The Top 5
1. Doodle Jump (iPhone/iPod Touch game, Lima Sky)
The game industry is continually rushing forward, adding more pixels, more polygons, bigger levels, more interaction, higher framerates…But it’s addictive simplicity that makes the most classic games what they are. Doodle Jump has exactly two controls. Tilt your iPod to change the direction your character bounces, and tap the screen to shoot a pellet towards the top of the screen. It’s a continuous world of platforms and squiggly bacteria-like monsters drawn on lined paper that gets progressively more challenging, and constantly changes. Like Tetris, it takes seconds to understand, and stays challenging the longer you play. The cute, hand-drawn aesthetic adds to the charm, making it both accessible, and irresistible.
2. The Beatles Remasters (Capitol/EMI Records, 9/9/09)
This one has been coming a long time, and it’s interesting that it’s coming at the very end of the CD era, as many have noted. Will it sell? Will it matter? Will anyone still care, beyond the aging boomers and the first generation of post-60s kids who were raised on the legacy of the albums, at a distance? Is this a last minute cash-grab, rushed out so there was still a possibility of making some money by selling a physical artifact containing music? Will it be a victim of the loudness wars, overmastered into a brittle, bright, squarewave butcher job? News about the actual process is encouraging, but we shall see…
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz (Interscope/DGC/Dress Up)
I’ve been lukewarm on this band for a while: some superb singles, and some lackluster filler. Their previous album, Show Your Bones, didn’t do much for me, so I sort of wrote them off. But It’s Blitz kicks off with a stunning dance-pop track, and doesn’t quit. Softshock in particular does it the right way, with driving electronics and a delicate synth line backing Karen O’s forceful delivery. It’s different than their previous, punkier material, with an added sheen that emphasizes their strengths.
4. La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962)
This French short film, constructed almost entirely from still photographs and voiceover, was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, one of my favorite sci-fi films. Gilliam grabbed most of the plot, fleshed it out an various ways, and changed some of the details, but kept the sense of doomed romance that makes this so compelling. La Jetée provides the thematic core of one of the smartest time travel movies around.
5. Rachel Maddow & Ana Marie Cox on Tea Bagging (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)
The only thing I laughed at while sick on Friday. Just watch it.
