10) Balance & Composure - The Things We Think We're Missing
9) Arctic Monkeys - AM
8) Portugal. The Man - Evil Friends
7) Saves The Day - Saves The Day
6) Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time
5) CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe
4) Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
3) Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll
2) The 1975 - The 1975
1) Tegan & Sara - Heartthrob

I've "known" these Canadian twins for over a decade now. When you know someone that long, it's increasingly rare they still have the ability to surprise you. Yet that's what this fantastic band did with Heartthrob, their seventh and best album. The application of pop gloss not only added a new dimension to their sound, but invigorated their careers (hello singing on stage with Taylor Swift). Amid the arrival of shiny synths and drum machines, however, the duo's devastating lyrics remained ("Now I'm all messed up, sick inside wondering who, whose life you're making worthwhile"). All that's left to conquer is SNL.

My Favorite Movies

Gravity - This should never be released on DVD and only shown in theaters.

Nebraska - Bruce Dern has been getting all the attention, but the real star here is June Squibb, the opinionated mother hen who doesn't mince words. See this movie for nothing more than to see what she does at a cemetery.

Mud - The best child actors to grace the silver screen in recent memory.

Her - I really enjoyed Spike Jonze's take on the future, from foul-mouthed video game characters to outsourcing handwritten letters to actually calling your operating system your girlfriend. Also loved this line: "Sometimes I think I have felt everything I'm ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I'm not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I've already felt."

Frances Ha - My favorite movie of 2013 tapped into the am-I-really-ready-for-real-life-and considered-an-adult-now part of life in your 20s, exploring everything from being "undateable" to the isolation that creeps in from "losing" your friends to significant others/marriage.

My Favorite Book

So dark, so twisted, so good. Zigs where you think it will zag. Read it before the David Fincher-directed and Ben Affleck-starring movie comes out in the fall. (Yes, this came out in 2012, but I missed it.)

My Favorite TV Show

The answer here is Breaking Bad, but for something less notorious but equally enjoyable, no show made me laugh more than Nathan For You. It's a simple premise - a very nice Canadian goes to various small businesses and proposes insane ideas that the owners reluctantly accept. Without fail, it's funny every time (as you can see below).

My Favorite Video

You can't beat Russians singing "Get Lucky", but a Chatroulette parody of "Wrecking Ball" comes close.