Best of the Best is an ongoing series reflecting on and ranking my favorite music and movies…
- Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf (2002)
- The Tragically Hip “Gift Shop” (1996)
- UHF (1989)
- Type O Negative October Rust (1996)
- Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
- DJ Shadow Endtroducing….. (1996)
- Man with a Movie Camera (1929/2003)
- Wu-Tang Clan “Protect Ya Neck” (1993)
- Social Distortion Live at the Roxy (1998)
- Refused “New Noise” (1998)
Have you ever been asked about what your favorite band is? Or maybe what your favorite movie is? If you’re anything like me, questions like these might be met with a blank stare; not because there’s no answer to them, but because I have no idea where to even start with the answer to them. Plus, I’m forgetful and have a tendency of feeling wrong about this sort of thing, no matter what my answer might be. What am I forgetting? What are my favorites? A mechanism in my mind tilts into full swing, as if there’s a complicated equation that will bring about an authentic, respectful, all-encompassingly honest answer. The blank stare continues, the lips part, and a voice within me speaks out: “Y’know, I like a lot of different music.” The truth is though, I’m not sure I’ve ever thought enough about these things to have an answer.
For most of my life I’ve held a particular level of reverence for music and movies – one which remains unique to those mediums. I’ve long considered myself something of a loner, even during phases where I’ve had a healthy social life, but along the way movies and music have occupied a space for me that might otherwise be inhabited by what normies cherish most: You know, things like religion and pickleball. Music and movies have exposed me to different realities, taught me things about myself, and helped me craft whatever sense of identity it is that I’ve ended up with. Sure, there have been periods where I’ve briefly lost my taste for both, but life is also flush with moments where they’ve rekindled within me a broader faith in humanity. That’s not an exaggeration. If you know, you know.
Thoughts around what my favorite movies or pieces of music are don’t mean much in and of themselves, but they’ve taken on an increasingly important role in my life as I’ve decided to start building a music and movie store of my own. Despite how distant a goal a brick and mortar store might be, it’s also becoming apparent how important answering questions like these might be to defining the character of such a space. There are thousands of shops selling music and movies, but what has the potential of differentiating and giving this one its character is that it’s mine. As much as I’m curious to answer these questions for myself out of sheer curiosity, I also want to use these sorts of questions as a playground to determine a north star is for that space. For this to feel authentically me I also need to start defining how it is I got to this point, what I want this to become, and why.
Insert what I’ll be calling Best of the Best. It’s an evolving Mount Rushmore of media, expressed in blog post form – a series of reflections on my favorite movies and music, loosely ranking these things in my life based around ideas like how much they’ve influenced me, why they stuck with me, and why they’re still important to me. What this isn’t going to be is a completist account of what makes these works great, but instead I hope to share why in the most subjective way I can.
When I first started writing about music back in college I quickly strayed from writing about the sorts of things I was most passionate about, opting instead to writing about the things that were merely the most current. That’s been a lingering regret – that I haven’t dedicated enough time to explaining to myself why I feel the way I do about the things that’ve influenced me most. Hopefully, as this project continues, I’ll start seeing a more coherent path forward toward whatever might become of this store idea. And maybe by the end of it, if there is an end to it, I’ll end up with an answer better than “I like a lot of different kinds of music.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.