40: Arts review, twenty twenty

Hello, I hope you’re well.

Welcome to The Border Crossing issue #40. Thank you very much for your time and support.

This issue is my 2020 arts and culture review, a ridiculously over-thought list of favourites from this year. Check out the 80 song Spotify playlist (!) that accompanies the music sections.

A question hangs in the air, too. Maybe you have an answer. Yes, the shape of the artistic world was changing already. But as that change has been so drastically sped up and mushroomed in scale by the pandemic (and other stuff) I wonder if the whole interconnected web of ‘the arts’ (and therefore by default the craft of criticism and this kind of categorised arts review Top 10 list) is now structurally moribund?

We have such unimaginable breadth and immediacy of access to culture. At the same time, there is disconnect between any agreed objectivity of ‘quality’ (of which I was always a skeptic), our splintering tastes, and any financial viability. Compiling this, I began to suspect my list-making needs major change, or has ceased to be worth doing at all. Because how do we support and reflect the arts as they actually are, and/or as the makers view their own processes, if we still think and write about them in the old fashioned way, as I do?

We’ve smashed up the ‘barriers’ between discipline and form. We’ve demolished commonality and fractured audiences who may never again coalesce. What even is a film, in an era of streaming first and a Disney+ grand parlay of intellectual property? Meanwhile live crowds were already evaporating, ageing out, across the board, long before the pandemic flattened that entire industry.

For me, the idea that those trades can simply get rebuilt this coming decade to anything resembling the same specs is wrongheaded. Touring will roll on for a few years, in niche genres, as well as a handful of those enormous flagship stadium type events. But like it or not, we’re headed somewhere entirely new. So we need to be thinking and acting inside new paradigms, not staring at them aghast from the other side of frosted glass.

I also keep wondering (I may have written about this before) how permanently the well of creativity is poisoned by blurring the act of making work, and promoting that work. In so many ways (too many to unpack here) marketing and ‘fan service’ and iteration have mushed together and marinaded into the people who make art, from the very start of each creative person’s career. It has infiltrated even the very moment of creative, artistic inspiration. I think that’s a memetic catastrophe; though it is being wholly embraced and normalised.

If we could change just one thing to protect the creative mind, I would insulate it from the commercial imperative – and never has that felt more like a ludicrous fantasy.

Anyway, like many people, I’ve compiled these ‘favourites of the year’ lists for decades. They still spark joy in the doing. But my presumptions of categorisation, criticism and consumerism all require a root-and-branch rethink.

So, now that I’ve explained why it’s pointless, I hope you enjoy my massive long list of what I most loved in 2020. The year we learnt how to ferment.

Thanks again. You are amazing and I appreciate you. Please keep warm and healthy, look after yourself and your people.

Chris
x

40: Arts review, twenty twenty

Here’s the Spotify playlist with a track from each album mentioned and all my bangers/tearjerkers.

ALBUMS

So much jawdropping music this year. I’m surprised to discover that I scored 56 albums 8/10 or higher, out of 190 albums that I gave enough serious listens to allocate a score. Maybe circumstances made me generous. Yet at the same time, even Bruce for example only got a 7.8 and doesn’t make it onto my lists at all. He’s in flash company on the sidelines, so I’m convinced we’ll look back on 2020 as a vintage. Whatever, here’s the big list. The occasional web links go to The Quietus.

1. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
2. Yorkston/Thorne/Khan – Navarasa: Nine Emotions
3. Charli XCX – How I’m Feeling Now
4. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud
5. Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
6. The Electric Soft Parade – Stages
7. Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters
8. Sault – Untitled (Rise)
9. Childish Gambino – 3.15.20
10. Taylor Swift – Evermore

11. Taylor Swift – Folklore
12. Fay Hield – Wrackline
13. Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death
14. The Rheingans Sisters – Receiver
15. Stick In The Wheel – Hold Fast
16. David Keenan – A Beginner’s Guide To Bravery
17. Rina Sawayama – Sawayama
18. Run The Jewels – RTJ4
19. Adrianne Lenker – Songs / Instrumentals
20. Jenny Sturgeon – Living Mountain

21. Field Music – Making A New World
22. I LIKE TRAINS – Kompromat
23. Steven Adams & The French Drops – Keep It Light
24. Halsey – Manic
25. Grandaddy – Sophtware Slump (wooden piano)
26. Beatrice Dillon – Workaround
27. Peter Broderick – Blackberry
28. Billy Nomates – Billy Nomates
29. Emily Barker – A Dark Murmuration of Words
30. Rachel Newton – To The Awe

And the best of the rest – albums that I scored 8.0 / 10 or higher…

AJJ – Good Luck Everybody
Arborist – Northern View
Beans On Toast – Knee Deep In Nostalgia / The Unforseeable Future
Bill Fay – Countless Branches
Bright Eyes – Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was
Chloe x Halle – Ungodly Hour
Courtney Marie Andrews – Old Flowers
Dutchavelli – Dutch from the 5th
Emma Swift – Blonde On The Tracks
Georgia – Seeking Thrills
Idles – Ultra Mono
Josienne Clarke – Historical Record Vols 1-4 (not on Spotify)
Kesha – High Road
Kirsty Merryn – Our Bright Night
Lauren MacColl – Landskein
Matt Berninger – Serpentine Prison
Molly Tuttle – …but I’d rather be with you
Mr. Alec Bowman – I Used To Be Sad And Then I Forgot
Nadia Reid – Out Of My Province
Paul Morricone – Cruel Designs
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Viscerals
Riz Ahmed – The Long Goodbye
Sam Sweeney – Unearth Repeat
Sault – Untitled (Black Is)
The Wilderness Yet – The Wilderness Yet
This Is The Kit – Off Off On

Of course I’ve excluded records that I contributed to, which is most unfair on on Mark McCabe, whose DIY lockdown album Take Heart, It’s Almost Over is stunning, despite a release with zero fanfare. All I did was send him two bits of piano. Jim Bob, Olivia Awbrey and Uke Fat Barsteward are also regretfully locked out but in those cases at least I was sometimes in the room where it happened.

25 x BANGERS / TEARJERKS THAT GOT ME

No ‘WAP’ or ‘34+35’, though I liked them. Also, if an artist is in my Top 30 albums, they’re excluded from this list (apart from Waxahatchee). This is a bit harsh on Maggie Rogers, because I loved her Phoebe collab on ‘Iris’…

1 Bright Eyes – ‘Miracle Of Life’
2 Caribou – ‘You and I’
3 Michael Kiwanuka – ‘Final Days’ the Bonobo remix
4 Sleaford Mods & Billy Nomates – ‘Mork n Mindy’
5 Loote – ‘This Is How You Feel’
6 Megan Thee Stallion / Beyoncé – ‘Savage (Remix)’
7 Kronos Quartet – ‘The President Sang Amazing Grace’
8 Roxanne de Bastion – ‘Heavy Lifting’
9 Beans On Toast – ‘Trying To Keep The Lights On’
10 Kesha – ‘Father Daughter Dance’
11 Bedouine/Waxahatchee/HurrayForTheRiffRaff – ‘Thirteen’ 
12 Grasscut – ‘Return Of The Sun’
13 Saint Sister & Lisa Hannigan – ‘The Place That I Work’
14 Cupcakke – ‘Lemon Pepper’
15 Hayley Williams – ‘Leave It Alone’
16 Sody – ‘Is Your Bedroom Ceiling Bored?’ feat. Cavetown
17 Julien Baker – ‘Faith Healer’
18 Selena Gomez – ‘Feel Me’
19 Porij – ‘150’
20 Lucy Spraggan – ‘Roots’
21 Christine & The Queens – ‘People, I’ve Been Sad’
22 The Weather Station – ‘Robber’
23 Lomeda – ‘Hannah Sun’
24 Pale Blue – ‘I Walk Alone With Acid’
25 Bob Dylan – ‘Murder Most Foul’

LIVE

I’ve decided to merge music, dance and theatre experiences from 2020’s meagre live offerings. Therefore the order doesn’t mean much here (even less than usual). But here are my favourites anyway. For a full write-up of Iceland, check my Louder Than War article on Dark Music Days festival.

1. If It Breaks It Burns at Battersea Arts Centre
2. Bára & Skúli at Idno, Reykjavik
3. Iceland Symphony Orchestra at Harpa, Reykjavik
4. Thick and Tight dance to Ginsberg’s ‘Holy’ at LGBTQ Museum Late
5. Herdís Anna Jónasdóttir & Elfa Rún Kristindóttir –
‘Kafka Fragments’ at Mengi, Reykjavik (Kurtag’s voice and violin song cycle)
6. Sea Sharp at Brighton Museum for the LGBTQ Museum Late (poetry)
7. Caput with Rúni Brattaberg at Brei∂holtskirkja, Reykjavik
8. Frank Turner at Brighton Dome
9. Umbra Ensemble performs ‘Bloodhoof’ at Idno, Reykjavik
10. Jason McNiff at The Jenny Lind, Hastings

MUSIC ON SMALL SCREENS

1. David Byrne’s American Utopia
2. Meryl, Audra and Christine – ‘Ladies Who Lunch’ at Take Me To The World
3. Phoebe Bridgers’ Pitchfork live set (and all her other live telly)
4. Taylor Swift – ‘Soon You’ll Get Better’ at One World At Home
5. Beanie Feldstein & Ben Platt – ‘It Takes Two’ at Take Me To The World
6. Aoife O’Donovan full album cover performance of Nebraska
7. Jim Bob live at home, various times
8. Nancy Kerr’s month of Leon Rosselson songs
9. Grace Petrie – ‘Romeo And Juliet’ from her A-Z covers at home sessions
10. Dave – ‘Black’ at the Brit Awards
11. Hurtling full band livestream from One Cat Studio
12. Lankum’s Tiny Desk concert
13. Tom Williams – Morning Coffee / Wednesday Whiskey home sessions
14. Softlad (Sophie Galpin) live debut at Pxssy Pandemique
15. Laura Marling and The 12 at The Proms
16. Chloë Glover EP launch live at home
17. Billie Eilish – ‘When The Party’s Over’ at the Grammys
18. Randy Newman at the Academy Awards
19. Jess Guise at Frank Turner’s first home show
20. Self Esteem at Pxssy Pandemique

FILM

1. Parasite (2020, cinema)
2. Atlantics (2020, Netflix) 
3. Rocks (2020, Netflix)
4. Small Axe: Lovers Rock (2020, BBC)
5. The Assistant (2020, Now TV)
6. Jojo Rabbit (2020, cinema)
7. The Trial Of The Chicago Seven (2020, Netflix)
8. 1917 (2020, cinema)
9. Small Axe: Mangrove (2020, BBC)
10. The Whalebone Box (2020, Mubi)
11. Mank (2020, Netflix)
12. A White, White Day (2020, BFI player)
13. Da Five Bloods (2020, Netflix)
14. Beyoncé – Black Is King (2020, Disney+)
15. 40 Year Old Version (2020, Netflix)

DOCUMENTARY

1. Women Make Film
2. For Sama
3. I’ll Be Gone In The Dark
4. Disclosure
5. My Octopus Teacher
6. Capital in the 21st Century
7. David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet
8. Apollo 11
9. The Social Dilemma
10. They’ve Gotta Have Us

TELEVISION

I’ll do a whole Top 30. My god, so much television was consumed this year. Don’t deny it, you did too. As the autumn chill rolled in, we sank into a reality TV hole like nothing I’ve experienced before. Inevitably it began with Strictly (which we haven’t watched for 11 years) and Bake Off (which we’d never watched before on Channel 4 but binge-watched all the BBC series last year and were drawn back via the intriguing notion of Matt Lucas). The lockdown series of Refigure podcast devolved into a reluctant TV review show. Strictly led to It Takes Two, the gateway drug to Richard Osman’s House Of Games, while Rifa uncovered various Netflix makeover contests, Masterchef: The Professionals and The Floor Is Lava. By November our weeknights sloshed with the tropes and journeys of people “leaving it all out there” and “giving it 100% percent” and “just being my true self.” At least we didn’t stoop to I’m A Celebrity. I spotted the danger and began to climb out after the Lottie and Hermine Bake Off travesty – but the damage is done, I think. I can spot them here, sneaking their sneaky way onto the lower end of this list. For shame...

1. Midnight Gospel
2. Kingdom
3. I May Destroy You
4. Small Axe
5. The Mandalorian
6. Curb Your Enthusiasm
7. The Expanse
8. Devs
9. Euphoria
10. She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power (season five)

11. Nigella: Eat, Sleep, Repeat 
12. CNN – US election week coverage all-nighters
13. Rick & Morty (season four) 
14. The Queen’s Gambit
15. Kim’s Convenience
16. Unorthodox
17. Last Week Tonight
18. Ghosts 
19. The Valhalla Murders
20. Mystic Pop-up Shop

21. Masterchef - The Professionals
22. The Comey Rule
23. The Floor Is Lava
24. Richard Osman’s House Of Games
25. The Salisbury Poisonings
26. Awkwafina is Nora from Queens
27. Mrs America
28. Schitt’s Creek
29. BlackAF
30. The Great British Bake Off (until Lottie left)

Honourable mentions: Get Shorty but it wasn’t 2020, catching up with: Bourdain seasons 9-12, Trapped, Borgen and The Bridge. 

STUFF ON SMALL SCREENS

1. Jimmy Watkins’ Running Punks running album reviews
2. Homeward Bound – The Climate Sessions: Alistair McIntosh
3. Mary Neely’s cosplay ftmfw!
4. English National Ballet / Akram Khan – ‘Dust’
5. Anna’s hilarious birthday craft/story Zoom sesh by Story Craft Theatre
6. Ballet Black
7. Hannah Gadsby: Douglas
8. Lyndsey Stonebridge: Writing & Righting
9. Heidi Schreck: What The Constitution Means To Me
10. Homeward Bound – The Climate Sessions: Vanessa Andreotti
11. English National Ballet – ‘Broken Wings’
12. Marcus Brigstocke and Rachel Parris’s lip sync battle series
13. Marc Maron: End Times Fun
14. Leslie Jones: Time Machine
15. Nikkie De Jager’s coming out video

ART & EXHIBITIONS

Unexpectedly, somehow I still saw 34 art shows this year. That feels impossible. Nothing in London though, so the big galleries that are usually mainstays of this chart are all missing, while most of it is in Iceland or Hastings.

Funnily enough, Reykjavik and Hastings also have remarkably similar metal sculptures on their seafronts, each based on the frame shape of an ancient boat. That’s where their similarity ends. This week someone put on Twitter ‘what would you tell your January 2020 self?’ and my reply was don’t come home from Iceland.

1. Shoplifter (Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir) – Chromo Sapiens at Reykjavik Art Museum, Hafnarhús

2. Jóhanna Kristin Yngvadóttir – Soliloquy (retrospective) at National Gallery of Iceland

3. Points Of View (themed art history group show) at The Culture House, Reykjavik

4. Hassan Hajjaj – The Path at Arnolfini, Bristol

5. P. Spooner – The English Spring - a work-in-progress at Hastings Museum

6. Queer The Pier at Brighton Museum 

7. Burra, Spencer, Sutherland – The Age Of Turmoil at Hastings Contemporary

8. Quentin Blake – Airborne at Hastings Contemporary 

9. Project Dark – Records From The Archive at Wow And Flutter, Hastings 

10. A Prince’s Treasure at The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, despite masks on a hot day

PODCAST / RADIO – EPISODES

I sadly excluded the wonderful Box Of Delights and Chess Pit podcasts because of being a guest on them. With hindsight, that feels off, because they’re not my shows, so probably deserved to be allowed in. Also, I produced and/or edited a lot of podcast episodes in 2020 that I’m proud of, some of which are objectively as good as shows in my chart; from the Essex 2020 episode on Marconi; to Rich Freeman’s interview with Charlotte Church for Possibility Club’s fantastic (and deserving of wider notice) ‘After Corona’ strand; to the epic heft and quality of People Change Museums. This is a feeling I remember from back when I compiled my list of favourite albums in years that I’d released an album myself. Deep down, I usually thought my own record ought to be in there. Anyway, next year I’ll think about radically amending the category rules.

1. Desert Island Discs: Samantha Morton
2. Decoder Ring: The Jane Fonda Workout two-parter
3. Reply All: The Case Of The Missing Hit
4. Adam Buxton: with Joe Cornish, after Adam’s Mum died
5. Grounded: Michaela Coel
6. In Our Time: Solar Wind
7. Start The Week: Hilary Mantel
8. Intercepted: Paul Robeson
9. Adam Buxton: Zadie Smith
10. Decoder Ring: The Stowe-Byron Controversy
11. Standing On The Shoulders: Roman Mars
12. Grounded: Miriam Margolyes
13. Here Right Now: Shardcore
14. Rule Of Three: Eddie Izzard 
15. In Our Time: The Siege Of Paris

PODCAST / RADIO – SERIES

1. Longform
2. Slate Political Gabfest
3. In Our Time
4. Totally Football Show
5. Home Cooking
6. A Shadow Over Innsmouth 
7. Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast
8. Slate Culture Gabfest
9. Kermode & Mayo Film Show
10. SongExploder

(rip West Wing Weekly)

BOOKS

1. Nick Hayes – The Book Of Trespass
2. Priyamvada Gopal – Insurgent Empire
3. Douglas Stuart – Shuggie Bain
4. Cory Doctorow – How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism
5. J.B. Morrison – A God Awful Small Affair
6. Daisy Johnson – Sisters
7. Natalie Ann Holborow – Small (poetry)
8. Zadie Smith – Intimations - Six Essays
9. Martin Shaw – Courting The Wild Twin
10. Shoshana Zuboff – The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism
11. Will Harris – Rendang (poetry)
12. Ottessa Moshfegh – Death In Her Hands
13. Beth Morrey – Saving Missy
14. Oliver Gray – Polly In My Pocket
15. Alastair McIntosh – Riders On The Storm

I didn’t get close enough to finishing Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror And The Light to count it – but I was enjoying it a lot, back when I was reading it. It does weigh eleven tons.

ESSAYS

I’d listed 40 essays that caught my attention this year. But on the whole, far too many articles and long-reads, far too much mind-space of terrific writers, focused on various aspects of the Trump Presidency’s final year. I think a lot of us still fall into the trap of propagating ideas that we think we’re arguing against. For me, that affected which essays made it into my Top 10.

1. Sabrina Orah Mark – ‘Fuck The Bread. The Bread Is Over.’ in Paris Review

2. Anonymous – ‘Whatever happened to ––?’ on Longread (edited by Sara Botton)

3. The Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective (GTDF) – ‘Preparing for the end of the world as we know it’ on OpenDemocracy

4. Emily Bazelon – ‘Free Speech in the age of Disinformation’ in New York Times Magazine

5. Laura Barton – ‘I flew to Greece and began solo IVF, then the world shut down’ in The Guardian

6. Teju Cole – ‘In Dark Times I Sought Out The Turmoil Of Caravaggio’s Paintings’ in New York Times Magazine

7. Azam Ahmed – ‘She stalked her daughter’s killers across Mexico, one by one’ in New York Times Magazine

8. Frankie Boyle – ‘The Future Of British Politics’ (Unbound)

9. Jia Tolentino – ‘What Mutual Aid can do during a Pandemic’ in The New Yorker

10. Kae Tempest – 'On Connection’ (Faber Social)

DINING OUT / DELIVERY

1. Skál!, Reykjavík
(toast, roasted squash and various foraged Nordic squidgy items) 

2. The Ethicurean, Somerset
(fine picnic in the orchard)

3. The Gingerman, Brighton
(fine dining, vegetarian taster menu)

4. Benditos Maiz popup, Brighton
(vegan Mexican, homemade tofu, homemade salsa) 

5. Chilli Pickle BBQ
(aubergine curry, biryani, paneer bbq, home delivered)

6. Bincho Yakitori, Hove
(yakitori)

7. The Crown, Hastings
(vegan sausage, truffle mash, soup, cauliflower)

8. Roasthost
(Sunday pub roast, half squash hassleback, delivered)

9. The Ivy, Brighton
(halloumi steak and truffle chips, with Neil and Sue)

10. Brasserie Blanc, Winchester
(souffle, gnocchi, crumble)

FOOD/DRINK – SINGLE ITEMS

1. The Macha Salsa of Bendito Maiz
2. Real Patisserie lockdown home baking kit
3. Carluccio’s chocolate-dipped clementines
4. Brett & Bailey Seville marmalade
5. The Ethicurean ferments
6. Julia Raeside’s dry Black Cow vodka-martini
7. Sauce That Rocks’ Kelly’s Eye ghost chilli sauce
8. the Cheddar Gorge cave-aged cheese truckle
9. Japanese whisky taster set from my sister
10. perfecting my chocolate cookie

•  

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Loads of love, as always. Comments welcome. Stay safe.
xxx