As is tradition, I'll open my usual year-end music blog post with a quick glance back at the major trend(s) in my music listening habits this year. Last year, the major theme was underwhelming releases by some of my all-time favorite artists. That doesn't really apply this year, as not too many of my all-timers released new albums. Less Than Jake (yes, really) put out an EP that I dug quite a bit, and the new Decemberists album was pretty solid. Spoilers: Kendrick Lamar's new album was outstanding. None of the other albums in contention for AOTY were from longtime favorites, though (although a few of them could certainly end up as such in a few years).
No, the major trend this year was somewhat in the opposite direction: the number of "new-to-me" artists in this space is WAY down. Last year, artists like Joy Oladokun, Noah Kahan, The Beaches, Bully, and Hot Mulligan appeared here, with the latter a major contender for both AOTY and SOTY. This year, there are no new-to-me contenders in either of those categories, with only a meager handful sprinkled in the other categories. If I tried to do a Best New (To Me) Artist category (great idea in any other year!), I don't think I'd really be able to fill it. And, besides, the winner would clearly be Chappell Roan... whose album actually came out in 2023. (Not that stopped the Grammys from nominating her for Best New Artist. Forever the worst major pop culture awards body.)
So what does this mean? Am I finally, actually, irrefutably too old for new music (like I first thought back in 2017)? Maybe. Or is there just less good new music being released these days? Possibly, but I doubt it. No, I suspect there are two main culprits: 1) Spotify algorithms, and 2) my avenues for discovering new music have become more and more limited.
I do almost all of my music listening on Spotify, and instead of listening to tons of new and cool and hip artists, I instead listened to a lot of... well, a lot of what I listened to. According to my Last.FM (yep, I still keep up with mine in the year of our lord 2024), three of my top five artists were Waxahatchee, Maggie Rogers, and Kacey Musgraves. And I'm pretty sure the reason for that is simple (and somewhat concerning): they all kinda sorta sound a bit similar, and Spotify's algorithm likely played the other two after I finished listening to one of them, like some ouroboros of country/folk/pop–tinged singer-songwriters. I suspect that's also why there's so much Alkaline Trio/Laura Jane Grace/The Menzingers on there as well. Spotify is just one big ol' echo chamber now, isn't it?
Not only are my listening habits being influenced by goddamn Al Gore rhythms, but they are also decidedly NOT being influenced by real people like they used to be. Five or ten years ago, I would have had a much larger network of real-life friends to trade music recs with as well as plenty of reliable means to find new music recs online. By now, both of those wells have mostly dried up, unfortunately. I still have almost all the same friends (I think), but music doesn't come up as often in conversation now that we're in our 30s and 40s, and our tastes have probably diverged anyway. I'll still trade the occasional rec with my brother or fiancée (life developments!), but that's about it. (And my tastes don't 100%—or even 50%—align with theirs either.)
Online, the old reliables used to be the AV Club or Grantland. I've never found any kind of adequate replacement for those two once stalwart pop culture sites. (Never been a Pitchfork or Ringer guy.) I still do keep up with some of my favorite music writers from those days (especially Steven Hyden, my spirit animal), but the rapid deterioration of Twitter has made that exponentially more difficult. One thing I usually do toward the end of the year is scour all the big year-end lists (yes, including Pitchfork), and I did find a ton of promising new-to-me artists: Good Looks, Trace Mountains, Liquid Mike, CLIFFDIVER, Wishy. But I haven't yet spent enough time with those albums and artists to include them in this blog post.
So I guess my music goal in 2025 is less to be less reliant on algorithms (and maybe get away from Spotify entirely—yikes) and more actively seek out new music from real people, whether they be IRL or online. Sounds like a good plan to me! Anyway, that preamble was way longer than usual, so let's get into the actual music I dug the most in 2024, shall we?
* = saw live this year
Alkaline Trio* – Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs
Amyl and The Sniffers – Cartoon Darkness
Frank Turner – Undefeated
Laura Jane Grace – Hole in My Head
Also enjoyed: DEADLETTER – Hysterical Strength, Less Than Jake – Uncharted
Last year was an embarrassment of riches for fans of punk (or punk-adjacent) music. This year, not so much. I had a somewhat hard time filling this category, and there's certainly nothing here that's as good as the Hot Mulligan or Sincere Engineer records from last year. There's also not much that's truly "punk" here—DEADLETTER (h/t to the baseball writer Keith Law's newsletter) is more post-punk, LTJ is ska, Aaron West is more emo/folk (albeit certainly punk tinged), and Frank Turner has definitely softened a ton since his punkier days. (The rest seem to fit the bill, though.) But genres aren't super important, and these artists all fit well enough under the same umbrella, so let's dive in.
- We'll do a quick alphabetical lightning round before the winner. I'd listened to Aaron West a bit before this year, and I've enjoyed getting to know The Wonder Years better in recent years, but this was the first Aaron West album I've really listened to—and it's pretty great! Lush arrangements (love the strings and steel guitar), strong songwriting, and Campbell's typical committed vocals. "Roman Candles" and, especially, the title track are absolute standouts.
- I don't think an ALK3 album has truly grabbed me since probably 2008's Agony & Irony... and that trend continues this year. Like their previous several albums, there's plenty to like here (the title track and "Versions of You" are great) but the album as a whole isn't particularly memorable. But in a relatively weak year for this category, this one sneaks into the field.
- Amyl and The Sniffers is basically a new-to-me band this year. I met up with a cousin of mine last year sometime and he mentioned this band, so I think I gave them a cursory listen or two at the time. Well, Al Gore and His Rhythms must've been paying attention and served up their feisty new album on Spotify. It's mostly snarling vocals and guitars and raucous percussion ("Jerkin'," "Chewing Gum") but they can hit a nice groove as well ("Big Dreams"). Hella fun stuff!
- Turner's album also likely wouldn't have made the field in a stronger year—and it probably barely belongs here anyway. It's very strummy with plenty of ballads, and even the upbeat numbers are more like powerpop. But he still gets lumped in with the punks sometimes, so I'm slotting him here. His new one isn't quite on the level of 2022's FTHC, but tracks like "Letters" and "No Thank You for the Music" are very good.
Charly Bliss – Forever
Japandroids – Fate & Alcohol
Los Campesinos! – All Hell
Sammy Rae & The Friends* – Something For Everybody
Sleater-Kinney – Little Rope
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Also enjoyed: Beabadoobee – This Is How Tomorrow Moves, The Decemberists* – As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
More fun with genres! This category is mostly just what doesn't obviously fit into either of the other two genre categories—no punk leanings here (although Japandroids and Sleater-Kinney are close), and these are all groups that don't fit neatly into the singer-songwriter category. But they all definitely fit under the ever-nebulous "indie" umbrella, so we're going with it. Again, I'll try to keep the non-winner write-ups relatively brief and go alphabetical.
- I was lucky enough to see Japandroids live when they were touring for Celebration Rock at a pretty small venue in Tempe many years ago. Nothing they did before or since reached the highs of that epic opus (my #2 of 2012), but their final album tries is damnedest. Lead single "Chicago" had my hopes through the roof, and while the album as a whole didn't quite live up to that promise, it's probably right on the level of their previous album, 2017's Near to the Wild Heart of Life (AOTY HM that year, about where this one will land).
- I think I would probably count Los Campesinos! as a new-to-me artist in 2024. I had certainly heard of the Welsh indie/rock/emo band previously, but I'm not sure I'd ever listened to more than a handful of songs here and there. Then I think I spotted them in my Release Radar Spotify playlist and gave their new album a whirl—and I dug it quite a bit. It's a little bit Arcade Fire, a little bit Coheed and Cambria, a little bit, I dunno, Tigers Jaw? It's an album—and group—I need to spend more time with, which I very much look forward to.
- I first encountered Sammy Rae & The Friends in 2022 thanks to my then-girlfriend (now-fiancée), back when they were only putting out singles/EPs. Despite that, they will won their category that year. Their full-length debut didn't quite manage the same feat this year. Don't get me wrong, it's a great record, but I think I have a hard time thinking about it like an album since it was mostly released as singles beforehand (which seems to be their MO), and it also doesn't quite *feel* like an album to me either (the songs and styles are so disparate). But it's got a couple of my favorite songs of the year ("Thieves" and "Coming Home Song") and will figure in the AOTY race anyway.
- The same old girlfriend that introduced me to Japandroids also introduced me to Sleater-Kinney. Well, that's not technically accurate—I knew of the band because of this all-time great SNL sketch, but I'd never actually listened to them before. They obviously rule. They're now down to a duo and this record is no Dig Me Out or All Hands on the Bad One, but Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker still totally wail. Especially on the first five tracks, with "Hunt You Down" as the true highlight of the album.
Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
Katie Pruitt – Mantras
Maggie Rogers – Don't Forget Me
MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
Waxahatchee* – Tigers Blood
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Johnny Blue Skies – Passage Du Desir, Katie Gavin – What a Relief, Soccer Mommy – Evergreen, Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene
As mentioned in the intro, this is the "genre" I listened to most this year. Waxahatchee was by far my most-listened artist, and Rogers and Musgraves weren't too far behind. Some of this was due to Spotify algorithms, sure, but the artists here are all exceedingly pleasant listens that were very easy to throw on sitting at my computer working in the afternoons. Which is probably how/when I listen to music the most these days (that and on the elliptical at the gym). Mostly gone are the days of listening to music while driving around—I work from home (so no commute) and on the short drives to the store or gym or wherever, I usually listen to sports or FM radio. These albums would be great driving music, though. On to the blurbs.
- I've always been a bit of a fan of Kacey Musgraves, one of the biggest names (if not the biggest) to appear in this year's post. I don't think I listened to her first album much, but I enjoyed Pageant Material, and "High Horse" from Golden Hour made an appearance here in 2018. Star-Crossed never grabbed me a few years ago, but Deeper Well absolutely did this year. She just seems like she's at the heights of her powers on this record, and tracks like "Cardinal," the title track, and "The Architect" received a lot of spins for sure.
- Katie Pruitt also has one previous appearance here, an HM shoutout in 2020 for Expectations. I had high hopes for her follow-up after hearing "White Lies, White Jesus, and You" earlier in the year—such great songwriting, plus a killer guitar riff. I wasn't quite as wowed by the album overall, but there were enough strong songs like "All My Friends" and "Worst Case Scenario" to get a nomination here.
- The Maggie Rogers (HMs appearances in 2019 and 2022) record *is* an example of an album that lived up to the promise of an early single. That single was "So Sick of Dreaming," easily one of my favorite songs of the year. I'll have more to say about it later (spoilers), but the album itself could have easily won this category. It feels like it should have been a huge breakout for Rogers, a songwriter's showcase with scorchers like "Drunk," "The Kill," and "On & On & On" that should've made her as big as Musgraves. Maybe her next album? It'll at least be eagerly anticipated by me, if no one else.
- The much-beloved MJ Lenderman album was actually my last inclusion here—I'm just not quite as enamored by his slacker-poet aesthetic as most seem to be. But I wound up including it largely on the strength of two songs: the sardonic himbo takedown "Wristwatch" and omnipresent-in-indie-circles "She's Leaving You." The fact that he features on SOTY contender "Right Back to It" with Waxahatchee doesn't hurt matters, either. I very much doubt I'll revisit the album as a whole, but those two songs will have some staying power, and I'm at least intrigued by what he does next.
"Back There Now" – Charly Bliss
"In Lieu of Flowers" – Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties
"Punk Rock in Basements" – Laura Jane Grace
"So Sick of Dreaming" – Maggie Rogers
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Honorable mentions: "Bored" – Waxahatchee*, "Chicago" – Japandroids, "Obsessed" – Olivia Rodrigo, "Starburned and Unkissed" – Caroline Polachek, "Swear to God That I'm (FINE)" – Winona Fighter
This was a tough field to narrow down to five, with not much of a gap at all between the final 2-3 songs in the field and most of the HMs. The Japandroids, Rodrigo, and Waxahatchee songs were all in the #4 or #5 spot at one point before I settled on the final field. Before I get to the blurbs, I wanted to give a special shoutout to what is probably the best band name I've heard in a while: Winona Fighter. They're a new pop-punk band out of Nashville with a female vocalist (I've got a type) whose upcoming debut in February is probably already the frontrunner for 2025 AOTY. They rule. Anyway, back to 2024.
- Charly Bliss was always going to have a nominee here, and I almost went with "Nineteen," a ballad (with a sweet sax solo) that feels like a companion piece to the Young Enough title track, which almost won SOTY back in 2019. Instead, I went with what the youths would describe as a "bop" in "Back There Now," which is actually the track right before "Nineteen." It's got a bubbly, video-gamey synth line, cheer-squad vocals, and is absolutely irresistible—just like the album as a whole.
- Sammy Rae lands a nomination here for the second time in three years. I think "For the Time Being" is the better song, but "Coming Home Song" has maybe the best chorus she's ever written. She's maybe my favorite *singer* right now, and this is just a perfect showcase for her powerful, elastic voice. I think she turns the word "falling" into about 10 syllabus and it's just fantastic. Really great live song, too, complete with crowd participation reminiscent of a Ben Folds Five concert (he was obviously not the first to do that). Looking forward to the next time she comes to town, and to whatever she does next—be it 17 more singles or another actual album.
- A True Fact™ about me: Adding horns to just about anything makes it better. (I mean, see above.) So if you take The Wonder Years' Dan Campbell's emo-folk side project that already has keys *and* steel guitar, and then add horns? Yep, that shit rules. That's never more apparent than the title track to their latest album, which has one of the most epic horn lines since the heyday of 3rd-wave ska, plus just a massive, soaring chorus. This was the #2 here and one I feel I'll keep returning to as the decade goes on.
- As mentioned above, I went back and forth between several tracks for the final slot or two here, and this slight-seeming (2:09) track from Grace wound up being the final nominee in this field. It doesn't have the epic classic rock chorus of the Japandroids track or the "shoot this directly into my veins" quality of the Rodrigo track, but what it does have is an irrepressible riff, handclap percussion, boisterous chorus, an a "Whoa-oh-oh" outro. What more do you need? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The most purely fun song of the year.
This past year was also a great year for movie music. Challengers, the latest collaboration between Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross and Luca Guadagnino, is maybe the duo's best since their seismic (Oscar winning and top-10 of the decade) soundtrack for The Social Network. It's tense, throbbing, constantly on the verge of explosion... just like the, uh... the relationship between the three leads in the movie. Not any part of my anatomy whilst watching said movie. Anyway, Ross/Reznor made the Oscar shortlist for Best Original Score *and* Original Song for credits closer "Compress/Repress" and would be easy winners for both categories if they existed in my Fake Oscars. But they do not so I'll honor them here.
Remember when movie soundtracks used to be events unto themselves? I vividly remember rocking out in nu metal bliss to the Dracula 2000 and Queen of the Damned soundtracks, even if I couldn't tell you a thing about the movies themselves. Event soundtracks were a thing even as recently as the Hunger Games movies, but the practice seems to have fallen out of favor recently. We used to be a country! But Jane Schoenbrun revived the trend for her excellent second feature. It's full of moody, ethereal jams from indie It Girls like Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Polachek (SOTY HM!), Frances Quinlan (of Hop Along), Jay Som, etc., that would've caused riots in whatever the Gen Z equivalent of Hot Topic would be. I mean, there's a cover of "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl" for chrissakes. I hope this practice comes back!
All that said, it doesn't seem like either album—or the year in general—will go down in my personal annals. Both albums feel more like Hall of Very Good than truly Hall of Fame–type albums. And you know what? You don't always get a true HOF album every year. So this year feels more like 2019 and 2021—a lot of very good music, yes, but nothing truly transcendent that will resonate into the next decade and beyond. Unless, of course, Kendrick proves me wrong (would not be surprised at all) or some heretofore unheard-of artist like Chappell Roan has already released 2024's true AOTY. Which is exactly why I keep listenin' to music and writin' up these blog posts.
And I hope anyone reading this also keeps listenin' and keeps readin' what I write. Here's hoping that 2025 is better than 2024, at least musically-speaking. (There's almost no way it will be a good year otherwise for obvious reasons.) Happy New Year, y'all!
