You know what it is at this point. Each year I do a methodological job of archiving all my favorite forms of media. This is what I considered the best of the media landscape that I consumed this year. I will share my top albums released this year, the best books I read this year, and my favorite single songs released this year with some detail, and then share my favorite discovered albums and songs. Without further ado:
Favorite Albums
Brat - Charli XCX
As cliché as it may be, Brat is truly such a great album and did define the second half of the year. Being a Chari fan for a while this album really feels so well deserved (especially after not loving Crash) . All the songs are momentous pop songs and then their “legacies” are made even greater by the updated version on the “remix” album which only came out a couple of months after Brat. Existential and reflective this is modern pop music at its best.
Best Songs: 360, Sympathy is a knife, Apple, I think about it all the time
Cool World - Chat Pile
The dystopic lens of this album just makes logical sense, like “of course, this is the soundscape of 2024”. Lyrics are dark, geographical, and illustrative of the crushing world we live in. And this songs are all just beautifully structured and organized, great hooks, grooves, riffs. Truly an awesome album with tension, intensity, and catharsis. Plus, their live act is sick and the darkness of the sounds and lyrics is contrasted quite nicely with a rather silly and fun performance.
Best Songs: I am Dog Now, Frownland, Funny Man, Masc
What a Fucking Nightmare - The Chisel
2024 is a year where punk and hardcore really entered my ears more than any year of the past and this was evidence of that. Just catchy, straightforward, and like Cool World, depicts social issues through catchy tunes, albeit this one is more uplifting. If I had Apple Music rather than Spotify wrapped this would likely be the album I played the most this year.
Best Songs: Cry Your Eyes Out, Living for Myself, Lying Little Rat (Propaganda), Bloodsucker
No Hands - Joey Valence and Brae
A collection of just silly fun hip songs with dancy beats. I saw a comment on a youtube video that described them as Beasties-van- Fleet and that’s an accurate description, and it works because its just so damn fun. Overall the catchiest vibes.
Best Songs: PACKAPUNCH, LIKE A PUNK, THE BADDEST, BUSSIT
The 8th Cumming – Cum Girl 8
Goth-y, punk-y wild vocals and synth work - this album works for me on a deep level. The aesthetics of this album feel like a grimy techno goth basement show. And while the majority of the songs are with a pretty intense energy there are moments of tenderness and sweetness here.
Best Songs: ahhhh!hhhh! (i don't wanna go), mercy, hysteria!, something new
Bright Future – Adrienne Lenker
Adrienne Lenker is more medicine than music and that’s especially the case on this album – songs that get you in your feels and allow you to sit with them and reflect. While I preferred her last solo project, this album has catchy, beautiful, emotive songs.
Best Songs: Fool, Vampire Empire, Evol, Already Lost
The Collective - Kim Gordon
I’m putting this here because I love an impressive forward-thinking late-career release and this exemplifies that. At 70 Kim Gordon is just putting out really intense dark music with trap drums and deadpan vocals, it’s so cool that this project exists.
Best Songs: BYE BYE, The Candy House, I'm a Man, I Don't Miss My Mind
13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips - Xiu Xiu
This is a weird one for me and I feel like I haven’t fully explored it yet but every time I listen to it I get surprised by just how much I like it. It’s like a swarm of robot insects over the wildest drum beats complimented by some unhinged vocal performances.
Songs: Maestro One Chord, Common Loon, T.D.F.T.W., Pina, Coconut & Cherry
Alligator Bites Never Heal – Doechii
The Doecchi hype is real! When I first listened to this I was only impressed. But then her live performance videos such as her tiny desk only increased her appeal. Yeah, this album is quite good and I think will be one that keeps popping in early 2025 (and this prediction was correct with the music video for Denial is a River.)
Best Songs: Boiled Peanuts, Nissan Altima, Denial is a River, Catfish
LL – The Hellp
Vol 1. was my fave album of 2021 at the end of the year and I like this album quite a bit as well. I liken it to “if 100 gecs were straight” (I know nothing of their orientations). They take that warped tour, 3oh!3, cobra starship, energy and make it as noisy and strangely structured as possible while still maintaining pop sensibility. They feel soaked in irony so I still can’t get my pulse on them and I appreciate that disorientation.
Songs: Caustic, Colorado, Rllynice, Ether
Here is a playlist of it all.
Shout Outs:
Three - Four Tet
Big Ideas - Remi Wolf
Imaginal Disc - Magdelena Bay
No Name - Jack White
Belaya Polosa - Molchat Doma
Best Songs
Fool – Adrienne Lenker
The song is just so lovely and filled with love– listing all the people in her life, adlibbed sounds, fun guitar work, and just the most wholesome message of love - that true love is a foolish effort, in as such as it’s a practice that requires openness and a wholesome approach to the world.
Oral - Bjork feat, Rosalia
Released in late 2023 I’m counting it here. This song slaps. Bjork and Rosalia work so well together, I adore the imagery of floating mouths and moons, the core concept of the boundaries of real and the dream, and the challenge of blending the two. Is that the right thing to dooooo?
Apple – Charli XCX
Pretty much every song on Brat could be on this list. Upon my first listen to the album- Sympathy is Knife is when I realized this was going to be a great album, and Apple only confirmed that. It’s SO cool that this song concept exists. Like what are the chances that using an apple as a metaphor for relationships? SO silly but it works. It contains all of what makes Charli great.
Spring Is Coming with a Strawberry in its Mouth – Caroline Polachek
Even though this is a cover, this song fits Caroline Polachek’s dream appeal to a T. I really like the progression on this , all the instrumentation, and of course her siren vocals. This and Oral were on repeat around the same time and they both exist in this ethereal pop music realm where the best music comes from.
Something New – Cum girl 8
this song sounds like walking through a city during a rainy day and those are the type of songs I love. I often think it’s a Life Without Buildings song when it first comes on. I think it’s sweet and thumping, and that bassline just makes me bounce.
Soup – Remi Wolf
Power pop banger, not much else to say about this.
Not Like Us – Kendrick Lamar
Within following the Drake and Kendrick beef this song just came out and hit so hard, feels like the climax of a story – so much power in this and it hit at the right time (I also do want to say that on GNX reincarnated is perhaps one of the most fascinating songs I’ve ever listened to)
Cry Your Eyes Out - The Chisel
A punk song about a racist being sad that no one likes him because he’s a racist. Just so punk. But really any song on that Chisel album is anthemic.
Good Luck Babe! – Chappell Roan
Chappell Roan had a year this song is such a fun one. I will say however it did take me a while to shake it sounding exactly like 500 miles by the proclaimers.
The Spark – Kabin Crew
“YOU THINK YOU CAN DO WHAT WE DO, I DOUBT IT!”, just a bunch of Irish kids giving us a banger.
Favorite Books
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Kimmerer Wall - 2012: This was a book on my reading list for a Loooooooongggggg time, and finally getting to it I should have read it way earlier. So many important ideas, histories, prayers, stories and wisdoms in this book. Way more a meditation than anything and I definitely include this in the books that people must read during one’s lifetime. The interconnectedness between land, life, nature and higher powers, and how everything fits into a natural state. I also love the idea that everyone has a gift and it is one’s responsibility to share one’s gift with the world. Please just read this if you are here.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuk - 2009 (but English translated 2018): Polish naturalistic mystery horror story, lots of spookiness and meditations about nature, the stars, responsibility, aging and violence. I found the main character/narrator, an older woman with astrological inclinations, as someone you normally don’t see as the main character in these types of stories. and the language describes the cold forest so well. I would best describe this it as a gothic, vegan, fairytale.
Fleabag “The Scriptures” – Pheobe Wallace Bridge - 2019: Never read a screenplay before but is was so great! Being a fan of the series and being able to imagine each scene vividly was loads of fun. It was so funny and it really made one realize how much the performance can enhance the written character. If you are a fan of the show definitely read this.
Tarot for Change – Jessica Dore - 2021: The back half of the year resulted in a lot of Tarot study and this book really was the centerpiece of that. A mix of a tarot pokedex and self-help book. Thinking about the cards as ways to relate to greater human narratives and self-care practices was just so insightful. This will be a book that I will use for the rest of my life.
In the Dream House – Carmen Maria Marchada - 2019: Her Body and Other Parties was one of my favorite books I read in 2023 so and this book hit in an equal way. A story of domestic abuse told in the format of an achieve linked to folkloric archetypes. A creative was to tell a tragic autobiography.
The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron - 1992 & The Creative Act – Rick Rubin - 2023:
These two books are very much paired off as “creative self-help books” aimed at addressing creativity. Both hit in different ways but reading them was often inspirational and told how dedicating oneself to creative pursuits is an undeniable part of being human.
The Pale King – David Foster Wallace - 2011: For better or for worse I am now a DFW completionist. While unfinished I found this book to be rather good, long meditations on the nature of boredom, necessary tasks, commitment etc. Transcendental Boredom as being the best way for humans to survive in the post-industrial world? Fascinating. Fits in with the DWF canon with these concepts of worship, intention, and putting in the effort.
Bullshit Jobs - David Graeber - 2018: This book slapped. Traced the history of the 40-hour work week, how so many modern jobs are, somewhat meaningless for the amount of effort one needs to put in, and the psychic damage that it has on the soul of people working jobs they do not like. This book was a real solid analysis of a societal psychological phenomenon that a lot of people do not talk about – the fact that work can create meaning but a lot of people do not find meaning in their jobs.
Africa is Not a Country – Dipo Faloyin - 2022: This was a geographical history of Africa and how it is incorrectly constructed and mythologized in the Global North. A super important work to read as these histories, cultures, ideas, are not expressed as explicitly in the west knowledge canon and it is really important for decolonial knowledge.
Collected Stories - Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 1986: Read this during my trip to Colombia and loved it. Gabo’s language is so beautiful, the magical reaslism hit, and there are moments of genuine horror. Modern fairytales – I would love to see these stories animated by Studio Ghibli. I think reading short stories is the best way to understand a writer and this is 100% the case with Gabo, as it gave me a greater appreciation of his other work.
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