Probably the first thing to notice here is the lack of Yuki Kajiura who has for the last several years always been found in my top three artists. The reason for this is actually really easy to pin down: early this year I finished writing my PhD thesis. Since then my listening habits have very strongly changed. Previously the majority of time spent listening to music would be as music in the background while working or travelling with recreational active listening being much less. However now that I'm doing a lot less writing that recreational active listening has become my primary way of listening to music. A lot of this isn't reflected in the statistics that are displayed. The breadth of music I have listened to has increased by a lot with this year being a real time of new discoveries however listening to new music doesn't translate as well to the Spotify wrapped kind of statistics which lean more on repeated listening. Sure Flueves might be the album I have listened to most this year but I have also listened to maybe 5 times as many albums this year as last year.
Last year really was the year of London Grammar's Californian Soil for me (yeah I know it came out the year before) and that is reflected in the statistics as despite only really still listening to it for the first couple of months of the year it made it onto the top 5 albums. This one really was the definitive sound of my grippy sock era last year.
Topping the song list this year is Qian Zui Yi Sheng by Sally Yeh. This song was written to be the theme of the 1989 Hong Kong action movie The Killer but it found it's way to me as the title track of the 2018 film 江湖儿女 - Ash is Purest White. It is really perfect for the opening third of the film set in a nostalgic vision of 1990s Shanxi. This became the theme for Gondwanaland Girls as this film was a big influence on the vibe I was going for with that.
Gondwanaland Girls really drew a lot of influence from music with Music For Freelance being an inspiration for the format (Radio Free Sandgrouse instead of Radio Free Mars). Songs like Grant Miller's Find My Tracks in the Snow and the music from Sea Power's Let the Dancers Inherit the Party were big influences and the name of the game itself came from Pangaea Girls. As ever RPGs made their impact on my top listneing list.
This year has been notably more jazzy and notably less depressed in music than last year. Things like Flower Face, that topped the list last year, have fallen off completely and in general my listening habits have been more geared towards album listening hence why I added an album category to the listing this year. The idea of that category was to separate out playlist or one off listening from full albums. My methodology was to order albums by the number of plays of the two second most listened to tracks which though maybe not perfect I think does get the result I want.
Fish in a Birdcage was a big winner this year in ways that aren't super reflected in the stats mostly because of methodology. If a bunch of their releases were combined into an album they would almost certainly have topped the albums chart. Also I decided that each artist could only appear once in the top songs list, there would have been more of them there otherwise. Fleuves is interesting to see at the top of so many lists but it makes sense that album is great. The moment in Le Fil when the bassist comes in is just golden. My favourite bassist of the year is probably still Jens Saleh in Black Hole.
#Cookie Jar gets an honourable mention because even though I only listened to it once this year a few months ago it remains in my head. Unforgivable ear worm. If you are reading this and you are the friend that introduced me to this song then know that I desssspise you for doing that (jk you are great).
Television:
Haven't watched too much television this year. Stand out Chinese drama this year (yes I know it actually came out last year) for me was 漫长的季节 The Long Season. Really liked that one. In terms of anime the only ones that came out this year that I watched were Apothecary Diaries and YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master. Really liked both. Still haven't got around to the new Sound! Euphonium and I'm also kinda interested in the Ranma remake.
I thought Foundation S2 was fine, didn't like it as much as S1. Did not like the Penguin idk why that surprised me. Still hate watching For All Mankind and will absolutely continue to. There are probably other things I watched this year that have just escaped my memory. [later rosie note: Oh yeah House of Dragons. It was forgettable.]
Movies:
I only saw 2 movies in the cinema this year. Both were set in a desert. Dune 2 was a disappointment, didn't think it was as good as the first one. I found the romance laughable (I laughed), I'm not a fan of the soundtrack and it all felt in bad taste to watch a film adaptation of a fanfiction of the Algerian revolution all the while aware of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The cinema experience was also bad. I'm not sure if their volume settings were wonky or the film is just that loud but the whole ordeal left me shaken.
Meanwhile I really enjoyed Furiosa, probably my second favourite film in the series after the original. I think there is a lot to compare with the original. If Fury Road was a lot like the Road Warrior then Furiosa is a lot like Mad Max, on a surface level it has the revenge story and biker gangs but also thematically I think they deal with the same questions. Above all of this though I just really loved Dementus. He and Shen Mo from The Long Season really just are perfect companions to have been watching in the same year as self destructive unpersoned revenge girls (I guess Furiosa also counts as a self destructive unpersoned revenge girl herself).
Videogames:
This year was not much of a gaming year as my poor little computer waddles inexorably towards it's death. The highlights are Vicky 3, RoTK8 remake, Morrowind and Stardew Valley. I haven't had a chance to play Factorio's space expansion yet but that could also be fun. Seen a lot of talks about Minecraft at colloquiums/conferences this year. Might get back into that at some point.
Reading:
Been reading the Water Margin recently, really enjoying it. Iron Oxen by William Hinton is a really interesting dive into the history of land reform in China following the revolution written by someone who was on the ground participating in it. There has beena whole lot of other fiction and non-fiction that I'd love to talk about sometime other than a year wrap up list. In terms of poetry I finaly got my hands on a copy of Mirzo Tursunzoda's collection My Day and Age which is great.
The highlight in comics this year for me has been 小姑孃 - My Dear Lass which has tragically been cancelled recently. It's great, I'm sad that it won't continue. Akame was great. Also shutout to The Ennui of Being an Egg for that ace representation, it felt really realistic to ace relationships in a way I appreciated.
RPGs:
As a GM I've run three things this year. It's been a bit slow as I've still been recovering from the horrors of 2023 but I'm getting back into the swing of it. We had a Mothership adventure set in Marinian space following on from the last Thin Ice game. This was really well and I think showcased how you can make Mothership work in a one-shot context. Having run a more sandbox style Mothership campaign it was really nice to see the system doing perhaps more what it is intended to do.
Next was Gondwanaland Girls. Those of you who were waiting for me to post another diary on the progress might be waiting forever. Though I did continue running it for another session and the next session worked a lot better I think that I felt really held back by the system itself. I've talked to the players about it and I do think I'd like to revisit the setting/concept but maybe with a different system.
Trophy Dark: Cave of the Crab King happened last week, it was amazing, really pleased with how it came out. Trophy Dark remains my favourite system for one shots. It's mechanics perfectly fit the mood that it's going for and I think everyone had fun.
As a player this year started with the end of our Vampire game. It was fun while it lasted but things were falling apart somewhat by the end. I'm sad to see Carla go but also a little relieved because she was a very intense character. Now I've just got my regular Star Trek group and a GURPs Dungeon Fantasy thing that started a couple of weeks ago. Also did get to play a one-shot BitD a couple of weeks back that was a lot of fun. Would really like to visit FitD as a GM at some point.
None of this list has been exhaustive but I think it highlights some of the fun stuff from this year!