The year in content: 2024

Music, books, and movies

Author

Juan Tellez

Intro

Here’s all the content I consumed this year. The music data comes from Apple Music, the books from Goodreads, and the movies from Letterboxd.

The code I used to clean up the Apple Music data is slightly adapted from Andrew Heiss, which is slightly adapted from somewhere else.

Show code

read_itunes_library <- function(path) {
  raw <- xml2::read_xml(path)
  
  res <- xml2::as_list(raw)
  res <- purrr::pluck(res, "plist", "dict", "dict")
  res <- res[names(res) != "key"]
  
  res <- 
    tibble::enframe(res) %>%
    dplyr::rowwise() %>%
    dplyr::mutate(value = list(tibble::enframe(value))) %>%
    dplyr::ungroup() %>%
    dplyr::mutate(id = dplyr::row_number()) %>%
    dplyr::select(-name) %>%
    tidyr::unnest(value) %>%
    dplyr::mutate(
      entry_id = (dplyr::row_number() + (dplyr::row_number() %% 2)) / 2
    ) %>%
    dplyr::rowwise() %>%
    dplyr::mutate(
      value = dplyr::if_else(length(value) == 0L, list(list(NA)), list(value)),
      value = unlist(value)
    ) %>%
    dplyr::ungroup() %>%
    tidyr::pivot_wider(
      id_cols = c(id, entry_id), 
      names_from = name, 
      values_from = value, 
      values_fn = list
    ) %>%
    tidyr::pivot_longer(
      cols = 4:ncol(.), 
      names_to = "type", 
      values_drop_na = TRUE
    ) %>%
    dplyr::select(-type) %>%
    tidyr::pivot_wider(id_cols = id, names_from = key, values_from = value) %>%
    janitor::clean_names() %>%
    dplyr::select(
      id, track_title = name, artist, album_artist, album, 
      genre, total_time, date_added, skip_count, play_count, year
    ) %>%
    dplyr::rowwise() %>%
    dplyr::mutate(dplyr::across(
      everything(), 
      ~dplyr::if_else(is.null(.x), list(NA), list(.x))
    )) %>%
    dplyr::mutate(dplyr::across(everything(), unlist)) %>%
    dplyr::mutate(
      date_added = strsplit(date_added, "T"),
      date_added = date_added[1],
      date_added = lubridate::ymd(date_added),
      skip_count = as.numeric(skip_count),
      play_count = as.numeric(play_count),
      total_time = as.numeric(total_time),
      year = as.numeric(year)
    ) %>%
    dplyr::ungroup() %>%
    dplyr::arrange(dplyr::desc(play_count))
  
  res
}

Music

New albums in my library

First, the albums I added to my Apple Music library this year. These are the records I discovered this year, whether they came out this year or earlier. Below are the top five by play count¹.

¹ One limitation is that, all else equal, albums with more songs will have higher play counts.

Top albums added to my Apple Music library in 2024
Artist	Album
Adrianne Lenker	Bright Future
Karen Dalton	It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best
Nap Eyes	The Neon Gate
Waxahatchee	Tigers Blood
Okonski	Magnolia

Adrianne Lenker is always good, respect for musicians who put out a lot of music. Some great tracks on this one, and I love the versions on the live album.
Karen Dalton, new discovery for me. Odd voice, and I love the bass on some of these songs.
The Nap Eyes record is great. They came to that vineyard near here but I couldn’t go see them.

Favorite records of the year

These are the records that came out this year and that I added to my library this year.

Favorite albums of 2024
Artist	Album	Genre
John Cale	Paris 1919 (Deluxe Edition)	Alternative
Okonski	Magnolia	Jazz
Christopher Owens	I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair	Alternative

For my favorites that came out this year, I’ll pick:

This great, piano-forward jazz record by Okonski.
The new Christopher Owens solo record. Listened to Girls for years, and this one still surprised me.
Paris 1919 did not come out this year, obviously, but this deluxe edition did, which gives me an excuse to list one of my favorite records of all time. Cale is a genius, has such a sweet perspective, great Welsh accent.

Books

Books I read this year

Here’s the books I finished reading this year and my rating:

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: December 19, 2024
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok
My Rating: ★★★★
Date Read: December 03, 2024
Little Labors by Rivka Galchen
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: October 31, 2024
Temporada de huracanes by Fernanda Melchor
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: October 27, 2024
Lituma en los Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: October 02, 2024
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: September 14, 2024
A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: September 07, 2024
Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias by Stephen D. Biddle
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: September 05, 2024
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
My Rating: ★
Date Read: August 30, 2024
Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford DeLong
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: August 26, 2024
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1) by Kim Stanley Robinson
My Rating: ★★★★
Date Read: August 12, 2024
The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation (Latin America Otherwise) by Greg Grandin
My Rating: ★★
Date Read: June 29, 2024
States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control by Jeffrey Herbst
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: June 04, 2024
The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: May 17, 2024
Una historia política de Colombia: Del siglo XIX al Frente Nacional (Spanish Edition) by Álvaro Tirado Mejía
My Rating: ★
Date Read: May 05, 2024
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: April 13, 2024
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan
My Rating: ★★
Date Read: April 05, 2024
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: April 02, 2024
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
My Rating: ★★★★★
Date Read: March 17, 2024
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
My Rating: ★★★
Date Read: March 04, 2024
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Pyotr Kropotkin
My Rating: ★★★★
Date Read: February 29, 2024
Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple
My Rating: ★★★★
Date Read: January 30, 2024

Descriptives

How do my ratings compare versus the averages reported by Goodreads?

How long am I spending on each book? Caveat: the dates added / read are approximations in some cases.

Favorite books

Favorite books I read this year:

Lituma en los Andes. A sorta police procedural / mystery novel set in the Peruvian highlands during the time of Shining Path. Incredible atmosphere and treatment of SP as a kind of ghost haunting this town.
I can’t believe I read Temporada de huracanes and 2666 in the same year. Both incredible. Bolaño just an unbelievable writer, he can do anything. And Huracanes gives us something new: a “Gummo”-like view of a rural Mexican town where deindustrialization has hollowed out the community.

Surprise read: My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The gender-flipped version of American Psycho. I’m a big Ottessa Moshfegh fan now.

Worst book: Una historia política de Colombia. Repetitive, not much new to say.

Movies

You can see all the movies I watched this year at the bottom. Here’s my stats for the year:

My movie watching stats for 2024
Statistic	Value
Number of movies watched	67
Average rating	3.2
Highest rated movie	The Curse
Lowest rated movie	Anyone But You
Cor(rating, release date)	-0.23

Here’s when I watched:

And here’s the distribution of ratings, for fun:

Favorite movies

The two best movies I saw this year were:

Red Rooms. One of those movies that is completely engrossing and then you take a beat and realize you’ve just been watching a few actors, some shots in a courtroom, an apartment, etc. No bells and whistles, just great writing and pacing.
Possession. Had heard all the lore and finally watched it at Dreamland Cinema. The worst couple of all time.

The worst movie I saw this year was Civil War. Really it should be Anyone But You but that movie isn’t putting on airs. I thought Civil War was totally undermined by its focus on small potatoes photo-journalism. Who cares?

The best movie that came out this year was Daughters, the documentary about a prison program that connects inmates with their daughters for a father-daughter dance. Ugly cry kind of film.

Full list of movies

Movies I watched this year
	Release year	My rating
The Holdovers	2023	3.0
The Curse	2023	5.0
Hard Target	1993	3.0
Anatomy of a Fall	2023	4.5
Safe	1995	4.0
American Fiction	2023	4.0
Combat Obscura	2018	4.0
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three	1974	4.5
Picnic at Hanging Rock	1975	2.5
Crash	1996	3.0
Certain Women	2016	4.0
Possession	1981	4.5
Dune: Part Two	2024	5.0
The Zone of Interest	2023	4.5
The Vanishing	1988	3.5
Nashville	1975	2.0
Sexy Beast	2000	3.5
Menus-Plaisirs, les Troisgros	2023	3.0
The Wicker Man	1973	3.5
The Sweet East	2023	1.0
No Hard Feelings	2023	1.0
Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion	2024	1.0
Challengers	2024	4.5
Eileen	2023	4.0
Sorcerer	1977	2.5
Kicking and Screaming	1995	3.5
The Accountant	2016	3.0
RoboCop	1987	4.0
Election	1999	4.5
The River Wild	1994	3.5
Wild Tales	2014	2.5
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb	1964	5.0
Mistress America	2015	2.0
Am I OK?	2022	2.5
Argentina 1985	2022	2.5
Anyone But You	2023	0.5
American Sniper	2014	4.0
Hit Man	2023	2.0
Se7en	1995	4.0
Tell Them You Love Me	2023	3.0
Promising Young Woman	2020	2.5
Civil War	2024	0.5
The Conference	2023	0.5
The Abyss	1989	4.5
Longlegs	2024	3.0
Tremors	1990	2.0
Long Weekend	1978	4.5
Sorry/Not Sorry	2023	2.5
Kinds of Kindness	2024	2.0
Raising Arizona	1987	4.5
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter	1984	2.0
I Saw the TV Glow	2024	1.0
Daughters	2024	4.0
Speak No Evil	2022	4.5
The Substance	2024	3.5
The Ring	2002	3.0
Election	1999	4.0
Anora	2024	4.5
A Real Pain	2024	4.0
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World	2023	4.5
Red Rooms	2023	4.5
Janet Planet	2023	1.5
The Beekeeper	2024	3.0
Juror #2	2024	2.5
Nosferatu	2024	3.5
The First Omen	2024	2.5
Prisoners	2013	4.0