2024: Top 5 New Albums

2024 was a good year for music. Some very good albums and songs didn't make these lists.

5. Eyelids - No Jigsaw

Jealous Butcher Records, 03/2024

The Eyelids are something pretty special. This Portland-based supergroup has been churning out the powerpop hits for 10 years. This 2-LP compilation of singles, one-offs, covers, and oddities is my favorite release by them. And it's a testament to how musically good 2024 was that this comes in at #5. This would probably be #1 in other years. 

Many of these songs have been covered in past years on this blog. Among the slices of pure power-pop goodness, there are also some really strange things here. A cover of The Fall sounding... just like The Fall. Peter Buck (R.E.M.'s famously silent guitar player) singing? This is a super fun album and worth your time.

 

4. Suburban Eyes

 

Spartan Records, 08/2024

A new album and band from Eric Richter of Christie Front Drive (and Antarctica), Jeremy Gomez from Mineral, and John Anderson from Boys Life. Does not sound much like Christie Front Drive, Mineral, or Boys Life.

What it does sound like, however, is a less electronic Antarctica, and if you are a fan (like I am), this one is great.

Good solid rock songs. Nothing flashy or intrusive, but good solid tunes. I don't have a lot of words about this. Instead, you should just listen to it.

3. Bonnie Prince Billy, Nathan Salsburg, and Tyler Trotter - Hear the Children Sing the Evidence

 

No Quarter Records, 05/2024

Viva la Lungfish.

I collect Lungfish covers, because I love Lungfish songs. Lungfish songs are so interesting-- It's as if they're songs turned on their side. If most music is horizontal, Lungfish songs are vertical.

This fun record is two typical one-chord Lungfish covers, but presented in an atypical manner. These songs are stretched to their absolute logical conclusion, clocking in at over 20 minutes apiece. That's one song per side of the LP. Bonnie Prince Billy's voice is well-suited for these mantra-songs. The music is hypnotic. It grooves. It's vastly wide and deep.

2. Symmetry/Symmetry - Interference

self-released, 10/2024

Oregon's answer to Radiohead. Symmetry/Symmetry surprised us with a new LP this year (It's been 10 years since their last EP). This one is in heavy rotation on my turntable right now, and I can't say enough good things about the band. Fantastic musicianship. Great songs. Hints of prog and white-boy-blues, but more interesting and tuneful than either. "All We Know" would make a decent James Bond theme. Do yourself a favor and check this whole album out. 

I also can't stop talking about Symmetry/Symmetry's Christmas/Christmas album, which gets tons of play at our house each December, and is in my top-3-of-all-time Christmas records.

1. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

 

Fiction Records, 11/2024

The last time The Cure released an album, I was childless. Now, I have teenagers that can listen to this. (Not that they would want to. Hating your parents' music is part of growing up.)

This album is very very good. Of course, nothing can match The Cure's creative peak in the 1980s, but I attempted the pointless exercise of ranking my top 10 favorite Cure albums, and this album surprisingly made it into the top 10. In my (admittedly biased and limited) experience, I don't know of any other artist producing work this good into their 60s. Heck, most artists aren't this good in their 30s.

Among other things, this album is a testament to brevity and editing. I'm sure Robert Smith &co wrote many many songs over the past 16 years, but they edited it down to these 8. These 8 songs are very, very good. Contrast this to all the mediocre late-career albums put out by so many bands. This is a great coda to a band I saw described as "The Led Zeppelin of Alternative Rock"

This isn't the album that would convince anyone to be a new Cure fan, but if you can see past the makeup and hear the gorgeous songwriting, the inventive guitar, the driving bass, the cascading rhythms, this is a great Cure album. These songs were great live, too.

2024: Top 5 New Discoveries

(5 favorite albums from 2022 or prior that I discovered this year)

5. Purplene

Spunk Records, 2004

I don't listen to enough music from Australia. According to Wikipedia, Purplene were "one of Australia's most respected rock groups". I hadn't heard of them until 20 years after this LP was released. This is great American Football-influenced twinkle indie, with some interesting math-rock undercurrents. They recorded this in the US with Steve Albini (RIP), whose crystal-clear production makes this record shine. (Albini's band Shellac made last year's #1 before he died)

 

4. The Apples in Stereo - The Discovery of a World Inside the Moone

   

SpinART Records, 04/2000

Perfect turn-of-the-millenium indie pop. I'm ashamed and embarrassed that it took me so long to listen to this album. I had Stream Running Over on one of my favorite mixtapes back in 2000. I even saw the Apples on this tour back in early 2001, and they were fantastic. The Apples in Stereo opened for Man or Astro-man. I sadly bought a Man or Astro-man T-shirt instead of the Apples in Stereo album. I still have the T-shirt, but I wore holes in the armpits. I wish I'd bought the Moone instead.

3. Harry Belafonte - Calypso

   

RCA Victor, 1956

A neighbor had an estate sale, and I rummaged through the old old records, and I found this one. I bought it as a Beetlejuice soundtrack.

(the scene, for reference :)

...and it does make a fine Beetlejuice soundtrack, but this album is so much more. Belafonte holds this whole thing together by force of personality, and it makes a fun listen regardless. I get a bit tired of the weird little flute that happens in half the songs, but that's a small nit-pick. This album is thoroughly enjoyable, start to finish.

 

2. Hot Snakes - Suicide Invoice

 

Sub Pop, 06/2002

Hard hitting rock and roll from Swami John Reis of Drive Like Jehu and Rocket from the Crypt. Hits all the right rocknroll buttons that bands like Q and Not U hit. This one rocks.

1. Wild Tchoupitoulas

 

Mango Records, 1976

Say "Chop-it-too-luz".

Mardi Gras Indians. I have no cultural connection to this. I've never been to New Orleans, never celebrated Mardi Gras, and I am generally ignorant about all the cultural things going on there. Now that I've discovered this, I'm fascinated, and I've gone down a few youtube rabbit holes, but I'm sure I'm getting a lot wrong.

Anyway, here's the situation as I understand it: Every Mardi Gras, these New Orleans street gangs go out parading. They spend a lot of money and effort to dress like caricatures of native americans, but with way more spangles, color, and glitter. They posture and get into knife fights. There's a hierarchy, with a Chief, as well as Flag Boys and Spy Boys, which are somehow ranks within the gang. They also...sing?

Somehow, everyone in New Orleans (or at least Chief Jolly, who is lead singer for the Tchoupitoulas) all talk like Ray the Firefly from Princess and the Frog, and spit all these strange creole-isms. Hey too-way-pocky-way! Jock-a-mo fina ney! Koona-hoona! etc.

This particular Mardi Gras tribe wasn't the first to record their music, but this tribe contains all 4 Neville brothers and most of The Meters, who later became very important to jazz and funk music, but again, this is way outside my realm of knowledge. (It's true. I don't know much).

This music, though. It's SO GOOD. It's a weird amalgamation of almost every american genre (Soul, Funk, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Rock), with some west-african and caribbean thrown in there as well. It's almost as if this is the absolute geographical center of music. I dunno, but it's good. I guess I'm a sucker for the funky rhythmic bounce and the call-and-response vocals.

I feel like this is what the Talking Heads must have been listening to from 1980 through the end of their run. If you take Remain in Light, and add ever-increasing doses of Wild Tchoupitoulas, you get Speaking in Tongues, Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked.

I also find it odd that the Tchoupitoulas didn't record what is apparently the most popular Mardi Gras Indian song, the oft-covered Iko Iko. (original version, most popular version, hippie version, 80s version from my childhood).

I truly love this album, and these Wild Tchoupitoulas songs keep popping up at random into my head. Indians coming-- get out de way!

 

2024: Top 5 Miscellaneous Songs

 (generally, the best five songs not on the other two lists. Either new in 2024, or new to me. 2024 was such a bumper crop of good new music, that this year's list is 100% newly released songs.)

5. Kim Deal - Coast

from "Nobody Loves You More"
4AD, 11/2024

A new Kim Deal solo album. I haven't heard the whole album yet, but I want to. This song was released in advance of the new album, and it's really good.

I believe "Nobody Loves You More" was the last thing Steve Albini worked on before his untimely passing this past May. Albini's sound always surprises me because it's not always harsh noise-rock. He recorded Low and Bedhead, for goodness sakes. This recording has horns! But it clearly sounds really good.

This song was apparently inspired by a bad cover of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville". Like him or hate him, you have to admit, that song is a vibe. This song is also a vibe-- not the same vibe as Margaritaville, maybe a mirror image.

Now, if somebody could just tell me what "Someone must've checked the WAM" means...

 

4. The Decemberists - Oh No!

 

From "As It Ever Was, So It Shall Be Again"
YABB Records, 06/2024

The Decemberists return with this fun ... uhh ... tango? foxtrot? whiskey? I'm not so up on my dance beats. Anyway, this song is certainly Decemberists. You almost need a thesaurus to decode the lyrics, but it's just a lot of fun. The new album is great, and there are several classic classic songs on there. This is one of them.

3. Mary Timony - Untame the Tiger

 

Title track of the album "Untame the Tiger"
Merge Records 02/2024

Sometimes the simple ones are the best. This song starts with 100 seconds of Mary Timony's usual alternate-tuning guitar playing a typically atmospheric, off-kilter Mary Timony melody. All of a sudden, the drums kick in with a 4/4 beat and the song turns into a simple, catchy I-IV-V pop song. The chorus is instrumental-- just a guitar hook. Super simple, and it works. Reminds me of "Hey Ya!".

2. Jack White - Archbishop Harold Holmes

From "No Name"
Third Man Records, 08/2024

Jack White should write a Broadway show. He's got the patter-song down cold. This stomper is from his new album No Name, which, in my (not very expert) opinion, is the best Jack White material since Get Behind Me Satan back in 2008. This whole album rocks hard, and this rapid-fire song is the best on there.

  1. Sunny Day Real Estate - Novum Vetus

From Diary Live at London Bridge Studios
Sub Pop Records 05/2024

I sure didn't expect a new Sunny Day song in 2024. This album is... meh. Diary is a classic. Rerecording Diary produced an inferior copy. But THIS SONG. 

So, this song was apparently started (or written) during the How It Feels sessions (circa '98), and it would fit well on that album. Live, it stretched out and breathed, and was a highlight of the show. This song is epic, sweeping, and beautiful. Doesn't overstay its 7 minutes. Long live Sunny Day. They have released 2 songs since 2000, but each song is worth 12 years of wait.

P.S. -- apparently, Novum Vetus rhymes with Diabeetus.