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It looks like a magazine (glossy!) and feels like a book (super thick!). But it’s a newspaper, it’s free, and it’s out on the streets today: Washington City Paper‘s Best of 2015 issue!
Our staff writers, editors, and contributors have written the near-equivalent of an entire normal-sized City Paper on the best of D.C.’s arts scene: the venues, labels, musicians, festivals, newcomers, old faithfuls, TV shows, and power players that make our city an arts community we can be proud of.
And our readers have spoken, too—-the winners of our annual poll represent the popular vote on best art class, local cover band, movie theater, DJ, and more.
Pick it up today. Read it. Cuddle up with it tonight, and always (or at least until our 2016 issue). Keep it in your desk drawer, coffee table, or safe deposit box.
Or, if you prefer your words illuminated on a screen, check out our picks online:
- Best-Intentioned, Best-Programmed Loss
- Best Art Gallery With Regular Nude Performances
- Best Breath of Fresh Air
- Best Buskers
- Best Checkers Club
- Best Cheerleader for the D.C. Indie-Rock Scene
- Best Cinema
- Best Comeback
- Best D.C. Label You Probably Didn’t Think Was A D.C. Label
- Best Earth Day Festival
- Best Film Festival
- Best Folk Troubadour
- Best Free Jokes
- Best Hip-Hop Producer to Soundtrack Your Walks to the Metro
- Best Historical Intervention
- Best Jazz Compatriot
- Best Least Prolific D.C. Label
- Best Mainstream Venue for Seeing Underground Acts
- Best Movie Theater Lobby
- Best Musical Refuge From the Barren Hellscape of AdMo
- Best New Cultural Center
- Best New Homegrown Music Genre
- Best New Old Jazz Venue
- Best One-Two Gallery Punch
- Best Over-the-Hill Makeover
- Best Overhyped Museum-to-Be
- Best Payoff from a Delayed Debut Project
- Best Place to Drink Espresso and Sample Dance Vinyl
- Best Place to Take an Adult Dance Class and Not Feel Like an Asshole
- Best Planned Museum
- Best Public-Access Hand-Dance TV Show
- Best Random Mid-Week Hip-Hop Party
- Best Realism
- Best Shy Glizzy Mixtape of the Past Year
- Best Synth Weirdo
- Best Take One/Leave One Book Collection
- Best Up-and-Coming Author
- Best Use of a Neighborhood in a Song Title
- Best Venue Flouting Religious Significance
- Best Way to Jam Out With Your Kid