Spankify Wrapped 2024: Letterboxd

Quite honestly, you could take the fifth paragraph of Spankify Wrapped 2024: Untappd, do a quick search and replace on a couple of key words, and they’d fit in just fine here. Because it’s a very similar story. Late last year, I started seeing people sharing summaries of their year on Letterboxd, the app where you can log, rate and review all the films you’ve seen. And I thought, “that looks fun, maybe I could try that in 2024.” So I did.

Just like Untappd, it meant that I spent a whole year turning one of my favourite pastimes into an administrative exercise. And just like Untappd, the numbers it gave me at the end of that year made me feel appalled with myself. “What do you mean, I only saw ninety-one films this year?”

Simian Substitute Site for January 2025: De Witte Aap

MONTH END PROCESSING FOR DECEMBER 2024

(produced under the traditional New Year’s Day limitations, i.e. the morning after spending New Year's Eve out on the town, and only having a limited amount of time to write this because we’re going out soon to see Nosferatu with the Pals)

Books: Struggling to find a new audiobook for the long winter nights, I eventually went for one that I’d already read in paper form a few decades ago. Richard Feynman was a minor god to me back when I was studying for a physics degree, and Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman? is a fun collection of stories from his life, albeit detached from the man himself at two levels - ghostwritten by Ralph Leighton, and read by Raymond Todd. Nevertheless, the voice that comes through sounds authentically Feynmanesque, a mix of hard science and goofy humour (though some of his pranks mean that the latter hasn't aged as well as the former). It's a book that now has additional interest thanks to its central section, which is effectively the plot of Oppenheimer retold by one of its minor characters.

Music: For the second year in a row, the reason for this post being short and poorly written is because we went to the Age Against The Machine New Year’s Eve party last night. Strange to think that in 2023, the idea of a club night that explicitly barred under 30s and played songs aimed at an older crowd seemed radical: twelve months on, and everyone's doing variations on the same theme. This year's track selection sounded a lot like last year's track selection in a different order, but when you've got a collection of bangers from Little Richard to the Spice Girls you can't really argue with it. AATM wasn't so much the climax of our twelve-discos-in-2024 project, more the lap of honour after the end of it: more details on that soon, but here's a taster for you right now.

Video: Also coming soon, as another part of the Wrapped series, I'll tell you how I know that yesterday afternoon I saw my 90th and final film of 2024. The Hop-Pickers was only on our radar because The BBG saw the Blu-ray in a shop and was intrigued by - among other things - its collection of bonus features documenting the history of beer production in Czechoslovakia. Made in 1964, the first ever Czech musical - oh, so now I have your attention, do I? - tells the story of a teenage hop-picking collective working together in perfect socialist harmony. All except for two of them, that is, who start displaying disturbing signs of individualism like reading Seneca or wearing inappropriately nice hats. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if they started dating... As sixties a musical as you could possibly hope for, with its wild visual styling, ridiculously groovy tunes and its beat combo Greek chorus: but what makes it really fascinating is that it keeps you guessing for a long time as to whose side it's on.

You're Lucky I Don't Charge: Pick Of The Year 2024

This is the 43rd year that I’ve done this: do you really need an introduction? Blah blah blah favourite songs of the year blah blah blah been doing it on physical media since 1982 blah blah blah competition at the end to win your own copy of this year’s CD blah blah blah yeah it’ll probably be Dave. There. Happy now? Let's get on with it, then. (Oh, and Merry Christmas from myself and The Belated Birthday Girl, obvs.)

Spankify Wrapped 2024: Untappd

My name is Spank The Monkey, and I'm not an alcoholic.

So now we've established that, let's talk about the 501 beers I've drunk this year. And why that number is actually an underestimate.

Spankify Wrapped 2024: Spotify

Let's get this clear straight away. At the end of November this year, I spent a hundred pounds or so on music: mostly CDs, plus a couple of downloaded MP3 albums and singles. It's become a regular fixture in my year, as I buy the records I've liked the most in the previous twelve months in preparation for the assembly of my Pick Of The Year compilation.  And I buy them, because I'm still very much in favour of paying people money for the work they do.

At one point, it looked like streaming was going to make the music business more democratic, giving anyone the chance to get their music out across the entire world. But Spotify's screwed-up algorithms, combined with its even more screwed-up artist payment policies, have ensured that aside from the megasized acts it's well nigh impossible for anyone to consider music creation as a job that pays the rent. I use Spotify grudgingly to discover new music, despite the damage it's caused to an already fragile industry. It wouldn't grieve me too much to see Daniel Ek's head displayed on a pike on the outskirts of Stockholm.

But having said all that, let's have a look at what I've been listening to on Spotify in 2024, as the first part of a short series in which I take all the data that various apps have been tracking about me over the past year and convert it into sexy sexy content.