My 10 Albums of 2015

I told myself I’d make this list on the blog, and so I shall, even if it is three days too late. Here are my 10 picks for 2015 Albums Of The Year.

Before I get into the list, I should clarify that these records are only the ones that were chosen by myself throughout the year that was 2015 as the ones that I enjoyed the most. The field was very limited, as only the albums that were released in 2015 that I have listened to were up to make the list. I’m sure there were a lot of other fantastic records that were released last year. It’s just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to listen to a lot of them. 

And the records I include in this list made the list only because I enjoyed and played them more than other records throughout the year. It’s not to say that Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo and Youth didn’t make the list because it was lyrically inferior, or that Alabama Shakes’ Sound & Colour wasn’t great, it’s just that I didn’t play them as much, that’s all. I’m putting this list out there in the hopes that you dear reader will be intrigued by any one of these albums (if you haven’t listened to them yet) and would have thoughts on your own regarding an album so that we can talk about it (if you have listened to any of them).

So here we go, my top ten, roughly divided by genre, arranged in no particular order:

HIP HOP

To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

Okay, I confess: I lied about the list being arranged in no particular order. This right here is the undisputed number one of the list. The rest are at number two. It’s just that good. If you ever had doubts as to whether a hip-hop album could ever be taken seriously as a piece of art, this right here will make you believe. Enough said.

The Night Took Us In Like Family by L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae

This album’s use of sound samples from old black and white movies provide a very warm and thematic feel to the album, and it made me feel like I was watching an old James Bond slash mafia movie just by listening to the album. Jeremiah Jae’s cryptic and laid back delivery provides for a compelling listen as he assumes the role of protagonist in this film noir musical experience. He just sounds so good on these L’Orange beats.

Compton: A Soundtrack by Dr Dre

I didn’t expect to like this record as much as I did. Dr Dre did good by getting together some really banging beats and pairing them with awesome features, proving once again that if anyone has an ear for who goes on what song, it’s him. He didn’t skimp out on the songwriting either, with each track giving the listener a different side to what it means to be a Dr Dre.

So The Flies Don’t Come by Milo

I don’t know what to say about this album, really. It’s just Milo doing his thing on some atmospheric, strange beats. He does sound angrier than his usual calm and collected self, and he touches on more political issues than a Milo listener would come to expect, but it’s all good front to back music still. I kept coming back to this one and just couldn’t push stop on it for quite a while.

ROCK

Currents by Tame Impala

Okay, so this might not be quite as rock-sounding as their previous record, but it’s a good album nonetheless. I enjoyed it loads, and as a listener, it was clear to me that there was a theme to the album: moving on. Putting together an album’s-worth of songs about moving on and making them all interesting from beginning to end is no easy feat, but Kevin Parker of Tame Impala came through with something special. I’m still listening to this one today.

Commemorate! by Dirgahayu

The only local album to make my list, this band has produced a post-rock extravaganza that kept me engaged throughout the album. I’m not the biggest fan of post-rock, since I find myself switching off rather easily midway through a song, but these guys didn’t allow that to happen at all and took me on a roller-coaster ride of a music listening experience in each individual song. I hope they continue to expand and make good music.

Painted Shut by Hop Along

I couldn’t stop listening to this one when it first came out. The first ten seconds of the album kept me on it for the who forty minute ride, and got me returning for more and more. I’m going to be a fan of this band for a while, methinks.

OTHERS (MOST POP)

25 by Adele

Again, another album I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I do. When the first single, “Hello” was released, I had my reservations. But the more I listened to the whole album, the more I fell in love with it. Sure, it’s not as good as 21 (as any Adele fan would tell you), but it’ll still have you belting out song after song unashamedly in your car.

Short Movie by Laura Marling

This one is another grower. As a fan of Laura’s work from the beginning, this album felt more like she let go of a lot of things and wasn’t as meticulous as she always seemed to be, so it does provide for a different listening experience for one Laura fan that is me. But the tunes delivered in this album were still strong and still had me wanting to singalong to not only the words but also the guitar play. 

Have You In My Wilderness by Julia Holter

I came into this album no knowing what to expect (since it was described as “baroque-pop”). I stuck to it until the very last track and found out that I actually enjoyed a lot of the songs on it, making me put it on repeat for quite a while. If you want a different kind of pop, a more beautiful, pretty kind of pop, this record is a wonderful start.

So that’s all in my list of Albums of 2015. I hope to listen to more new albums in 2016 and probably have a more comprehensive list by the end of it. If you have any thoughts regarding any of the albums I listed, do drop me a tweet. Here’s to more good music in 2016.

First Time Husband Thoughts

So I’m a husband now. That’s a thing.

With it has entailed a few things. Right off the top of my head, we’ve moved into an apartment together. It’s been a new experience, with both of us adjusting to each other’s constant presence around each others’ spaces and managing the house, but it’s been good. I’ve always known that I’m an incompetent home manager, so I am more than happy to let her take the reigns and whip the apartment into shape, and do that she has.

Like I said in the previous post, I’ve always felt that our marriage was inevitable ever since we really got to know each other, and living together is just a natural progression of that, so I’m not weirded out so much by us being around each other as soon as we wake up until as soon as we fall asleep. I remember to keep being grateful for it, because we never know what the future holds.

The other day I was driving back to the apartment from getting some stuff from Tesco, and the wife was in the car with me and she fell asleep. I looked over to her and remember thinking to myself “so this is what it feels like to have another half physically here with you.” Since our relationship had always been long distance, this was the most time we had ever spent with each other being this close to each other for this long a time, and it’s certainly the first time we’ve lived together here in Penang, so it’s definitely a change from what I’ve always been used to, which was going wherever I wanted when I wanted for however long as I wanted. 

Now that I have a physical other half to take care of, I have to take her into consideration when making decisions about where I’m going to be, when I’m going to be there and for how long I’m going to be there. It’s definitely a change of pace, but I also a natural progression as well. It is my choice to share the rest of my life with this person, and I’m happy to make the changes necessary to make it work.

I suppose why I’m cool with this arrangement is because I married my best friend. We enjoy each others’ company very much, in conversations, in arguments and even in silence. It’s always comforting to have her around, to know that she’ll be there for me whenever I need her, and I hope to always be there when she needs me. We both realise that for us to work, we have to communicate really well with each other, so we’re both working towards communicating effectively with one another. 

It can sometimes get tough, but we both want to make this work, so we’ll compromise when we have to for the greater good. I have a lot more to learn about her and she about me, and we’re both growing and changing every day. I just pray that we’ll be able to grow well together and be able to be each others’ support system. 

Yesterday, she referred to us as a family. I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I just wasn’t used to it. What she said was true though. We’re now a family of our own. I had always had my parents and brothers in what came to mind when the word family was raised, but now there’s an addition to that picture, and I’ll get used to it, sooner or later. Us both are now our own little family unit that needs to navigate life together, for better or for worse. I just hope that through it all, we’ll be holding each others’ hands.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

So it’s 2016. Such a strange number, two-zero-one-six, isn’t it? 2015 looked more, I dunno, square? Like, more secure, more stable, more planted. Maybe that’s just because it’s more familiar. Yeah, maybe that’s it.

Before I say hi to the one-six, I’m going to have a look back at the one-five and see what past me left behind for present and future me to reminisce about.

Right off the bat, in regards to this blog, I wrote the most I’ve ever written in this blog in 2015 than I have in any other year. That’s something to smile about.

But, of course, most of that writing was only done in the first half of the year. I sky-dived straight downwards in the second half. I was supposed to write short stories weekly from July onwards, but I only got one done. Some months went by with no posts at all. So it’s not all rainbows and sunshine for you there Anwar. You can definitely work on your consistency. 

It’s not that my goals weren’t realistic (at least I don’t think so). I’ve shown that I am fully capable of writing consistently when I want to (and sometimes when I didn’t even want to either). I think it’s more like I just let go of myself after Ramadhan. I just didn’t bother getting back up on the horse, like I said I would. I shifted my focus from writing consistently to, I don’t know what really. Something else. I just stopped. So this year, don’t stop. Continue.

I also wrote some rap songs. That’s good to know. I now have 15 original songs up on my Soundcloud page, and as a critic of my own work, I’ve seen a slight improvement in the quality of work I’ve been producing from the start of the year towards the latter part of the year. 

I’ve even performed some of those songs on open mic stages and to anyone who was willing to listen. That’s another plus point for yourself, Anwar. Who would have thought that a year after I went to the poetry workshop in the 2014 Georgetown Literary Fest I would be performing my own pieces for the 2015 Georgetown Literary Fest. For that I have to thank Ksatriya for taking me under his wing and giving me a space to grow in. I am grateful that our paths crossed.

This year, I want to start writing more thematically. I want to create more complete works, that have contexts of their own. So less standalone songs and more sets of songs that go together. Having Kendrick Lamar as your main influence does that to you, I guess. 

I also launched my very first physical book in 2015. Wow. I’ve always wanted to author books. And hopefully this is the first of several, if not many. I’m grateful that I have had the opportunity to be published, and I hope that I shall have more opportunities to produce better works. I really want to improve upon myself as a writer, and hopefully that first book shall be viewed as the first and lowest step to other pieces I’ll work on in the future. 

I also managed to get a column in the only newspaper I read, The Star. Sure, it’s in the R.Age section, and it’s a monthly thing, but it’s always been a dream of mine to one day write for that paper, so it feels wonderful to have done that. I need to up my writing game, for sure, to keep up with the high standards I’ve always viewed The Star columnists to have. Hopefully I am able to bring my A-game in all my pieces for them so that I can continue writing for them for a while.

2015 was also a year of good friendships made. I grew close to several people that I now behold dearly in my personal life. Some had to move away by the end of the year because of work purposes, but I am forever grateful that we were able to be as close as we were for the time that they were around. Some continue to be close, so that’s a relief. Some have, from the very start, been long-distance, but through the miracles of Twitter and EnglishJer, we are able to remain close, and meet-up from time to time and grow even closer. 

And by the end of the year, I got married to my best friend. It felt pretty natural, really. I never thought there would be a different outcome from us knowing each other. It’s just that now, I can call her my wife, and I can call myself her husband. Might seem weird, but I’ve always felt that we had always been married, as early as after a month of knowing each other, so the pernikahan didn’t really freak me out that much at all. It just felt like this “finally” kind of feeling. And now we have the rest of our lives to spend together. I think this whole business of being a husband warrants a whole other post, so I’ll save it for that one.

So I’m coming into this year with a few things going and several goals to head towards. I’m going to jinx it all straight from the get go by listing some of those goals here:

write 5 blogposts a week

use one of those blogposts as a rough script for weekly videos to be uploaded to Youtube on Sundays

read every day for at least 20 minutes

make monthly(?) local book review videos

make two rap songs a month, publish them on the 7th and 21st of every month

And I think that’s that. Here’s to a bigger and better 2016, for all of us, one hopes.

So Here's The Thing: Local Book Reviews

Okay, so here's the thing. Next year I've got a few goals lined up for myself to work towards, and they include making more videos and reading more books. So naturally, I figured some of those videos are going to be book reviews. Cool? Cool.

Here's the thing tho. I'm going to be making a conscious effort to read books from both international and local authors. I won't be reviewing all the books I read (because I lazy liddat, and I oso want to make videos talking about other stuff oso), and I feel that if I were to review these books from international authors, I'd be just another grain of sand on the beach (since so many people should already be talking about those books already because they're international bestsellers and whatnot). There's not enough people talking about books written by local authors, especially in video form, so I want to be a person who provides a place to talk about local books in video form. The thing about that is that the audience for those kinds of things aren't really that big. Not as much people read local books compared to international ones, and that's a bit disheartening. So I won't get as many views, I suppose, but that's the thing Anwar, you shouldn't be doing it for the views. You should be doing it because it's worth doing. Because you'll be providing representation for discourse on local books. Because you'll be showing to local authors that people do give a shirt. Who knows? You might even end up being the catalyst for bigger and better things. And that's reason enough to do it, yes? Yes.

So here's the thing. I have to start reading books.

Sadness In Listening To Hujan

This morning I had another listen to the Hujan acoustic showcase that they did a few years back because of all the #Hujan10tahun pictures that were taking over my instagram timeline. I wrote a paragraph when sharing the youtube video as a facebook status a couple of years back, and I reread it yesterday.

I said some stuff about how Hujan are not just a band, that they are a symbol of possibility, growth, maturity, passion, creativity, entrepreneurship, dedication, fun, and drive. I also said that I would be a very different person today if they were not as big a part of my life as they were, as they are.

And while listening to the showcase, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of sadness. It made me realise how time changes us, our circumstances, and as a consequence, our relationships with people. Throughout listening to Hujan, I've been fortunate enough to have met and become close friends with so many wonderful people, people that have been and are so integral to shaping who I am today. And for that I am deeply grateful.

But also, those relationships, as do all relationships, I have learned, have evolved throughout the ten years of Hujan's existence. For better or for worse, they change, because people and their circumstances change, and as a result, relationships change, and a lot of them fade.

And I guess the sadness that I felt throughout the day as a result of re-listening to the showcase stems from being reminded of this fact, the fact that people and relationships change, no matter how much you want them to stay the same. And it's not like I dislike that fact or that I don't want to accept it. Rather, it's just me being sad about those things, and that's okay, to be sad about things that make you sad. You don't have to be happy with something to accept it. You can accept things with sadness too, I think.

About a month ago, one of my friends' life was changed because he got married, and as a result of that, our dynamic inevitably changed. I was, I am happy for him for being able to unite with the person he treasured the most in his life. And at the same time I was sad that a certain phase of life seemed to close on us right before our very eyes. There's that saying that goes, don't be sad that it's over; be happy that it happened. I feel like it should be: be sad that it's over AND happy that it happened. We shouldn't negate sadness to the realms of weakness. It's what makes us human. It's what adds to our humanity.

I have this feeling that these coming couple of months will be dynamic-changing as well for me. And I honestly don't know what to expect in that regard. And I guess I'm being sad because I'm aware that these few weeks that I have left (this is assuming that I have these few weeks to live, but questioning my mortality will have to be saved for another time) will be the closing of a chapter for me, and for the people close to me.

I am thankful that I have the set of people around me right now, with the relationships that we have right now. May we be set on the straight path in whatever we do.

A Good Weekend Reflected

So I've just had a pretty good weekend, in my book. Went to Kuala Terengganu for a forum where I was a panelist alongside a close friend, got to hang out a bunch with good people, wrote a couple of poems, and to top it all off, I got to witness New Zealand winning the 2015 World Cup. All in all, smiles by the time I got back on the plane back.

But as I was scrolling through the twitter and the instagram, I felt a feeling slowly creeping onto me, a feeling of sadness, more than anything else, really. I blame Twenty-one Pilots' acoustic rendition of Tear In My Heart for this.

I got to sort my thoughts out when I got back to my apartment room, and I ended up with the question: am I doing enough good in the world to make it a better place?

And the answer to that is: rasa macam tak cukup. Far from enough. And I guess that's what made me sad. That even on good days, they weren't good enough, at least not for me. And I started thinking, "wouldn't it be great if we knew when we were doing good enough? There'd be a meter we can check to see if the stuff we did through the day or even throughout our lives were enough to be called good, and we can physically see it so that it could guide us in our daily lives."

But then I thought, hey, maybe we don't know how much good is good enough because we're not supposed to know. Because if we knew, no, if I knew, then being the lazy human being that I am, I'd keep my deeds to a bare minimum. And if everyone who did good only did the bare minimum, then that'd suck for the world because there's a whole buncha other people who don't really care all that much about doing any good. We'd be doing just enough for ourselves, and unfortunately, that's nowhere near enough for the world in general.

I came to thinking that maybe feeling like I'm not doing enough is a good thing. Maybe that by having this feeling that I need to do more will drive me to do exactly that: more. And the more good we give out to the world, the better it gets. it's idealistic of me to think this, but I'm a naïve person, so yeah.

And I think that if ever there came a time that I felt like I've done enough good in the world, then that would be when I'm at my lowest, since I would feel content with myself. And I don't want that. At least not the me right now. The me right now has this burning urge to prove to myself that I can do good things in the world, and can be useful to the people around him. I look at myself and see this lowly useless piece of faeces and everyday is just a struggle to prove myself wrong, to be able to say to myself that hey, you're not a good for nothing after all.

So feel insecure Anwar. It's alright.

Lame

This piece is meant to be spoken.

You call me lame

as if I'm supposed to be ashamed.

If I could,

I would put lame in my name,

and use it with pride.

I'd be like

"Hi, my name is Anwar Lame Hadi,

nice to meet your acquaintance!"

You see the word lame

like it's used to describe a lamb with three legs.

I take that as a compliment, if you know what I mean.

I mean, lame isn't a derogatory term, no.

It's a frame of mind

out of which I find

the world to be unconfined.

While you're looking through windows,

I'll look through Apples.

See,

I don't find the humour in being

the same as every other human being.

You may be comfortable with conformity,

but I have trouble keeping a straight face when I hear a fart.

And that may indicate

that I'm not as sophisticated

as you grown ups up in here.

It may even point towards me

and my supposed inability 

To grow out of immaturity.

But if growing up means being the same as everyone else then I may as well stay seven forever.

I also have trouble staying on topic, aparently.

What you call lame, I call unique.

What you call lame, I call needs more brain power to process.

What you call lame, I call me maybe.

Wait, I just met you. This is crazy.

What you call lame, I call awesome.

And in response to my lameness, 

you might say "but I'm confused!"

To that, I can only say

"Hi confused, I'm Anwar Lame Hadi."