Best Songs of 2024

What can I say about 2024 other than: I’m still here. I’m still engaging with the world, and doing so through music (among other art forms). But of course music is the one that you can take with you, wherever you go. It’s true in the streaming era, as it was in the iPod era, the Discman era, the Walkman era. It was even true before that, though you had to rely on the playback machine inside your head. Funnily, that’s still my barometer: does the song stick in my head well after it’s left my ears?

Most of the time, the reason is the melody, the beat, the groove. I’ve been fond of telling myself recently, and increasingly others also, that “I’m not really a lyrics guy.” And yet, in 2024, I kept finding myself coming back to certain songs because the words spoke to me. And while I cannot say that is true for everything on this list, the songs with the most stickiness are those with resonance beyond the sound. These songs become an escape, a refuge, a salve for the miseries. Or they become a reminder of what’s good. A rocket ship for the joys in life.

And what is music but a soundtrack for these highs and lows? What is this project but a record—an emotional and perhaps even spiritual one—of a year in life? A year in my life. And as in real life, this list, like so many others before it, is full of faces and names both familiar and new. Of the former, some are ever-present, while others drift in and out over the years. We may lose touch but we are never—well, almost never—truly separated.

Of course, there are still more that did not make it to the list; perhaps one day we shall be fully reunited. Until then, I press on, making sense of the world through song.

For these year-end lists, I like to undertake the seemingly impossibly task of creating an hours-long mix. The order you see below represents that effort, which you can listen to via Spotify or Apple Music. Sadly all 100 tracks aren’t available, but you get the general idea. Track notes… are here, for the first time ever!

January 1, 2024

Show Grid

Old Dutch

Bonny Light Horseman

Keep Me on Your Mind / See You Free

Jagjaguwar
via past experience

My song of the year. It moves me, and I do know why: the original documentary-style video (now, sadly replaced by a similar, but not-quite-as-good lyric video), wherein the band records in a small Irish pub, surrounded by what seem like fans or lucky onlookers. But look closer. Wait longer to see. They are simply anticipating their moment. If you don’t get a feelin’ when they join in, I cannot help you.
Buffalo Stance

James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg

All Gist

Paradise of Bachelors
via past experience

A forever-favorite from my youth gets an almost unrecognizable, but clearly loving, acoustic/chillout update for my needing-calm adult self.
When I’m Called

Jake Xerxes Fussell

When I’m Called

Fat Possum
via past experience

Slow wakeup Sunday morning. Could be one of the misty winter ones or one of the bright summer ones; works for both.
Not in Our Stars

William Tyler

Future Myths

Watusi
Bandcamp/tour exclusive. Via past experience

How do you pull back even further from a sparse instrumental? You strip away everything, down to just a guitar in a room, gaining a tangible, if ineffable, sense of space and stillness in the process.
Flowers That Talk

Beings

There Is a Garden

No Quarter
via past experience (Steve Gunn)

As if a flower could talk; the vocal emerges mysteriously and miraculously from the instrumental churn. To say words, yes, but more to evoke a feeling.
No Light

How to Dress Well

I Am Toward You

Sargent House
via past experience

There may be no light, but even amidst the distortion, there is peace to be had in the repetition behind it all.
Younger

GEMZ

See the Future

Sonic Ritual
via John Richards on KEXP

An old-fashioned, slow-building electropop banger that fittingly makes use of Jen Wood’s angelic, playful vocal.
Hiding

Ben Böhmer featuring Lykke Li

Bloom

Ninja Tune
via John Richards on KEXP

Not to be outdone by GEMZ, Böhmer and Li start ghostly and end on a skittering, kinetic beat reminiscent of 90s Chemical Brothers.
Honesty

Nelly Furtado

7

Nelstar
via past experience

You all can have your Chappells, Sabrinas and whoever else is dominating the charts. I’m forever on team Nelly.
i think about it all the time

Charli XCX & Bon Iver

brat and it’s completely different but also still brat

Atlantic
via past experience

You can think I’m a sucker for a Bon Iver collab, but it’s less about his vocal than it is his sense of curation, bringing a magically interpolated Bonnie Raitt classic into our brat era.
Running Away

Washed Out

Notes from a Quiet Life

Sub Pop
via past experience

The attention has faded, and Ernest Greene has returned to the quiet life. It’s one that we secretly all want to run away to, even if just for the length of a song.
WalkOnBy

NxWorries

Why Lawd?

Stones Throw
via past experience

Always hard to pick one song out of a NxWorries album, as they’re designed to be listened to in their entirety, one song floating seamlessly into the next on a sea of vibes. But this one has a twinkle to go along with its groove, and I keep coming back to it, chasing the same old high.
Cinderella

Remi Wolf

Big Ideas

Island
via Troy Nelson on KEXP

70s Disco meets 90s R&B, and they run off together in a whirlwind love affair. A true Cinderella story.
C’est Si Bon

Say She She

I Believe in Miracles / C’est Si Bon 7"

Colemine
via past experience

And here, just some straight up disco, no filter needed. Sometimes all you need is a funky baseline and some glorious female voices in harmony.
Let’s Go Back

Jungle

Let’s Go Back digital single

Caiola / AWAL
via past experience

There are, of course, other ways and other places to go back. Jungle seems to be keen on a Spector sound given space to funk up the room just a bit. It’s less about nostalgia and more about trying to actually put you there.
Happiness

The Heavy Heavy

One of a Kind

ATO
via past experience

Proof that the only way to invent something new is to combine old things with fresh eyes (and ears), here is some 60s R&B crossed with some 50s country, with the simplicity of lyric that comes with both. Looking for happiness lately? Look no further.
Pink Smoke

Quivers

Oyster Cuts

Merge
via past experience

Hard not to keep up with band who first came to my attention with a full-album cover of R.E.M.’s Out of Time. Only three proper albums in, they may have made their first classic. Jangly and melodic like their forebears, but with a sharpness apropros of the album’s name.
Train Full of Gasoline

Ducks Ltd.

Harm’s Way

Carpark
via past experience

A traveling song that evokes a far more pleasant, but surely still urgent, feeling than a train full of gasoline. Enjoy the view out your window, and hope that everyone and everything outside your control lets you arrive safely.
Takoba

Mdou Moctar

Funeral for Justice

Matador
via somewhere

Another song of adventure. I know not of what he sings, but no matter: that guitar tone is all I need to keep my attention.
Underground

Jack White

No Name

Third Man
via past experience

Jack White need not pander, and certainly hasn’t for years, but this album and song were a welcome return to his blues-riffing hitmaking days with The White Stripes.
Sick Sweet

Wishy

Triple Seven

Winspear
via Mark Baker

Rock isn’t dead, it’s just more indie than ever. This song and band could’ve been mid-major 20 years ago, or maybe even huge 30 years ago. And yet, as rock recedes from the culture, it sounds fresh now.
Upon Sober Reflection

Japandroids

Fate & Alcohol

Anti
via past experience

A swan song that nobody really asked for, this album landed with a thud. But as someone who always lived vicariously through these guys’ exploits, it seems fitting that my favorite of their last songs is a clear-eyed look at their past.
Favourite

Fontaines D.C.

Romance

XL Recordings
via past experience / Evie on KEXP

While I am not as fawning as seemingly the majority of KEXP listeners over this band and album, I fell hard for this taste of wistful mid-aughts Britrock. (And yes, I know they’re Irish, but you get my meaning.)
If I Could

Jay Som

I Saw the TV Glow

A24 Music
via past experience / the movie

Honestly I cannot recall this even being in the movie, but along with the “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl” cover, this was an easy standout from the soundtrack—just another seemingly effortless slice of indie pop rock from Jay Som.
Like a Lesson

Pillow Queens

Name Your Sorrow

Royal Mountain
via John Richards on KEXP

For the first two or three times I heard this song’s opening riff on the radio, I stopped to look up what the song was. Before long, I was carrying the melody with me wherever I went, rebuilding the song from scratch. It took me awhile to warm up to the bridge, but now the whole song is as sticky as that guitar part that first caught my ear.
Pretty Girls

Honeyglaze

Real Deal

Fat Possum
via John Richards on KEXP

I love the guitar tone on this one, too, but from the get-go it was more than just that—the punchy vocals, the steady-but-hurried rhythm of the drums, and the clamoring chime of the pre-chorus… I need not wait for the feeling. It surrounds me.
This Is Nowhere

The Black Keys featuring Beck

Ohio Players

Nonesuch
via past experience

Hi, it me, a middle-aged, life-long Beck superfan (and Black Keys enthusiast) who is entirely on board with this sort of pro forma middle-aged dad rock.
Capricorn

Vampire Weekend

Only God Was Above Us

Columbia
via past experience

Couldn’t tell you why, exactly, but this song feels like something out of the Lou Reed catalog, but with an optimism instead of orneriness. It’s noisy but never dissonant, lilting but transporting. Toward what? The end, it would seem. Hopefully later than sooner.
Big Dipper

Half Waif

Ephemeral Being

Anti
via past experience

A waterfall… but not the big kind; a series of smaller cascades that build to something larger than themselves. You barely notice it along the way, but before you know it, you have been transported, and you can’t even see where you came from anymore.
Seed of a Seed

Haley Heynderickx

Seed of a Seed

Mama Bird
via past experience

An ambling strum, but with the vocals of a hymn. Heynderickx asks if our parents knew better. If we know better. No, to both. But they tried. And so we try, too.
On Tonight

Rosali

Bite Down

Merge
via Greg Vandy (The Roadhouse) on KEXP

A road song for the country. Or perhaps anywhere, so long as you’re heading out into the summer’s day, and not returning until it’s dark.
She’s Leaving You

MJ Lenderman

Manning Fireworks

Anti
via Stereogum / KEXP

Reminding me of Hayden, or maybe Lou Barlow, or maybe even Pavement. Which is to say, Lenderman puts a little twang in his indie, a little insouciance in his tightly constructed pop rock.
Right Back to It

Waxahatchee

Tigers Blood

Anti
via past experience

I had the rollicking “Bored” as my pick from this album until fall. What made me swap out that one for this? I’d like to think it wasn’t the consensus forming around it and more that, with summer in the rearview, I longed for the front porch, dog days, and comfort this song also seeks.
American Nights

Zach Bryan

The Great American Bar Scene

Warner Bros.
via past experience

I’m a sucker for a plaintive harmonica, but I’m even more susceptible to a Wet Hot American Summer callback. I’m also blissfully undereducated on all the celebrity brouhaha that surrounds Bryan, so I’m left only with the songs, which are uniformly my kind of heartland rock in the Farm Aid mold.
Mint Tea

Johnny Blue Skies

Passage Du Desir

High Top Mountain / Thirty Tigers
via past experience (Sturgill Simpson)

Sturgill Simpson is dead. Long live Johnny Blue Skies. If Simpson had to proverbially kill himself to be free, then at least we get to reap the benefits.
Texas Hold ’em

Beyoncé

Cowboy Carter

Columbia
via past experience

Not gonna lie, I was mesmerized by this visualizer to the point where I wore down any resistance I may have had to loving this song. In every possible way, Beyoncé gets more interesting with age (mine and hers).
Don’t Let Me Down Again

Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham

Cunningham Bird

Wegawam
via past experience

The sound of a steam train leaving the station for a great adventure out West. That this is not my favorite song on the original Buckingham Nicks album says much about what Cunningham and Bird have brought to the table with this covers project.
Sadness As a Gift

Adrianne Lenker

Bright Future

4AD
via past experience

Simultaneously an offering and a plea. Lenker gives it to us while asking us to consider if something so heavy can be worthy of holding. But she knows, as we do, that it can indeed be both. The answer is always both.
Hard Times

Sluice

Cardinals at the Window

No label
via this compilation

My favorite of the bounty of tracks offered in response to flood and storm relief in western North Carolina. That a song so fragile and yet defiant was just lying around in wait for such a use is either a cruel irony or a miracle. But of course we know: it’s both.
S P E Y S I D E

Bon Iver

SABLE,

Jagjaguwar
via past experience

A song so spare and tender that it cannot help but recall the early music and now-legend of Vernon’s first record as Bon Iver. But I went back and listened to those songs (as I often do), and… they never sounded this immaculately recorded, this warmly delivered. It’s a return home, sure, but after a long journey, where both traveler and home have changed in the interim.
Obsessive Thoughts

Madi Diaz

Weird Faith

Anti
via past experience

It’s a lot. It’s a lot. It’s not me, but I can relate. And so I scream it out, too.
I Don’t Say It But I Feel It

The Staves

All Now

Nonesuch
via past experience

The trio of Staves sisters is now down to two, but the power of their combined voices is only slightly diminished. It helps that I, too, am homesick for a place that never existed. That the place might just be a feeling seems appropriate for a song that doesn’t need to say what it is.
Old Tape

Lucius

Old Tape digital single

Fantasy
via past experience

Three years after Lucius sang on one of my favorite songs from 2021, Adam Granduciel returns the favor, and adds his guitar tone to the proceedings. Still kicking myself a bit for missing their combined tour with the National.
All Day

Guster

Ooh La La

Ocho Mule
via past experience

For whatever reason, my favorite Guster tracks in recent years have been the more contemplative ones that find a mid-tempo groove and stay there. That is, until Ryan Miller’s vocal peeks through in the chorus, reminding me of my younger self.
Better Off Alone

Midwife

No Depression in Heaven

The Flenser
via Bandcamp or Stereogum, I don’t remember

If I remember the Alice Deejay original, I cannot say I remember it fondly. And yet: this lightly droning, plaintively whispering cover is one I find entrancing.
Rare

Bullion featuring Carly Rae Jepsen

Affection

Ghostly International
via Fluxblog

I probably tried this out for the Carly Rae of it all, but if so, I’m glad that I got hooked. A glimmering, warm bath of electronic 80s backed by a stately piano that should be the soundtrack for the next retro love story set in the age of the Sharper Image catalog.
The Tower

Future Islands

People Who Aren’t There Anymore

4AD
via past experience

If you told me Future Islands was writing the same song over and over, making only small adjustments, I’d probably believe you. But also, I would tell you that I don’t care, because it happens to be A REALLY GREAT SONG.
Mind’s a Lie

High Vis

Guided Tour

Dais
via Evie on KEXP

Brit punks doing their best Pet Shop Boys impression. Putting hardcore vocal delivery on top of midtempo early 90s synthpop absolutely should not work, but this hits all the right notes.
Hand on Me

Nourished By Time

Catching Chickens EP

XL Recordings
via Stereogum, I think

Is this rap now? Is it synthpop? Is it emo? Is it all or maybe even none of the above? I’m not sure I care to answer; I just love the wild adventure this song takes me on every time.
Twice

James Blake & Lil Yachty

Bad Cameo

Quality Control
via past experience (James Blake)

Begins as a hypnotic dance track before abruptly transitioning into something slower and sultrier. With this and another track on my list, I wonder: do I like Lil Yachty now?
peace u need

fred again.. & Joy Anonymous

ten days

Warner Music UK
via past experience

A joyous house track that drives home its mantra: “I let you take a piece of me / I hope you get the peace u need.”
Gemini

Angélica Garcia

Gemelo

Partisan
via KEXP

Announces itself loudly, sounding like the chaos of the world today, but also somehow bringing order to it. One—or, make that two—steps at a time.
Alone Together

Daughter of Swords

Alone Together digital single

Psychic Hotline
via past experience

A bold new direction for Alexandra Sauser-Monnig’s Daughter of Swords project. For a few listens after putting it on this very list, I kept having to reconfirm who was singing. Looking forward to see how/if she evolves this sound.
All Born Screaming

St. Vincent

All Born Screaming

Total Pleasure
via past experience

Nearly 7 minutes long, but never oustaying its welcome. The buildup in the final minutes makes you think it will end with an explosion, but St. Vinent would rather surprise you. (A surprise I spoil for you now.)
Say It Like You Mean It

Sleater-Kinney

Little Rope

Loma Vista
via past experience

They’re far less angular and punky now, but like a late-career Heart, there is still pleasure to be mined so long as you aren’t seeking past glories. Tucker’s vocals get more forceful with each refrain.
The Way It Is

X

Smoke & Fiction

Fat Possum
via past experience

On their final album, Exene Cervenka and John Doe sing a self-reflective story song that has no interest in mythologizing the band’s long and winding road.
Wreckage

Pearl Jam

Dark Matter

Monkey Wrench
via past experience

My favorite PJ song in close to twenty years. It’s Wildflowers-era Tom Petty, but not in the lyrics. Vedder channels his anger and frustration into a defiant sort of hopefulness, all in the span of five minutes.
In Front of Me Now

Nada Surf

Moon Mirror

New West
via past experience

A self-recrimination from Matthew Caws that doubles as a connection to anyone else out there who might be leaving when they’re arriving, thinking when talking, Decembering in the middle of summer, or any number of other afflictions of an unquiet mind. Let us all give ourselves the grace to do what’s in front of us and ignore (or at least temporarily blur out) the rest.
Sinker

DOWNHAUL

Sinker digital single

Self Aware
via Bandcamp

A rollicking little bit of mid-tempo rock that scratches an itch. I’d say they don’t make ’em like they used to, but then there’s this.
Air Drumming Fix You

Wild Pink

Strawberry Eraser

Fire Talk
via past experience

Saw them open for Ratboys at Barboza years ago; now I might claim to be more of a Wild Pink fan. A lushly textured ditty (those horns!!) about healing.
Super Breath

Karen O & Danger Mouse

Super Breath digital single

Lux Prima
via past experience

A surprise single from these two old collaborators that makes me wish there was more to come. Playful and vaguely theatrical, the cover art is perfect without being too obvious.
Running

Norah Jones

Visions

Blue Note
via past experience

Joined by soul vet Leon Michels, Jones proves the elasticity of her musical taste and talent. She sounds funkier and sexier here than she has in years. I almost picked the equally great “Staring at the Wall.”
Never Satisfied

Leon Bridges

Leon

Columbia
via past experience

Four albums in, Bridges’s second album Good Things remains his high point, but it’s a treat to see him continue to find new shades of his neo-classic sound. Just don’t call it neo soul.
Cards on the Table

Nia Archives

Silence Is Loud

Hijinxx / Island
via Kevin Cole on KEXP

Twitchy electro-folk with that special kind of British patois. Reminds me of Jem or Martina Topley-Bird without sounding quite like either.
Crystals

Sea Lemon featuring Benjamin Gibbard

Crystals digital single

Luminelle
via John Richards on KEXP

I can never tell if it’s aging, the state of the world, or what, but when Ben Gibbard sings “Seems that all I wanna do is sleep these days / wake up in about a year and not feel this way”—I feel that. But also, I (and we) need to get up and going, lest we become one with the sheets.
Frogs

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Wild God

Play It Again Sam
via past experience

There’s a twinkle, sure, but also a dread. Is this song even about frogs? Don’t know, don’t care. Mostly I just want to bask in the lush arrangement that fills in behind Cave’s wailing vocal.
Good Blood Mexico City

Elbow

Audio Vertigo

Polydor
via past experience

The prolific stalwarts of British alternative get loud and urgent again. I love how they shimmer on the verses and then crunch on the chorus.
Lego Ring

Faye Webster featuring Lil Yachty

Underdressed at the Symphony

Secretly Canadian
via Stereogum

She had me at Lego, but Lil Yachty really had me at those pensive, interjecting choruses intertwined with a more traditional rock-forward verse. In some ways, this is a straight inversion of the Elbow track.
Ever Seen

beabadoobee

This Is How Tomorrow Moves

Dirty Hit
via past experience

When I asked my K-Pop loving 12-year-old niece if she likes anything else, she told me Tyler, The Creator and Beabadoobee. I couldn’t fit Tyler into this list, but with a second Beabadoobee feature in five years, I have to ask: am I cool?
Sexy to Someone

Clairo

Charm

Clairo / Good Buddy
via past experience

No shade here, this song is just one of many on Clairo’s third album that I kept coming back to in 2024. I settled on this for the atmosphere of those piano and keyboard riffs, and the idea of setting expectations at a reasonable bar.
So Sick of Dreaming

Maggie Rogers

Don’t Forget Me
via past experience
Capitol

I didn’t go see her big arena tour out of spite for the size of her fandom, but in hindsight, it makes sense. Every generation deserves their own Carole King / Stevie Nicks / Sheryl Crow.
:)

The Japanese House

:) digital single

Dirty Hit
via past experience

A brisk, acoustic guitar-based indie pop song that makes good on its cutesy song title. Is this Lillith Fair-core?
Cardinal

Kacey Musgraves

Deeper Well

Interscope
via past experience

Country that’s not country… which I guess is just classic 90s singer-songwriter pop? Whatever it is, I remain interested in what Musgraves is up to.
Ponies

Trace Mountains

Into the Burning Blue

Lame-O
via Evie on KEXP

A sneaky standout from the year. With each listen, I like it more. An imperfect voice that nevertheless perfectly expresses a certain—one might even say equine—kind of yearning for change, for adventure. “And they’re off into / the burning blue”.
Dirt for a Dying Sun

The Dead Tongues

Body of Light / I Am a Cloud

Psychic Hotline
via past experience

A western epic: dusty and unrelenting, lit by a blistering sun, but embraced by an expansive horizon and a big blue sky. Every day is hard, but every tomorrow is a reward.
Big Swimmer

King Hannah

Big Swimmer

City Slang
via Sharon Van Etten on Instagram

With backing vocals by Sharon Van Etten, the Liverpudlian duo pulls off that old start quiet, end loud trick, but does so with a leisurely buildup that, by the end, threatens to swallow you whole. (In a good way, of course.)
Lost

Soccer Mommy

Evergreen

Loma Vista
via past experience

Sophie Allison ditches the fuzz for a pensive, if grandly orchestrated dirge. I dare not call it more mature, but it certainly is an unexpected, if welcome, turn than looks inward but communicates outward.
Patterns

Laura Marling

Patterns in Repeat

Partisan
via past experience

Marling continues her insanely long run of impeccable lullabies that are soothing and quiet enough to put your kids to sleep but rich and inviting enough to get the adults’ attention in a hyperactive world.
All in Good Time

Iron & Wine featuring Fiona Apple

Light Verse

Sub Pop
via past experience

In the “how did I not think of that” department, you can’t get much better than the combo of Sam Beam and Fiona Apple. Recollecting her days singing with the Watkins Family Band, Apple reminds us that, for all her forcefulness as a singer, she is a generous vocal partner.
Buffalo

Hurray for the Riff Raff

The Past Is Still Alive

Nonesuch
via past experience

A eulogy for the lost natural world that doubles as a protest for not destroying everything we have left. Some things take time, but like Alynda Segarra, I hope our time will never go. Or, at least, not for a long long time well beyond my days.
Revelator

Phosphorescent

Revelator

Calldown
via past experience

After a folk ballad of defiance, how about a country one of acceptance. The slide guitar gives it that special bittersweet flavor.
I Think About Heaven

Christopher Owens

I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

True Panther Sounds
via Bandcamp / past experience (Girls)

If it wasn’t for the driving rhythm of the acoustic, that surf guitar lead would sound even more mournful. But this contrast is fitting for a song where Owens says he thinks about heaven and “I break out into a big grin.”
Water Underground

Real Estate

Daniel

Domino
via past experience

Much like Future Islands, Real Estate have a lane and they stick to it. 15 years in, Martin Courtney and his bandmates keep finding melodies that soundtrack wintry days on the beach as well as lazy summer days in the park. It’s as remarkable a feat now as it was in the beginning.
Jocelyn

The Beaches

Jocelyn digital single

AWAL
via Stereogum

An open letter to a fan asking them not to put the band’s members on a pedestal. AKA a helpful reminder for every human in the social media era. The curated internet is not reality.
Let Me In

Bad Bad Hats

Bad Bad Hats

Don Giovanni
via past experience

Indie rock with a swing in its step and a wink in its eye. Narrowly edged out another from the album, the buoyant “Bored in the Summer.”
Bad Luck

Ben Lee

This One’s for the Old Headz

Weirder Together
via past experience

I am one of the aforementioned old headz, and as such, I loved Ben’s quick-and-unrehearsed approach to recording on this record that frequently recalled the best of his fuzz rock & pop days 25+ years ago.
Alien

Dehd

Poetry

Fat Possum
via past experience

Almost definitely my favorite new rock band of recent vintage, and one with whom I had an extraordinarily hard time choosing just one track to include on this list. Thanks to an earworm of a chorus, this won a four way battle for the top.
My Fun

Suki Waterhouse

Memoir of a Sparklemuffin

Sub Pop
via past experience

I’m easily fooled by the largess of Waterhouse’s fame and celebrity simply because she’s on Sub Pop. But while her label may be why I know of her music, it’s the tunes themselves—jaunty and light but never frivolous—that make me a fan.
Pure Magic

Star Anna

Love and Sex and Fear of Death

2961017
via past experience / Atticus KEXP

Nearly 20 years into her career, Star Anna finally lands a spot on one of my year-end lists, thanks to a pop-rock-country-disco smorgasboard backed by a driving rhythm and sense of drama, to boot.
push me over

Maren Morris

Intermission

Columbia
via past experience

Am I a huge Maren Morris fan because she has been continually exiled (sometimes by choice, others not so much) by the country music establishment? It doesn’t hurt. But also, it’s much more simple than that: she makes bangers.
Comin’ Around Again

Amber Mark

Comin’ Around Again digital single

Interscope
via past experience

My favorite R&B singer of this modern era never fails to get my head bopping. Maybe one day she’ll finally be as huge as she deserves.
Snap My Finger

KAYTRANADA featuring PinkPantheress

TIMELESS

RCA
via past experience

Kaytranada continues to be one of my favorite R&B/synth/electronic producers of this era. This one pulsates.
Loved

Four Tet

Three

Text
via past experience

I have no idea why Kieran Hebden called this new record Three, but as it is my favorite under the Four Tet name since his third album (2003’s Rounds), it seems apropos. This standout track adds a sparkle atop his usual atmospheric tones and steady beats.
Chicago Gold

SiP

Leos Ultras

Not Not Fun / 100% Silk
via Alex (Pacific Notions) on KEXP

An exemplary discovery from church of chill that is Pacific Notions. It may be quiet and calming, but this track from SiP, an artist I’d never before heard of until one Sunday morning in November, is anything but boring. In fact, it’s full of little nooks and crannies to explore, and aural pleasures to get lost in.
Prototype

Robert Glasper featuring Norah Jones

Keys to the City Volume One

Loma Vista
via past experience

Glasper turns one of my favorite Outkast songs into the dusky jazz number it was always destined to be, with an essential assist from a former Outkast collaborator (on the very same album from whence this song comes).
The Rest of Me

Michael Kiwanuka

Small Changes

Polydor
via past experience

The British folk and soul singer-songwriter returned from a 5-year hiatus with perhaps his jazziest record yet. This transporting third single settles fluidly into a wee hours funk groove.
Dream State

Kamasi Washington & Andre 3000

Fearless Movement

Young
via past experience

After ending my 2023 with plenty of streams of Andre 3000’s flute-based solo record, I was primed for his continued foray into ambient jazz. Who better, than, for him to partner with than Kamasi Washington, on a languid exploration that turns propulsively dramatic midway through.
The Slip

The Smile

Cutouts

Self Help Tapes / XL Recordings
via past experience

Radiohead remains stashed away in deep storage. In its place, we got not one but two albums from The Smile in 2024. That meant this intertwining of thrumming bass and jagged guitar bumped the earlier “Bending Hectic” off the list.
Like I Say (I runaway)

Nilüfer Yanya

My Method Actor

Ninja Tune
via past experience

This first single from Yanya’s third album came out so far ahead of the record that the other songs had lots of catching up to do. But they never did surpass this, a song that explodes in the chorus while simultaneously maintaining an impenetrable cool.
Lose

Boeckner

Boeckner!

Sub Pop
via past experience

My soft spot for Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators) remains at Squishmallow levels. The album did quite live up the heights of those earlier projects, but I kept coming back to this track all year long.