Met Recap: Seattle Arts and Entertainment in 2016

MUSIC

• Women ruled this year’s Sasquatch! Festival. (And we were there to take pretty pictures.)
• Unafraid of summer festival fatigue, Paul Allen announced the creation of the Upstream Music Fest and Summit, which will attempt to be Seattle’s SXSW.
• Car Seat Headrest put out the most acclaimed rock record of 2016, Teens of Denial. Pretty good for a band most people don’t even realize is from Seattle.
• At long last, KEXP opened its new Seattle Center home. (P.S. It’s neat.)
• While Macklemore and Death Cab for Cutie put on great headlining sets at Bumbershoot, everything about the festival seemed out of place (including a certain writer’s emotions).
• Crater’s debut album Talk to Me So I Can Fall Asleep provided much needed digital sonic escapism and proved to be Seattle’s best album of 2016.
• Nirvana’s classic LP Nevermind turned 25.
• Macklemore and Ryan Lewis followed up The Heist with the release of This Unruly Mess I’ve Made. It couldn’t match hype and success of their breakout, but that’s not really a shocker considering how high the set the bar last time out.
• Death Cab for Cutie released a scathing anti-Trump song. Lotta good that did…
• Pop punk princess Lisa Prank spoke to our collective inner lovesick teenager with her album Adult Teen.
• Suicide Squeeze Records turned 20 and celebrated with concerts featuring label favorites like Minus the Bear and Childbirth.
• Seattle’s lost its best producer when Erik Blood moved to Los Angeles. (All the tears.) But at least he gave us an ethereal solo record (Lost in Slow Motion) and the best music video of the year (“Chase the Clouds”) before departing. (Also, he promised to come back and visit.)
• People love to rag on Capitol Hill Block Party, but even the haters had to admit this year’s festival was pretty great.
• David Bazan put out a terrific and somber electronic album (Blanco), then followed it up with the most bummer Christmas album (and plenty of pointed thoughts about the President-elect).
• Cry queen Adele played KeyArena, so we ranked her most emo lyrics. There were a lot of choices.
• Tacocat made another blissful pop punk album (Lost Time), performed the rad new Powerpuff Girls theme song, and even put out a line of lipstick.
• Chris Staples provided a masterclass in songwriting ease on Golden Age.
• Guns N’ Roses finally reunited with Slash and Seattle’s own Duff McKagen and played a show at CenturyLink Field. And it was actually a rocking concert! But we still kinda made fun of the band… because really, how can you not?
• The Head and the Heart traveled to California to find a new sound for Signs of Light.
• Onry Ozzborn called on 16 of his friends to make the superb collaborative hip-hop album, Duo.
• The Black Keys’ frontman Dan Auerbach chatted about what inspired his new band, the Arcs.
• We penned an open letter to Pearl Jam asking why the band doesn’t play Seattle concerts. (But seriously, why?)
• Shannon Perry proved she’s not just a killer tattoo artist when her band Gazebos released Die Alone on Hardly Art.
• We put out the seventh edition of the free local music-packed Seattle Met Mixtape. We may or may not have gotten super busy ran out of time to put out #8 before the end of the year. (Sorry!)

THEATER

• Hamilton is coming to Seattle! The wait is already excruciating…
  
  
• The National Theatre of Scotland provided another stellar and atypical theatrical experience with the exuberant folk adventure, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart.
• ACT Theatre’s Bad Apples attempted to turn the Abu Ghraib torture scandal into a love triangle rock musical. If that sound like a terrible idea… surprise! It totally was.
• Seattle Rep’s Constellations managed to turn string theory into a love story.
• Oh my God, you guys, Seattle Rep’s Disgraced was so #$%@!&% bad. You know that awful Abu Ghraib musical I mentioned two bullet points ago? That was somehow like a million times better. Holy hell, Disgraced was garbage.
• Assassins at ACT Theatre may have been a little hit or miss, but when you’re firing bullets, that’s still deadly enough.
• Playwright R. Hamilton Wright brought the world’s most famous detective back to the Seattle Rep stage with Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem. 

BOOKS

• Lindy West continued to be the brash feminist voice that America needs with the release of her first book, Shrill.
• After the smashing comedic success of Where You’d Go Bernadette?, Maria Semple returned with her new novel, Today Will Be Different.
• Eli Sanders turned his Pulitzer Prize winning story about a Seattle rape and murder into a gripping nonfiction tome, While the City Slept.
• APRIL Festival has decided to end its yearly celebration of independent literature after the 2017 edition.
• Joel McHale took a break from his day job of being TV’s go-to handsome smarmy guy to write his first book, Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be.

• Sean Beaudoin tapped into his dark rock side to write the short stories that became Welcome Theieves.

VISUAL ART

• Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker concluded her tenure as director of Frye Art Museum, but not before saying goodbye with To: Seattle | Subject: Personal.
• Seattle Art Museum’s Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic proved to be the year’s best art exhibit thanks to the artist’s gripping immediacy and incredible thematic depth.
• We took an in-depth look at how Urban ArtWorks strives to beautify Seattle with public murals that offer creative employment for at-risk youths.
• While the event can be a tad overwhelming, the Seattle Art Fair once again showed off works from some of the best art galleries on the planet.

DANCE

• Choreographer Kate Wallich embraced industrial music (and the city’s tech boom) to create Industrial Ballet.
• Seattle modern dance pioneer Bill Evans returned to Velocity Dance Center to prove that age is just a number (76, in this case) with a solo performance.
• Madboots used 16,000 blue rose pedals for its performance at Whim W’Him’s Choreographic Shindig.

CLASSICAL & MORE

• Former Cornish music chair Laura Kaminsky returned to Seattle with the transgender opera As One.
• Seattle Opera’s general director Aidan Lang discussed the struggle to overcome stuffy opera sterotypes.

FILM & TELEVISION

• A couple Seattle screenwriters penned the script for Poland’s biggest box office smash… despite not speaking any Polish.
• The Real World Seattle: Bad Blood brought MTV’s original reality show back to the Emerald City. (Possibly for the sole purpose of making us all suffer.)
• Magnolia native S. Leigh Savidge earned an Oscar nomination as one of the writers of Straight Outta Compton.

• A summer tradition died when Fremont Outdoor Cinema lost its home. Sure, the series moved to South Lake Union and became Seattle Outdoor Cinema, but it’s just not quite the same.
• Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions received an Oscar nomination for the documentary short about Ebola in Liberia, Body Team 12.
• Everybody’s favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, came to Seattle to talk about movies. Since he loves fact-checking films, we speculated which classics he could ruin.
• We argued that Adam West could save the dreadful DC Cinemeatic Universe. It’s not too late!
• The stars of Animal Planet’s Treetop Cat Rescue discussed their harrowing feats of feline bravery. (No animals were harmed in the making of this interview.)
• As American Idol came to a close, we examined the show’s most memorable Seattle contestants.

COMEDY

• Brett Hamil found a comedic sweet spot with his hard-hitting humorous political talk show, The Seattle Process with Brett Hamil.
• Seattle’s favorite weird and awesome comedian Emmett Montgomery finally recorded his first standup album.
• After sexist backlash against the SoDo Arena vote, Samantha Bee ripped idiot Sonics fans to shreds and formed a starting five of female councilwomen (the Seattle Seawords) on Full Frontal.
• Seattle native Quincy Jones turned a terminal cancer diagnosis into a career year that featured an HBO standup special.
• Adam Conover kicked off the Adam Ruins Everything Live! tour in Seattle with his signature brand of fact-checking comedy.
• Jo Koy returned home to Seattle to tape his latest standup special.

SPORTS

• After a disastrous start to the season, the Seattle Sounders finally fired head coach Sigi Schmidt. The move sparked the most miraculous turnaround in MLS history, which improbably culminated in a the team’s first MLS Cup victory.
• Ken Griffey Jr. was (deservedly) elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame with record for the highest percentage of votes. He returned to Seattle in August to have his Mariners number retired and celebrate with Seattle fans.
• The Washington Huskies came out of nowhere took the college football world by storm, earning a spot in the College Football Playoff and a shot at the national championship. To be continued…
• After Chris Hansen and company ponied up even more money, it looks like the Sonics SoDo Arena might finally happen. We happened to intercept the first draft of Hansen’s letter to the Mayor Murray (it’s totally real, you guys).
• After 26 up-and-down years, Nintendo sold the Mariners to a Seattle group led by John Stanton.
• The Copa América soccer tournament came to CenturyLink Field, which meant one thing—iconic superstar Lionel Messi actually played in Seattle.
• Seahawks legend Marshawn Lynch retired from the NFL. (Maybe he knew how bad the O-line would be this year…)
• Tacoma’s Miesha Tate shocked the world by beating Holly Holm for the UFC title. (Let’s ignore the fact that she followed it up with multiple losses and retired before the year was over.)
• Some of the best pro wrestlers in the world came to the Paramount Theatre for NXT Live. “This is awesome! *clap clap clapclapclap*” chants were well deserved.
• In a depressive fit, we pondered if the Mariners would make the playoffs before a hypothetical Seattle NBA or NHL team. (The jury’s still out…)
• Former WWE Champion and Aberdeen native Daniel Bryan announced his retirement from pro wrestling due to concussions in front of an emotional hometown crowd in KeyArena. (No, *you* were crying.)
• The Seahawks wore some hideous Color Rush jerseys, which were awful for reasons that go beyond making us want to gouge out our eyes.
• Speaking of football style, Russell Wilson released a fashion line called Good Man Brand, because…???
• Our city is full characters, so we determined which famous Seattleites would make good pro wrestlers.
• We attempted to dissuade you from spite rooting against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

VIDEO GAMES

• Seattle tech minds are leading the way in our virtual reality future.
• Nintendo announced its new console, the Nintendo Switch. Color us excited.
• The Pac-12 became the first major conference to embrace esports. Could scholarships for video game players at UW be next?
• Pokémon Go was officially a thing for a hot minute. We tried to help you avoid it.
• Blizzard brought Heroes of the Dorm—the ESPN-televised March Madness of esports—to Seattle.

• PAX West continued to be Seattle’s premiere overwhelming gaming convention. 
• Local gamer Rori “CauthonLuck” Bryant-Raible won big on the professional Heroes of the Storm circuit.

OTHER NEAT STUFF

• EMP Museum underwent a rebrand and changed it’s name to (the more accurate) Museum of Pop Culture. We swear it we’ll adjust to this by the end of 2017.

• We shared some of our favorite secret (or at least underappreciated) Seattle entertainment spots, including the hidden piano rooms in Seattle Public Library.
• The World of WearableArt exhibit at EMP… err… MoPOP… was surprisingly great, so we handed out yearbook superlatives for some of the best costumes.
• Our Fall Fashion feature took inspiration from Twin Peaks. (We’ll give you one guess if we’re stoked for the show’s return.)
• After the tragic Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, the Seattle Arts Commission wrote a dramatic letter to Mayor Murray in support of DIY venues.
• We made a flowchart to help you decide if you should attend GeekGirlCon. (Spoiler alert: Yes.)
• To celebrate Star Trek’s 50th anniversary, EMP (ugghhhhhhhhhhhhh…) MoPOP hosted Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds. Unfortunately, the exhibit was spread a little to thin to fully engage.

• You know those Funko figures that you see freakin’ everywhere? We chatted with the guy that makes ’em.