i love lifetime by erika de casier

i love the way the drums fade in under the pads at the beginning of “miss.” i love the way the whole album shares that same sound like glue but each song sounds so different inside it. i love the percussion on “you can’t always get what you want” it reminds me of “tricks on me” by future. i love the little whistle that plays behind her when she says “sex and desire” like it’s a release after singing about all the ups of being young and beautiful. i love the industrial drums on “seasons” and the way the lead synth reverberates between them like it’s on its own timing and i love the little plucks panned to the right and the strings panned to the left and the riser down in the middle. “december” is probably my favorite song of the year. i love december. i love how she says she doesn’t have to try to be nice with whoever the song is about. i love how she produced this whole album. i love the sound effect that sounds like a horse neighing on “delusional.” i love the way she stutters the “did i.. ever.. see you.. around..” i love the way the drums stutter at the beginning of “the garden” and i love the sound of the keys. i love the way the hook twists and spirals up like it’s ivy climbing up the side of a brick wall or a wrought iron gate. i love when everything except the pads and bass drops out around 1:30 in “two thieves”. i love the synth that sounds like a stuttering phone dial. i love the bell that hits in the left ear right at the end of “lifetime” and then you feel its reverberations as the pads and vocals wash out.

i love lurker directed and written by alex russell

i love how it doesn’t present celebrity as a one-way projection from entertainment industries but as a weird carnival two-way mirror that feeds off parasocial fans. i love how it portrays the camera as evil and photography and “archiving” as a smokescreen of talent and credibility into exclusive, artistic spaces. i love how funny zack fox is in it. i love how propulsive it is, how it jumps and shows shifts in dynamics and power without telling you anything leaving you to pick up the pieces. i love how cruel the main character is to his super sweet and supportive grandma — it’s dropped in super early while we still kinda like him and is a pretty funny but also telling peak into how depraved he gets later. i love a movie that will completely rewrite the rules on you halfway through. i love how it captures the specific anxieties of navigating hierarchies in artistic industries. i love how matthew and oliver push and pull each other and i love how it strips away the social niceties or pretense that fill up so much of the first half. i love how it ends on a punchline. i love the score from kenny beats. i love oliver’s house and his super cool bedroom.

i love city the animation by kyoto animation

i love how this show looks. i love the thick lines and soft pastel color palette. i love how orange everything turns when the sun sets. i love how it slowly expands, starting with a small and hilarious cast of characters before slowly building out so you have a good idea of all of city’s residents. i love how it slowly reveals the secrets of the town. i love how different episodes lean fully into different formats, like one structured like a dungeon crawler rpg and another like one big race. i love the commitment to fully hand-drawn 2d animation, especially in shots where the camera is moving and each frame of the moving city is handdrawn. i love how it feels so real while still remaining 2d animated which is so rare. i love how it structures its gags, sometimes so wildly and loosely and abstractly it reads more like poetry than a traditional gag anime. i love how much it makes me smile. i love how much it makes me laugh. i love that it was made. i love it so much i really don’t want to write anything too specific about it because there’s only so many episodes and gags and its voice is so strong and sure it’s best to be experienced by itself — no writing about it could do it justice and i love that about it.

i love fancy that by pinkpantheress

i love tartan. i love how pinkpantheress always carries a bag. i love how she dresses like a shojo character. i love the way those synth stabs on “illegal” sound like huge runway lights turning on and off and i love how the snare pops inside them. i love her vocal run when she goes “oooooh is this illegal.” i love the blood-curling scream that plays during the breakdown i love how her music always has this obsessive latent horror under the uptempo beats that peeks through her lyrics. i love how “girl like me” starts with that quick high-pass filter. i love how the bass stutters under the “ah ah you’ll be alright” and then how it stutters during the hook. i love the repetition of “let it all go.” i love the piano that comes in after the first hook. i love the wardrobe and set design for the “tonight” music video. i love how those little sounds in the high end create such an immediate bounce before she starts singing on it. i love the repetitive “it’s like what?” i love how she repeats “you want sex with me / come talk to me” it’s so confident and quick and fun. i love how “stars” feels like it’s descending down a spiral staircase when that kick first hits. i love how the bass bubbles under the kick. i love “noises.” i love that guitar riff that explodes when the bass and drums and vocals drop it’s so propulsive and exciting. i love the nardo wick vocal sample that makes up the hook. i love the breakdown on “nice to know you” when the vocals become spacey and the strings start taking over. i love how crunchy the drums and bass are on “stateside.” i love how she says “i might just add you to my portfolio” it reinforces the tongue-and-cheek fashionista diva energy holding the whole thing together by turning dating into a moodboard.

i love marty supreme directed and written by josh safdie

i love how evil this movie is. i love when tyler the creator and timothee are ghostriding the taxi and singing and dancing and celebrating. i love how wally sees through marty the same way rachel and his mother do and those are the only people he lets turns himself off for. i love when kevin o’leary says that he was born in 1601 and he is a vampire i think it’s my favorite line of the year. i love when marty brings his mom home a piece of a pyramid. i love when marty pimps out his friend’s holocaust story to get kevin o’leary’s attention and respect. i love how that immediately leads into gwyneth paltrow in the hotel room, revealing herself to him and how he can barely even believe it at first. i love everything about gwyneth paltrow and kay. i love those first few hits of “forever young” at the very beginning before the title drop. i love the set design, especially the construction work and prop work during those street shots during the day. i love the moment during the final game between marty and koto endo where a young boy climbs metal scaffolding just to get a better look of the game. i love how cruel and thoughtless and insufferable marty is but then when you see him play it’s so gravitational and so moving and i love when we see how undeniable his greatness is on the faces of the ping pong tournament guy and kevin o’leary especially in the end. i love how much of this movie reminded me of “what makes sammy run” by budd schulberg. i love the OPN score. i love the zip-up cardigans and high waisted pants.

i love friend by james k

i love the grey spiral cover art with the beautifully drawn pink girl and the way her left arm is cut off but reappears on the right side of the picture. i love the way “days go by” chugs along in its intro. i love the guitar that comes in around 1:30. i love the way “doom bikini” rises and falls and ebbs and flows like a surf rock dream. i love its huge, wide snare hit. i love that cutting synth solo at 1:35 and how it drops out around 1:45 and how much space that gives the chugging bassline. i love how idea.2 takes its time to find its groove and takes you with you on that journey. i love that weird, bubbly pitched up 808. i love how “rider” flutters. i love the main chord progression in “peel” and i love its weird squishy percussion that feels just out of reach. i love how the drums subtly pick up around 1:40 and how the hi-hats start to roll and the kick starts to stutter. i love the title “hypersoft lovejinx junkdream” and it is a perfect song to me. i love that little upturned polyphonic slide the pads do, softly raising up the voice and i love the boa interpolation.

i love the testament of ann lee directed by mona fastvold

i love how concerned this movie is with process. i love the montages of cutting, stripping, measuring wood. i love how we get to see, practically, the birth and upkeep of a mostly-insular, mostly-self-sustaining community existing outside the state. i love amanda seyfreid in this. i love how her eyes scream. i love how the movie is structured. i love how it isn’t wrapped up in melodrama and just shows. i love how the music sequences are integrated. i love that first musical sequence in the Quaker’s house. i love all the chairs.

i love some of the artists working at dc comics

i love every single line drawn by hayden sherman this year. i love hayden’s insane work ethic, drawing twelve issues of batman dark patterns and over ten of absolute wonder woman. i love how hayden’s characters look like they’re made out of clay and i love the shakiness of their lines. i love how, for wide shots, hayden will draw smiley faces on their characters. i love when hayden draws a top-down 3/4 angle and the characters feel so real. i love hayden’s layouts, how they create images with the panel shapes and how they lead the eye and I love how much the panel flow and image choices change and adapt depending on the book they’re working on. i love nick dragotta’s work on absolute batman. i love the way the characters’ eyes feel so deeply inset in their heads. i love how many panels nick can cram into a page and how it makes the whole thing feel so quickly paced and alive. i love the way nick intercuts panels of bane’s blood, turning from red to green as he becomes more saturated with venom. i love how, after batman does something crazy or cool, nick will put in a panel of a bat display at a zoo saying something like “bats are crazy!”, i think it’s the closest the book gets to true poetry. i love the shot of the batsuit hanging over batman and how he cowers in fear of it and then the next page is a full-page spread of Batman literally charging through a solid wall, axe-in-hand. i love how catwoman uses her tail to choke or dispose of people. i love how killer croc has two faces, one up close at the tip of his snout that looks human and then his huge face that takes up most of his body. i love how nick takes a script and story that does not live up to its potential as a new, inventive take on batman and one that is so obsessed with self-referential winks to batman’s existing mythology but elevates it into something truly great by having art that’s really just that good. i love how he recommended tower dungeon to me at comic con. i love javier rodrigeuz’s work on absolute martian manhunter. i love how the gutters are an off-white, beige and i love how the oranges greens reds and yellows and blues compliment it. i love how the color palette is so specific and important. i love how javier blocks out the colors during the layout process so it all coheres in the final art. i love how malleable and soft it feels. i love how it flips through strong images and leaves an impression of story and feeling rather than telling you one, mirroring johns’ mental state. i love the design of the martian and i love how javier originally modeled him out of clay.

i love lucre by dean blunt and elias ronnenfelt

i love the cover art. i love how it feels like flowers but it feels like fish and it feels underwater. i love every single melody on this album. i love how 1 opens with that da-da-da-da-da-da refrain before the music comes in, and i love how the guitar and drums embody that refrain. i love “you’re a dope and a fiend for the show.” i love “unfollowing the current / it’s a great stride.” i love how it feels like a funeral march. i love that spiny, perfect melody that begins “2” before the powerful drums start with that confident snare hit. i love how the guitars rise like mickey conducting the waves in fantasia, right under the vocals and the symbol hit to feel conclusive and powerful. i love the “ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh” chant. i love “it was a course-correcting violence.” I love “they’re working me like a violin” on 3. i love how much energy is injected after it slips into that beat switch. i love the “doot-doo-la-doo-doo-doo.” i love how 4 has such a powerful bassline and i love how everything feels built out from that. i love the guitars that come in around 26 seconds. i love “And I thought that I shook my / Demons for a while / They slept in hybernation / Resting for the time being.” i love the intro to 5. i love “if we’re going down it’s in a hangglider / you fucking launched like it was a paraglider / and i want to preach the truth in everything / it’s not a morgue it’s a crash site.” i love how addicting the hook is. i love how compressed the guitar is on 6. i love “99 percent fade out everything.” i love the strings on 7. i love the yeah… yeah… yeah, yeah, yeah. I love “Feel too many limps in the famе, Lord / I don’t wanna die in vain, or.” i love how crunchy the guitar solo is around 1:07. i love how 7 makes me feel.

i love eddington directed by ari aster

i love how joaquin phoenix’s character seems mostly reasonable but a little out-there until about halfway through the movie when you realize he’s actually incredibly evil. i love how that reframes his actions in the first half of the movie. i love austin butler’s one scene. i love how ari aster nails the feel that everyone is living in their own algorithmic worlds. i love how no one in the movie is on the same page. i love how it feels like a funhouse mirror of the real world. i love how smug pedro pascal is and i love how ari aster twists his likeability and wholesome persona to make him so punchable. i love how it devolves into a western. i love how you can just see the corners of its world, just like ours. i love how it’s about the construction of a data center. i love how mean it is. i love how it feels like ari is trying to make a modern pynchon story. i love how much it hates itself. i love the ending. i love the speech the kid gives at the march. i love the burning effigy to white supremacy that stops joaquin phoenix in his tracks. i love how it shows how white supremacy perpetuates itself through people trying to get ahead instead of just base hatred.

i love donkey kong bananza developed by nintendo

i love donkey kong’s redesign. i love how absent and excited he looks and i love how he’s programmed to respond and track the smallest things, even banandium gems in the environment. i love the design of the npcs, especially the gem creatures with eyes with beautiful lashes and blush that you can take apart or build open. i love how it isn’t a sequel to mario odyssey but how it rhymes with it. i love how it feels to move. i love rolling into a jump and then clamping onto a wall and climbing a little and then punching in. i love how the destructible environments make all the levels feel so big and full of mystery. i love how you have to pound on your chest to activate the transformations. i love the snake transformation especially and how it forces you to slow down for carefully planned jumps. i love all the levels. i love the fast food inspired theme park level the best, and i love how when you go a level deeper it’s this disgusting metal dungeon with tons of toxic ooze. i love how you keep digging deeper through the layers of the levels and how they’re constantly throwing new environmental mechanics and hazards at you. i love how pauline becomes more vocal and confident as you progress. i love the king k rool boss battle at the end. i love rolling around his giant arena like it’s dark souls with snappy punching. i love how punching down, forward and up are all mapped to their own buttons.

i love sinners directed by ryan coogler

i love how in a lesser movie the first hour or so would feel like overwritten, contrived setup to get us to the action but the characters are so sharply and carefully rendered it feels so lived in. i love the set for the town. i love the scene where they drive through the cotton field and Sammie sings for the brothers and Delta Slim. i love how michael b jordan plays twin brothers and they have color-coded hats. i love the music. i love how it escalates into b-movie horror while still foregrounding the character drama. i love how it’s like a gangster movie, too, but instead of setting up some racket they’re trying to keep their stolen money circulating in their community. i love how music becomes magic that connects people through time. i love how it shows just how vital a political resource music is and how easily it’s extracted and co-opted. i love the video where ryan coogler is describing all the different formats where you can watch the movie. i love how he breaks down the differences in film stock. i love that he got to write, direct and have final cut over this movie and i love that he’ll get full rights to it in 2050.

i love b.o.a. by osiaaa

i love osiaaa’s voice. i love how he sounds a little bit like a sesame street character. i love his oh yeah. i love how it bounces over the beat of “2025 music.” i love the snaps on “6foot 7foot” and how those band hits sit quietly in the back. i love how “like mf” twists around itself. i love how soft “bae u love me” is and that sample in the back and how osiaaa slows himself down. i love how “i ain’t gon lie to you” stutters. i love that “o-oh.” i love how boofpaxkmooky’s voice is so watery and smooth and how it’s the exact opposite of osiaaa’s harsh tone but they both fit on the beat so perfectly and so differently. i love the restraint on “hope i don’t trust nobody” and i love how he sounds over those watery vocals at the end.

honorable mentions that i loved but didn’t have much to write about:

• i love music by playboi carti
• i love chainsaw man: the reze arc directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara
• i love the passionate ones by nourished by time
• i love oi by yt
• i love let’s meet at junes by dolo2000
• i love fada<3of$ by niontay
• i love live laugh love by earl sweatshirt
• i love wolves howling by bassvictim
• i love fortnite
• i love off me by bri3
• i love okay by love spirals downwards
• i love everything going on with josh o’connor
• i love swaghili by brodiebased
• i love the twins (1969) by courting
• i love the beach by winter
• i love what i made with joe by georgie & joe
• i love fingers crossed by kwes e
• i love mysterious girl by neggy gemmy
• i love 800 degrees by 12k gotti
• i love black british music by jimlegxcy
• i love ice fever by vĩ
• i love swaggin by skinnyboi cj
• i love jbh by pi’erre bourne and young nudy
• i love you got time and i got money by smerz
• i love with a vengeance by sherelle
• i love everness by kaho matsui and outside hire
• i love fresh n clean by $amaad and tony shhnow
• i love not so virgo of you by lucki
• i love everything going on with tisakorean
• i love champlain cowboys by the champlain cowboys
• i love through the cherry gates by sabriel
• i love the mastermind directed by kelly reichardt