1. Katy Perry is really funny and appealing in this. I love how she acts out her lyrics!
2. This is a reminder that she has so many good songs (and some of her very best songs didn't even make it into this).
3. Taylor Swift has made better front-to-back albums (especially her first three), but single for single--the relative strength of their best-possible greatest hits compilations--they're pretty evenly matched, which makes their feud much more interesting.
4. I wasn't sure how I felt about the two new tracks when she performed them on SNL last weekend, but they're both growing on me fast.
(Un)happy Birthday

In honor of Moz turning 58 (yesterday), here are my 58 favourite Morrissey or Smiths songs.

01. “Jack the Ripper”
02. “What She Said”
03. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”
04. “Now My Heart Is Full”
05. “Speedway" 
06. “I Won't Share You”
07. “Half a Person”
08. “Nowhere Fast”
09. “The Queen Is Dead”
10. “Pretty Girls Make Graves”
11. “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby”
12. “Suedehead”
13. “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
14. “Bigmouth Strikes Again”
15. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”
16. “Cemetry Gates”
17. “You’re Gonna Need Someone on Your Side”
18. “Still Ill”
19. “I Know It’s Over”
20. “Hand in Glove”
21. “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours”
22. “Hold on to Your Friends”
23. “Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself”
24. "We'll Let You Know”
25. “Panic”
26. “Everyday Is Like Sunday”
27. “Girl Afraid”
28. “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me”
29. “I Want the One I Can’t Have”
30. “First of the Gang to Die”
31. “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get”
32. “This Charming Man”
33. “William, It Was Really Nothing”
34. “Ask”
35. “How Soon Is Now?”
36. “Meat Is Murder”
37. “Seasick, yet Still Docked”
38. “I Will See You in Far-Off Places”
39. “You Have Killed Me”
40. “Is It Really So Strange?”
41. “What Difference Does It Make?”
42. “These Things Take Time”
43. “Reel Around the Fountain”
44. “That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"
45. “Never Had No One Ever”
46. “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”
47. “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”
48. "I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”
49. “The Youngest Was the Most Loved”
50. “Alma Matters”
51. “Handsome Devil”
52. “Girlfriend in a Coma”
53. “Unhappy Birthday”
54. “This Night Has Opened My Eyes”
55. “I Just Want to See the Boy Happy”
56. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”
57. “Spring-Heeled Jim”
58. “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”
Four More

The hits just keep coming.

01. Twin Peaks: The Return Holy shit.
02. Master of None, season 2 Stellar when topical, amiable enough when it settles on romantic comedy.
03. King Charles III (BBC Two) Terrific as these things go, and great fun, with a superb lead performance.
04. Vancouver: No Fixed Address Better as a discussion-starter than as a diagnosis, conflating, as it does, phenomena that are (arguably) not directly related; vital in Vancouver, still significant beyond our fair city.
Twenty Seventeen

Things I like so far this year, roughly in order of enthusiasm:

01. Ernst Kantorowicz: A Life
02. The Lost City of Z
03. Get Out
04. the NBA playoffs
05. Riverdale and Jughead, Vol. 2
06. More Life
07. Re-listening to old Cat Power records
08. Sleater-Kinney, Live in Paris
09. The Handmaid's Tale TV show
10. Free Fire
11. Song to Song
WHERE DO THE ROCK-ETS FIND PLA-NETS?
The relatively rough quality of this 22-year-old (!) video of Falconetti-in-flannel-era Chan Marshall doing "Rockets" only makes it more endearing. I thought of this when we saw Mitski play a couple months ago (great show, but too short). 90s Cat Power seems to the prototype for her aesthetic.