There aren't enough best-of lists, so I made my own one up.

Let's compare notes on the past 12 months of TV, music, film and podcasts.

I’ve been waiting patiently.

I’ve been biding my time, hoping someone will step up and do the thing that needs doing.

Yet, here, early on the morning of December 15, no one has. No one’s made a definitive best-of list, something that sums up the year in TV, music, film, podcasts and books.

Oh, overseas, they’ve been doing it. It’s almost all they’ve been doing.

Rolling Stone has listed named its best albums of the year. The New York Times ($) has listed its best TV shows. Empire’s named its best films. You can go to Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Guardian, the Washington Post, Vulture and many more sites to read top 10 lists till they’re pouring out of your ears.

There are dozens upon dozens of stories listing all of the things we should have seen, read, listened to and formed an opinion on this year.

Except us. Locally, I haven’t seen anyone yet put together a top 10 list that makes much sense.

Few have given Erny Belle the credit she deserves, or called Home Brew’s recent comeback record the instant classic that it is.

Likewise, I haven’t seen the shows Far North, Couples Therapy NZ or After the Party topping local best-of TV show lists like they should.

That’s sad. At Stuff and NZ Herald we used to spend weeks arguing about our end-of-year lists, picking our favourites, debating who deserved which spot.

This year, the Herald gave up, shrugged its shoulders and published the best albums and TV shows lists verbatim from the Associated Press.

That’s a crying shame. It’s been an incredible year for local content. Our music is going off too. That work deserves being applauded.

So. Fuck it. Let’s make one ourselves.

Here’s how today’s going to work. I’m going to list the best things I heard and saw all year, the things that helped me survive and cope with a wonky old year.

Then I’m going to give you a task.

You’re going to tell me what your favourite things were.

Then we can compare notes.

Deal? Deal.

Let’s get into it.

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The best album (that wasn’t Erny Belle) was … Home Brew’s Run It Back.

For me, and many of the people around me, 2023 tested us. It forced us to make unexpected pivots and explore strange detours. Honestly, I had many moments where I wanted to scream, “What next?!” at the clouds. No one sums that feeling up better than Tom Scott. On Home Brew’s first album in 11 years, the Avondale rapper reckons with his own trauma over a collection of songs that are deeply personal, incredibly intimate and yet excruciatingly funny. I’ll be spinning this – especially the one-two combo of ‘Probably’ and ‘80 Down Scenic’ – long after this brutal year ends.

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The best music documentary (that wasn’t WHAM!) was … Milli Vanilli.

I remember throwing my dubbed cassette tape of All or Nothing straight in the bin when it was revealed that Milli Vanilli weren’t a real band. Even at 11 years old, something about all that lip syncing just felt really wrong. This doco dives into why I felt that way: how Rob and Fab ended up fronting a chart-topping group playing songs that were written and performed by other people, how it was all orchestrated by Frank Farian, and how the empire came toppling down. It’s a surprisingly deep, and hugely emotional ride. Pack tissues for this one.

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The best film (that wasn’t Oppenheimer) was … Past Lives.

I still remember the collective inhale that a sold out crowd in Auckland took near the end of this film. Never has a theatre felt so conflicted, so tense, so emotional, so ... what was that feeling? It’s hard to pin down the trick Past Lives plays on your emotions, which is what makes it so great. Are Nora and Hae Sung wrong for each other, or exactly right? What are our own past lives that we fantasise about? Ultimately, this film is a riddle. The answer lies in digging through your own messy baggage. And yes, you’ll need tissues for this one too.

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The best TV show (that wasn’t Succession) was … The Bear.

From the intimacy of Couples Therapy NZ to the misadventures of a bunch of bored teenagers in Reservation Dogs, this year’s best TV could be found in dense character studies. They didn’t get more knotty than The Bear, which managed its second season dilemma by digging deeper. We were gifted so many great shows this year, from The Curse to After the Party, Succession’s fourth season, Jury Duty, Swarm and Dead Ringers, but The Bear cooked with chaos fire all of the god damn time.

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The best actor (who wasn’t Sarah Snook) was … Robyn Malcolm.

Robyn Malcolm and Temuera Morrison in Far North.

I loved Robyn Malcolm in Far North playing a cool semi-retiree called Heather forced to unravel an inept international drug smuggling operation. Great year for her, I thought. Then After the Party came out. Holy freaking wow. Not only did she top Far North, she may have delivered the finest performance New Zealand has seen on a screen. The writing was spectacular, the direction top-notch, the needle drops weredelicious. And yet it all hung on Malcolm and her slow unravelling across a show that played with truth, perspective and reality. It doesn’t get better than that.

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The best song (that wasn’t Tyla’s ‘Water’) was … Caroline Polachek’s ‘Billions’.

You could barely escape the ethereal presence of Caroline Polachek in 2023. She seemed to be everywhere: music festivals, late night chat shows, the top of the charts, as her haunting orchestral voice went to places only Mariah Carey has been before. Shame, then, that she didn’t manage to make a tour stop here after her recent Australian shows. We’ll have to make do with her fantastic album, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, and the best track ‘Billions’, the moment that announced her arrival.

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The best live show (that wasn’t Skrillex) was … Turnstile.

Elton John’s show? Cancelled. Lorde’s Hawke’s Bay show? Cancelled. Shapeshifter’s three festivals? Cancelled. As 2023 got underway, the weather wreaked havoc on our live entertainment scene. Laneway, which had taken three years off over Covid, was forced to cancel again when Western Springs flooded. To make up for it, Turnstile turned up and played one of the best performances the Powerstation has seen, a loud, sweaty set fuelled by up-for-it moshers and a band more used to playing expansive stadiums than intimate clubs. No wonder no one wanted to leave at the end.

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The best podcast (that wasn’t Search Engine) was … Heavyweight.

It’s been a brutally bleak year for podcasts. Advertising cutbacks have caused layoffs across much of the industry. Jonathan Goldstein’s Heavyweight was affected too: earlier this month, the dumbasses at Spotify cancelled it. It’s a crying shame: now into its seventh season, Heavyweight has continued its incredible run of form, proving it remains the best of the best, the north star every other podcaster aims for. Surely Goldstein, his dry wit and his eye for a dense personal yarn will prevail and find a new home?

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The single thing that made me happiest was … Mark Rebillet’s dumbass Coachella set.

He rants, stomps around and gets undressed. He samples his own vocals, yells, “I’m fucking pissed!” into the mic, then turns his own quotable into a dance anthem. He trashes the set. He turns “I’m bothered” into a meme. Mark Rebillet did all of this, and so much more, in a single hour on Coachella’s main stage. It felt like the meeting point between WWF and dubstep that I didn’t know I needed. Honestly, whenever I’ve felt down this year, which has been often, I put this on. It works every time.

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Okay, it’s your turn!

Don’t leave yet. You have one job to do before your year is over.

It’s real easy. Just copy and paste the questions below, fill them out (add your own categories if you’re feeling inspired) and post them in the comments section.

If enough people share their lists, we’ll each have a pretty great list of stuff we probably haven’t seen or heard and can make our way through over the holidays.

The best film was …
The best TV show was …
The best album was …
The best song was …
The best live show was …
The best podcast was …
The single thing that made me happiest was …

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Thanks for being a part of Boiler Room. I’ve had so much fun over the past few months putting these newsletters together. Let’s keep it going in 2024, shall we?