“Bread Crumbs Only Lead To Where You’ve Been”
100 Songs for 2024
I’ve been trying to mash two thoughts together. That’s it, really. Maybe if I admit that at the start it will make this easier. I’ve been taking my laptop to cafes and staring off into space, and then typing, and then staring off into space, and then typing, and if you saw me there you might think that something productive was happening, but really what you were seeing was a small child holding two obviously mismatched lego pieces and just bashing them into each other over and over again.
I wrote a first draft. It was 5,448 words long. It did not have an ending. It did not even orient itself in the direction of an ending. It did, however, include extended discussions of the following topics: narrative story structure, Ancient Egyptian history, the now-defunct San Francisco music venue Slim’s, basic principles of planetary motion and plate tectonics, and the time Charli XCX got into a Twitter war with her fans because she didn’t think they were adequately deferential to her artistic vision. None of that was necessary.
I wrote a second draft. It was 3,248 words long. It still did not have an ending. I think it was maybe hinting at an ending, so in that way it was better than the first draft. I wrote it as a one-sided conversation. That was an unhelpful gimmick.
This is the third draft, and it’s going to be the last one. It is going to be much shorter than the first two. No more obfuscation. I am going to present the two thoughts, and we will just look at them side by side, and if they fit together, great. If they don’t fit together, that’s fine, too.
The first thought is this:
I’m worried about my molecules.
I read something online, and it really freaked me out, and now I’m writing thousands of words trying to process it without directly addressing it. Well, here it is:
I turned 43 this year, so maybe there’s still time, but I need my molecules. I would like them to undergo gradual, linear changes, if they need to change at all. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
I’m scared of getting older. I’m scared of feeling older. I’m scared of reaching a point where things that were once possible are now impossible. I worry this is already happening.
Okay, deep breath. That’s one thought down already. This is going great. We’re at about 400 words. Incredible progress compared to the first two drafts. Let’s keep going.
The second thought is this:
The new Los Campesinos! album is really good.
There will be some people reading this who do not know who Los Campesinos! are, and may not necessarily care one way or another whether their new album is good. That’s fine.
There will be other people reading this who do know who Los Campesinos! are, and who already know that their new album is good. That’s fine, too.
This is not meant to serve as breaking news. This is something that many other people have said, and have been saying for months. It is in fact the consensus, if not unanimous, position of the kinds of people who express opinions about Los Campesinos! albums.
I think it’s the best album they’ve ever made. Some people agree with me, others might not go quite that far, still others might think it’s a waste of time to rank albums in the first place. These are all defensible positions.
So that’s it. Those are the two thoughts. Took us about 600 words. It makes you wonder what I thought I was doing with all those words in the previous attempts.
Like I said at the outset, maybe these thoughts don’t really fit together. I’m going to allow myself that possibility. But let’s try one more time. Let’s consider this the midpoint of the essay. Let’s give ourselves another 600 words to see if we can bring this home. Start the clock. Go.
***
I’ve been a fan of Los Campesinos! for a long, long time. I remember listening to their demos on Myspace in 2006. We didn’t have much in common, but it felt like we were starting our lives together.
At the time, I still saw myself as a waiter, bartender, and MFA dropout who - any day now! - was finally going to get it together and write that novel. Over in the real world, the financial aid paperwork confirmed that I was, in fact, a first-year law student starting a new life in a new city.
At the time, they were seven Welsh kids at a university in Cardiff who had recently formed a band. I don’t know what they were studying. If any of them were thinking of going into law, I’m excited that fate had other plans for them.
The music resonated with me. It was immediate. It was urgent. It sounded like they were trying to harness something, trying to catch up to themselves.
It was too many people, too many instruments, too many words, fragmented digressions into football and politics and spite tumbling over themselves in a rush to document the breakdown of everything: romantic relationships, individual mental states, the scene, society. In an early interview, frontman Gareth Paisley said, “I’m scared of myself. Because I know what I would make of me, and I’m not sure if I’d like me.” I needed to know there were other people who thought like that.
We started out together, and we succeeded together. I finished school, started a career, adopted a dog, got married, traveled the world, and generally built the kind of life where I worry it sounds too much like bragging when I summarize it.
They put out a series of critically acclaimed albums, built an audience of obsessively loyal fans, played Letterman, licensed a song for a beer commercial, and generally became the model for stability and longevity in the indie rock world.
But stability and longevity aren’t incredibly exciting, are they? They never made a bad album, but it felt like things were slowing down. A little more time between every record. A little less fanfare. I saw them every time they came to San Francisco, in small rooms they could reliably sell out, but it felt like maybe it was the same people at every show, the kind of people who would all go on to write overwrought personal essays about them at some future date.
Gareth gave an interview for Stereogum in 2018 that read like a retrospective, looking back at a decade as indie darlings, joking about celebrating the 10-year anniversaries of the first two records as compared to “the other four albums that people like less.” Factually incorrect but still funny. Maybe this was over.
Somewhere around this time I started worrying more about my molecules. I didn’t call it that, but that’s what I was doing. I wanted to feel the way I felt listening to those demos in 2006, like the world was fresh and new and full of endless possibilities. I worried that I was losing the ability to feel like that. I worried that was just part of the aging process. Scripted. Preordained. Inevitable.
Okay, wow, that’s almost 600 words already. I need a few more, but I feel good about this. I think we’re close.
In February, Los Campesinos! played their largest-ever show, three thousand people at the Troxy in London. Martha opened. It was awesome. They announced a new album. That’s great, but let’s not go crazy here. Let’s keep our expectations in check. I mean, what are your other favorite albums made by a band eighteen years into their career?
We’ve already ruined the drama on this one. I tried to build suspense in previous drafts but you already know. The album comes out and it’s incredible. It’s their best album. I truly did not think this was possible, like there was a physical law of the universe by which bands had a limited window of time to make their best work and it was unlikely that this window stretched to eight years, let alone eighteen.
If I was wrong about this, is it possible that I’ve also been wrong about my molecules?
Is it possible that all of us could still, metaphorically, make our best album at some point in the future?
If this is our conclusion, our painfully earnest conclusion, it’s funny for two reasons. First, my taking the critical success of their album and making it all about me is such a Los Campesinos! thing to do. I am now the protagonist of every Los Campesinos! song explaining how his most recent breakup can only truly be understood through the lens of an obscure football match. I learned from the best.
Second, it is so perfectly counterintuitive that it’s possible to extract so much optimism from this album, a collection of songs written from the perspective of characters describing relationships as “If you’re not the one that’s leaving, you’re the one that’s left behind,” describing themselves as “No children and no profession, walking dead at 37,” and summarizing life philosophy as “I think I’m right, I don’t think it matters.”
An album whose title comes from its last line: “We both know too well, it’s all hell.”
That disconnect has always been the point. They may not write hopeful songs, but they’re a hopeful band. Earlier this summer, Gareth concluded an interview by offering this vision of the future, before any of the events referenced had come to pass:
“OK, what we actually need is: Tories out, then England lose the Euros final which makes people angry and they channel their rage into applying pressure towards the new Labour government, and then the LC! album comes out which really blows a fire underneath it all, then the revolution comes – and that’s the Los Campesinos! three-point plan for a socialist utopia.”
When you watched Marc Cucurella thread that pass through to Mikel Oyarzabal, did you think “Okay, here comes the revolution!”? No, I didn’t either. But maybe the future is full of possibilities we hadn’t previously considered.
***
100 Songs for 2024: Notes on the Process
Only 2024 releases are eligible.
Singles released in 2023 from albums released in 2024 are eligible if they weren’t on my 2023 list. Hurray For The Riff Raff’s “Alibi” is eligible, Dua Lipa’s “Houdini” is not.
I have imposed a limit of two songs per artist. Almost every artist who hit that limit had more than two deserving songs, but special mention here goes to Los Campesinos! (“Adult Acne Stigmata”), Charli XCX (really the entirety of Brat), Wild Pink (“The Fences of Stonehenge”), Waxahatchee (“Much Ado About Nothing”), Teenage Tom Petties (“Handstands For Your Love”), and MJ Lenderman (“She’s Leaving You”).
Even beyond that two song limit, I used artist diversity as a tiebreaker for making tough cuts. There are quite a few artists who deserved a second song, but I think a more diverse list is more representative of my year. Those squeezed this year include Camp Trash (“Friendship America”), Rosali (“On Tonight”), Rosie Tucker (“Paperclip Maximizer”), Oso Oso (“dog without its bark”), and Friko (“Crimson to Chrome”).
I generally avoid covers and live material, though I will make exceptions. No covers on the list this year, but there were a lot of deserving candidates. This is an incomplete list, but:
IAN SWEET doing Broken Social Scene’s “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
Martha doing Jimmy Eat World’s “A Praise Chorus”
Snail Mail doing Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight Tonight”
Illuminati Hotties doing Neck Deep’s “November”
The entire massive Transa compilation, including Bartees Strange doing TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me”
A bunch of big names doing Tom Petty songs for the Bad Monkey soundtrack, I like Eddie Vedder doing “Room at the Top” and Marcus King doing “The Waiting”
Also, it feels gimmicky, but are you in the mood for a mall-punk version of “Good Luck, Babe!”? It’s actually really good!
Finally, as I did last year I tried to shut everything else out and make this a list of my favorite songs, nothing else. I chose album tracks over singles if those were the songs I liked the most, and I tried to avoid making this a Year In Music survey. Plenty of interesting, important work by talented artists didn’t make the cut if, for whatever reason, it just didn’t resonate with me personally. Apologies to Zach Bryan, St. Vincent, Father John Misty, Brittany Howard, and, of course, Taylor Swift. I guess you’ll have to settle for near-unanimous acclaim from publications that people actually read.
As always: Thanks for listening, thanks for understanding.
***
1. Los Campesinos! - “Feast of Tongues”
Album: All Hell
Release Date: May 15
Point of Agreement: I do think it would be really cool to have the trust of every animal. It’s not like I would need them to do my bidding, or even that I would be able to talk to them. I just want to walk past a dog in the park and have the dog make eye contact with me like, “yeah, you’re good.”
Point of Disagreement: I think I could still be a valuable asset in the fight against fascism without actually eating anyone’s tongue. Agree to disagree, I guess.
2. Waxahatchee - “Right Back to It” (feat. MJ Lenderman)
Album: Tigers Blood
Release Date: Jan. 9
I went to a lot of concerts in 2024, and I saw a lot of great bands, but seeing Waxahatchee at Paradiso was the only show where I consciously thought “we are all in the presence of greatness right now.” That’s not a slight to Pulp or Jimmy Eat World or my beloved Martha, but they just didn’t conjure the same feelings of reverence. I had seen Katie Crutchfield in concert once, a solo acoustic show in a weird community center-type building in Amsterdam Noord, and that was also special in its way, but seeing her bring these songs to life with a full band was that rare experience that felt timeless in the moment.
Even though she now has six solo albums, the current Waxahatchee concert experience is devoted to the two most recent records, plus her Plains side project. It creates a seamless, immersive experience that it’s easy to get lost in but, on the other hand, some of those older albums are amazing (Ivy Tripp and Cerulean Salt especially). Crutchfield got sober before the recording of Saint Cloud, so it’s possible she wants to leave the old material in the past but, if not, a Waxahatchee Eras Tour would be incredible. Or, why stop there: Crutchfield Sisters Eras Tour: The Ackleys, PS Eliot, Swearin’, Plains, Allison’s solo stuff, then Waxahatchee. This could be a full-day experience.
3. Charli XCX - “360”
Album: Brat
Release Date: May 10
Look, I’m not making excuses, I just worry that, as a straight man in my 40s, there may be an upper limit on exactly how Julia I can be at any given time. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying.
4. Nilüfer Yanya - “Like I Say (I runaway)”
Album: My Method Actor
Release Date: Apr. 24
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why this song works so well, why it’s such a clear standout when so many other songs are trying to do very similar things. I think it comes down to the contrast between music and lyrics. Yanya is a perfectionist, and it’s impossible not to notice the incredible attention to detail. “Like I Say (I runaway)” feels like a perfectly executed vision, like she heard exactly those guitar tones in her head and found a way to create and record them without losing anything, like if there was one sound anywhere in that mix that wasn’t exactly right, she would have kept trying until it was. Musically, she has it all figured out. Lyrically, everything is slipping through her grasp. “The minute I'm not in control / I'm tearing up inside.” There are things that are possible inside the studio that will never be possible outside of it. Maybe touching perfection just makes all of the other imperfections that much harder to bear.
5. MJ Lenderman - “Wristwatch”
Album: Manning Fireworks
Release Date: Sept. 4
For decades, talented songwriters have crafted lyrical character studies of deeply flawed men who deserve scorn, pity, or maybe both. It’s reasonable to wonder if that well may someday run dry. Then, one day, a 25 year old kid from Asheville, North Carolina presents the world with the line, “I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome,” and you realize that true genius will never run out of ways to skewer terrible men.
If you’re keeping track, four of our first five artists will be at Primavera Sound 2025. If you’re still thinking about a summer festival, I highly recommend that one.
6. Rosie Tucker - “All My Exes Live In Vortexes”
Album: UTOPIA NOW!
Release Date: Jan. 23
From The Singles Jukebox: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by free two-day shipping. So many who should know better take the easy way out, effortlessly flipping the maxim of No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism from a rallying cry (“ignore cheap platitudes designed to sow complacency, we need to dismantle the entire oppressive system”) to an all-purposes excuse (“just buy whatever you want, all companies are evil, change is impossible, lol nothing matters”). On “All My Exes Live In Vortexes,” Rosie Tucker chooses a different path, cracking jokes about bottles of piss without ever letting you take your eyes off of the fact that you are complicit in all of this, and so are they, and that merely hoping for a better world changes nothing. We are all willing participants in large-scale dehumanization and environmental degradation and yet we are still going to die and be forgotten without ever taming our insatiable desire for more. Or, go even further: we are going to die and be forgotten without even figuring out the secret to clear skin. Tucker has been asking what modern protest music looks like, and here’s your answer: You can protest your own actions within the context of an absurd yet all-conquering system that survives by metabolizing dissent and doesn’t even deliver on its most minimal promises. But you can also make it funny. [10]
7. Liquid Mike - “K2”
Album: Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot
Release Date: Feb. 2
“Mouse Trap” was a late addition to 100 Songs for 2023, and since then Liquid Mike has rapidly climbed the ranks of my favorite bands, taking the #3 spot on my internal list of Bands I Might Someday Fly to the US Just To See (a very exclusive list that, to be honest, probably only has three bands on it, two of which actually played together once this year and it turns out it’s not that hard to get from Amsterdam to Marquette, Michigan, ahh what could have been …)
Spoiler alert: There are two songs in this year’s top ten that explicitly reference both (a) soiling yourself and (b) a Coldplay song. This is the first one.
8. Little Kid - “Bad Energy”
Album: A Million Easy Payments
Release Date: Jan. 23
In occupied Palestine / Near the birthsite of Christ / Caught some footage that you wouldn't believe
And so begins “Bad Energy,” the most 2024 Vibes song on this list, both musically and lyrically. The bad energy creeps in from everywhere: geopolitics, media, religion, climate change, the economy, even human genetics, and yet it’s articulated so well you can’t help but stop to admire the songcraft. It’s slow-building dread that also feels like slipping into a warm bath. It’s both heavy and fragile. It’s seven and a half minutes long and feels like it builds for days, then feels like it’s over too soon. Come for the bad energy, stay for the bad energy.
9. Wishy - “Love On The Outside”
Album: Triple Seven
Release Date: Aug. 16
Maybe the song I’ve had stuck in my head the most this year. The number of times I’ve just absent-mindedly started singing “Are you down? Are you freeeee?” is … concerning, honestly. We saw Wishy at a club in Paris called L'Alimentation Générale, which is fun because that pretty much just means “grocery store” (the literal translation is “general food”) so every third storefront in Paris says “L'Alimentation Générale” and I was convinced we were going to end up in the wrong place. The venue itself looked like an unfinished basement, the opening bands acted like they were playing their first shows ever, and tickets were €10 but I’m confident we could have just walked in. It wasn’t my favorite show of the year, but it was great, and it was my platonic ideal of “I want to see more shows like that in the future.” London has clubs like that. Berlin has clubs like that. I love Paradiso and Melkweg, but I’m worried I’m somehow missing the Amsterdam bar where a band from Indiana can play for roughly 75 generally supportive locals who might be more interested in playing foosball.
10. Wild Pink - “Air Drumming Fix You”
Album: Strawberry Eraser EP
Release Date: Mar. 7
As promised, here’s your other song exploring the mysteries of both defecation and the wildly popular British rock band Coldplay. (Also, I know I’ve said it here before, but X&Y is criminally underrated. Take your “Fix You” slander somewhere else.) More of the classic, warm, layered, Wild Pink sound, with horns and synths and a good life that didn’t look like you thought it might.
11. Kendrick Lamar - “squabble up”
Album: GNX
Release Date: Nov. 22
It was the year of Kendrick. He had a world-conquering #1 single, and he guested on another one. He was picked to play the Super Bowl. He has proven beyond a doubt that he is the one rapper you do not cross under any circumstance. He is, unquestionably, at the top of his game. But, before the surprise release of GNX, it all left me a little bit cold because … Drake. You’re just never going to get me to care about Drake. Song after song, all of Kendrick’s technical prowess on display, and it just never felt exciting to me. It was like Kendrick was dropping diss tracks about some soulless billionaire CEO or dead-eyed conservative politician, like “yeah yeah Kendrick this guy seems terrible, no argument here, I was on your side after the first song, why are we still doing this?” GNX, though, is wall-to-wall Drake-free excellence, with the G-funk bounce of “squabble up” an early highlight.
12. Charly Bliss - “Nineteen”
Album: FOREVER
Release Date: May 1
This is Year 17 of the 100 Songs project, plus two prequel years, which means we are coming up on two thousand times that I have sat down and consciously forced myself to think about exactly why I like a particular song. In that time I have come to realize that the ones closest to my heart are the ones that I absolutely cannot justify at all. Like, at all. “Nineteen” is a big, sappy piano ballad that goes where countless big, sappy piano ballads have gone before. There’s nothing particularly innovative or surprising about it. It’s overwrought in every way that a song can be overwrought. It has a saxophone solo. And yet, for whatever reason, it just finds every pleasure center in my brain. I kinda hope I never find out why.
13. Bad Moves - “Eviction Party”
Album: Wearing Out The Refrain
Release Date: Sept. 13
I can complain about the fact that nine months between the release of the first single and the release of the album seems a bit excessive, but I absolutely cannot complain about the album itself now that it’s finally here. As was the case with 2020’s Untenable, most of my favorite songs are the non-singles, including my clear favorite, “Eviction Party.” Bad Moves cement their status as Band #2 on my internal list of Bands I Might Someday Fly to the US Just To See. (They’ve played with both Martha and The Hold Steady. I have missed some chances.)
14. Chappell Roan - “Good Luck, Babe!”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Apr. 5
This may be the least significant insight about The Rise and Rise and Rise of our Midwest Princess, but I love the fact that, for much of 2024, Chappell Roan had two songs climbing the charts at almost exactly the same time, one of which was this fascinating off-kilter synth-pop song that jumps all over the place and at the same time presents a fully formed story arc that could be turned into a screenplay without that much additional effort … and one of which was (and I say this with love) a dumber version of the “YMCA.”
15. Vampire Weekend - “Mary Boone”
Album: Only God Was Above Us
Release Date: Mar. 28
It’s not actually the Primitive Radio Gods drum break but, spiritually, it is. If you weren’t familiar with Mary Boone the real person (and I definitely wasn’t), she’s an art dealer who (a) made the cover of New York magazine in the 80s, (b) was played by Parker Posey in a movie about Basquiat, (c) went to prison for tax fraud, and (d) is now the subject of a Vampire Weekend song. Does this make her the most New York person who has ever lived? It has to put her in the conversation, right?
16. Teenage Tom Petties - “I Got Previous”
Album: Teenage Tom Petties
Release Date: Aug. 2
At one point there was a full band, but now it’s just one guy, and he’s not a teenager, but his name is Tom, so I guess it works. The new record is their (his?) second self-titled album, which is probably going to present a challenge for future historians, but for now it’s just 11 lo-fi gems in 25 minutes, so don’t overthink it. “I Got Previous” pulls off the neat trick of building an anthemic chorus around lyrics that sound like he’s leaving a voicemail message (“Hey Jeanine / Yeah, it’s me / Tom from ‘93”).
17. Maggie Rogers - “Don’t Forget Me”
Album: Don’t Forget Me
Release Date: Feb. 8
From The Singles Jukebox: I’ve always been clear on what I don’t want. I thought navigating adulthood would require more active efforts to suppress jealousy, but it turns out that I spend way more emotional energy on listening to people brag about their lives, maintaining a polite smile while thinking “oh my god this all sounds miserable,” then walking away feeling equal parts superior and broken. Why don’t I want that? Shouldn’t I want that? What do I want? On “Don’t Forget Me,” Maggie Rogers centers her dislocation on idealized romantic relationships, but that feeling seeps into everything. We all know what the “right” answers are, what we’re supposed to want. Setting aside those one-size-fits-all dreams is an important first step, but it’s not enough. You have to replace them with something. Maggie knows what she wants: someone who will be nice to her, someone who will remember her fondly even if it doesn’t last forever, which it probably won’t. That’s such an honest self-appraisal. Molly and Sally would probably tell her to dream bigger, but these dreams are hers, and for that reason alone they’re better. [8]
Probably should have been a [9].
18. Rosali - “Rewind”
Album: Bite Down
Release Date: Mar. 22
Born in Michigan, went to college in Minnesota, started her career in Philadelphia, now based in Asheville, North Carolina. Over the years, if I have made a hyperbolic “all of the good music in America is being made in [X]” statement on this blog, it was probably about one of those places. Bite Down was a constant presence for me this year, a versatile album that always seems to fit the mood. It’s folk then it’s rock then it’s Americana then it’s maybe a little bit of psych. It all works. I pick a different favorite song every time I listen, and today it’s “Rewind.”
19. Mannequin Pussy - “Loud Bark”
Album: I Got Heaven
Release Date: Mar. 1
“I want to be a danger / I want to be adored / I want to walk around at night while being ignored.” Marisa Dabice wants it all and, you know what, why don’t you try telling her she can’t have it, see how that goes for you.
20. Los Campesinos! - “The Coin-Op Guillotine”
Album: All Hell
Release Date: Jul. 19
All Hell brings political issues to the foreground more than previous LC! records, but even then there are probably quite a few references I’m missing. Like, did you know the line “They gotta give us bread but give us roses” comes from a 1911 poem referencing a 1910 speech by an American women's suffrage activist? Maybe you did know this and I’m just a bad leftist.
21. Oso Oso - “the country club”
Album: life till bones
Release Date: Aug. 9
On a close reading of the lyrics, I don’t think that getting kicked out of the country club is one of the things he’s apologizing for (“they're all no fun anyway”), which feels right. Bummer about crashing the car though.
22. JADE - “Angel Of My Dreams”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Jul. 19
First Listen: There is way too much going on here.
Second Listen: There is still too much going on here.
Third Listen: Or, wait …
Fourth Listen: Actually …
Fifth Listen: Okay …
Sixth Listen: Look, the beauty of chaos is the chaos, don’t you get that?
Every Subsequent Listen: Hey Mike, let's do somethin' crazy!
23. Sabrina Carpenter - “Espresso”
Album: Short ‘n Sweet
Release Date: Apr. 11
I love that Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan both figured out at almost exactly the same time that the one thing pop music was missing was someone who could be both in-on-the-joke silly and danger-to-yourself-and-others horny at the same time. As AI attempts to flatten everything, I hope it incentivizes artists, even mainstream pop stars, to get even weirder. My faith in humanity pretty much boils down to the fact that no computer could have come up with, “I’m working late / cuz I’m a singerrrrr” because what possible inputs would have led it to that result?
24. Johnny Blue Skies - “Scooter Blues”
Album: Passage Du Desir
Release Date: Jul. 12
In which Sturgill Simpson burrows so far into the depths of depression that he comes out the other side as Jimmy Buffett.
25. Johnny Foreigner - “What The Alexei”
Album: How To Be Hopeful
Release Date: Jun. 12
Birmingham’s finest are back from an extended hiatus, which is convenient for me since I wasn’t especially familiar with them the first time around so it’s like, hey, brand new band! Los Campesinos! still haven’t announced openers for their February Troxy shows, so I’m just pointing out this would be an excellent pick (they’ve toured together before).
26. Ceres - “1997”
Album: Magic Mountain (1996-2022)
Release Date: Oct. 4
Another band that came back from hiatus just in time for me to finally notice them, and a slightly less likely Los Campesinos! opener since they’re from Melbourne, and it probably doesn’t make a lot of financial sense to fly a band from Australia to London for one show, but their new album was produced by LC! guitarist Tom Bromley, so it’s not like there’s no connection. Just doing my best to speak it into existence.
27. This Is Lorelei - “Dancing in the Club”
Album: Box for Buddy, Box for Star
Release Date: Mar. 4
In a huge upset, my enjoyment of this song has survived Ilana pointing out that it scans as a slow, sad version of “What’s My Age Again?”
28. Maggie Rogers - “In The Living Room”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 8
She’s on such a hot streak right now. Here’s a tossed off “let’s do one more” single that’s as fun as anything else I’ve heard this year. Feels like it’s going to be awesome live.
29. Soccer Mommy - “Driver”
Album: Evergreen
Release Date: Sep. 10
A rock outlier on a more subdued album, and I’m always going to gravitate toward those.
30. Waxahatchee - “Tigers Blood”
Album: Tigers Blood
Release Date: Mar. 22
So no, I am not even close to discussing that Waxahatchee show. How many low-level religious experiences did you have last year?
I’m interested in the difference between sequencing an album and sequencing a live show. I understand that there are some differences. You’re going to put your biggest hits at the start of the album and play them at the end of the concert. On the other hand, parts of it should be the same, shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t an album opener and a setlist opener serve a similar purpose in capturing the audience’s attention? If an album is meant to tell a story, shouldn’t the show tell the story in a similar order?
For this tour, Katie Crutchfield structures the set to follow the Tigers Blood track listing, starting with the first three songs in order and ending with “Tigers Blood,” interspersing most of Saint Cloud and a few Plains songs. The effect is to amplify the emotional impact of some of those late album non-singles, like “Crowbar,” “The Wolves” and especially “Tigers Blood.” Going into the show, I would have said that Tigers Blood was excellent but Saint Cloud was better overall, now I’m not so sure. I never wanted this concert to end. I never wanted this song to end.
(In researching these blurbs, I have learned that tiger’s blood is a shaved ice flavor made by combining watermelon, strawberry and coconut. I have not learned why there isn’t an apostrophe in the album title. It gets weirder the more times I type it out.)
31. Kendrick Lamar - “tv off”
Album: GNX
Release Date: Nov. 22
GNX felt like an instant classic to me, and the critical consensus skewed that way, but I was surprised to see that the praise was far from unanimous, including a middling 6.6 from Pitchfork. It made me take a step back and reconsider the context of my opinion, which is that GNX is probably the only new hip hop album I listened to in its entirety in 2024. Not especially proud of that, but it’s true. So I may not be the world’s foremost authority here. I still think GNX rules, but I’m also confident that Alphonse Pierre (he of the 6.6) has spent more time thinking about new hip hop today than I have all year, so maybe there’s room for some well-reasoned criticism here.
32. Momma - “Ohio All The Time”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 22
I really liked Household Name (“Speeding 72” was #64 on 100 Songs for 2022), but this still feels like a huge step forward for the band. I don’t know how a song can sound this youthful and this nostalgic at the same time, but I’m excited to see if they can carry that sound through to the new album. One of many, many US bands who scheduled a UK-only tour in 2024 when Amsterdam is right there. In their case, all is forgiven since they’re playing Primavera 2025.
33. Caroline Polachek - “Starburned and Unkissed”
Album: I Saw The TV Glow (Original Soundtrack)
Release Date: May 2
I don’t know anything about Caroline Polachek’s songwriting process, but I like to imagine that she challenges herself to get as weird as possible while still being able to drop into a massive hook at any moment, like seeing how far out you can swim and still make it back to shore.
34. Sharon Van Etten - “Afterlife”
Album: Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory
Release Date: Oct. 23
Imagine if CHVRCHES came from the Scottish Highlands instead of Glasgow. Imagine if they spent a lot of time wandering in the fog at night, drinking whiskey and contemplating eternity. Imagine if they had a few supernatural experiences they couldn’t quite explain.
35. Jessica Pratt - “Life Is”
Album: Here in the Pitch
Release Date: Feb. 13
Feels like the universe issuing a correction, like this was supposed to be one of the biggest songs of 1966 and someone just filed the paperwork incorrectly, so we’re just going to try it again in 2024. Timeless.
36. The Cure - “And Nothing Is Forever”
Album: Songs Of A Lost World
Release Date: Nov. 1
I gave “Alone” an [8] for The Singles Jukebox and I think this one is even better, layers upon layers upon layers of cinematic beauty.
37. DIIV - “Brown Paper Bag”
Album: Frog in Boiling Water
Release Date: Feb. 15
Decades from now, we will remember 2024 as the year we dared to ask “What is Shoegaze?” and also the year we dared to answer that question with “Anything. Literally anything.” Could you describe the guitars as “swirling”? Shoegaze. Does the guitarist have both an overdrive and a reverb pedal? Shoegaze? Is it impossible to understand what anyone is saying? Shoegaze. Look, I’m no Shoegaze purist. My test is pretty much just “How much does this sound like My Bloody Valentine?” But it was a year when it seemed like everyone was incorporating shoegaze elements, and interchangeable bands started to blend together, churning like the guitars on … you know what, forget it. For me, the one band to rise above the noise was DIIV, who has been around long enough to know that there has to be a killer song under all that squall. They’re coming to Paradiso on December 15, and I need it to be so loud I forget where I am.
38. Micah Schnabel - “Christian Band”
Album: The Clown Watches The Clock
Release Date: May 15
For me, the genius of “Christian Band” is how slowly Schnabel reveals his mastery of the subject matter. He starts out somewhat pedestrian:
The Christian band wasn’t very good but lots of people came anyway
To hear them play their songs that sounded just like other people’s songs
Ha ha ha, Christian music is derivative, have you guys seen this, have you heard about this? This observation on its own is almost as tired as the music it’s making fun of. But soon enough he adds some very precise details:
This one lady, she had a bible and she was crying
And the band was playing a Stone Temple Pilots song, just singing different words to it
I didn’t think that was legal
That is exactly right. And funny, especially the way it’s delivered. I have been at this show. The music isn’t just derivative, it’s derivative of music that is several decades old and was itself derivative, and maybe wasn’t that great to begin with. People will still will themselves into having what they will tell other people was a transcendent experience.
Then when he gets to the bridge, he just matter-of-factly lays out the existential despair at the heart of all of this:
I think this is a story about limitations
Failing to meet your own expectations of yourself
And how some people will never have that problem
Because they can easily pretend to be someone else
And if you’re willing to sacrifice who you really are
People will pay you money to not make them uncomfortable
And now we aren’t just talking about Christian bands, are we?
39. Camp Trash - “Normal, IL”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Jun. 6
Camp Trash only put out two new songs in 2024 (this one gets the nod over “Friendship America,” which is also great), but they retain the top spot on my internal list of Bands I Might Someday Fly to the US Just To See. Announce some tour dates, guys, let’s make this happen. (Preferably close to a major international airport.)
I don’t know if they’re working on an under the radar Sufjan-style 50 States project, but “Normal, IL” joins “Weird Florida” and “Weird Carolina” on the list of explicit song titles, along with lyrical reference to Michigan (“Bobby”) and New York (“Let It Ride”), and I guess “Lake Erie Boys” could encompass a few states so, really, we’re almost there.
40. Cassandra Jenkins - “Aurora, IL”
Album: My Light, My Destroyer
Release Date: Jul. 12
Ranking songs is a gimmick anyway so, sure, let’s put these two together. It’s about a two hour drive from Normal, IL to Aurora, IL, and I can promise you that you will not see a single thing that entire time. As Jenkins says, explicitly here but implicitly in almost all of her music, it’s “a thin line / between us and nothingness.”
41. Tems - “Love Me JeJe”
Album: Born in the Wild
Release Date: Apr. 26
From The Singles Jukebox: Last year, in a conversation for Interview, Kendrick Lamar asked Tems how she avoided being pigeonholed as an artist. In a surprisingly combative response, she took great pains to distance herself from Afrobeats specifically, Nigerian music generally, and everyone telling her that audiences would only accept her if she presented herself and her music in a certain way. (“It’s not that your music is bad, it’s just that it doesn’t fit in Nigeria. Nigerians don’t like this.”) While she tried to spin it as me-against-the-world motivation, I came away from the interview exhausted on her behalf, overwhelmed by the idea that she would always be locked in a battle against forces that would seek to flatten her into a stereotype just because of the place she was born. With all of that as prologue, “Love Me JeJe” is a miracle in its weightlessness. Here is Tems at peace, unquestionably an individual but also unquestionably the product of her environment. Here is Tems effortlessly breathing new life into a familiar Nigerian hit that was originally released when she was two years old. Here is Tems gliding through the streets of Lagos as if floating, as if she came out the other side of her fight for individuality with the confidence that she won’t lose herself. [9]
42. Hovvdy - “Jean”
Album: Hovvdy
Release Date: Apr. 26
Hazy Texan indie, vulnerable but optimistic, with an understated piano line that burrows itself into my brain every time.
43. MJ Lenderman - “On My Knees”
Album: Manning Fireworks
Release Date: Jun. 24
“Every day is a miracle / Not to mention a threat” is probably my favorite single lyric of 2024.
44. Prince Daddy & the Hyena - “God Complex”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 24
I’ve seen them as an opener (for Oso Oso) in a tiny room and as an opener (for The Menzingers) in a somewhat larger room. Bands don’t always get what they deserve, but if there’s a band ready to make the jump to headliner in 2025, it’s these guys.
45. Combat - “Stay Golden”
Album: Stay Golden
Release Date: Jun. 25
Ilana says that, as long as she can do a backflip on a trampoline, she isn’t old. Everyone should have something like that, a quick and easy youth check to reassure yourself. Mine is moshing at concerts. I don’t need to do it at every show, but I need to do it every once in a while to make sure it’s still there. Combat makes great moshing music, pogo-stick punk in the vein of PUP or Jeff Rosenstock. Stay Golden is an album-long midlife crisis breakdown, which is awesome since lead singer Holden Wolf is 20 years old. I guess literally everyone feels like life is passing them by all the time. Anyway, at some point in the future Combat is going to come to Amsterdam, I’m going to mosh at their show, Holden Wolf is going to see me, and it is going to instantly resolve all of his anxieties about aging. Or make them much worse. One of those two.
46. The Tisburys - “The Anniversaries”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 9
The lead single from their forthcoming follow-up to 2022’s Exile on Main Street finds the band moving in a more Hold Steady direction, which always sounds like a good idea to me. In between albums, they’ve been putting out a series of EPs on Bandcamp and Spotify called Philadelphia's #1 Deep Cut Bar Band Covering The Classics, including a bunch of the usual suspects (War on Drugs, Replacements, Pavement) but also some less obvious choices, like “Passionate Kisses,” by Americana icon Lucinda Williams, as made famous by 90s pop-country star Mary Chapin Carpenter. That’s by far the best one. Every band should have at least one cover outside of their expected sphere of influences. People watching your set should get to have that experience where they look at each other like, “wait, is this …?” but not in a winking, ironic way. In a “we all agree this song rules” way.
47. Magdalena Bay - “Death & Romance”
Album: Imaginal Disk
Release Date: May 28
"Imagine rain pouring, streetlights glowing. You sit at home and wait for your alien boyfriend to pick you up in his UFO… but this time, he's not coming".
48. Tommy Richman - “MILLION DOLLAR BABY”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Apr. 26
From The Singles Jukebox: Just to be clear, when I say “this dude gives me Kreayshawn vibes,” what I mean is “hell yeah bouncy novelty summer jam goodness,” not “I would like to have an exhausting and ultimately meaningless conversation about race.” Thank you. [8]
49. Charli XCX - “Girl, so confusing featuring Lorde”
Album: Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat
Release Date: Jun. 21
Takes over the top spot in the rankings of best Charli/Lorde interactions. This was my previous favorite:
50. Beyoncé - “II MOST WANTED” (feat. Miley Cyrus)
Album: COWBOY CARTER
Release Date: Mar. 29
She famously said, "This ain't a Country album. This is a Beyoncé album.", so it feels like I’m underselling her vision with this pick. If we’re going with the best Beyoncé song on COWBOY CARTER, a big, theatrical, genre-defying statement, it’s probably “YA YA” or “AMERIICAN REQUIEM.” On the other hand, why minimize the fact that it’s a country album, too, and a pretty good one at that? With that in mind, I’m going with “II MOST WANTED” as the best pure country song on the album.
51. The Linda Lindas - “All In My Head”
Album: No Obligation
Release Date: Jul. 16
Earlier this year, we saw the Linda Lindas in San Francisco on a bill that also included Rancid, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Green Day. You may be wondering whether they deserve to find themselves in such esteemed company. Well, they have now made one 100 Songs appearance. Those other three bands have a combined … zero. What other metrics do you need?
52. Charly Bliss - “Calling You Out”
Album: FOREVER
Release Date: May 30
It’s possible that other bands are as fun live. It’s hard to believe that another band is more fun live.
53. Bad Moves - “New Year’s Reprieve”
Album: Wearing Out The Refrain
Release Date: Sept. 13
OUT: Your band covers “Fairytale of New York” like everyone else, never as good as the original.
IN: Your band writes what is basically “Fairytale of DC” but set on New Year’s Eve, an amazing companion piece to the original.
54. Cindy Lee - “Flesh and Blood”
Album: Diamond Jubilee
Release Date: Mar. 29
Did we all love Diamond Jubilee for real or did we all just love remembering a time when the internet was fun? Waking up to a fawning Pitchfork review of an album that could only be found on a weird Geocities website? That is so incredibly 2005. I feel 20 years younger just thinking about it. (Still not on Spotify, but it’s finally available on Bandcamp, which seems like a reasonable compromise.)
55. Erika de Casier - “ice” (feat. They Hate Change)
Album: Still
Release Date: Feb. 7
Cool as Copenhagen. This song cycled here in the snow and still looks more put together than you have in your entire life.
56. Blondshell - “Docket” (feat. Bully)
Album: N/A
Release Date: Mar. 26
I’m here for more indie rock collaborations, it seems to be working out great so far.
57. Jane Remover - “Magic I Want U”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Sept. 4
From The Singles Jukebox: I don’t think I’ve ever used the phrase “it sounds like you just mixed all the different energy drinks together” as a compliment before. [9]
58. ALVILDA - “Angoisse”
Album: C’est Déjà L’heure
Release Date: Sept. 17
Okay fine, I’ll learn French. How hard could it be?
59. Liquid Mike - “Drug Dealer”
Album: Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot
Release Date: Feb. 2
Almost impossible to pick a second song from Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot, but let’s go with “Drug Dealer.” It’s Liquid Mike’s “Radiation Vibe.” It features the best single melodic moment on the album (the second syllable in the word “worried” in “and I'm not worried about you now”). My only complaint is that it should be twice as long.
60. Chime School - “The End”
Album: The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel
Release Date: Jul. 31
I listened to all seven and a half hours of Bandsplain’s history of baggy, and honestly I think it could have been even longer so yes, I am here for new bands that sound like the Stone Roses. Here’s one, and there is plenty of room for more. As for Chime School, they’re from San Francisco, they’re signed to Slumberland Records, they just played one of the coolest venues in Paris (Le Hasard Ludique) and I missed it, the pedigree is impeccable.
61. Vampire Weekend - “Capricorn”
Album: Only God Was Above Us
Release Date: Feb. 16
It’s possible that you aren’t actively following Vampire Weekend’s current tour, which means you may not know that, for their encores, they just take requests now. Like, any request. A lot of them. The setlists are nuts. Look at this one. Look at this one. I honestly can’t decide if this sounds fun or excruciating.
62. Good Looks - “Can You See Me Tonight?”
Album: Lived Here For A While
Release Date: May 8
I understand why bands write songs about the ups and downs of touring. It becomes their entire world for months at a time, how could they not write about it? That said, I’ve never understood how those songs can be so resonant, since the vast majority of listeners have no frame of reference, no conception of what it feels like on the road. But I was looking at the lyrics to this one:
I’m still trying to win you over
As I’m facing a crowd
These ain’t nothing but perfect strangers
I keep driving around
To try to make some strangers love me
By the end of tonight
I’ll sing myself hoarse and I’ll still feel empty
and actually … isn’t that pretty much all of our jobs? I don’t really know any of the people who receive the dozens of emails I send every day, and yet it’s still vitally important to me that those recipients respect and appreciate me. (And, invariably, this still leaves me feeling empty.) So, touring: relatable. My emails: works of artistic brilliance on par with a great rock song.
63. Wild Pink - “St. Catherine Street”
Album: Dulling the Horns
Release Date: Oct. 4
Feels like Dulling the Horns got kind of a polite critical response (no bad reviews but I’d be surprised to see it near the top of many year-end lists), falling into the trap of so many other bands who make consistently excellent music without a real narrative hook to set the new stuff apart from their previous work. Still, Dulling the Horns is a deep record. The band put out four solid singles, but my pick is non-single “St. Catherine Street,” showcasing John Ross’ lyrics (“quitting drinking was like swimming away from land”) and a soaring guitar solo to see us off.
64. ME REX - “Goodbye Forever”
Album: Smilodon EP
Release Date: May 1
This is it! Fourth time’s the charm! 2020. 2021. 2022. A year off to recover. Now 2024. This is the year you all realize that you love ME REX, and in fact have always loved them! (Whether or not this happens, I will see you all back here next year with my enthusiasm completely intact.)
65. Holly Humberstone - “Down Swinging”
Album: work in progress EP
Release Date: Mar. 15
In hindsight, a weird concert to go to on Valentine’s Day. Not Holly’s fault, though.
66. Friko - “Get Numb To It!”
Album: Where we’ve been, Where we go from here
Release Date: Feb. 16
Peak Arcade Fire recast as a Chicago bar band, specifically a Chicago bar band who knows that despair can be fun if you get all of your friends to sing along with you.
67. Cal Rifkin - “Big Star”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Jun. 25
I’ve been on quite a journey with these guys, from “oh wow, that is the worst band name of all time,” to “well I guess it’s memorable,” to “oohhh, I wonder if I can think of a better one.” Alan Jammell? Shred McGriff? Wade Bops?
68. Humdrum - “Come And Get Me”
Album: Every Heaven
Release Date: Oct. 18
Here’s the exact opposite of Cal Rifkin, just the most forgettable band name imaginable. “Hi, we’re Mediocre.” “Hi, we’re Whatever.” “Hi, we’re Snoozefest.” (Spotify confirms that these are all real bands.) Hey, Humdrum, your music is really good! I feel like you probably know that! Why make it so easy for people to ignore you? From now on, you guys are Wade Bops.
69. Mk.gee - “ROCKMAN”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 18
If you asked me which song came out first, The Police’s “Spirits In The Material World” or Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” I would have guessed Yes (Oct. 24, 1983), but it’s actually The Police (Oct. 2, 1981). I am (just barely) older than both songs. I am confident Mk.gee would have answered that particular trivia question correctly.
70. Tunde Adebimpe - “Magnetic”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 29
TV on the Radio is back! TV on the Radio are back? Every single year I go through this exercise and every single year I forget how to determine whether a band name should be a singular or plural noun. Google Docs says it should be “is.” That’s how Wikipedia does it as well. But then they have both Oasis and Blur are “are,” so does this really depend on country of origin? Anyway, TV on the Radio: back! If you’re reading this the day it comes out, the band will be starting a three-night run at London’s Islington Assembly Hall tomorrow. It’s unlikely I’ll be there, but I’m not totally ruling it out. Either way, they will be at Primavera in June, and I will be front and center for that. It’s still unclear if there will be new TVOTR music, but there will be new music from frontman Tunde Adebimpe, as “Magnetic” is the first single from a new album promised next spring.
71. Olivia Rodrigo - “obsessed”
Album: Guts (Spilled)
Release Date: Mar. 22
We saw Olivia at Ziggo Dome back in May, and we were almost definitely the oldest people there who were not acting as chaperones. For “obsessed,” she came out in the pageant-style sash she wears in the promo photos, but as a special treat for Amsterdam it read “GEOBSEDEERD.” She probably had one made for every city on the tour, and it’s possible she didn’t even think about it onstage, but I’d like to believe she did because I love the idea that, for one split second earlier this year, Olivia Rodrigo and I were having the exact same thought, which is “how is this a real language?”
72. Hurray For The Riff Raff - “Alibi”
Album: The Past Is Still Alive
Release Date: Feb. 23
When asked to name the peer who she respected most as a songwriter, Katie Crutchfield said Hurray For The Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra, and while they come from very different places (Segarra is non-binary, Puerto Rican, raised in the Bronx), it seems meaningful that they both found their way to the same deep vein of heartbroken-but-still-defiant Americana.
73. Bully - “Atom Bomb”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Feb. 29
Hard to imagine how anything could be more stripped-down than this. Just piano and Alicia Bognanno’s voice. None of Bully’s signature guitars. None of Bully’s signature noise. It starts with the line “After all this time, I'm the same just older” and just gets more vulnerable from there. Devastating in the best way.
74. Bartees Strange - “Sober”
Album: Horror
Release Date: Oct. 1
Bartees Strange is back! It’s a bit of a surprise to see Jack Antonoff producing, but it is not at all a surprise to see Strange examining a familiar darkness and equating personal failings with the end of the world, literally.
75. Another Sky - “The Pain”
Album: Beach Day
Release Date: Jan. 18
I get it, life is short and there are only so many hours in the day. Maybe you made the reasonable decision to ignore a British art-rock band named after an Emily Dickinson poem whose first live show was at a church in total darkness. I also have a little alarm in my head that starts beeping when something seems too pretentious to be worth the effort. I’m not asking you to disable that alarm completely, but maybe turn it off just this once.
76. 2nd Grade - “I Wanna Be On Your Mind”
Album: Scheduled Explosions
Release Date: Oct. 8
2nd Grade stick to the playbook on Scheduled Explosions: 23 songs, 38 minutes, rapid-fire lo-fi ideas that are here and gone before you know what hit you. As with most 2nd Grade albums, I tend to gravitate to their longer, more traditionally structured songs like “I Wanna Be On Your Mind,” an epic by 2nd Grade standards at almost two and a half minutes.
77. ahem - “Leap Year”
Album: Avoider
Release Date: Feb. 29
Pristine power pop from Minneapolis. Avoider is ten songs, twenty-five minutes, and not a hair out of place. The band took five years between albums and then released lead single “Leap Year” on Leap Day 2024, which makes me wonder just how long they had been planning that. Was the album done in 2022 but someone in the band was just like “you know what we could do …”?
78. Wishy - “Triple Seven”
Album: Triple Seven
Release Date: Aug. 16
I love a band with multiple lead vocalists. For Wishy, the Nina Pitchkites songs almost sound like a different band from the Kevin Krauter songs. Kevin sings ultra-catchy hits for an alt-rock radio station that doesn’t exist anymore. Nina sings dreamy songs for the stereo of a super-cool indie record store … that also doesn’t exist anymore.
79. Ducks Ltd. - “Cathedral City”
Album: Harm’s Way
Release Date: Feb. 9
When it comes to live music, I think we’re lucky to be in Amsterdam. I think a lot of bands see it as a tour highlight to play here, and I think that energy comes through onstage. Every so often, though, we catch a band on the last night of an extended European tour and you can really feel how much they just want it to be over. It’s no one’s fault, really. One city has to be the last stop and, for Ducks Ltd., that was us. “Cathedral City” was one of the many fine songs they played with an admirable degree of professionalism to a half-full room before flying back to Toronto and, I assume, sleeping for several days. I get it.
80. The Reds, Pinks and Purples - “The World Doesn’t Need Another Band”
Album: The World Doesn’t Need Another Band
Release Date: Sep. 10
I mean, I disagree. The world desperately needs way more bands, but that’s not the point. We saw RPP open for Guided By Voices earlier this year, and I’m pleased to report that they fall into the Belle & Sebastian category of bands who generally make pretty chill music but still put on fun, energetic live shows.
81. Lady Gaga - “Disease”
Album: N/A
Release Date: Oct. 25
As of this moment “Disease” only has 70 million streams while “Die With A Smile” has over a billion. That seems concerning. How is that possible? I’m trying to imagine the kind of person who would choose to listen to “Die With A Smile” at all, much less the kind of person who would choose to listen to “Die With A Smile” over “Disease.” Other people are weird.
82. Teenage Tom Petties - “Dumb Enough”
Album: Teenage Tom Petties
Release Date: Aug. 2
Now that we’ve talked about Lady Gaga’s billion streams, let’s get back to Teenage Tom Petties, and “Dumb Enough,” which, as of this writing, has 1,177 streams. I don’t think we talk enough about how crazy it is that these songs can sit right next to each other on a playlist as if they exist in the same universe.
83. Fontaines D.C. - “Starburster”
Album: Romance
Release Date: Apr. 17
If there is one rock-adjacent genre that just makes my brain turn off, it’s post-punk. Idles. Iceage. Yard Act. English Teacher. Critically acclaimed and loved by millions and I just don’t get it. Maybe I will someday. For now, I’m just pleasantly surprised when a song breaks through, like “Starburster,” and for a couple minutes I kinda see what all the fuss is about. Kinda.
84. Starflyer 59 - “909”
Album: Lust for Gold
Release Date: Jul. 22
A shoegaze love letter to the Inland Empire.
85. Macseal - “Four Legs”
Album: Permanent Repeat
Release Date: Jun. 11
A lot of bands really want to be Fountains of Wayne and honestly that’s fine with me.
86. fanclubwallet - “Easy”
Album: Our Bodies Paint Traffic Lines
Release Date: Feb. 27
I remain a sucker for an artist having a conversation with their younger self, and here Hannah Judge tries to explain to her painfully shy younger self how she now leads a moderately successful indie band. The question she keeps coming back to, “Is it easy for you?”, feels like it should have an easy answer, but it clearly doesn’t.
87. Origami Angel - “Dirty Mirror Selfie”
Album: Feeling Not Found
Release Date: Jul. 23
Three and a half minutes of whiplash-inducing genre transitions: now it’s pop-punk, now it’s emo, now it’s hardcore. What’s next? Stick around and find out.
88. Remi Wolf - “Cinderella”
Album: Big Ideas
Release Date: Mar. 21
Important point of clarification: While I almost always hate whistling in songs, I have absolutely no problem with the whistle as an instrument. It’s a disco staple, and if you’re trying to reimagine “Bad Girls” for 2024, as Wolf seems to be doing here, it’s basically a necessity. We caught a little bit of her set when she opened for Olivia Rodrigo earlier this year and, while it’s probably impossible to completely win over a quarter-full arena when most people are standing in line for the merch table, she certainly gave it her best shot. Seems like she would be a lot of fun in a much smaller venue.
89. Joshua Idehen - “Mum Does the Washing”
Album: Mum Does the Washing EP
Release Date: Nov. 8
I will readily admit that I am a sucker for a clever spoken word monologue over a minimal dance track. I had “All This Art” by Teenage Sequence at #40 on 100 Songs for 2021 and I probably haven’t listened to it since. (I just put it on again for research purposes. It holds up ok.) So I’m trying to rein in my enthusiasm for this one, but I will say that my Hearing Things subscription is really paying off.
90. Billie Eilish - “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”
Album: Hit Me Hard and Soft
Release Date: Jul. 2
Okay, just hear me out: Imagine if a Haim song was haunted.
91. Mdou Moctar - “Funeral for Justice”
Album: Funeral for Justice
Release Date: May 3
You think about hippies worshipping Jimi Hendrix or Jerry Garcia and you think, “those brainwashed idiots, one guy playing guitar isn’t going to change the world.” Then you listen to Mdou Moctar and you think, “well, hold on a minute now.”
92. Ethel Cain - “Punish”
Album: Perverts
Release Date: Nov. 1
I never watch scary movies. I have little interest in really dark prestige television. But then every so often a song comes around whose explicit sales pitch is, “hey, do you wanna feel horrible for six minutes and forty-eight seconds?” and I think, “absolutely.”
93. Soccer Mommy - “Abigail”
Album: Evergreen
Release Date: Oct. 22
Probably the year’s best song about a Stardew Valley character. I have to admit I’m not going to do a lot of additional research on that one.
94. Dazy - “Big End”
Album: IT’S ONLY A SECRET (if you repeat it)
Release Date: Oct. 25
When only the fuzziest guitars will do!
95. Maren Morris - “push me over”
Album: Intermission
Release Date: Aug. 2
If you’re wondering what goes into writing a music blog, it’s pretty much this: you listen to the new Maren Morris song, you think “this sounds like if she was trying to write a MUNA song,” you pat yourself on the back for such a trenchant and original insight that will undoubtedly set you apart from other music writers … and then you find out she actually wrote it with MUNA, so you weren’t actually having an insight as much as stating a fact that literally anyone could just look up. It’s fun.
96. The Tubs - “Freak Mode”
Album: Cotton Crown
Release Date: Oct. 21
The duality of The Tubs is referring to themselves as a “Celtic jangle boy band” in the press release for a new album and lead single centered on vocalist Owen Williams grieving the passing of his mother. The undercurrent of humor never means that they’re not serious.
97. illuminati hotties - “Didn’t” (feat. Cavetown)
Album: Power
Release Date: Jul. 10
Power is a mini-kaleidoscope of a record that sees Sarah Tudzin processing major life events with an impressive deftness (the strings on the title track are genuinely moving). This being an IH record, though, there’s also an anthem about laziness, as Tudzin tries to keep cultivating a slacker persona while showing up in the credits of literally every good indie record.
98. Floral Tattoo - “the Secret Life of an American Teenaged Vampire (you can't spell Executive Dysfunction without "Cute".)”
Album: The Circus Egotistica; or, How I Spent Most of my Life as a Lost Cause
Release Date: Sep. 3
I love a band with a vision, a messy, sprawling vision spread out over nearly eighty minutes and including song titles like “Mint chewing gum, spironolactone 100mg(2x daily), a half-emptied pack of clove cigarettes, estradiol 4mg(2x daily), one unopened can of Mace (The things we carry with us through the end times | apologies in advance, [REDACTED]).” I love knowing that I’m probably missing so much of what Floral Tattoo is trying to communicate, but that they know exactly what they’re trying to communicate, and I’m catching some of it, and it still feels like a lot.
99. Restorations - “Field Recordings”
Album: Restorations
Release Date: Mar. 22
It’s been thirteen years and five albums and still nobody writes more depressingly anthemic songs about hating your job.
100. Japandroids - “Chicago”
Album: Fate & Alcohol
Release Date: Jul. 17
And so we gather one last time to say goodbye to the living embodiments of Dudes Rock, whether or not they actually want to be saddled with that distinction. This album probably doesn’t need to exist, but the guys have earned the right to go out on whatever terms they want. Celebration Rock will live forever, but Celebration Rock was 12 years ago. Still, that feeling is eternal. If you’ve ever had an awesome time at a rock show even though the band sounded terrible (or maybe because the band sounded terrible), Japandroids were there, and they always will be.
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