Thank God! I was wondering how and when SG was going to give me space to emote on the death of Princess Leia. You didn’t need to make the Paul Simon connection, you know? She did sing the Wookie Life Day song in the Star Wars Holiday Special after all. Wasn’t that enough? It should have been.

I don’t think I shed any actual tears for any of the celebrities we lost this year until Carrie Fisher died. I can’t think of a fictional character who influenced my perception of women as a boy in a more positive way than Princess Leia did. Not even putting her in a metal bikini and chaining her to a giant space slug could demean her. She was stronger and smarter than the boys, but she wasn’t some stereotypical bitch either. A lot of the credit goes to the script writers, but we’d be kidding ourselves to think anyone else could have pulled off that role. It was a tightrope walk between vulnerability and strength. It could have gone wrong in so many ways. If she hadn’t had the insane screen presence that she did, then the Star Wars galaxy would have swallowed her just like it swallowed Natalie Portman. Carrie Fisher had a gift. Fuck 2016.

The Orange One fears people whose troll game is tighter than his own.

Never cared much for Aphex Twin

Saw on Spotify that one of y’all was listening to “Run the Jewels 3”, and was like “that’s a dick move naming a playlist that.” But then I clicked and it was Run the Jewels 3.

I’ve been commenting here for about 4 years now and this is my first editors choice. I figured it’s because I’m pretty rough around the edges and my humor is pretty dry. Oh my dear god, thank you 8 lb 6 oz baby Jesus, thank you Santa Claus, thank you Tom Hanks, and most of all, thank you Scott. The smile on my face is much larger than I ever thought it capable of being. My year has been so hard for multiple reasons, what a great way to end it and start the new year. I’m going to go skip around my hometown and give everyone high fives now.

i strongly disagree with dave penis and his negative assessment. maybe billboard knows how to fix website login issues?

happy christmas!

I imagine you doing this when you saw you got Editor’s Choice:

Billboard bought Stereogum? Pfft, what do you think is going to happen? All of the sudden they’ll start praising Carly Rae Jepsen and The 1975?

Agreed.

And I think the backlash to Mike’s comments on the election has gotten out of hand. I don’t agree with his call for black voters to stay home and I think it was irresponsible. But (1) it should not be a surprise if you’ve ever listened to Mike’s music. He has never called himself a Democrat. On “Reagan” he called out Obama for invading Libya. He has always been anti-racism, anti-imperialism, anti-war, etc., and the fact that he takes those commitments seriously enough to refrain from partisan cheerleading is not something I’m going to rail on him for. Lord knows HRC had plenty of cheerleaders in the entertainment industry, most of whom are far more influential than Mike, so let’s not make more of his abstention than it really deserves.

Which leads me to (2): in a year like this, we do need art and artists that will direct attention to the deep systemic causes of our political problems rather than playing the also-important (but hardly art-worthy) game of partisan point-scoring. Mike’s politics are not exactly my politics but they are coherent and thoughtful. I’m sorry if you just wanted art that makes you feel good about doing the bare minimum and voting for the Democrat, but you’re not entitled to that. Same goes for the massively unfair criticisms that Anohni got for criticizing Obama on her album. Maybe it makes it easier to fight for your team if you can put your head in the sand with regards to the very real evils that people like Clinton and Obama have been party to, but I do believe art has a higher purpose than flattering our practical politics. Sometimes it complicates things where we want simplicity. That’s important. If you want to look away, that’s your call, but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss everyone who disagrees with you as juvenile or naive.

How has this guy not been named Surgeon General yet?

Please Mr. Mayogay do not ruin my moment. Have some manners.

Probably AIDS complications.

Don’t start my friend, don’t start.

Ah yes good old Knut– fascist / nazi sympathizer

White People

He was an absolute master. One of the finest voices to ever do it and a masterful musician… many don’t realize he wrote, composed, and produced almost all of his solo and Wham material and also played many instruments on his records

He made soulful pop music with substance and did it for all the right reasons. I hope todays artists look to George Michael, Prince, and David Bowie and challenge themselves to make more meaningful music. We need it