Favorite Music of 2024 pt 2

The stunning sequel!

(Part Two of my yearly favorite music list. Part One was supposed to be all my favorite albums, but I got verbose and didn’t even cover half of them. So this continues with Favorite Albums and then dives into everything else. Probably. Let’s just see how far we get.)

Here’s the playlist, if you wanna follow along (for around six unwieldy hours, what else are you doing with your time?)

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MORE ALBUMS I LOVED THAT WERE RELEASED IN 2024!

Maybe we can move a little faster with Part 2. Fewer essays. More blurbs. It’s a goal, at very least. Vamos!

THREE RETURN-TO-ROCK ALBUMS!

Rock never died!

Wand / Vertigo
An album that asks the question, “What if Roy Orbison fronted Bends-era Radiohead?”
(SONGS: Hangman, Curtain Call, Smile, JJ)

DIIV / Frog In Boiling Water
An album that asks the question, “What would OK Computer-era anxiety-ridden, paranoia-driven Radiohead lyrics sound like coupled with simple melodies and My Bloody Valentine Lite instrumentation?”

Part of a long, storied tradition of post-punk guitar rock albums in which the band nearly breaks up over the course of recording. Turn it up!
(SONGS: Soul-net, Raining On Your Pillow, Brown Paper Bag)

Font / Strange Burden
This album asks no questions about Radiohead.

The least accessible of my little power trio of rock records and, perhaps as a result, the most rewarding listen if you stick with it. Noisy and melodic.
(SONGS: Looking at Engines, Hey Kekulé)

AND NOW FOR SOME DECIDEDLY ON-BRAND CHOICES

Norah Jones / Visions
In 2002 or 2003, I first heard Norah Jones’s debut album. (As did the rest of the world. She won a billion¹ Grammys for that album.) I drove around Provo, Utah, listening with the windows down, Norah’s album somehow magically inflating me with a giddy desire to fall in love. This new album feels like a resurrection of sorts, perhaps more for me than for Norah, whose albums in between² may be masterful for all I know.

I love the SOUND of everything on Visions. Just the way the drums sound alone. But also Norah’s voice, the mellowness of the bass, her piano (and guitar) playing. So maybe the songs aren’t necessarily deep wells, lyrically speaking, but it all feels good. Real good.
(SONGS: Staring at the Wall, Running, Paradise)

Vampire Weekend / Only God Was Above Us
Give it up for Vampire Weekend’s album, which survived a (in my opinion) medium-only set at Kilby Block Party. It’s not that the band was bad; they were fine, really. Competent. Professional. Fun. I’m glad I went. It just wasn’t anything to get super-excited about (and, as a big fan of this album and the previous two, I was super-super-excited, so….shame on me?).

Ushering the concert closer to the Disappointing side of things, near the end, they had a segment where throughout the tour they’d bring some local celebrity onstage to play cornhole during a song. I didn’t catch the reasoning. Maybe there was some high concept art going on. Either way they bring out this celebrity to start throwing bean bags and who is it? Any guesses?

Park City resident and Killers singer Brandon Flowers?
Utah Jazz all-star Lauri Markannen?
Raising Cane’s aficionado Post Malone?
Modern Family star Ty Burrell?
Queer Eye fashionista Tan France?

Incorrect. Out struts one of the bubbly plastic Real Housewives of Salt Lake City³. Aaaaaand… that was my cue. I headed to my car, having seen and heard enough.
(SONGS: Hope ⁴, Capricorn, Prep-School Gangsters, Gen-X Cops)

MJ Lenderman / Manning Fireworks
Contractual obligation as a fortysomething to include MJ Lenderman on my end of year list: check.
Great songs that evoke 70’s Crazy Horse⁵ , now with even more lyrical wit: check
Guitars and tired vocals that evoke ol’ Neil Young himself: check

I wasn’t as high (figuratively or literally) on this record as most people of my vintage and beardiness, but I did like it an awful lot and imagine I’ll like it even more after seeing Lenderman and band in February. As long as none of the Real Housewives make an appearance.
(SONGS: She's Leaving You, Rudolph, Wristwatch, You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In)

Christian Lee Hutson / Paradise Pop.10
If the ghost of Elliott Smith is haunting (or just chilling with) anyone in modern music it’s probably Phoebe Bridgers or Christian Lee Hutson.
(SONGS: Carousel Horses, Candyland, Tiger, Skeleton Crew)

Anna Tivel / Living Thing
Fill the Weepies-sized hole in your folk-pop-loving heart.
(SONGS: Silver Flame, Real Things)

Bill Callahan / Resuscitate!
I don’t typically gravitate towards live albums⁶, especially by artists like Callahan that aren’t necessarily my go-to artists. But this one got me. The balance of Callahan’s idiosyncratic plain-sung vocals (and vivid lyrics) with the band⁷ backing him up with texture and noise and beauty….it’s pretty great.
(Just start from the beginning, it feels like a show. You’ll know pretty quickly whether it’s your sorta thing or not.)

THE PARTIALLY BLURBLESS THIRD TIER OF ALBUMS I HAD A GENUINE MOMENT WITH AND VERY MUCH MERIT MENTION!

St Vincent / All Born Screaming (“Flea” and “Broken Man” alone almost catapulted this record up a tier. Annie Clark’s most consistent album since 2015’s self-titled record.)
Beth Gibbons / Lives Outgrown (the voice of Portishead abandons the turntables and other trappings of trip-hop to make a haunting au naturale album. “Oceans” has all kinds of yearning woven in.)
Julian Lage / Speak To Me⁸
Soccer Mommy / Driver (this could very well have made a quartet out of my Return To Rock trio above)
Wild Pink / Dulling Horns (once I got over the fact that this wasn’t going to be A Billion Little Lights II and accepted the looser, rocking-er feel…this settled in nicely)
Chuck Prophet + Quiensave / Wake The Dead
Stephanie Lambring / Hypocrite (maybe the most gutting lyricist around today, at least outside of Kendrick Lamar, who almost literally gutted Drake like a Canadian fish this year. I can only listen to Lambring in small doses because I leave her songs with black eyes and bruised ribs. Punishing.)
Hana Vu / Romanticism
Ray Lamontagne (I did not have “enjoying a new Ray Lamontagne album” on my 2024 Bingo Card. Also I don’t have a 2024 Bingo Card, but, still, it has been more than a decade since I’ve had even the minor-est of itches to listen to his new music. But I gave it a shot this year and, hey, it had some good stuff!)
T-Bone Burnett / The Other Side (widely acclaimed as a producer⁹, T-Bone Burnett is vastly underrated as a songwriter¹⁰)
Hannah Frances / Keeper of the Shepherd (“Bronwyn” has the stuff.)
This is Lorelei / Box For Buddy, Box For Star (all over the place)
Wilco / Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP
Four Tet / Three (space out)
Paul Kelly / Fever Longing Still (Australian legend with another album peppered with sneaky-great tunes)
The Secret Sisters / Mind Man Medicine (do I have to sell you on sibling harmony matched with heart-on-sleeve songwriting?)

WANTED¹¹ TO BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MY OWN DISMAY, DIDN’T LOVE¹²
Beyonce
Taylor Swift
Leif Vollbekk
Khruangbin
Adrienne Lenker
The Lemon Twigs
Remi Wolf
EARTHGANG
Mount Eerie

SONGS THAT WEREN’T ON THE ALBUMS LISTED ABOVE! FANTASTIC SONGS, EVEN!

Missing Out- Maya Hawke (as the kids say, it’s giving 90’s Aimee Mann, like the cool niece of “That’s Just What You Are.” A contender for my Song of the Year. So much so, I took some time last week to see if I’d missed the boat on the album. VERDICT: the album goes weird, which I respect but, in this case, didn’t keep me coming back.)
Bootleg Firecracker-Middle Kids (one of my favorite choruses of 2024, all the more apparent in the stripped-back piano version of the song)
The Dreamer- A Country Western
Song of the Lake- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Nobody’s Soldier- Hozier (I love the production on this song so much)
Days Can Turn Around- Sarah Jarosz
Wandering Boy- Emily D’Angelo (a big zag for me, but this beautiful classical singer singing a heartbreaking Randy Newman tune. Devastating.)
Sexy to Someone- Clairo
Come Alive- Phantogram (every album of theirs has at least one song¹³ that sticks with me)
Mock The Hours- David Nance
:) - The Japanese House
After The Revolution- Carsie Blanton
RATTLESNAKE- Lafrantz (two friends who wrote a catchy-as-all-get-out tune)
Losing You- Everything Is Recorded (w/ Sampha)
Revelator¹⁴- Phosphorescent (the lyric “Now, how can I get it right? / I don't even like what I write / I don't even like what I like anymore” captures exhaustion and disillusionment so well to me¹⁵)
Freakadelic- Jeff Parker, ETA IVtet, Anna Buterss, Jay Bellerose, Josh Johnson (yes, the song is nearly 24 minutes long, but just give yourself to it and see how hypnotic it can be.)
Margaret (Live At Salt Shed)- Bleachers w/ Jeff Tweedy (The sweetheart of last year’s list, Lana Del Rey was bound to infiltrate this list somehow. Being sung by Jeff Tweedy and the guy the song is about—pop-tactic producer Jack Antonoff— certainly doesn’t hurt.)

Happy holidays. I hope you found at least one song that moved you.

1. This is the official number.

2. I owned the debut, then the followup (2004’s Feels Like Home), then I kinda sat out for a decade until 2012’s Little Broken Hearts (I love the songs “Happy Pills” and “Good Morning”) and then I lost track again until her shouldn’t-be-surprising-that-it’s-great-since-she’s-a-goddess-with-standards-to-sing 2021 Christmas album.

I can’t explain why I go hot and cold with artists. Such is the fickle heart of a music junkie/seeker, I guess.

3. You can’t honestly expect me to name any of them. Please. I do know that it wasn’t The Prison One.

4. Very near the top of my Favorite Songs of 2024.

5. Lots of music critics love to hand out the “This Is The New Crazy Horse” as a way to talk about a band that’s deliberately rough around the edges, likes some crunch, plays a simple straight-ahead style of rock with abandon. The only comparison I’ve bought recently is MJ Lenderman, nowhere clearer than on his incredible song “Tastes Just Like It Costs” from 2022’s Boat Songs. Neil Young would endorse it.

6. SOME EXCEPTIONS:
Amazing Grace / Aretha Franklin (duh)
Kicking Television / Wilco (they improve—or build—upon the recordings in several cases)
One Fair Summer Evening / Nanci Griffith (this albums is capital-f FORMATIVE for me.)
Stop Making Sense / Talking Heads (more important AND better than the studio albums)
Dead Set / Grateful Dead (the first Dead cassette I ever bought! And a decent representative of the exhaustive/exhausting catalog of Dead live albums, although no die-hard Deadhead would have it anywhere near their Top 10 live Dead performances.)
Live 1966 / Bob Dylan (just Bob and a guitar doing it to perfection; I could listen to these versions of “Desolation Row” and “Visions of Johanna” on repeat for eternity.)
Rolling Thunder Revue / Bob Dylan (a nice contrast to Live 1966, here Bob is burning it down with a raucous band)
Köln / Keith Jarrett
Band of Gypsys / Jimi Hendrix (Some historians call this the album where Hendrix, just months before he died, finally got a rhythm section that could keep up with him.)
Live At The Greek / The Black Crowes x Jimmy Page
The Concert In Central Park / Simon & Garfunkel (If you ever watched PBS fundraisers, you have an affinity for this one.)
Unplugged / Paul McCartney (A huge Beatles fan, I bought this for “Blackbird” and “We Can Work It Out” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face”, but got introduced to Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” in the process.
Rock of Ages / The Band (The whole thing is fiery but it’d be worth it if only for the version of “Don’t Do It.”)
Arc/Weld / Neil Young & Crazy Horse (Same thing could be said of this as was said of Rock of Ages, just substitute “Cortez The Killer” for “Don’t Do It.”)
Live / Donny Hathaway (same as above but insert “Jealous Guy” instead)
Live At Carnegie Hall / Bill Withers (the between-song banter is golden and the songs are even better)
Live At Massey Hall / Neil Young (solo, introducing some seminal songs for the first time)
Live Rust / Neil Young & Crazy Horse
At Fillmore East / The Allman Brothers
Solo Acoustic Vol. 1 / Jackson Browne (I never really got into Jackson Browne until I bought this CD before one of my west coast tours and, during the loooooooong drives, let his storytelling wash over me. “Barricades of Heaven” still sneaks way down into me, as does “These Days”)
The Live Anthology / Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Costello & Nieve / Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve (I got a Christmas bonus at a burrito place where I worked and promptly walked across the street to the CD store to buy this 5-disc set. I’d had my eyes on it forever. Nieve is such a fantastic musician.)
Across A Wire / Counting Crows (Adam Duritz in concert can be very hit-or-miss, depending on how his wildly variable and improvisational melodic vocals land. This acoustic album captures a night where the risks and detours paid off. I covered this particular version of “Angels of the Silences” in my restaurant residency years.)
At Folsom Prison / Johnny Cash
Under A Blood Red Sky / U2 (Not even close to my favorite era of U2, but there’s something about how hungry you can tell they are in these performances that always got me. I always wished I could be in the audience at Red Rocks, singing “40” long after the band left the stage. Honorable mention to the unfairly-derided Rattle And Hum, which has the best version of “Pride (In The Name Of Love” among other solid live tracks. )

OK. So maybe it’s not really a matter of “exceptions.”

7. Jim White, Matt Kinsey, Nick Mazzarella, Pascal Kerong’A, Nathaniel Ballinger, Joshua Abrams, Lisa Alvarado.

8. I had SUCH a moment with this particular record that I started a Favorite Things Substack post with a blurb about it. I never sent it (I couldn’t find another bunch of favorite things to list) so here it is:

I’m not a jazzophile (unless we’re talking Utah Jazz, which we aren’t). I’m mostly a tourist in the land of jazz—its virtuosity, its modes, its swing, its freedom, its innate cool. Sure, I have my jazz go-to’s (Miles’ Kind of Blue and On The Corner, Jarrett’s Køln, Brad Meldhau’s Largo, Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, some Jobim, some Louis Armstrong, and of course The King of Melancholy Christmas ,Vince Guaraldi), most of which probably—to any true jazz aficionado—brand me as a normie, uncool, pedestrian, basic.

That’s fine.

Truthfully, jazz or not, 97% of the music I listen to regularly features singers (giving Jobim, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald an advantage). That unintentionally bumps a lot of great music into an unintentional fight for that tiny leftover 3%. I guess I just love the human voice and its expressiveness. Which isn’t to say that I don’t believe instruments to be expressive. I have teared up during my share of guitar solos or instrumental codas. But I recognize I have a bias for voices.

Anyway, disclaimers and personal low-jazz-based-self-esteem and the fact that this album probably doesn’t even qualify as “jazz” aside, Julian Lage’s latest album Speak To Me is really good, if you trust an uncool, basic, pedestrian normie like me. Lage is a guitarist who seems like he travels in some of the same musical circles as other musical geniuses like mandolinist Chris Thile, Thile’s Punch Brothers bandmate and guitarist Chris Eldridge, but also more avant garde-ists like John Zorn, Nels Cline (whose day job is melting faces in Wilco), and the great Bill Frisell. Speak To Me shows his range, from the jazzier Wilco-ishness of “Northern Shuffle” to the open-tuning acoustic beauty of “Omission”, from the traditional jazz standard-sounding “Serenade” to the kinetic bluesy energy of the title track. Some really fantastic playing, produced beautifully by one of my musical heroes Joe Henry.

If you’re looking for something new to fill your personal 3%, you could do worse than Speak To Me.

9. What even would be the most famous T-Bone-produced album? Or, a better question, the best/favorite?

O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack
Raising Sand / Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
The Story / Brandi Carlile
Inside Llewyn Davis / soundtrack
August & Everything After / Counting Crows
How Will The Wolf Survive? / Los Lobos
King of America / Elvis Costello
Walk The Line soundtrack
Martinis & Bikinis / Sam Phillips
Mystery Girl / Roy Orbison
Blue Days Black Nights / Freddy Johnston
Bringing Down The Horse / The Wallflowers
Revival AND Hell Among The Yearlings AND Time The Revelatory / Gillian Welch
The Big Lebowski soundtrack
Put Your Needle Down / Secret Sisters
Country Music / Willie NElson
I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive / Steve Earle
Women + Country / Jakob Dylan

10. His 1992 album The Criminal Under My Own Hat is one of the best Americana records ever made, whether anyone’s ever heard it or not.

11. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/37b26344-4cf7-44db-b1be-0e20a892b9f4

It’s nothing personal. I just didn’t connect. Stay tuned a few years from now, when I write a mea culpa after revisiting one or all of them.

12. ALBUMS I LOVED THAT DID NOT COME OUT IN 2024
Tom Petty / Wildflowers (1994)
Solo Beatles, thanks to Rob Sheffield
Pearl Jam discography (so far Ten>Vs>Vitalogy>No Code>Yield>Binaural) thanks to the Bandsplain podcast
Soungarden / Superunknown (1994)
Weezer / Pinkerton (1996)
Metric / Formentera II (2023)
Bob Dylan / Blood On The Tracks (1975)

13. “When I’m Small” from 2010’s Eyelid Movies
”Love Me Now” from 2020’s Ceremony
”You Don’t Get Me High Anymore” (one of my favorite songs) and “Answer” from 2016’s Three
”Bill Murray” from 2013’s Voices

14. Every December I dive into all of the Year End lists with one part giddy Christmas morning anticipation (what new great song/album will I find?) and another part inexplicable Crowded Mall anxiety (WHAT IF I MISS SOMETHING? THERE’S SO MUCH! THIS IS OVERWHELMING!….all whilst forgetting that this exercise is, in fact, optional). Every year, the former yields rewards and this year’s late reward was this snapshot of depression and disenchantment from Phosphorescent.

15. Friendly reminder to listen to Phosphorescent’s other melancholy masterpiece, “Song For Zula.” Gets me every time.