the new pretty committee - #EOY24
sotys and aotys. 1/1/25
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it was a good year for music - just not in the way that everyone seems to think. while your favorite powerpuff girl put out pop bangers and other critical darlings cemented their legacy, the best albums of this year were a lot weirder. this list is for music that raises the ceiling, not the floor.* fleeting breakout records, middle period opuses and late-stage pivots. let’s do it
* raising the floor of music make it broadly more enjoyable but it doesn’t make it best
my favorite albums of 2024
honorable mentions: manning fireworks - mj lenderman; ehhthang ehhthang - glorilla, woodland - gillian welch, david rawlings; only god was above us - vampire weekend; dance of love - tucker zimmerman; smile :D - porter robinson; for your consideration - empress of; two star & the dream police - mk.gee; banshee- abriction; bright future - adrianne lenker
10. chapolations - mel v
that women can scream is nothing new, but mel v raps with a flurry of punch ins that make her sound like the screamo chief keef. it is not controlled chaos on chapolations, it is absolutely uncontrolled chaos as mel v yells “CHAPOOOOOOOO” over beats best described as disconcerting or disorienting. it’s rare that a project makes me rethink an entire genre, but i guess all i needed to like rage music was more feminine rage from the tiny (in statute) but long (in money) mel v of houston texas (yes, this is my houston homer pick).
9. cowboy carter - beyonce
uh, yeah, remember this one guys? it is one of the dissapointments of the year that the discourse on the existence of this album supplanted discourse on the content of this album because this is a master-pastiche of black and white southern music traditions through and through. listening to cowboy carter is a journey, a simultaneously scattered but meticulous album that shows an artist with nothing to prove making bold artistic choices. also, the music goes—there are hits on hits here and i expect this album to age really, really well.
8. trail of flowers - sierra ferrell
the opposite of a sophomore slump, trail of flowers takes off from the first guitar strum of “american dreaming” - one of the best tonesetters of the year - into the platonic ideal of what the oxymoronic “traditional modern” country album should be. sierra ferrell had nothing to prove with her lyrics (though they still deliver with a poetic flair and intonation) and on this project she really focuses in on drawing out lush arrangements into all of her songs. this is just a really good album which is also a really good collection of songs.
7. endlessness - nala sinephro
while forms of ambience and jazz music have undoubtedly evolved in the past decade, they haven’t made great strides in being more accessible. endlessness is the perfect gateway drug for me, as sinephro ties together all my favorite parts of sun ra’s eclectic jazz, erik hall’s stodgy minimalism and ana roxane’s modernist ambiance into this completely stunning album that can be as invisible or visible as it needs to be. it was a good year for instrumental music broadly, but endlessness is the definite breakout of all the nts-adjacent ambiance hype. just listen to that slowing melody stretched over several continuums!
6. ##PaKBaileJerk2K24 ##45*16 - NMNL
this album is {insert thing} over {insert thing} over {insert thing} amid {insert thing}. it’s like listening to an ispy picture. it’s like the girls episode where they smoke crack beamed back in time to the sixties. it’s like # CREO EN EL LEAN. it’s like a dominican swagjacked a distorted jollibee’s playlist. it’s like heaven. it’s like ahhhhhh aDfadsfkdsalkf when the head thingy kadsfklfdalkmflks all on you. it’s like a serial womanizer’s post-freudian submission to the cia abstract art funding grant proposal gala in the sewer under the elevators at 158th street.
5. tales of misfortune - colby t. helms
the internet age has, understandably, led to a mass crisis of simpleexistence. fortunately, this message has not reached colby t. helms of western virginia, who proves that he is indomitably real and perhaps the last of the un-cyborg humans. well, unfortunately for the last human, both his parents are dead, his grandmas sick, and pretty girls are running off to cities. all equally concerns of young colby, he doesn’t let the dour subject matter slow the pace of these rollicking bluegrass tunes that chug forward through his sheer finger dexterity. there is literally not a man that i have never met that i wish better for that colby t. helms.
4. gnx - kendrick lamar
it seemed impossible that kendrick lamar could ever again make music that wouldn’t immediately be a discourse - either as part of his enduring savior/genius myth or as the cultural flagbearer he temporarily became in this year’s drake beef. well, he’s done it again, by releasing an insanely fun and tight album to end the year. this one rocks car stereos, gives the philosophy bros a solid cut, and turns regional la rappers into temporary superstars. kendrick hasn’t had anything to prove in nearly a decade and so instead of trying to shadowbox, he just threw a party. and it was great.
3. going nowhere- quiet light
my discovery of quiet light this year has actually been very well tracked in this newsletter (i think she set the record for most mentions in the “what i’m listening to” section) so it was a joy to finally get to be around for a new release. i followed every single and then let going nowhere wash over me in full while i wandered around nova huta, a planned communist community in krakow. it is pure feeling distilled into the finest spirit and then allowed to explode in a clamor that would enthrall even hegel. quiet light’s pen has gotten even sharper, showing a level of lyrical and melodic creativity that never ceases to amaze me even as i listen to this album more and more. the lyrics, delivery, intonation of “you say, fourteen squares/i say, i love you more than anything/i don’t care” is probably the most evocative five seconds of art this year.
2. this could be texas - english teacher
the whole post-rock schtick has always struck me as a bit of a contradiction because - in a very derridian way - as they try to downplay the cult of the lead singer by reducing them to drab and droll commentary surrounded by rambunctious music, they end up just building that cult (see greep, gordie and others). that’s fine, it just means that the post-rock band with the best frontwoman will win and in this case, that’s english teacher with lilly fontaine. the boys do their boy things on the breaks and instruments in bizarre times but fontaine seems to literally bend the universe over the way she intonates “daffodil” and makes a song called “sideboob” touchingly romantic. there are flashes of both pop and autre brilliance throughout this record, a dense and rewarding listen and relisten and relisten that i hope will be what’s left standing when all the dust clears on this british post-rock moment.
1. critterland - willi carlisle
i want people to understand the south. really! it gives me no joy to “gatekeep” by telling people they don’t understand country or rural living or any of the other ten other parts of hick culture that have entered the mainstream this year. fortunately, willi carlisle does a bang-up job of showing the tapestry of southern living through a kaleidescopic lens of joys and tragedies. boys die like possums nurture their young. dads die, too, but how else could we be? what southerners understand is not that we are all animals, its that all critters are us. yanks need to read haraway to get this, carlisle sings it clearly.
every single song on this record shows a story in the most brilliant colors. the world of critterland is as vast as the turns of phrase willi carlisle keeps in his suspenders and the instruments he keeps in his trunk. critterland shows the real potential of folk (country?) music as living through music for music with music and with one another. i can’t put it better than willi himself:
i remember asking 'em, "so like, are you guys, like, uh, libertarians or anarchists? what are you? are you so far to the right you came out on the left? like, what's the deal?"
and, uh, they just are like, "it's hay season. it's time to help everybody do their hay”
um, so, i fell in love out there too. this is […] about all that, it's called “critterland”
my favorite songs of 2024
i have no broad thematic thoughts on this songs list.
honorable mentions: detroit money phone - hitech, gt; candy- mk.gee; nisaan altima - doechii; american dreaming - sierra ferrell; ranchero - monaleo; euphoria - kendrick lamar; cheerleader - porter robinson; dunk contest - cash cobain; no one cares - abriction; right back to it - mj lenderman. waxahatchee
10. elbow room - cor magiic, nyah g
to the luck of all of us, cor magiic managed to grab nyah g for her one performance of the year where she turns in an absolutely exhilarating, demented jersey rap verse.
9: just the way you are - memphis lk
being in love is cool, europop is cool enough, lowpass filters are cool (i will die for this), and melodies are cool. this is a great walking song, simple and driving, cutesy and earnest.
8: bang the bus - maxo kream
this is evilgiane’s most inspired beat possibly ever, layering the y2k gothic sounds of “let go” by frou frou into a chippy hi hat and the most brutal first-beat 808 you will hear all year. maxo kream is as good as ever, but he’s a professional, and he knows how to let the beat talk, which is where this song excels the most.
7: doe eyes - whisper dolls
did i mention being in love is cool? this time, we’re making it shoegaze, but not in the guitar-pedal way, but instead in the “omg i’m so bashful i’m gonna look at my shoes because i’m so into you.” whisper doll also manages to revive the lovely nineties tradition of having like three wordy hooks wrapped into one song.
6: starburned and unkissed - caroline polachek
for all her experiments in, well, most things, caroline polachek had shied away from vocal distortion until this year. in “starburned and unkissed,” she absolutely lets it rip from a mysterious verse into the year’s strongest chorus that proves well worth the wait. it’s a perfect compliment to a.g. cook’s production, fulfilling the full promise of the “oh yeah” remix from a few years ago.
5: when the pills wear off - willi carlisle
”they say i’ll get over him i just need time/i think jesus sent an angel, stuck needles in his thigh.” this is one of the most brutal songs ever written and provides a deeper, starker look into the way that addiction kills but also the way that it is abstracted away from its human element into the kind of broad narratives that get written into hipster novels. ”and what I called a love affair/they say was a death of despair”
4: so american - olivia rodrigo
call me basic, but there’s something to love about the four-instrument, full band song with all the parts clicking to highlight an absolutely brilliant song. the lyrics are immediately memorable, the prechorus is brilliant in its swiftness, and the chorus absolutely swells with the help of some incredible drumming. like young love, this is a song that never stops to let anyone involved catch their breath.
3: 1-800-hot-n-fun - le sserafim
“really, i’m just sad about my shoes.” at some point, someone will circle 2024 and say “this is when vain escapist pop came back” and they’ll be right. the catch is that this was just the states catching up to the pop jams the rest of the world has been producing. understandably, this song boils down hedonism and the fun of a night out to its bare essentials, both lyrically and instrumentally. who doesn’t like to dance when they party?
2: chet baker - esther rose, bella white
country chanteuse bella white (who has appeared in my year end lists before) combined forces with louisianian esther rose to give us a fantastic interplay of voices reworking a good song into a phenomenal one. the irreverent, smirky lyrics hit even harder when traded and build into the cathartic anti-climax that, depending on interpretation, asks to be saved by or saved from twenty three. as someone who turned twenty four this year, i think it’s the latter.
1: blood pours like wine - quiet light
i’ve run into quiet light twice now in the last few months and i don’t know how to have a real conversation with someone who wrote this song. “hi, um, i’m jacob, and one of your songs feels like falling in love with my beloved and we sing it together sometimes. also my mom likes it.” anyways, this is the best song of the year.
ever since i heard this song as a live performance at quiet light’s ridgewood church show, it has captured a perfect mystery, a float between everything (vocal harmonies) and nothing (vamp chords). quiet light blends the mysticism and banality of life into a single monist vision of becoming - “cutting blades of grass with your hands/you’re always doing fuck shit like that.” just like the chorus of dates stream into each other as time flows bergsonially, the end of the song features the hook collapsing in and onto itself, some kind of mobius strip distress signal sent out to the void. in this cup is wine, is the blood of my body, is you on the fifth, you on the fifteenth, you on the twentieth…