BEST MUSIC OF 2024
MK.GEE, THRESHOLD, ADDISON RAE, CAMERON WINTER, AND MORE
We do a music list every year and 2024 is no exception. No rankings, no meaningless numbers, just the songs we loved.
In the list below you'll find music recs from our world and beyond, written by the PI editors and friends of the newsletter such as Angel & Lulu of Frost Children, Talia Ryder, EvilGiane, and many other people with exceptional / swaggy taste.
I’m confident that you won’t find a lot of these picks on other "Best Of" round-ups- which always seem to contain the same couple of songs in a slightly different order. Our list aims to highlight new music that excites us by breaking boundaries, creating new sounds, and impacting culture.
Listen to these picks (+ more) on the official Perfectly Imperfect Best Music of 2024 Playlist.
This list is lengthy and will almost-certainly be clipped in your inbox.
If you're reading via email, click the button above or the title at the top of this email to be brought to our website (or view in the app) to see the full list 50+ song list.
Enjoy!
Tyler Bainbridge, Perfectly Imperfect EIC
Without further ado
🎶
I was initially drawn to Threshold after seeing a few friends post the single cover for this song. At the time I had no idea that it was my own friend Isaac (of Strange Ranger) behind it, and he seemed happy that his mysterious new project fooled me.
Context aside though— this is one of the best songs I heard all year, and I guarantee that its minimal arrangement + hypnotizing chorus will pull you right in to its strange little world. And it doesn't stop there, this entrancing dream-like atmosphere extends to the rest of the album that arrived shortly after, Thief. I feel like he's on to something truly new with this sound.
🎶
Last year I helped my friend Danica make the live videos for this album. After we got the one take of “Are You Looking Up” the bus pulled over and everyone piled out with big grins on our faces. It had been a tough shoot, but we knew we had finally shot something really special. When we got back on and started to drive, Mike was just turned around, playing his guitar again, jamming like he had been, to no one, the whole weekend. It seemed like he was completely unfazed by what we all thought was this spectacular moment. I remember asking him right there, “Is this just what you do, all day, every day?” He grinned and whispered to me, “What else is there to do?” This year, nobody will shut up about his music, it seems like they’re trying to crack the recipe for his secret sauce, but from what I’ve seen, they’re overcomplicating it. His music is really good because he is fiercely devoted, extremely confident, spending all day, every day, messing with instruments and gear, hacking away at melodies to uncover amazing songs. I don’t think he really cares about anything else, and I think he’s going to make a lot more.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
My pick for SOTY. I NEED BLOOD. By The Furniture Group (great new project from Teo Hedigan and Melody English). Tyler texted it to me and said it was up my alley. It was in fact, literally more than any other song this year. Just cool as hell. That bassline. Transfixing! 2024 was kind of the best year ever but tonally there was something “ominous”, vibes skewing toward “moody” and “intense”, this song encapsulates that. And like yeah, I need blood. We all need that…
🎶
I get the most out of “Wristwatch,” with its descending riffs giving way to Xandy’s pedal steel on top of the guitar lead. The lyrics open with “So you say I’ve got a funny face/It makes me money” which conjures up a character misquoting Quiet Riot’s 1983 cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize.” Lenderman excels at characters that come across as guys not getting it right, low-key committed to not quite understanding. A denseness, a hapless but easily seen wrongheadedness. Doubling down on not wising up.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
It’s easy to love and to talk about love. What’s difficult is kicking a door down.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
OK so basically this was their year. As I am sure the following years will also be. The thing about Snow Strippers is that they’ve put out a crazy amount of music in the last few years, and it’s consistently way too good and dynamic. So What If I’m A Freak had the sample heard around the world (FUN FACT IF I ACTUALLY KILLED MYSELF YOU COULD GET ARRESTED FOR THAT) and I mega enjoyed listening to it full volume bass blasting in the passenger seat (don’t drive) of a car. Sounds so good in a cute guys car… sometimes I wonder if you like it when I’m dying for it
🎶
The breakout star of today’s hyper-online, borderline avant-garde underground rap scene, 17-year-old Gunner Shepardson—better known as Nettspend—is, depending on who you ask, a visionary, a harbinger of hip hop’s end, moderately interesting, or maybe just the most swagged-out teenager on the planet. Your opinion likely hinges on the year you graduated high school—or where you were on the night of December 18, 2023, when a mob of skaters and balaclava-clad SoundCloud rap devotees descended upon an industrial metal detector outside the Mercury Lounge after waiting four hours for Nettspend, xaviersobased, Yhapojj, and Phreshboyswag to make an appearance. For me, the answer somewhere lies in the reuploaded video for Nothing Like Uuu: a mesmerizing hyperpop-rap hybrid that somehow distills the essence of a month at Market Hotel into just two minutes. It’s a whirlwind of gratuitous fog machine smoke, mumbled Chief-Keef-Jr-isms about wanting to "get geeked all night," swirling synths straight out of a Doss DJ set, and, at the center of it all, Nettspend—the inexplicable teenager with black X’s on their hands, completely at home in the chaos.
🎶
TME is Iglooghost’s most conventional album and it still makes me fucking crazy – like I’m freebasing nicotine and cocaine at the same time, while on one of those rollercoasters that drops at a 90-degree angle. Part of that disorienting feeling, this time around, comes from textures and sounds I didn’t expect: post-punk drums on “Coral Mimic”; the electro beat on “Nemat0de”. I’m sick to death of “genreless” music; Tidal Memory Exo was a genre unto itself.
🎶
This summer I curled up around a Guinness at a crowded bar in Galway. I had just made my way down from a friend's wedding in Donegal. I sat chatting and sipping with my girlfriend as a Fontaines D.C. song came on over the speaker. We sat and listened together. Taking the scene, setting, and sounds in. It felt like a romanticized version of what I had hoped for Ireland to be, of what I think a lot of Americans romanticize Ireland to be. Irish music playing loud, Guinness being sipped, wooden bars and paint chipped walls. I looked around to see the bartender singing along to herself.
It seems almost impossible not to contextualize Fontaines D.C. as an Irish band. I understand that art should be judged on its own, or whatever. But they’re an Irish band and that means something.
It makes me think about James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, about Patrick Radden Keefe’s ‘Say Nothing’, about the solidarity Ireland shares with Palestine, about the lyrics to ‘In The Modern World’ in which Grian sings, “Seems so hard just to be” with noticeable anguish in his voice. A line that could sum up a lot of Irish history. A country simply trying to be.
Irish artists have always found a way to speak directly to the human experience in a way that feels tender, tangible, and current. And Fontaines D.C. are no exception to this, especially on ‘Romance’, an album, filled with hope, angst, nostalgia, disillusion, love, and a modern, justified, sense of anger. But maybe I’m romanticizing things.
England Get Out of Ireland & Free Palestine
🎶
I love this song. It’s so bittersweet, it’s hopeful and gloomy at the same time. It’s really great to drive and think to, at full volume of course.
🎶
There were few artists as prolific as Cooper B. Handy (LUCY) in 2024. And as you’ll see on this list, a lot of people wanted to write about his music.
I saw this comment about Cooper in a forum, “It kinda feels like alternative hip hop equivalent of the C86 genre in 80s' alt-rock,” which kind of sums up a feeling I've been unable to articulate about the magic of LUCY. If you don't get it ... I feel sad for you.
Whether it’s Vol. 9, his project Safe Mind with Gus of Boy Harsher, or his Surf Gang album JACK & THE BEANSTOCK— you really can’t go wrong. It’s all amazing.
100% PROD I.V. is my personal favorite. I love the guitar and harmonica sprinkled throughout, it’s nu americana perfected. Cooper is a modern folk hero and among my home state’s best exports (Jonathan Richman and Evan Dando)
🎶
Puts a smile on my face. A big one. When those vocals come in… so beautiful! It's in what I like to call "the catharsis genre", it's arm hair-raising and lush. I love this song and I loved having him on as a PI guest because I learned about scrapple
🎶
Joanne Robertson released her debut album, 2008’s The Lighter, 16 years ago; since then, her voice has frayed at one end and calcified at the other, and it’s never sounded as beautiful and electrifying as it does on Backstage Raver. Shades of every great yearner are collected in her raw, emphatic pipes: Hope Sandoval, Sky Ferreira, Neko Case, Cat Power, so many more; maybe you can’t always make out the words, but you always know what she means.
🎶
Combining punk sensibility with pop simplicity and deceptively sweet but eviscerating production… When “Elevation” by The Dare comes on, without fail, I get asked who the artist is. When I answer, they’re always a little surprised. Nothing against Harrison and his perfectly calibrated image of sex and partying—sex and partying are really important—but I love when artists catch their skeptics off guard and show another dimension. “Elevation” is a brilliant love song, so catchy it hooks into your brain like a good hit should. When you listen to it on a proper system, the buzzsaw synths rattle your cage. It builds to an overwhelming euphoria that emulates the feeling it describes. It’s going to age well… he understands.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
If I've ever talked with you about music, we've probably talked about LUCY. The ultra-prolific Western Mass cult hero has been the most important artist in my life for the past seven years.
In 2024, he released three albums. Beyond that, he's cooking on at least four active side projects. In my book, everything he releases is required-listening.
So it would be impossible to choose a true favorite. The depth of LUCY's catalogue is one of the special things about his work. But I narrowed it down by focusing on his last release: Cooper B. Handy's Album Vol. 9.
This one is dense -- a lotta gems. Here's a playlist of all the vol. 9 songs I really hope you'll listen to. Among those, "Folk Song" stands out. I'm obsessed with the switch-up from the verse to the chorus. Every day, I walk around with a million LUCY lines floating in my head. This song has a bunch of them:
Who you gonna call when the levee runs dry?
Said fuck the cops -- cuz they got the wrong girl and they got the wrong guy
You got a thing for the world I can see it in your eyes
Said fuck the cops -- cuz they got the wrong girl and they got the wrong guy
They put him in the ground and I see him in the sky
I got a thing for the world you can see it in my eyes.
Money -- people kill for that money ...
Who you gonna call when you wanna know why?
They put you on hold, and you watch another day go by
🎶
I like Psykos because I feel like I’m the frog on the cover praying over the void to the glowing cross in the sky. He needs a transmission because life has gotten too random. He wants to wear a wire for God.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
This track is the most spin-able cut off of Boy imo. On "Say It Again" 2hollis follows up on the album's previous ambient track "Say It" with an unprecendented complextro type beat that borders on wub wub porn. He holds true on his signature style of bedroom talk lyricism that grants the listener a protagonist role and adds greatly to the weight of the supersaw stabs. I think of him as Dark Justin Bieber. P.S. im pretty sure this was the song that he devoted to skrillex on a rare ig story post.
🎶
My pick for AOTY. Decadent industrial. This is what I live for! I adore listening to the instrumental tracks too when I write or work, they kind of function as smelling salts. The highlights for me are Sequoia Tide (with Yves Tumor on prod.. before it was on streaming I used to listen to it on his Kerwin Frost youtube channel set… so good), No Country and Marine Photosynthesis. Evanora Unlimited’s one of my favorite lyricists, hell, MINDS ever (see the PI feature). For a project like Evanora’s (“not an artist alias but the title of an ever-changing, formless concept and cinematic world showcasing various characters” and an “erotic science fiction religious-horror epic”) it feels befitting to also mention the visuals, check the video for No Country and read the pinned comment pour sûr you won’t regret it.
🎶
As a Trans, I believe in Ariel Pink's gender dysphoria. This song technically came out right at the end of 2023. I heard it while on a run early in the morning in Setagaya City, Tokyo. In the track, Pink sings, "When I was born, something went wrong. They told me I was lucky-- I came this close to being a girl. But I want to be a girl." I absolutely believe his dysphoric yearnings, and detect no sign of post-woke edgelordism. I think it's probably very common, yet hardly documented, when men feel like they want to be a girl, ultimately deciding to remain with their birth gender. In fact, I think this sentiment is rather trans-affirming. As one male friend of mine said of his COVID-era gender experience: "I couldn't decide if I wanted 'Her', or wanted to be 'Her.'" It's a brave stance to portray in a song, one that edges on Macklemore's "When I was in the 3rd grade, I thought that I was gay", but with all the heart and none of the corny virtue signaling. And it's wayyyy too catchy.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Bassvictim successfully bottled up the way a hot girl walk feels, entangling that exact energy with pulsating synths and thumping drums, fused with evocatively intoxicating lyrics. The turbulent breakdown reminds us all that a G-String is a metaphor for being your sexiest self, and ‘Air on A G String’ makes me feel like the hottest person on the street. This track alone landed the London “basspunk” duo a top three spot on my Spotify Wrapped.
🎶
Like a tiger woods chip shot, MJs lyrics find greens encased in laurels and nested in artifact. His words not only inflect his armor, they encompass the bezel behind it (with a compass and a pocket knife to boot). All to emphasize, he’s not just saying anything. With every listen, i feel , a child, whose fortune it is to play amidst the metal playground of inference he creates. Maybe you’ve inherited a watch or a pocket knife from your father, or grandfather, or any loved one. Maybe with the hope of gifting the love of your life a YSL heart shaped watch, you set google alerts for finding an affordable deal, only to have this hope crushed, and are reminded constantly by the emails because something broken inside your head swill not allow you to turn them off. To each is own.. but at least the song sounds dope.
🎶
If future generations wonder why hip-hop became what it became, they should look no further than Xaviersobased, the 21 year old native of the Upper West Side. Xavier dropped two albums in 2024 to much acclaim and fanfare — including a Best New Music at Pitchfork — and became a sui generis rapper of Gen Z. They’ll be talk about Nettspend being the future: Xavier, however, has been able to develop a signature style that is indebted to previous generations and still utterly modern and fresh.
It’s not just the hyperpop, the jerk, the trap, crashing into the cloud rap with Xavier, it’s the vignette songwriting on “Pediatrician”, where he recalls a time where he was watching noggin in the waiting room while looking at his spongebop wallet. “I had bands on me back then, I have bands on me right now”, he says, singing with a boyish nasal. On “You See Me”, he floats, over a Rainbow Road-like beat, saying “I didn’t speed down that strip.” Somehow, it’s both laconic and intense, perfect for the kids of Gen Z, who are growing up with worse resources but more knowledge of self than ever before.
The kid is laconic and understands stardom — I saw him do two songs at a warehouse in Soho and was shocked at how sober and focused he was. In 2025, Xavier will be leading the way.
🎶
Hard to pick just one song from MJ Lenderman's Manning Fireworks (which Lance Bangs wrote about for Perfectly Imperfect) but Joker Lips is definitely a favorite. It's packed with some of the best Lendermanisms of the whole record
Kahlúa shooter, DUI scooter
With a rolling start on the hill
This morning's tryin' to kill me
This morning wants to kill me
It also came with a perfect music video from uncle_hesh which elevated the experience for sure.
🎶
This song to me feels like the best version of edm bliss that just feels so ready for the biggest stage ever but also feels like a very intimate love song, which in my opinion is the perfect recipe. I’m also biased because I wrote and produced this with Babymorocco (alongside my sister Angel Emoji [of frost fame]). It’s also a love song that lyrically has some uniqueness in the senario it’s in, trying to keep the purity and innocent spark of a long-distance relationship in its early stages, feeling like if you don’t see that person as soon as a flight could get you, that spark may blow out. Also the drop goes hard, this you cannot deny.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
There is no evil in this music. You are the evil, for not bringing bountiful joy into this world in the form of a fat giggling baby. The music inspires you to reconsider your selfishness.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Malice K is one of the best artists in New York City right now, definitely try to see him live if you can. I've loved everything that he's put out, but "THE OLD HOUSE" from his new album always stands out to me.
🎶
Mahashmashana by Father John Misty reflects on the American dharma wheel hidden deep in the San Andreas Fault line that threatens Los Angeles with “The Big One” every time it turns. Lush, full, and beautiful; this song proves that FJM, who seems to want the world to think him an ascetic, refusing interviews and limelight, can deliver on being a kind of modern anchorite, crafting gorgeous, spiritual music.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
I don’t remember exactly when or how I stumbled onto Push Ups, I want to say it was Jake Lazovick of the band Voyeur's fabulous no-notes “downtown emo” playlist. This is the kind of music I'd play for you if I was outside of your window with my radio. I caught them open for untitled (halo) a few months back, and twice since then, making Push Ups my most attended act this year. Angsty, pining, nostalgic but still inventive, play it in your Skull Candy headphones, long sleeve t-shirt under a short sleeve. These tracks make me feel so “lovelorn” “you wouldn’t get it” “I am so young and so misunderstood” which is not intended to be reductive, it’s more complex than that. All that to simply say— these tracks make me feel exactly how I want music to make me feel (most of the time). Grey is also the best. I walked up to him at a function super intensely, you’re my fave band in NYC rn blah blah I Am Number One Push Ups fan love the tunes and he handled it real nicely (sent me a shirt that I will treasure 4ever/ you should totally cop one for yourself). It is rare that I am inflamed enough to do the fangirl public humiliation thing, but hey… DraG Ur TIGHtROPE ThrOugH my wiNDPiPE XxX
🎶
I think I can speak for everyone here…we’ve been yearning for an iconic CAMPY pop powerhouse. Chappell is alllll of that and so much more. “Good Luck, Babe!” was one of her most powerful releases yet- a ballad of bittersweet memories and a big old “fuck you” to an ex, who ultimately didn’t choose you in the end.
🎶
My top song of the year on Spotify. Over the summer I fell in love with this album and listened to it top to bottom nearly every day. Thrilliam Angels manages to combine so many sonic elements that I love into one cohesive moment that always feels cool. A trend leader not a follower.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Major highlight of this year was my introduction to Holidays– in a crowded and sweaty bar basement for their single release party. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I listened to this album on the walk/ride home and then nonstop for a few weeks. Anyone who says that the NYC music scene is stagnant blah blah.. I’m staring them down, super-OH. YOU DON’T KNOW? *points to the Holidays sign*. Their self-titled debut record is one of the strongest of the year, start to finish so incredible. Emo in the truest sense. 1v1, Time Breaks Down, and Dog Song ended up as some of my 2024 absolute favorite tunes.
🎶
Felt BLESSED and PROSPEROUS to cap off this year with Extra Small’s (duo composed of Jae and Levy) album Tears. So legit, clever as hell. Chic as fuck, experimental hip hop/electronic ushering in a new vibe shift TL;DR THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO HEAR AT THE CLUB. Production so satisfying and hard-hitting that it scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. GTA radio glamour. Oversized sunglasses on. I’m walking around listening to it, clipping shoulders and stepping on heels. Highlights for me are the single track Balmain, Pony, and Toi Et Moi. I’m Trouble when this comes on insert skull emoji insert crying emoji ETC
🎶
I can’t believe Dan finally dropped the song after all this time! I don’t know Dan. Or who Dan is, really. But they say Dan’s upcoming record is a masterpiece. Everyone on my TL loves Dan. Or at least they say they love Dan. I guess I do too. Dan’s new song is good. So good that the first time I listened to it, I sold all my crypto and looked into buying a pony. Dan’s new song just makes me feel… I don’t know… beautiful. Maybe it’s all been done before, but I like it like this. Yep, lemme get one emo ballad with melodramatic strings, self-effacing vocals, and a gritty guitar solo endearingly afraid of overstaying its welcome, but make it Dan’s way. The truth is, you don’t need any context for the song to work its magic. You don’t need to know that Dan plays guitar in Porches, or that he once ran the most esteemed acoustic guitar orchestra New York City’s ever seen, or that Melody English did the backing vocals on the track. You don’t even need to be mutuals on IG. When you listen to “Across My Jaw,” Dan’s your friend.
🎶
I’m a longtime fan of Porches. I’ve seen at least 10 Porches shows. I got to open for Porches once and I’ve become friends with many current and former Porches band members over the years. I know the Porches full discography pretty well and I think that this song, along with the full band live performance of it is Porches’ magnum opus. Exciting stuff for a Porches super fan like myself.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Overstayed my welcome at FrostFest this summer just to catch his set (and hear this song in a crowded room..) Chain’ is an absolute brain scratcher of a chune and should be played out of a moving car very fast.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Electro house anthem ‘Homie Don’t Shake’ hits hard with organic percussion and alluring vocals, securing a spot on our 2024 playlist for the NYC-based duo. The track’s steady pulse and buzzing adlibs blend seamlessly with the hypnotic, driving kick, creating an irresistibly infectious beat. I’m taking notes and ringing in NYE FCUKERS-style... with Champagne in my cornflakes.
🎶
I’ve always been a fan Clairo’s music, especially “Bags,” but on her latest album Charm she really pushed through to the next level. It’s among my favorite albums of the year, and it’s really tough to pick just one or two tracks to highlight. Gun to my head it’s “Sexy to Someone,” “Juna,” or “Add Up My Love,” but they’re all really great.
🎶
December is such a tragically dead month for new releases that it’s a rare gift to get an album this fucking good this late in the year. My friend Marcos sent me a link to Heavy Metal out of the blue a few days after it was released – I don’t always listen to what he sends me, and he knows that, but I’m so glad I went into this with a clear mind and open heart. It’s been ages since a first listen of an album hit me this hard.
Lyrically Heavy Metal feels like what I always wanted from Dan Bejar but never quite got, and musically it almost feels like John Cale tried to rerecord Paris 1919 from memory with a single microphone and a cracked Ableton rip. Or something like that? Mostly, it feels like a wholly original statement that can’t be contained, like someone finally letting go of any inhibition and confessing every private insecurity without fear. His lyrics teeter from darkly hilarious (“like Brian Jones I was born to swim”) to bizarrely visceral romanticism (“you were born to break my big hairy football arms/like clean windows kill birds”) while regularly returning to the ultimate questions life has to offer: love, desire, purpose, God, you name it. It’s self deprecating without being self indulgent and immensely wise without ever feeling like an intellectual exercise.
It’s an album that feels like too rich of a body of work to even properly engage with on the first several listens. Winter’s emotionality is so deep, so personal and so bizarre that it becomes universal – so relatable yet so exaggerated and disjointed that it borders on psychological horror. I’m going to be picking up on new things within these songs for a long time to come, and I suspect this album will stand out to me as one of the absolute best when I look back at the year.
🎶
6’ Pole - Thank God for this song. Thank God for Lucy. Thank God for all the music Boy Harsher and Lucy make together. “Memory's a blessing in a Safe Mind"
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
For me, this track elicits the catharsis that hyperpop was born for. It removes itself from the tug-of-war between maximalism and minimalism, sincerity and sarcasm. It feels like a hit of nitrous oxide: giggly and then euphoric. The collage of different vocal takes and deliveries has an intriguing quality that gives the song the perfect edge to an otherwise very familiar and classic sort of pop song. It takes the best parts of late aughts/early 10’s pop and more contemporary experimental electronic music (is that an elephant cry leading out of the chorus? Why is his voice so milky in the best way?) I was such a hater of this band, but this song helped me to understand that/what they want to feel. Anthem.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Addison Rae makes hero worship interesting. I don’t totally think this is a Lana’s nachos situation (past the Americana iconography) - it’s Madonna meets Mariah with sugary Mazzy Star sex appeal. I’d be remiss not to mention the perfect video, directed by Sean Price Williams, which references everything from Showgirls to Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Addison is charming and unserious, and has such mesmerizing quality of movement that I’m shocked the Renegade dance made her famous. She’s also the only pop girl that gives me hope for a trip-hop revival (if her team wants to talk shop, we can do lunch at All Time).
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
Spirit of the Beehive have such a long trail of essentially perfect albums behind them that their ability to reinvent and outdo themselves with each consecutive release truly blows my mind. You’ll Have To Lose Something is probably their most narratively cohesive record – it loosely follows the romantic split between band members Rivka Ravede and Zach Schwartz – but rather than a retelling of events the album is a meditation on the deep discomfort of uncertainty, the (often unfulfilled) need for interpersonal understanding, and a fear of letting go. Wish I couldn’t relate!
Spirit’s work has always felt defined by a tightrope act between moments of abject horror and moments of transcendent beauty, often occurring in such rapid succession that you can’t distinguish one from the other. You’ll Have To Lose Something contains both the band’s most genuinely terrifying moments (if you turn your headphones up around the halfway point of “Let The Virgin Drive” you can barely hear someone’s guttural scream for help) as well as their most timelessly beautiful numbers.
Spirit of the Beehive remains one of the most fascinating and innovative acts using the traditional “guitar band” setup – their harmony is endless and complex while anchored by a deep understanding of pop structure, their time signatures refuse to stay still for too long, and the production is among the most dynamic and maximalist laid to record this year. They’re a once-a-generation talent with an uncanny ability to mine the darkest undercurrents of the human psyche and craft something fresh, something beautiful, and something surprisingly, disarmingly hopeful out of it. To many more!
🎶
I love the Sonic Youth vibes on most of Voyeur's work, but they really stand out to me when they really lean into a super grungy sound. It's cool to see a fresh take on grunge in 2024, which feels like a natural reaction agains the hyper polished and electronic soundscapes of the 2010s.
The song "Look Through You" sounds disgusting (compliment) live. Jake's guitar riff rattles room, filling it with noise, and the "and everything turns to blue" chorus give me the chills every time.
🎶
Two things. All of my peers make music, but rarely do any of their songs make it into my listening catalog. Also, I hate emo. The Branching Out EP may have changed that? This EP takes the things about emo that turned me off and turns me on to them. Lyrics devoid of individualism, *riffs*, and fun vibes. This was made by a BAND who’s having fun and I’m having fun with them. It makes you want to go to a show again. The words are so stupid yet comforting, the musicianship indulgent but exciting, the affect emo with a 1/4 cup of hope. It’s self taught musicians cosplaying the Berklee School of Music School of Music but without the chord sheets or pretension. Track titles such as Vampire Vibes, Confessions of an Aries, and This Wasn’t On My Planner display a finger on the pulse ironic sincerity that actually works for once. It’s about heartbreak, being nervous, having a crush, and wanting to die. Perfect for my little brothers friend/ex pupil of mine from my time as counselor at a rock n’ roll music camp located in the basement of the church in my suburb who attended their EP release show in New York. I think this appeals to 16 year old life noobs, 20 something year old haters like myself, and even the chicks. I could listen to them whine all day.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
You can't have a "serious" best of 2024 list without including the pop song of the year. Not going to weave in any cultural commentary here...it's great, it's that simple. Get's stuck in my head every time I hear it.
🎶
This song is true Alex G-style slacker alt-country. It’s somehow both tender and disquieting, and won me over immediately at SXSW. While technically the solo project of Columbus-based songwriter Mark Allen Scott, the five-piece live band is brilliant and fuzzy and brings everything to life. Darling Recordings labelmate Merce Lemon is a dainty harmonic presence who plays a really convincing tragic figure (she also put out a record this year!). I’ve listened so much that I feel like I’ve spent time in the midwest. I haven’t.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Coco & Clair Clair are one of the most underrated duos right now.
Catchy, punchy personality-filled lyrics over esoteric production. "My Girl" is my favorite off their new album.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
It's tough to say anything new about Brat here! But it’s definitely one of the year’s best, and as a life-long fan of Charli it’s been really fun watching her take a much deserved mainstream victory lap while not compromising on her sound at all.
Guess dropping was one of my favorite music moments of the year. Great video from Aidan Zamiri and it's cool as hell to see Harrison producing a song for some of the biggest pop stars in the world.
🎶
22° Halo’s Lily of the Valley is a collection of songs written by Philly-based songwriter Will Kennedy during his wife Kate’s treatment for a very rare brain cancer. For full transparency, Will and Kate are close friends of mine – Kate’s treatment was a tremendous weight on my chest, and the news of her cancer going dormant was one of the high points of recent years for me. This album hit me hard as hell knowing the people behind it. But the more I listen, the more I marvel at the specificity and universality of what Will achieved here.
What makes Lily of the Valley such a remarkable album is the graceful confidence Kennedy presents these delicately intimate moments with. It’s incredibly difficult to write confident, commanding songs about such immense uncertainty. My jaw would drop at the sheer chutzpah of the recurring lead guitar on album opener “Bird Sanctuary” – it sounds like This Heat playing Thin Lizzy! And these are somehow the first notes we hear to set the stage for Kennedy’s recollections of some of the most precious, intimate moments of his relationship? It’s incredible.
This propulsive feeling sustains throughout the album. “Orioles at Dusk” is anthemic and climactic in an almost literal drive-into-the-sunset sense, and the closing, titular track could throw a crowd makes me want to beat the air with my fists. That an immense tenderness can remain at the forefront of songs with such electric energy, rather than something masked by the music itself, is a big part of what makes this album such a wonder.
I hate to use a word like “juxtaposition” but it really is this juxtaposition that got under my skin the first time I heard this album and has kept me coming back for 3-5 listens per week since then. If I heard this album without knowing the backstory, without paying attention to the lyrics or knowing Will or Kate, I would still place it as a new high point in the jangle pop canon. It’s how effortlessly Kennedy can get you to sing along with a song about the terror of watching the person you love most endure chemo that makes this a truly transcendent record.
The lyrics are bracingly beautiful and generously specific. The songs sometimes take on a stream of consciousness quality, as if Kennedy is remembering moments both painful and uplifting in the same thought and listing them out as they arrive to him. The moments where Kate accompanies him vocally are among the most moving I heard this year. Kennedy has an uncanny ability to shed off self-consciousness in his music without ever demanding the listener’s attention. He is beautifully articulating a truth too deeply, painfully human to present as anything other than that; the truth.
🎶
I also have to say The Wizard and I from the new Wicked movie. I fell in love with Cynthia Erivo when I heard this song. She has the voice of an angel. It’s so youthful yet womanly. I’ve never heard anything like it.
I think Bassvictim should remix the Wizard and I, that would be my perfect song. Maybe in 2025
🎶
Leash is the revival of that sexy, synth-heavy vibe of the '80s, driven by gothic and intoxicating production. Sky’s voice rises with a haunting softness. Like there’s this submission that she’s craving. Much like the film it was made for, Babygirl, the lyrics are intimate about control and emotional dependence. This song makes you want to like someone’s photo from 4 years ago by “accident”. If you somehow missed it in 2012 (or maybe you just weren’t on Tumblr), this is the perfect song to introduce you to Sky Ferreira.
Dec 30, 2024
🎶
I used to be a huge fan of Iceage during the late 2010s post-punk-revival-revival era. They were definitely a standout of the bunch.
I fell off of that sound for a bit, but then Elias collaborated with Dean Blunt on my favorite song of last year ("Smile Please") and my interest was re-sparked.
A bunch of people recommended I check out his new solo album and I'm so glad I did. It's really special.
🎶
One of the fastest breakouts I’ve ever seen... and he looks like this lacrosse player I had a crush on in high school. He liked to chew on water bottle caps and they'd come out indistinguishable, like chewing gum. Honestly? It was incredible. Maybe we could have fallen in love if he hadn't hated me so much…
2 album drops this year and both were insane. I know I was born in the RIGHT generation and was meant to be a zoomer because of how much I like ian