The Opinions staff asked our columnists to share one book, TV show, movie, album, video game or other piece of culture, broadly defined, that had a big impact on them this year. Here’s what they recommended, and why.
I’ve listened to the cast recording “Soft Power,” a wickedly funny musical satire by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, frequently since its release this spring. The show is an inversion of “The King and I,” in which the wise foreign visitor is a Chinese man advising an American leader about how to civilize her barbarous, backward democracy. Originally, I craved this album because I wanted to savor all the lyrics to “Good Guy With a Gun,” a rootin'-tootin’ celebration of America’s firearms obsession; but in the weeks leading up to the November election, I listened nonstop to the show’s torch song to an emotionally abusive, fickle lover (“Democracy”). — Catherine Rampell