Best of 2024: Just Like the Tenors
- “Golden Air”–Sun’s Signature (Sun’s Signature)
- “Could You Help Me”–Lucy Rose (This Ain’t the Way You Go Out)
- “Perfect Storm”–Jane Weaver (Love in Constant Spectacle)
- “No Caffeine”–Marika Hackman (Big Sigh)
- “Body to Inhabit”–Shabaka, feat. E L U C I D (Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace)
- “Marvis”–Josh Johnson (Unusual Object)
- “Lovers’ Leap”–Elbow (AUDIO VERTIGO)
- “Let My Yes Be Yes”–Ibibio Sound Machine (Pull the Rope)
- “He’s a Man”–Bob Vylan (Humble as the Sun)
- “Get Down Lil Booty”–Traxman (Jukepop EP)
- “Every Day”–Homeboy Sandman (Rich II)
- “Names of Plants and Animals”–Liz Lawrence (Peanuts)
- “Sad Lads Anonymous”–Nadine Shah (Filthy Underneath)
- “THE GREATEST”–Billie Eilish (HIT ME HARD AND SOFT)
- “The Musical”–Avey Tare (7s)
- “Well, Actually”–Library Card (Nothing, Interesting EP)
- “Light in a Quiet Room”–Ride (Interplay)
This mix is also available to stream on Mixcloud, Spotify, and Apple Music.
I’ve been making these best-of mixes for twenty years now, y’all!! Two whole decades!!
As I note on the main Mixes index page here on the blog:
I made the first of these broad-survey year-end mixes back in 2004. The first installment was mostly just a holiday gift for close friends, burned onto a CD-R with the track listing printed out from Microsoft Word. But I had so much fun with it that I made another one in ’05, and then again in ’06, and then it just became a thing that I did every December.
So I’ve inevitably been thinking “what does it all mean?” Specifically, what does it mean to consistently do a thing like this annually for twenty years?
And it occurred to me that the intent behind this project (if I can be so grandiose as to call it a project) has actually done a complete 180° since 2004. What started as a gift, as a way of sharing some of my favorite music with my friends, has become something much more diaristic. Deliberately constructing mix CDs (and before that, of course, mix tapes) used to be a labor of love, resulting in an object of thoughtfulness and intentionality. But now with playlists being the ubiquitous phenomenon that they’ve become, other people’s musical taste is the water we swim in, the air we breathe. You actually have to work pretty hard to avoid other people’s taste in music at this point.
So, I think I’ve finally grown up enough to stop approaching these year-end collections as a way of attempting to do a “you gotta hear this one song; it’ll change your life, I swear” to anyone anymore. I mean, of course I still appreciate it when pals check the mix out when I post it on social media. But I find it pretty embarrassing to consider the way I actually used to care about actively influencing what anyone would choose to listen to on their own time, as if getting someone to like a new song was somehow a measure of my self-worth or value as a friend or human. (Oldest daughter syndrome, I guess: “I must be helpful above all else!”) I’m more than OK at this point with these playlists truly just being a record of my own listening habits from the year gone by.
As I’ve been mulling all this over for the past few weeks, I realize that I’ve also tricked myself into learning another life lesson.
I used to be so afraid of writing or saying anything that I hadn’t thought through 110 percent. I never wanted to be “caught” (by whom??) in a faulty argument that didn’t hold water, even over something as inconsequential as my taste in music. So my goal was always to incrementally zero in on my considered position, but then STICK TO IT! FOREVER!!
But after listening back to the earliest installments of these mixes and reflecting on how they’re filled with songs by artists I loved so much at the time who I’ve now completely stopped paying attention to, I can newly recognize the merit of just, like, saying some shit and then moving on. (I mean, hopefully still thoughtfully, right? But you get what I’m saying.) The very act of writing something down and then sharing it is actually the precise mechanism that, counterintuitively, allows productive and growth-oriented change to flow into my life. Rather than a written statement pinning me down to a stance permanently, it’s actually the thing that allows me to (eventually) let the stance go. So I can see so much more readily now that the goal of doing anything for twenty years isn’t for that thing to stay exactly the same; doing something and sticking to it with the idea that it will remain locked down and solid is a young person’s game. The whole point of doing anything consistently across time is precisely so that it will transform. (“Repetition is a form of change” as the Oblique Strategies deck puts it.) It’s so much easier to see that now from the vantage point of my mid-forties. And thank god for that.
I’ll be sixty-five in another twenty years. I’m looking forward to finding out what I think about all this then.
1. “Golden Air”–Sun’s Signature (Sun’s Signature)
The Sun’s Signature extended EP was a steady companion through the early months of 2024. “Golden Air” stands out most for me thanks to the irresistible way it’s constructed to pull you through the ethereal opening (esp. how I can’t even precisely tell if some of those high notes are Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals or some kind of guitar or keyboard effect), the incredible build that finally releases its full force around 2:53, and then the ascending bassline that makes its first appearance around 3:07 (which I especially love for the way it reminds me of the bassline in the chorus of Radiohead’s “Optimistic”).
2. “Could You Help Me”–Lucy Rose (This Ain’t the Way You Go Out)
Lucy Rose’s album This Ain’t the Way You Go Out was a deep comfort to me during this hard summer. The title track is perhaps too emotionally wrenching to be pulled out onto what should just be a friendly little mix like this, so “Could You Help Me” makes the cut here for her percussive piano attack and that crazy guitar part that comes in at 1:25.
3. “Perfect Storm”–Jane Weaver (Love in Constant Spectacle)
I have strong memories of listening to Love in Constant Spectacle while driving through the South Side of Chicago with Brian on a Saturday morning, trying to find the Justice of the Pies storefront on Blackstone. (They happened to be closed for some reason that day. Sad trombone.) The whole album is lovely; Weaver gives a wonderfully modern take on that Sandy Denny-esque English pastoral psych-folk style. But I most love “Perfect Storm” for the krautrocky effect here, that relentlessly circular rhythm that keeps pushing through the verses and pre-choruses.
4. “No Caffeine”–Marika Hackman (Big Sigh)
It’s the details I’m obsessed with in this song: the bass in the verses, the swooningly romantic strings that duck in and out, the adrenalized ride cymbal, and Hackman’s self-lacerating lyrics (just try to resist shouting along to “maybe try and FUCK!” like you’re somehow twenty-three again).
5. “Body to Inhabit”–Shabaka, feat. E L U C I D (Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace)
I was super annoyed by the salty reviews that DownBeat magazine gave to Shabaka’s Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace and Kamasi Washington’s Fearless Movement this year. The criticisms mostly just felt like pointlessly gatekeepy potshots that are certain to age badly. The freshness, vitality, and continued relevance of jazz as an artform require the kinds of cross-genre, multimodal approaches that those two albums employ so deftly. Blargh. Anyway, on top of the sparse and moody instrumentals in “Body to Inhabit,” I really love the guest verses from E L U C I D here. He remains perhaps my favorite contemporary rapper for his unrivaled intensity, thanks to lines like “who’s that peeking through my eyeslit, showing up announced?”
6. “Marvis”–Josh Johnson (Unusual Object)
A friend from work posted a link to Josh Johnson’s album Unusual Object on my former company’s Slack channel with the very humble comment, “Check out my dear friend’s new album!” As soon as I hit play, it immediately struck me as fresh as hell. But then my eyes really popped out of my head several weeks later when I saw Johnson written up in DownBeat as one of their “25 for the Future.” (I know I just bagged on DownBeat above, but it remains essential reading for me–pans and raves can both be instructive!) Anyway, turns out Johnson is a slightly bigger deal than my work pal initially let on (ahem, he won a Grammy for producing Meshell Ndegeocello’s album The Omnichord Real Book). The rhythmic play throughout “Marvis” is so deliciously twisty, in an almost addictive way, like you really can’t wait to hear how he’s going to mess with the timing of the next variation and then the next and the next.
7. “Lovers’ Leap”–Elbow (AUDIO VERTIGO)
I finally watched 24 Hour Party People for the first time earlier this spring and then went down a rabbit hole on the Manchester music scene for a while thereafter (thanks mostly to John Robb’s book The North Will Rise Again: Manchester Music City 1976-1996). So when I started listening to Elbow’s latest album AUDIO VERTIGO later in the summer, it made a peculiar sort of cosmic sense when I looked up the band’s Wikipedia page and realized that they too are from Manchester. AUDIO VERTIGO was a very “walking around the neighborhood” album for me this year, and this song is particularly irresistible for both that opening horn part and the exultant “shake / shake / spray our names” section of the chorus (which I somehow didn’t realize was a reference to a can of spray paint for, like, weeks).
8. “Let My Yes Be Yes”–Ibibio Sound Machine (Pull the Rope)
Words to live by here, y’all.
9. “He’s a Man”–Bob Vylan (Humble as the Sun)
How good is Bob Vylan’s album Humble as the Sun? It’s so good that, despite the obvious perfection of “He’s a Man,” it still wasn’t a complete shoo-in for inclusion on this year’s best-of mix. The inspirational monologue in “Hunger Games” nearly brought me to tears the first time I listened to it, and the propulsive “Dream Big” is such a banger. But truly, “He’s a Man” did so much work for me this year. There was suddenly no need for protracted analysis when dealing with whiny, badly behaved dudes in any given situation; simply shouting “he’s a maaaaaan!” with a heavy London accent was the easiest and most effective shorthand for conveying why a meeting had gone badly or why a conversation left me feeling slimed.
10. “Get Down Lil Booty”–Traxman (Jukepop EP)
We mostly have been singing this one to our cat Marble.
11. “Every Day”–Homeboy Sandman (Rich II)
There always comes a point in a Homeboy Sandman track when he hits on a word choice so unexpected yet so audaciously perfect that it absolutely sends me into the stratosphere. Not to give the plot away or anything, but–wait til he gets to “ambidextrous” in this one. Sublime.
12. “Names of Plants and Animals”–Liz Lawrence (Peanuts)
It’s impossible for me to choose a favorite track from Liz Lawrence’s Peanuts, a very strong contender for my favorite album of the year. It answered a question I didn’t even realize I had: “what if Spoon were fronted by a woman?” (“Strut” illustrates this particularly vividly.) But “Names of Plants and Animals” ultimately made the cut here for the way it updates the kind of louche funkiness that David Bowie brought to, say, “Beauty and the Beast” or “Golden Years.”
13. “Sad Lads Anonymous”–Nadine Shah (Filthy Underneath)
Apple Music recently informed me that Nadine Shah was my most-listened-to artist this year and that Filthy Underneath was my most-listened-to album. This checks out for me emotionally, not just data-wise. (Though yes, of the eleven total songs on the album, I see that I have seven of them, well over half, starred in iTunes.) It’s a brutal album in a lot of ways, but its emotional intensity matched my own for much of the second half of the year. So how did “Sad Lads Anonymous” specifically end up as the choice for inclusion in the mix here? Gosh, who even knows. But I mostly think it’s the way she launches into the song with the drily spoken line “this was a dumb idea, even for you.”
14. “THE GREATEST”–Billie Eilish (HIT ME HARD AND SOFT)
I just love her, OK?
15. “The Musical”–Avey Tare (7s)
A deeply moving and emotionally accurate take on what it feels like to make music with your friends.
16. “Well, Actually”–Library Card (Nothing, Interesting EP)
The counter-argument to Avey Tare’s “The Musical,” this is an equally accurate take on what it feels like to make music, specifically as a woman, specifically in a rock band.
17. “Light in a Quiet Room”–Ride (Interplay)
Ride played the Metro here in Chicago on Thursday, May 16 this year. I’d bought tickets to the show as a Valentine’s Day present for Brian; we hadn’t seen them play live in nearly a decade (since September 2015 at the Riv). Ride’s set was fantastic (I cannot overstate what an incredible drummer Laurence Colbert is), the weather was perfect, and it was just nice to be out and about in the city. In a lot of ways, the sweet simplicity of it all made it one of the best nights of my whole year. In retrospect I also now see that night as the dividing line between the before and after of the heavy life changes that came crashing down on me in June. But I’m grateful that my memory of it all serves as a vivid reminder of how light and lovely life can also sometime feel.
Other favorite songs and albums from 2024
Laila!’s “Not My Problem“; Arooj Aftab’s Night Reign; Marcus King’s “This Far Gone“; Odetta Hartman’s swansongs; Music Area’s Works; The Pineapple Thief’s It Leads to This; Haken’s “Beneath the White Rainbow“; Oceans of Slumber’s Where Gods Fear to Speak (as I’ve always said, I would listen to way more metal if other bands had vocalists like this); Johnny Blue Skies’ “Jupiter’s Faerie“; Kee Avil’s “Felt” (which I was absolutely certain was Mark Lanegan’s “Ketamine” when it first came up on shuffle, until I actually looked at the song’s title); and of course Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!“
Other favorite musical moments from 2024
Finally seeing Living Colour play their own full headlining set at the Bottom Lounge; Paul Weller’s impeccable cover of “What Was I Made For?“; The Arab Blues opening for Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Zakir Hussain, and Rakesh Chaurasia on a beautiful summer night at Millennium Park; listening to Shellac’s To All Trains in the car with Brian and exploding with laughter when he casually remarked, “This is basically just rumba music, though, right? Like, Cab Calloway should be dancing to this?”; having a huge Wham! renaissance after watching the 2023 documentary about them; Meshell Ndegeocello sitting in with Makaya McCraven at Symphony Hall on a super cold night in January and her getting the entire room to sing along with their take on TLC’s “Waterfalls”; seeing Madonna live in concert for the first time ever; John Moulder and his band remaking “Caravan” from the inside out live at Studio5 in Evanston; being emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually healed by ANOHNI live at Symphony Hall; and going into Transient Sound in Chicago with Brian to record our latest EP Nice Boys with Vijay Tellis-Nayak.
BONUS TRACK!
Click here to stream a mix of Brian’s favorite songs via Apple Music.
Queen of Peaches 