2024 Music Wrapup - Introduction
Posted: 1/11/2025 | Tags: music, review
Hey! I listened to some new music this year. Enough to attempt to rank them! Yaaaaaaaay
Rankings are kind of dumb, but they're kind of awesome, too. The conflict-adverse artist in me chafes at the idea of sorting, with any veneer of objectivity or certainty, the albums I enjoyed this year, these unreplaceable expressions of self that have made my life better and left an imprint on my soul. But the gamer in me sees a tier list and like half of the neurons in my entire brain activate all at once. So I'll try to do it! Especially because talking about music is really fun, and talking about music I like is really really fun.
So if I'm gonna do this, I should set some expectations. By my count, I listened to 17 albums that were released this year. I even enjoyed all of them! But to make things clean, and because it kind of makes sense in terms of how I engaged with some of them, I'm going to produce a top 10 list, and discuss the other 7 up front as honorable mentions. I'll go over those here, and additionally list a couple of EPs from the year that I listened to. The Official Top 10 Albums will each get their own separate post, which I'll do in order starting from 10, sometime in the future.
I want to be clear - I am not really trying to say which album I listened to was the best, or that my number 1 is the best album that came out this year. I don't listen to all music! There's so much of it I don't listen to, and a lot of it is really good (or so I hear)! I didn't even listen to brat this year! I just take my little corner of the music world and enjoy it smilingly all on my own.
All I'm really trying to do is rank the albums I listened to this year based on how much I enjoyed them. So I would say that my number 1 is my favorite album of the year - not the best, not the most important (though maybe most important to me), just my personal favorite.
Does that sound fun to you? Ok! I'm doing it
EPs
First, the EPs I listened to this year! Only four of em.
daltonists - daltonists
The YouTube recommended algorithm strikes again... This was a classic case of my feed being haunted for a week or two by a music release with appealing album art until I finally caved and gave it a listen. It wasn't memorable enough for me to revisit it until now, but it was a damn good jam - some really solid, slippery, instrumental psych-rock. It's lofi in a way that a band's first EP naturally is, but it's still really well recorded and produced, retaining enough of the lofi quality to maintain an edge (the tone on the bass and drums - fuck yes!!!) without reducing the EP's listenability. The opening track, "beduiński," is instantly hypnotizing. The whole EP is awash with entrancing grooves and head-bobbing tempo changes - to which, again, all I have to say is, Fuck Yes.... Worth a listen for sure, and I'll be curious to see what a future release from the trio might sound like.
Listen: Bandcamp
Snail's House - PIXELIZE II
I rediscovered Snail's House last year after not having listened to him since high school, when a couple of his viral tracks served a minor role in my gender journey. Turns out, the music is just really damn fun a lot of the time, and I ended up really, really enjoying his 2023 album Lumi, which lead me to explore his back catalogue of assorted J-pop expeditions while I relapsed with Minecraft last summer. Overall, his discography is hit or miss for me; sometimes it feels a bit boring or derivative, but a lot of it I just really like.
I think PIXELIZE II lands somewhere in the middle. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the original PIXELIZE EP, but it still had its highlights. "MOONRIZE" is a lovely, expansive little track, and "FLASH DRIVE" brings me back to playing Sonic Advance 2 as a small child. "SIGNAL" as well has some of the really nice and soulful synth licks that I recognize as Snail's House's musical thumbprint. Like a lot of his work, I think this album is at its best when listened to in the background, which like, hey, in our post-attention world, that's not a bad thing to excel at.
Listen: Bandcamp
The Fearless Flyers - The Fearless Flyers IV
Ahhhh hell the boys did it again. Four whole Fearless Flyers, this time recorded live at the Blue Note in NYC. Like a lot of releases from the extended Vulf cinematic universe, I kind of just listened to it once or twice and then forgot about it, but like, it is really fucking good. Obviously! The live setting means that we get a few longer tracks, their runtime padded by extended improvised solos. One such track was my favorite, "Patrouille de France" - following the most memorable hook of the EP, the criminal, full-build-from-soft-autowah-to-deliciously-distorted guitar solo from Cory Wong is like having almost too much frosting on an excellent cupcake.
Listen: Bandcamp
underscores - Wallsocket (Director's Cut)
Sooo this obviously isn't really an EP; it's a deluxe version of last year's underscores record, which adds four new tracks. Wallsocket was EXTREMELY a favorite album of mine in 2023, so an extra helping of tracks was a huge bonus. Each track feels like a natural fit, expanding on some theme, storyline, and/or character present in the original concept album, even if it's difficult to imagine making room for them in what was such a tight track listing.
True to the original release, Wallsocket's director's cut presents bangers and dirges in equal measure. We open on "My guy (Corporate shuffle)," a groovy, crunchy track that fits right in alongside catchy Wallsocket classics like "Locals (Girls like us)." The following "Northwest zombie girl" feels like a natural substitute for "Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" - maybe it had that spot in an earlier version of the tracklist?
Nestled three songs deep into the director's cut is the sprawling "CCTV," which sounds like if one of the haunting interludes from Wallsocket was stretched out to an 8 minute runtime. This track didn't hook itself into my memory as immediately as the catchier tracks off the director's cut, but the themes of suburban paranoia and surveillance obsession fit so well into the world of Wallsocket. The quiet, scratchy cacophony of unsolicited advice and barbed concern that builds over the course of the last 90 seconds are haunting enough on their own, but when they end the track in a unison chant of "I'm always here for you"... Gutting!
The closing track has to be my favorite, though: "Stupid (Can't run from the urge)." You know it's a good underscores track when she breaks out the parenthetical. It's a pop banger so immaculate and effortlessly on-theme for Wallsocket that it almost feels like a missed opportunity that it didn't make it on the album, especially since it's got a sound so separate from any of Wallsocket's other bangers - much funkier, sounds kind of J-pop. It is a very modern sound, which may be the reason - next to tracks like "Cops and Robbers," "Locals (Girls like us)," and "Old money bitch," which each evoke and iterate on different flavors of 2000s pop, "Stupid (Can't run from the urge)" might have been a bit too anachronistic in Wallsocket's meticulously carved world.
Obviously, I loved these tracks. Any additional Wallsocket is a great joy. The first three tracks are all great, if not as memorable as Wallsocket at its best, but "Stupid (Can't run from the urge)" is gonna be on my playlists for a minute.
Listen: Bandcamp
Albums - Honorable Mentions
Now, onto some of the albums I listened to this year. First, I'm gonna rapid fire through a few that I only listened to once or twice, then I'll cover a couple that just barely didn't make my top 10. Yippee!
Vulfmon - Dot
Album art of the year award goes to...
Well hell, the boy did it again... Another year, another album of collaborations from Jack Stratton and friends. Killer singles, earworms aplenty - good album for sure, just not something that stuck with me. If you enjoy any part of the Vulf catalogue, you'll like Dot just fine.
Listen: Bandcamp
Billie Eilish - HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
I'm not really a Billie Eilisher, but I checked this album out on a reccomendation from a friend, and I enjoyed it. The fact that I didn't return to it reflects more on it just not fitting into my wheelhouse than it does on the quality of the album. Excellent songwriting, lyrically captivating and often devastating, especially in the back half of the album. "LUNCH," "THE GREATEST," and "THE DINER" stood out to me as favorites. Very good album!
Listen: Spotify
doefriends - I WANT TO LOVE AGAIN
Another case of me seeing cool album art and giving an artist I'd never heard of a try... How could I pass up on something so obviously transfemme? It's a good album, some nice queer indie bedroom rock. It's rough around the edges for sure, which is part of the charm I expect from this sort of music, but I never found myself returning for a second listen. I found the production and performances to be lacking a bit of punch or intrigue, leaving the otherwise passable songwriting unelavated. The vocals are particularly hit or miss, both in their performance and lyrics.
I do really like the sound palettes doefriends is working with, though, with all the crunchy, bitcrushed guitars, chirpy synth leads, and glittering vocals; "a song about a cartoon" works this sound palette particularly well. Her sound just needs a little refining to make it something really special; in revisiting the album to write this, I'm finding things I enjoy about it that I would love to hear honed and focused in a sophomore album.
Listen: Bandcamp
Worthikids - Beam of Light
It's that damn burger cartoon guy...! Worthikids really can do just about anything, can't he? I was smitten by the lead single title-track last year - it's got a lovely DIY stench about it, scritchy guitars and MIDI drums underpinning a rock tune that really, really scratches the J-rock itch I carry with me ever since watching Naruto in grade school. The album teeters back and forth across a gradient of campiness, from harmlessly 2000's-AMV-rock-core on the title track to Hypnospace Outlaw-tier vocals and samples on tracks like "Sink Your Teeth In The Apple" and "My Eye of Newt." Most of the tracks are more servings of the former - all great, but nothing really standing out above the rest, aside from an exception or two; "Funny" is a lovely change of pace, creatively arranged so that it blends in with the rest of the album despite being guitarless.
Whenever I needed to scratch the itch this album's niche occupies, I usually found myself just pulling up the single instead of the full album. But god, I find the production and songwriting across the whole thing inspiring; it's the sort of music that gets me really excited about making music. And there's really something so magical about Worthikid's vocals - his shouts and group vocals are just so cathartic in a way I'm having trouble finding words for. He's just got it figured out.
Listen: Bandcamp
Vylet Pony - Monarch of Monsters
True to its name, this album is a monster - 80 minutes long, 12- and 22-minute tracks nearly back-to-back, conceptual to the point of having an accompanying novella, and all the while grappling with grim themes of self-destruction, cycles of abuse, sexual trauma, and more. I know I like this album a lot, but I haven't had the time or heart to really sit with it and breathe it in. The two lead singles, "Pest" and "PLAY DEAD! PLAY DEAD!," were both some of my favorite rock songs of the year, but I've only listened to the album in full once at time of writing. Once I've had the chance to study this album closer and process it more fully, I'm sure it'll retroactively rank as one of my favorites of the year, but for the time being, I just haven't spent enough time with it to give it a fair shake, or to talk about it for an entire post.
At the very least, my first impression of the album was extremely positive. I haven't been listening to Vylet Pony for very long - only just discovered it this year! - but I was shocked at how fully-fledged Monarch of Monsters's instrumental-driven industrial rock sound is, since everything I'd heard from her prior was all electronic. Like I mentioned earlier, just from the two singles alone, this album is a contender for one of the best of the year. "Pest" is a devastating anthem I want to scream my heart out to, and "PLAY DEAD! PLAY DEAD!" has one of the most gruesome, urgent, and consuming grooves I've heard all year. The rest of the album did not disappoint on the instrumental front, either, and I look forward to spending more time with it.
Listen: Bandcamp
Louis Cole (with Metropole Orkest and Jules Buckley) - nothing
Ah, Louis Cole.... finally making it with the Big Times... finally getting away from his basement orchestra so he can play with (checks notes) a symphony orchestra.
Good ass album. It suffers a bit on my rankings because of what I'm gonna call "destroyed brain" syndrome: I've "destroyed" my "brain" by constantly listening to high speed, high intensity, high rhythmic-complexity music, so when tracks come up that are all orchestra and no groove, they just do not burrow into my head the same way as everything else. This is not a failure of the orchestral tracks on nothing; Louis Cole has proven for years that he is as talented at writing poignant harmonies as he is high-speed jazz-meme-fodder, and songs like the title track and the massive "Doesn't Matter" are no exception.
But I had to pull up the track listing on Spotify and verify the names of those two tracks, because the fact of the matter is, they aren't why I listen to this album, simply because they aren't why I listen to Louis Cole. I listen to him for tracks like "Things Will Fall Apart" and "Life," which both leverage the orchestra masterfully within the context of extremely Louis Cole grooves. Another big standout on this album for me is "A Pill in the Sea," which fits alongside "It's All Nothing Until It's Everything" off last year's KNOWER record in a lineage of gorgeously disorienting Louis Cole tracks that are only a few aesthetic choices away from appearing on a Clowncore record. In the back half of the record, "These Dreams are Killing Me" absolutely steals the show - masterful orchestra licks over a bouncy beat and bittersweet lyrics. Perfection.
nothing does have weak moments. There are a number of tracks that I find forgettable, beyond just being victims of my destroyed brain syndrome. "Who Cares 1," "Who Cares 2," and "Wizard Funk" are a series of short, sequential non-sequiters that just feel a bit pointless and aimless. Even when I have fun with "Wizard Funk," at only 65 seconds, it's left too underdeveloped to really form much attachment to. I was also initially excited to see that "Let it Happen," my favorite track from Louis Cole's previous album, makes an appearance on nothing; by performing it live, though, the song loses the sense of intimacy that really made the original tick. Besides, the vocal and string arrangements on the original version where already as massive and grand as a symphonic orchestra! So in the end, not much is added by the new performance.
Everything else on the album I haven't mentioned yet failed to leave much of an impression on me, so unfortunately, there's just a good portion of runtime on this hour-long album that I didn't really care about. It's really the highlights that carried it for me, which is honestly how I tend to feel about Louis Cole's solo releases, anyways.
Listen: Bandcamp
Tigran Hamasyan - The Bird of a Thousand Voices
So....... remember that whole thing about my brain being destroyed
The Bird of a Thousand Voices is a massive concept album with a runtime of 91 minutes, populated by 24 total tracks, all in service of the story of an Armenian folk tale. While a number of those 24 tracks are short interludes, often reframing familiar motives from previous songs, none of them are too short - they're all still at least two minutes long, so they make up a substantial amount of the runtime. Take them out, and you're left with eight or so substantial tracks that are what I would expect from a Tigran Hamasyan album - dizzying mathematical precision, blistering jazz piano runs, and djent-adjacent breakdowns, all coming together to form rhythmic puzzles of songs that enrich my fucked up brain.
If The Bird of a Thousand Voices was only those eight songs that are the slice of Tigran Hamasyan I enjoy, it wouldn't really be much of a concept album anymore. It certainly would lose a lot of the "grand adventure" atmosphere it successfully builds, though the verbosity of the song names accomplish much of that on their own: "Forty Days In The Realm of Bottomless Eye - He Brings Light Into The Soil Of Evil" - is this what Coheed and Cambria is like?
As you might have guessed, though, my destroyed brain syndrome makes me blind to half of the tracks on this album. So it would feel disingenuous to rank this album over others when the parts I enjoy only represent, like, 50% of the runtime, even if I really enjoy those parts. Despite my tendencies, my favorite song is even one of the slower ones! "The Curse - Blood Of An Innocent Is Spilled" is a lot like "Kars" from Hamasyan's 2015 masterpiece, "Mockroot" - slow and brooding build ups into heavy as fuck piano breakdowns. It never ceases to amaze me how heavy he makes the piano sound! The breakdown towards the end of "The Curse" is, like, my favorite metal moment of the year. The other "classic Tigran" moments on the record are excellent too, naturally. I'm going to be counting along to "The Quest Begins" and "The Well Of Death And Resurrection" for at least the next year or two.
So, even if I'm too impatient an individual to sit through half the album, there's still lots I enjoyed. Admittedly, I've been listening to it a lot more lately after just setting up a playlist of the tracks I liked from it and listening to that instead. I'm sorry Mr. Hamasyan sir for violating your vision like this... it's a really cool album... please forgive me sir... We simply each have our own personal version of The Bird of a Thousand Voices - what does yours look like?
Listen: Linktree
What Remains
Like I said, the remaining top 10 albums will each get their own blog post as a full review of the album. I don't know how long it'll take, but I'll try to do it in as reasonable a time frame as I can... hopefully by the time I'm done 2024, will not be too distant a memory!
You can already kind of tell from the honorable mentions, but the theme for this year seemed to be a constant challenging of my expectations. There was SO much music that came out this year; if I had to come up with a list of my top 10 favorite artists right now, I think a majority of them released an album in 2024. And yet, half the albums on my top 10 this year were from artists I had never listened to before! Nothing flopped, but a lot of the albums I had been anticipating this year fell short of my expectations in one way or another... It's all really interesting. I look forward to telling you all about it.
Let me know what you think! Did you agree or disagree with any of my takes here? Any really good EPs you enjoyed, or albums that fell short of your expectations? If you check out anything I mention here or later, I'd be stoked to hear what you think. I will be watching the comments eagerly...