IT'S OUR SEVEN YEAR BLOGAVERSARY!
Hello loyal readers! It was seven years ago today that we launched The Couch, with goals of being: a chance for friends to participate in collaborative creativity, a great outlet for input from your peers regarding sports and pop culture, and becoming so expertly crafted and well-renowned that we catch the eye of investors and become the next Grantland. 2,555 days on, I'm happy to report that all but one of those things are true!
Just as has been the case every year since this blog's inception, and increasingly in the COVID and post-pandemic era, these last 12 months have been pretty stop-start in terms of the content, as you loyal fans will surely have noticed.
Still, we were able to unleash over 120+ pieces of Couch fury in the last 365 days, and although the writers' and actors' strikes will likely (and deservedly) delay awards season and the release of many TV shows and several movies, we're in the midst of a thrilling Women's World Cup, a scintillating summer of cinema, and Premier League season and college football season is upon us. So, we are more than ready to jump back on the horse. Year 7 of The Couch may have been every bit as (and even more so!) chaotic than the previous six, but it truly was a ton of fun, and it wouldn't have really been that fun if it weren't for your continued interest, so I thought it might be fun to reward all of you by telling you our Top 10 most-read posts since this blog's last anniversary. There are, of course, hyperlinks on each listing in case you want to revisit its glory. Enjoy, and thank you!
This was the most varied Top 10 perhaps ever, with several new names making their first appearance on the most-read list. And an extremely begrudging congratulations to Sierra Slaughter, who has once again taken the crown with her year-end movie ranking.
Author: Daniel Woodiwiss
(March 2023)
"I also realized I hadn't written any sort of recap of or post-mortem for the Grammys nor the Oscars, despite the copious amounts of coverage we had at The Couch leading up to both awards shows...
I'm not going to do a full-on recap for either show, but I will help fill that music/movie/awards show void in the most March-appropriate manner possible: brackets! On this, the last day of Sweet 16 weekend, we'll begin with a 16-album bracket of every Academy Award for Best Picture winner, starting with the newly-minted winners Everything Everywhere All At Once, going all the way back to the Coen Brothers' gritty No Country For Old Men in 2008. I'll walk you through my picks in each round, but feel free to download the bracket for yourselves and fill out your own picks...and let me hear about it when you do so."
Authors: Daniel Woodiwiss
(May 2023)
"I Think You Should Leave has provided some of the most enduring and evergreen references and bits in my life the last few years, and gauging by how omnipresent it is in online discourse, I imagine I am far from alone in that sentiment. So, to celebrate its return, I thought it only fitting to rank every last sketch that Tim [Robinson] and co. have written and produced in the show's first two seasons. For the sketches that have videos available online, a video link will accompany so you can gauge for yourself. But really, you should just rewatch the whole show from start to finish the way I did; you won't regret it."
Author: Christian Becker
(December 2022)
"I re-watched this movie again the other night and I still cried like a baby. [It proves] that original, creative storytelling did not die in 2022, but rather thrived. This movie is a gift to anyone who calls themselves a film fan. The type of crazy idea that makes you want to go out there and put your crazy ideas out into the world."
Author: Daniel Woodiwiss
(December 2022)
"Both in terms of quantity and variety, I've watched more television, I think, in the last three years than I had in the previous decade. Call it a "blessing" of continuous-come-intermittent quarantine, or a curse, but after years of having finally consumed enough content to formulate a ranking of the best, here's my opinion on the best shows, programs, and events TV had to offer in the year 2022."
Authors: Ben Spoelhof and Gabriel Woodiwiss
(November 2022)
"Somewhat lost in the understandable furor of the various controversies of the 2022 World Cup, was the quadrennial discussion about and debate over the kit releases for the 32 nations participating in the tournament. Below, we rank all 32 World Cup-participating nations by their full jersey set (home, away, any alternates), and then discuss our individual favorites"
Author: Micah Veldkamp
(December 2022)
"As a reminder, I’m not ranking the five objectively best albums I’ve heard this year; I’m simply highlighting some projects that I’ve loved personally. Against all odds, people-- okay fine, person (<3 u Jamin) --are still requesting this yearly write-up, so here we are! . . . This is legitimately the first time I’ve opened my Google Docs this year outside of managing my Bachelor/ette fantasy league and updating our family Christmas list. Will my writing still hold up? Was it even good to begin with? Who knows! We’ll discover together. Onwards!"
Author: Daniel Woodiwiss
(December 2022)
"One year on from being "thoroughly underwhelmed" by the music of 2021, I'm here to say that 2022 was an incredible year for music. One of the strongest I can think of since maybe 2015 (which had Kendrick Lamar, Adele, Sufjan Stevens, Chris Stapleton, Florence + The Machine, Alabama Shakes, Leon Bridges, Bruno Mars). Where last year had a lot of good but no great releases, this year had multiple bona fide greats. Where years like 2020, 2018 and 2016 had some incredible heavy hitters near the top of my list but a stark dropoff in quality behind them, this year's bench runs deep; so much so that I don't know how many of last year's Top 10 would have even made the cut this year. Two, maybe? Three? You get the point: the albums this year have set a bar future years will have trouble matching."
Authors: Catherine and Daniel Woodiwiss
(March 2023)
*Note: these actually finished #3 and #4 respectively, but it felt wrong for two of essentially the same thing to commandeer two different spots in the ranking.
"In the first CouchCast in several years, Daniel's sister (and fellow cinephile) Catherine joins him to discuss all things Oscar! We break down our own conflicted relationship with the awards show, what we're eager for (and what we're dreading) re: this ceremony, fight through some minor technical glitches, break down our thoughts on all major races, and manifest our own Oscar glory someday! . . . We gave you our thoughts on the Academy Awards before the ceremony, so you know we had to do a post-ceremony show, too! Catherine joins me once again to break down a much smoother, less chaotic show than we've seen in several years."
Author: Tanner Riley
(November 2022)
"Normally a 1-point loss to a solid rival wouldn't be cause for panic, but the truth is, cracks have started to show in the machine that Dabo has built. The most obvious one is how average-- being generous --the offense has been for the past two years. In truth, the last two years do not tell the whole story-- Clemson’s offensive scheme has actually been pedestrian for years, as many pundits have observed. But it's easier to cover that fact up when you have an all-world QB and RB as the Tigers did in Trevor Lawrence and Trevor Etienne for three seasons. So, after a terrible offensive showing in 2021 and complaints about the scheme and slippage on that front in 2020, what does Dabo do after his offensive coordinator, Tony Elliot, leaves for a head coaching job? He promotes from within, a move some might describe as hubris."
Author: Sierra Slaughter
(December 2022)
"I have made my boyfriend see many movies with me since we started dating and most of the time I grimace at him as the credits roll and say, 'aha so what did you think?' but this time he leaned over to me and said 'I think this is the best movie you’ve made me see yet'."
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