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My 6th Annual Music “Year In Music” Review: Top 20 & 35 Honorable Mentions

December 26, 2024 / / No comments

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Each year I make an effort to listen to new music. Full, complete albums. And like a nut, I keep track of it. There are lists and files. In 2024, I listened to 137 new albums, frequently more than once, always straight through. Overall, I listened 524 full-length albums.

Of course, I curate and reflect my own bubble. I’d like to think that my palate is more colorful, more inclusive than most. But I surely have my blind spots, weaknesses. This year I haven’t listened to enough world music, for example; and though I like rap, I don’t have a deep knowledge; and I really need to do better with Latin music, which is exploding. And on and on and on. 

I mean to say: this is what I found, what I liked. Albums that hit me, that stood out, that seemed distinctive, original, exciting, “new.” Annually, I keep the list to 55 albums, but this year that meant eliminating a lot of really good music that I loved — but that didn’t, for me, quite make the cut. 

Hopefully, you arrive at this list with fresh ears and an open heart. If so . . . you are my kind of listener.

If I waited another week, or 17 more minutes, the contents here would change. There will be things I’ve missed or over- or under-rated. That’s why I embrace the “nobody cares” aesthetic. It’s liberating. I’m free. I’m not going for perfection. It’s all for fun, folks.

 

 

TOP 20 (in alphabetical order)

 

Being Dead: Eels

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Wild Love 

Waxahatchee: Tiger’s Blood

The Cure: Songs of a Lost World

Sierra Ferrell: Trail of Flowers 

Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown

Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Past Is Still Alive

Kendrick Lamar: GNX

MJ Lenderman: Manning Fireworks

Adrianne Lenker: Bright Future 

Laura Marling: Patterns in Repeat 

Peter Perrett: The Cleansing

Phosphorescent: Revelator

Jessica Pratt: Here in the Pitch

Bill Ryder-Jones: lechyd Da

Sturgill Simpson, Johnny Blue Skies: Passage du desir 

Nala Sinephro: Endlessness

Wadada Leo Smith, Amina Myers: Central Park Mosaics 

Vince Staples: Dark Times

Nulifer Yanya: Method Actor

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS (35)

 

EXPERIMENTAL, AMBIENT, NEW MUSIC

Terry Riley & Maya Beiser: In C

Sarah Davachi: The Head as Form’d in Crier’s Choir 

Four Set: Three 

Gastr del Sól: We Have Dozens of Titles

Godspeed You! Black Emperor: No Title As Of . . .

Mk.gee: Two Star and the Dream Police

 

JAZZ

Charlie Ballantine: Love Letters and Graffiti

Ethnic Heritage Ensemble: Open Me, A Higher … 

Amanda Gardier: Auteur.

Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still be There Tomorrow

Milton Nascimento, Esperanza Spalding: Milton

Matthew Shipp: New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz

 

ROCK, INDIE

Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness

Camera Obscura: Look to the East, Look to the West 

Eels: Eels Time!

Father John Misty: Mahashmashana

The Fountaines DC. Romance

Hovvdy: s/t 

Nick Lowe: Indoor Safari

Mannequin Pussy: I Got Heaven 

Gruff Rhys: Sadness Sets Me Free 

Shannon and the Clams: The Moon Is In Wrong Place

The Smile: Wall of Eyes

This is Lorelei: Box for Buddy, Box for Star

 

AMERICANA, FOLK, COUNTRY & ALT-COUNTRY

Dave Alvin, Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Mexicali 

Beachwood Sparks: Across the River of Stars

Naima Bock: Beneath a Massive Dark Land

Bonnie Light Horseman: Keep Me/See You Free

James Elkington, Nathan Salsburg: All Gist

Gillian Welch: Woodland

Yasmin Williams: Acadia

 

HIP HOP, R & B, WORLD

Beyonce: Cowboy Carter

Charli xvx: BRAT 

Chief Keef: Almighty So 2 

Schoolboy Q: Blue Lips

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CLICK BELOW FOR YEARS PAST.

I started formalizing these lists, and putting them here, in 2019 when I began my “full album project,” which has been ongoing for six years now. 

 

5th Annual Year in Review . . . 2023

4th Annual Year in Review . . . 2022

3rd Annual Year in Review . . . 2021

2nd Annual Year in Review . . . 2020

1st Annual Year in Review . . . 2019

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My 5th Annual Music “Year In Music” Review: Top 20 & 35 Honorable Mentions

December 26, 2023 / / No comments

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I feel like every end-of-year list should begin with a series of apologies. I’m sorry for not listening to everything. And for not listening closely enough, for not fully attending, for not hearing what’s there, for not being enough to do any of this justice.

In other words, I am not worthy. 

And then there’s the second thought which is: Lighten up, Jimmy. Stop dithering. Nobody cares. So, yeah, these are just albums from the year that hit me, that stood out, that seemed distinct and fresh and different and valuable.

Mostly, it’s my hope that this annual exercise helps you find something that you like, just as it helps me clarify my own listening umwelt. What I hear within the confines of my particular bubble. 

I am struck, often, by how negative (and infuriating) some people are about music. So narrowly dismissive, closed off and elitist. It breaks my heart. So if, on the other hand, you arrive to this list as a springboard for checking out something you haven’t heard before, or if it prods you to listen again, maybe with fresh ears and an open heart, then . . . thank you. You are my kind of listener.

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And third: Every list I read includes a too-long preamble that I almost invariably skip. So: more apologies for lacking the strength to resist that temptation.

Quickly about my process: I keep track of every full album I listen to, a practice I started five years ago. I listened to 131 (& counting) full-length albums that were released in 2023. Not nearly everything. 

This year, I listened to 505 (& counting) full-length albums overall. That number used to be in the 700s. Two factors: I’m more committed than ever to repeated listens, and I’m quicker to abandon an album that isn’t working for me. 

If I wait another week, or six more minutes, the contents here would likely change. There will be mistakes. Things I’ve missed or over- or under-rated. That’s why I embrace the “nobody cares” aesthetic. It’s liberating. I’m free. I’m not going for perfection. It’s all for fun, folks.

Here goes . . . 

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TOP 20 (in alphabetical order)

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Ahnoni, Antony & the Johnsons: My Back Was a Bridge

Ambrose Akinmusire: Beauty Is Enough

Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Jaimie Branch: Fly or Die ((world war)) 

Julie Byrne: The Greater Wings 

Margo Cilker: Valley of Heart’s Delight

Feeble Little Horse: Girl with Fish

PJ Harvey: I Inside the Old Year Dying

Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light

Jason Isbell: Weathervanes

Lankum: False Lanky

Lydia Loveless: Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way

Matana Roberts: Coin Coin Chapter Five: In the Garden

Jeff Rosenstock: Hellmode

Ryuichi Sakamoto: 12

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Sufjan Stevens: Javelin

Veeze: Ganger

Wilco: Cousin

Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World

Youth Lagoon: Heaven Is a Junkyard

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS (36)

 

EXPERIMENTAL, AMBIENT, NEW MUSIC

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Altin Gun: Ask

Daniel Bachman: When the Roses Come Again

Blue Lake: Sun Arcs

Lonnie Holley: Oh Me Oh My

Blake Mills: Jelly Road

Tirzah: Trip9love . . . ?

 

JAZZ

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Natural Information Society: Since Time Is Gravity 

The Necks: Travel

Gogo Penguin: Everything Is Going to Be Okay

Mette Henriette: Drifting

London Brew: s/t

 

ROCK, INDIE

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Bar Italia: Tracy Denim 

Beirut: Hadsel

Bully: Lucky for You

Margaret Glaspy: Echo the Diamond

Hotline TNT: Cartwheel

The Lemon Twigs: Everything Harmony 

Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We

Palehound: Eye on the Bat 

Ratboys: The Window 

Joanna Sternberg: I’ve Got Me

The Tubs: Dead Meat 

Water From Your Eyes: Everyone’s Crushed 

Wednesday: Rat Saw God

 

AMERICANA, FOLK, COUNTRY & ALT-COUNTRY

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Meg Baird: Furling

Shana Cleveland: Manzanita 

Cut Worms: s/t

Iris DeMent: Workin’ On a World

Margo Price: Strays

Paul Simon: Seven Psalms

Kassi Valazzi: Kassi Valazzi Knows Nothing

Jamila Woods: Water Made Us

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HIP HOP, R & B

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Janelle Monae: The Age of Pleasure

Noname: Sundial

Cleo Sol: Heaven

RAYE: My 21st Century Blues

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THANKS FOR STOPPING BY . . . NOW GET LISTENING!

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My 4th Annual “Year In Music” Review: Top 20 & 35 Honorable Mentions

December 26, 2022 / / No comments

 

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I listened to 114 (& counting) full-length albums that were released in 2022. So: Not everything. It’s a dopey endeavor to try to select the ones that were freshest, most distinctive & original, best.

And so for the fourth year, I continued the project where I try to listen to (& keep track of) every complete album I hear, regardless of release dates.

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I love the album format and recognize that most listeners no longer access music this way. We are a singles, playlist-oriented society. And even then, who has the time & inclination to listen anyway?

This year, my total diminished markedly. In 2019, flush with enthusiasm, I reached 778 full albums. Then down to 711 and 702 over the next two years. In 2022, it’s way down to 515 & counting)).

What’s happening here?

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Could be that I was listening to less music overall. But there were two other contributing factors: 1) an effort to repeat listens more often, less content to listen once and move on; 2) on the flip side of that same coin, I more easily gave up on the “full album” task, more willing to ditch an album halfway through if it wasn’t working for me; I didn’t push to completion the way I had in the past, eager to check off some box. Maybe that’s a positive thing. The whole concept is Schrodinger’s cat anyway, altered simply by being observed. I think I’ve gotten better at that, not thinking about the result as much as the moment, though a pure record of what I listen to will never be possible so long as I keep track of it. 

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Here goes . . . 

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TOP 20 (in alphabetical order)

 

         

 

Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Binker and Moses: Feeding the Machine 

Bill Callahan: Reality 

 

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Danger Mouse, Black Thought: Cheat Codes 

Dehd: Blue Skies 

Delines: The Sea Drift  

 

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Alabaster DePlume: Gold 

Dry Cleaning: Stumpwork

Alex G: God Save the Animals 

 

         

Hurry for the Riff Raff: Life on Earth 

MJ Lenderman: Boat Songs 

Kevin Morby: This Is a Photograph 

Beth Orton: Weather Alive

 

         

Sadies: Colder Streams 

The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention

Spiritualized: Everything Was Beautiful 

 

         

SZA: S.O.S. 

Kurt Vile: (watch my moves) 

Wet Leg: s/t 

Immanuel Wilkins: 7th Hand

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS (35)

 

 

EXPERIMENTAL, AMBIENT, NEW MUSIC

Caterina Barbieri: Spirit Exit

Laura Cannell: Antiphony of the Trees

Caroline: s/t 

Floating World Pictures: Twenty-Three Views 

Johann Johansson: Drone Mass

Carolyn Shaw/Attaca: Evergreen

Sean Shibe: Lost & Found

 

JAZZ

Sam Gendel: Superstore 

Makaya McCraven: In These Times 

Simora Pinderhughes: Grief 

Daniel Villareal: Panama ’77

 

ROCK, INDIE 

Black Country, New Road: Ants from Up 

Elk City: Above the Water

Ethel Cain: Preacher’s Daughter 

Enumclaw: Save the Baby

Father John Misty: Chloe & the Next 20th Century

Florist: s/t 

Aldous Harding: Warm 

Momma: Household Name 

Tomberlin: I Don’t Know Who

Weyes Blood: And In the Darkness . . . 

 

AMERICANA, FOLK, COUNTRY & ALT-COUNTRY

Nora Brown: Long Time to Be Gone 

Jake Xerxes Fussell: Good and Green Again

Nina Nastasia: Riderless Horse

Orville Peck: Bronco 

Plains (Waxahatchee, J. Williamson): I Walked With You a Ways

Joan Shelley: The Spur

Twain: Noon 

Wilco: Cruel Country

 

HIP HOP, R & B

Yaya Bey: Remember Your North

Little Simz: NO THANK YOU

Saba: Few Good Things 

Earl Sweatshirt: SICK! 

Pusha T: It’s Almost Dry

Nilufer Yanya: Painless

  

After too much consideration, Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is my album of the year.

 

Hopefully you find something enjoyable here that you might have missed otherwise.

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The Fire Hydrants of Knoxville: Joy in a Time of Heartbreak

March 29, 2022 / / No comments

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In late March I traveled down to Knoxville, TN, for the Big Ears Music Festival. It’s one of the world’s great music festivals — “wonderfully weird,” according to Spin Magazine — famed for celebrating a wildly diverse array of music. Seriously, you can see and hear anything there, and sometimes, euphorically, for the first time in your ever-music-loving life.

For me, it was a beautiful experience, an expression of something we’ve missed during the pandemic: a sense of belonging, of togetherness. Most of us have managed to stay connected with our family and close friends, the inner circle, but it’s been those expansive concentric rings that I’ve missed, the outer spheres of our diminished community. In Knoxville, I talked to a lot of strangers, good conversations with people from all over. Across four days, I didn’t see one openly drunk person, didn’t witness a single example of bad behavior. The attendees came with ears and hearts and minds wide open. We listened, hard; we participated, gratefully.

One crucial feature of the festival is that music is going on simultaneously at a variety of venues. A Scottish bar, a cozy theater, a church, a dingy club, on and on. Attendees wander the streets of downtown Knoxville, seeking out a percussive string quartet in a church, a hot jazz band in a club, an exploration of ambient drone somewhere else, or, hey, Patti Smith in the Tennessee Theater. It’s all there. From the familiar to the experimental.

While I wandered from venue to venue, I kept noticing the blue-and-yellow fire hydrants of Knoxville. They made me think of Ukraine, each one a metal flag bringing to mind the unforgivable slaughter. The brutality of Putin’s attack, the senseless cruelty and inhumanity and suffering of our world.

A disturbing dissonance droned through my skull, plucked at the strings of my heart. I was happy, thrilled with a feeling of joy and discovery and community, encountering good people and magnificent art at every turn. Yet those fire hydrants of Knoxville kept reminding me of dropped bombs, toppled buildings & innocent blood, our sad & broken world.

And I guess that’s the challenge we face. Finding the joy, the deep pleasures and satisfactions, the reasons why life is so worth living — and yet not forgetting the heartbreak, the devastation, the important & necessary work that still needs to be done.

Oh sweet ravaged world, we need to do so much better if we hope to live, together.

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My 3nd Annual “Year In Music” Review: Top 20, Honorable Mentions

January 2, 2022 / / No comments

 

End-of-year lists help me find music I missed, or prod me to listen again, more closely, to albums I may have dismissed too quickly. I heard 127 full albums that came out in 2021. It’s a challenge to pick out the albums that were fresh, distinctive, original, best. I enjoy the process of puzzling it out for myself. What am I saying? I guess I’m a cliche.

For the third consecutive year, I continued the project in which I try to listen to at least one complete album a day. Often twice through. In 2019, I got to 778 full albums, in addition to all the other random-scattered listening I do. Last year the number was 711. In 2021, I listened to 702 complete albums, starting with “Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows” by SF Seals and concluding with “Living in the Material World” by George Harrison. For no rhyme whatsoever.

It was a pandemic year in music and many albums felt scaled back, smaller in ambition, more intimate and modest. Logistics played a role. And, also, context: people were dying; the world in general felt more introspective. For whatever reason, I don’t think this was a year when many truly “great” albums came out. 

Jimmy Fun Fact: When I got my iPod in April, 2008, I started making a 30-song monthly playlist. Part of that was a response to having nearly everything available instantaneously. Each month, I created a little home base full of new music as well as old reminders. I have now kept that up, switching to Spotify in 2017, for 165 straight months. Maybe that tells you something scary about me? As always, I don’t pretend that my taste is any better than anyone else’s.

 

TOP 20

Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders: Promises

Julien Baker: Little Oblivians 

Helado Negro: Far In 

         

Black Country, New Road: For the first time 

Mdou Moctar: Afrique Victime

Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert: The Marfa Tapes

       

Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorry, Linda Oh: Uneasy

Cassandra Jenkins: An Overview of … Nature

Madlib: Sound Ancestors

Katy Kirby: Cool Dry Place

       

Dry Cleaning: New Long Leg @ 2021

Yes/and: s/t

Arooj Aftab: Vulture Prince 

       

Arlo Parks: Collapsed in Sunbeams

Hayes Carll: You Get It All

Indigo De Souza: Any Shape You Take

Bonnie Prince Billy, Matt Sweeney: Super-wolves

       

Sons of Kemet: Black to the Future 

Michael Hurley: The Time of the Foxgloves

Myriam Gendron: Songs of Love, Lost & Found

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS (35)

Note: Ditching categories here because they give me such trouble. In alphabetical order . . . 

  

Rodrigo Amarante: Drama 

Amyl and the Sniffers: Comfort to Me

Marisa Anderson/William Tyler: Lost Futures

Bachelor: Doomin’ Sun

Courtney Barnett: Things Take Time, Take Time

Adrian Crowley: Watchful Eyes of the Stars

Lana Del Rey: Chemtrails Over the Country Club

Dinosaur Jr.: Sweep It Into Space

Felice Brothers: From Dreams to Dust

Les Filles de Illighadad: At Pioneer Work 

Flock of Dimes: Head of Roses

Hand Habits: Fun House

Illuminati Hotties: Let Me Do One More

Pokey LaFarge: In the Blossom of Their Shade

Langhorne Slim: Strawberry Mansion

Little Simz: Sometimes I Might Be an Introvert

Lorde: Solar Power

Low: Hey What

L’Rain: Fatigue

Midwife: Luminol 

Mountain Goats: Dark In Here

Navy Blue: Navy’s Reprise

Robert Plant, Alison Krauss: Raise the Roof

Gavin Preller: There Is Wonder

Allison Russell: Outside Child

Sturgill Simpson: Ballad of Dood & Juanita

Sonny & The Sunsets: New Day New Possibilities

Jazmine Sullivan: Heaux Tales

Tyler the Creator: Call Me If You

Adia Victoria: A Southern Gothic

Villagers: Fever Dreams

Nick Waterhouse: Promenade Blue

Yasmin Williams: Urban Driftwood

Faye Webster: I Know I’m Funny haha

Wolf Alice: Blue Weekend

 

EXTRA SPECIAL MENTION . . . 

Steve Earle: JT (covers album)

A beautiful tribute to his son, Justin Townes Earle, who died from a drug overdose. The last song, the only original, “Last Words,” slays me every time.

 

ABOUT MY “NOT NEW” INTERESTS 

Because I’ve now got this large file on my desktop, and I’m insane, I noted the not-necessarily-new artists I listened to most widely (by the arbitrary measure of at least 5 different full albums over the past three years). This list also reflects little jags I went on, where I’d get inspired and go deep on, say, Warren Zevon or Rickie Lee Jones, for extended periods. 

 

5X: Don Cherry * Bill Evans * Ahmad Jamal * Laura Cannell * Grouper *William Tyler * The Byrds * Hot Tuna * Bruce Springsteen * Steely Dan * Tom Waits * The Who * Bruce Cockburn * Joe Henry * Paul Simon * Jeff Tweedy * Courtney Barnett * Beach House * Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst/Better Oblivion Community * Death Cab for Cutie * Decemberists * Giant Sand * Robyn Hitchcock * Microphones/Mount Eerie * Silver Jews * Sufjan Stevens * Sun Kil Moon * Teenage Fanclub *Hayes Carll * Jason Isbell *Laura Marling/Lump * Alasdair Roberts * 6X: John Coltrane * Charles Mingus * Nick Lowe * Lou Reed * R.E.M. * Leonard Cohen * Joni Mitchell * Alex G * Yo La Tengo * Jayhawks * Lucinda Williams * Sam Amidon * 7X: Thelonious Monk  * Brian Eno * Frank Zappa * Rickie Lee Jones * Ryan Adams * Lambchop * Drive-By Truckers * Magnolia Electric Company/Songs:Ohia * 8X: Beatles * David Bowie * Kinks * Van Morrison * Bonnie Prince Billy/Palace Music * Mountain Goats * Steve Earle * Willie Nelson * 9X: Warren Zevon * Elliott Smith/Heatmiser * Kanye West * 10X-plus: Grateful Dead * John Prine * Wilco * Miles Davis * Rolling Stones * Neil Young * Bill Callahan/Smog * Bob Dylan.

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Yes, I listened to 49 different Dylan albums over the past three years, often more than once.

CONCLUSION: It’s an impossible task, a fool’s errand, keeping track of things. It’s Schrodinger’s cat. Altered simply by being observed. I think I’ve gotten better at that, not thinking about the document as much as the moment. Screw it, I want to hear The Steve Miller Band right now and I don’t care what that does to the list. Nobody cares what I like or dislike, whether I have “good taste” or bad. The best part is the music itself, and the artists who put it out into our world. Always grateful for that.

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