038/ Best music of 2024 so far
Happy July. Since we’re halfway through 2024, here are my music favourites of the year, as it stands.
albums —
My two favourite records so far in 2024 couldn’t be more different: Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future and Charli XCX’s Brat (my review in The Quietus). I’m still listening to Brat constantly, more than anything else right now, however for the time being it sits in second place on the list, because I was so profoundly shaken by Lenker’s emotional masterpiece when it emerged. But I can’t resist pointing out here: Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish all dropped new records this year, yet Charli XCX delivered a greater piece of work than any of them, and she did it by reclaiming her true self. What an achievement that is, in today’s hyper-ambitious pop sphere.
Close behind, my top five has Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood, Keeley Forsyth’s The Hollow (Quietus review) and the Nordic composer and double-bassist Bára Gísladóttir’s Orchestral Works, recorded with Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Then I’ve got Arooj Aftab, Beyoncé —
— Annie Dressner, Sam Lee, Billie Eilish (Quietus review), Stephen Evens, Maggie Rogers, Julie Christmas and Josienne Clark all way up there. I reckon 40 albums on my list have scored 7.5 or higher, with the highest placed ‘conventional’ alt/rock record probably English Teacher.
song obsessions —
At the start of 2024 I decided to list ‘best songs’ in a different way: instead of creating a chart, I’d just write down my song obsessions in chronological order, as and when I fell for them.
For me, winter, spring, those cold earlier months closely curved themselves around a collection of Americana/folk-ish (old fashioned, even ballady) singles by singer-songwriters. Beyoncé didn’t impact the list at all. No Dua Lipa either, until June. Indeed, it took the rise of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, the XCX resurgence (and summer time) for pop to re-assert itself, though you know that’s the genre I’ve loved most the past few years. I haven’t much enjoyed any strummy songwritering for a long while, so this was a surprise. Here’s the whole list so far, reading downwards from January to June (it cuts off before last weekend’s Glastonbury TV spree)...
Annie Dressner — ‘A Dance We Do’
Waxahatchee — ‘Right Back To It’ (feat MJ Lenderman)
Maggie Rogers — ‘Don’t Forget Me’
English Teacher — ‘Nearly Daffodils’
Adrianne Lenker — ‘Sadness As A Gift’
Charli XCX — ‘Von Dutch’
Adrianne Lenker — ‘Free Treasure’
Bonny Light Horseman — ‘When I Was Younger’
Adrianne Lenker — ‘Real House’
Mitski — ‘Coyote, My Little Brother’ (Pete Seeger cover)
Chappell Roan — ‘Casual’ (2022)
Chappell Roan — ‘Femininomenon’ (2022)
Macklemore — ‘Hind’s Hall’
Kendrick Lamar — ‘Not Like Us’ (best of the Drake diss onslaught)
Charli XCX — ‘360’
Chappell Roan — ‘Pink Pony Club’ (2022)
Charli XCX — ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’
Sabrina Carpenter — ‘Please Please Please’
Charli XCX — ‘The Girl So Confusing Version With Lorde’
Dua Lipa — ‘Illusion’
MJ Lenderman — ‘She’s Leaving You’
There’s another track I’m muddled about where to include: an album-length drone by Thomas White’s Queer Freedom Drone Ensemble from early in the year, ‘Bearing Witness’, which currently sits in my ‘albums of the year’ chart but really behaved more like an early song obsession. I originally included it on this list as well, hence mentioning it here.
gigs —
My favourite five live shows so far in 2024:
01/ PJ Harvey at Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona
02/ Charli XCX at Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona
03/ Dear Everyone at the Cowley Club, Brighton
04/ Atarashii Gakko! at Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona
05/ Maggie Rogers acoustic duo set at Chalk, Brighton
Prior to festival season it had been a sparse year for gigs. Whereas, the second half of 2024 I already have tickets and invites for a lot of intriguing, or outright exciting, live shows, so hopefully the final end-of-year list will have rich, varied flavours.
By the way, the three shows from Primavera Sound listed above disguise some ambivalence I have towards this year’s Barcelona adventure. We missed an awful lot of artists I wanted to see — and a few others were disappointing — to the extent that it called into question the worth of the trip. Obviously it’s an expensive trek (because of how we choose to do it, not festival ticket prices, which are very reasonable). However, for example, the three artists on this list were all on Saturday night, and they were the only artists we saw on Saturday, which was a night badly squandered. It did rain, but I won’t forgive myself for a long time, for walking away from the stage as Mitski, who’s been on my must-see list for years, was about to start.
music on television —
Hold on a sec, while I try to incorporate this large pile of Glastonbury sets into the master list. Okay. There is so much fantastic music on small screens now, with a rapid turnover of sensational clips, sessions and live streams. So (for what it’s worth) I’ll share a full top 20 here, feeling confident that many of these will be overtaken in coming months. Also, I acknowledge it’s a messy-as-shit category, with commercial pop videos sat alongside TV and radio performances, and full live concerts that happened to be filmed.
For the end of the year chart, maybe I’ll re-categorise, or arbitrarily eject commercial videos from this list, but that’s harsh because there is no more sublime an experience than watching the Waxahatchee song that tops this list and falling in love with Jake Lenderman, or laughing your head off as Charli flails and punches her way around an airport for ‘Von Dutch’. Anyway…
01/ Waxahatchee — ‘Right Back To It’ (feat MJ Lenderman) official video
02/ Billie Eilish and Finneas sing ‘What Was I Made For?’ at the Oscars
03/ Nia Archives at Glastonbury Festival
04/ Lankum at Glastonbury Festival
05/ Willow — ‘Home’ on Tonight with Jimmy Fallon
06/ Boiler Room & Charli XCX Present: Partygirl
07/ The National at Glastonbury Festival
08/ This Is The Kit at Glastonbury Festival
09/ Adrianne Lenker — ‘Sadness As A Gift’ on Later with Jools
10/ Dua Lipa at Glastonbury Festival
11/ The Streets at Glastonbury Festival
12/ Otoboke Beaver at Glastonbury Festival
13/ Charli XCX — ‘Von Dutch’ video
14/ English Teacher three songs live at WFUV
15/ PJ Harvey at Glastonbury Festival
16/ Maggie Rogers at Bonnaroo
17/ Aurora at Glastonbury Festival
18/ Sugababes at Glastonbury Festival
19/ Chappell Roan’s Tiny Desk
20/ Black Country, New Road at Coachella
And that’s where I’m at with music, through the first half of 2024. Onwards.
icymi —
• Patti Smith sings Lana Del Rey’s ‘Summerstime Sadness’ live in Dublin
• new Self Esteem collab with Moonchild Sanelly — ‘Big Man’