Some albums I listened to in 2024.
Plus, all the movies I saw. These opinions are 100% correct.
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I’ve worked on the internet for long enough to know that you’re not reading this. You saw the headline, gave it a click, and are now jumping right past this intro to skim the below list to see how closely my taste does or doesn’t align with yours. Twelve seconds from now, you will close this tab and never think about it again. It’s fine! I do the same thing. The onslaught of these lists is cumbersome at this time of year. But again, you’re not reading this so let’s get right to it.
I won’t reduce any of this music to list form or weight one above the other. No particular order here. This is just a totally predictable list of albums that, for one reason or another, got some spins out of me, America’s Only Music Writer™, in 2024. I’m sure there are better, cooler, more brat records out there, but these are the ones I listened to. And since no one is reading this, I will be uncharacteristically sincere here and say thank you for following my work this year. And since no one is reading, let me also say that god I hope all these albums came out in 2024 because I’m too lazy to double check.
20 ALBUMS I LISTENED TO
Bad Nerves - Still Nervous
Bad Nerves came out fully formed on their debut album in 2020. This one keeps the ball rolling. Infectious and bratty garage punk. On a long drive this year I let this album repeat four times before noticing.
Touché Amoré - Spiral in a Straight Line
It absolutely boggles the mind to think that hardcore is over 40 years old at this point. Minor Threat is classic rock now. By nature, the genre will always primarily be a young person’s game driven by The Youth, but it’s been around long enough that there’s also now an entire sect of it populated by adults pushing the limits of its evolution. The principal leader of this movement, in my mind, is Touché Amoré. With every album, the band explores what else hardcore is capable of, lyrically, sonically, and visually. A little wiser, a little more innovative each time. Maturing in hardcore is not easy, but every few years, they somehow pull it off.
Planes Mistaken for Stars - Do You Still Love Me?
Probably the last proper Planes album the world will ever get. One of the most underappreciated bands of their time. Thirty seconds before the album ends there is a final whisper that made me absolutely lose it. RIP Gared O’Donnell, a true artistic hero of mine. You did it your way.
Shannon and the Clams - The Moon Is in the Wrong Place
If you followed the tragic loss that befell Clams frontperson Shannon Shaw a few years ago, you might reasonably expect that their new album would be a devastating listen, and woof, it is. I’ve heard her voice described as “soulful” which I guess means that she’s got one of those voices that can emote even without words. She could just be singing jibberish and it would still hit the listener like a ton of bricks. So when she uses that voice to close out the album by belting out the line “Life is unfair, yet beautiful,” it really just rattles your soul.
Alex Winston - Bingo!
The long awaited (ten years in the making!) follow-up to an ahead-of-its time weirdo pop debut album by my friend and major-label survivor Alex Winston.
Drug Church - Prude
I don’t know if this album does much to expand the Drug Church Cinematic Universe. Sometimes I think the band accidentally leapfrogged their own abilities on 2018’s Cheer and have been trying to catch up to their own greatness ever since. “Myopic” alone makes this record worthwhile, though. There are times when that song makes me feel like I’m in a building where the walls are caving in around me. And yes I realize that track had been out for months before the record came out but so what who cares fight me.
Gouge Away - Deep Sage
Earlier this year I asked Gouge Away’s Christina Michelle if the band’s spacier, wider sound on Deep Sage was a result of her playing bass in the shoegaze band Nothing. She said no, but I still choose to believe it!
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
I mean, it’s Godspeed. You know what you’re getting. Perfect driving-through-a-snowstorm-in-the-apocalypse soundtrack.
Infant Island - Obsidian Wreath
Mmmmmm charred and blackened screamo. Just the way I like it.
Illuminati Hotties - Power
I love that you never know what you’re gonna get from an Illuminati Hotties album. Sometimes a fast-and-dirty punk record and sometimes dreamy indie pop. She contains multitudes and I’m down for all of it.
Cloud Nothings - Final Summer
Earlier this year I interviewed Cloud Nothings frontman Dylan Baldi and we talked a lot about how he’s a running enthusiast. So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the title track on Final Summer is the ideal tempo for a leisurely jog. The marathon training album of the year? Unfortunately I’m too out of shape to find out.
Bright Eyes - Five Dice, All Threes
Look, I’m a simple man, and Conor Oberst and Cat Power singing about killing Elon Musk in an alley just does it for me.
Envy - Eunoia
Still the loudest band I’ve ever seen. Hard to distill all that volume into a studio album but god bless em they keep trying.
State Faults - Children of the Moon
I’ve been following this band since they made a scrappy screamo debut album in 2013 and it’s been very rewarding watching them evolve over the last decade.
Pinhead Gunpowder - Unt
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that my listening palette expands and evolves as I age, but sometimes I just want to listen to something that feels like putting on a well worn pair of Vans. This record sounds like Lookout Records in 1991 and I say that as the highest compliment.
Japandroids - Fate & Alcohol
Ever visit a dying loved one during their final days? Sure, they’re present in the physical sense but their spirit has already gone. That’s how I felt listening to the final Japandroids album. The band privately called it quits a while back but released this swan song to cap off their run. I can’t imagine I’ll revisit this album much in the future but I was glad to pay my last respects and remember the good times. Dudes rock forever, etc.
Cursive - Devourer
There is a certain sonic vibe that Tim Kasher has mastered over the last few decades. I’m not sure if there’s a name for it, but Demented Circus is how I think of it in my head.
Chubby and the Gang - And Then There Was…
THE BEAT THE BEAT THE BEAT
The Hope Conspiracy - Tools of Oppression / Rule by Deception
The Hope Conspiracy always stood out to me during their initial run in the early 2000s by being juuuuust a tad smarter than their tough-guy peers. In hardcore, these minuscule degrees make all the difference. Sure, they looked and sounded the part, but there was a righteous indignation in their lyrics that stood above most of their beatdown counterparts who didn’t have jack shit to say. Now they’ve returned with their first album in nearly two decades and while I do enjoy it, they don’t fill that same itch for me. Have they changed or has the rest of the scene finally caught up to them? I personally am not smart enough to say.
Jack White - No Name
Look, I’m just as surprised as anyone that this album made the cut but credit where credit is due there are some RIFFS on this thing.
THREE LIVE ALBUMS I ENJOYED
Royal Headache - Live in America
Father John Misty - Live at Pappy and Harriet’s
AND OF COURSE THIS WAS THE SONG OF THE YEAR
SOME POSTS I DID THIS YEAR
I also spent a lot of time at the movies this year but before I move on to those, here are some of the ZERO CRED posts people seemed to enjoy the most. Thanks for reading.
MOVIES
THE GOOD
The Substance
There’s a point in this movie where you think they’ve gone All The Way with it and surely it must be near its climax. Then you realize there’s another 25 minutes left! Twenty-five absolutely batshit minutes where it goes so far beyond where you’d assume the logical endpoint would be. So glad I saw this in the theater. Hearing a roomful of people gag and retch is classic cinema, baby.
Anora
Red Rooms
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Rap World
Destroy All Neighbors
Maxxxine
Nosferatu
THE OKAY
Monkey Man
A Real Pain
My Old Ass
The Wild Robot
Alien: Romulus
Twisters
Civil War
THE BAD
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
The first act was so tedious that I wanted to walk out. So much time wasted introducing new characters, reminding you who the old characters are and explaining what their deal is now, then setting up at least a dozen plotlines that don’t end up going anywhere. Like Monica Bellucci, who is in the movie for no reason whatsoever, does absolutely nothing, and then just… disappears. Don’t get me wrong, if I was dating Monica Bellucci I would also put her in my movie, but jeez man at least give her something to work with! Look at Rob Zombie. The guy has been making one dogshit movie after another for decades for the sole purpose of showing off his hot wife in substantial roles. Now that is a committed Wife Guy who respects his queen. But I digress, so let me get back to this: One of the actors in the original Beetlejuice turned out to be a huge pedophile so they dutifully wrote him out of the sequel with an animated sequence. It was corny but I knew they had to explain why the registered sex offender wasn’t there, so okay fine. But then the character comes back in various ways several times throughout the movie and gets a fairly loving send-off. Just invite the actor back if you’re that attached to him because this was actually worse! And if you’ve ever wondered, hey, how come there aren’t any people of color in the underworld of Beetlejuice (or any Tim Burton movie if we’re being honest), don’t worry, that gets answered at the end when the gang hops on the Soul Train. Just some old-fashioned racism that I genuinely could not believe made the final cut in a movie that felt like it had been hacked to pieces by studio heads. And in general it just plain looked like shit. Felt like made-for-streaming slop that I saw in IMAX. Just let the dead rest.
Babygirl
Venom: The Last Dance
Heretic
The 4:30 Movie
Longlegs
Megalopolis
Road House
The Beekeeper
The Fall Guy
Carry-On
Nightbitch
Y2K
As of publication time I have not seen the Bob Dylan movie but here is my preemptive review:
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Just returning to say that I listened to the new Shannon and the Clams album after reading this newsletter and I really, really love it. Thanks for sharing.
About your song list: no mention of Fontaines DC. No mention of Hinds. Sad.