2024 Year In Review: Music, part 01 of 02

Albums

There was a lot of great music to come out of 2024, but nothing better than Mannequin Pussy (though Jamie xx was close…).

Note: I starting writing this sometime before the end of last year; in February I finally finished up my piece on television, and now, two months later, I’m finally finishing up my favorite albums of 2024. I realize it’s almost May. Ain’t procrastination a bitch?

We are in an age of music being everywhere. Sure, most people seem to use Spotify to listen to the same 10-15 artists over and over, but there were still a fair number of new albums that came out in 2024 that are worthy of note.

I admit that I am not a professional music reviewer so the vast majority (if not all of these) are albums that I purchased. Are there huge releases not included in this list? Of course. For one, though I respect her and enjoy some of her oeuvre, as a whole I am not a Taylor Swift fan. Nor could I tell you a Charisma Carpenter song if it came on, I would probably think it was some other young popstar. As such, they were excluded because I simply didn’t listen to them.

I won’t go over each and every album, but here are some highlights.

If this was a listing of what albums I listened to the most this last year then at the top would be Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers I Love You Too because I have been obsessed with that release since I bought it in December, but I can’t give it the nod for what I feel was the best album of the year on a technicality. You see, technically they released the album in 2023 as I Love You and then re-released in 2024 as an expanded edition, changing the title ever so slightly. As such, I can;t give them the nod as much as I would like to do so.

Had I discovered I Love You in 2023, well, who are we kidding, I still would have picked Depeche Mode Memento Mori.

All that said, for me, the best album that I listened to this past year has to be Mannequin Pussy I Got Heaven. I’ve liked this band for some time after discovering them on Bandcamp years ago. I fully admit their name is what got me to stop and check them out, I simply had to see what kind of music was put out by a band called “Mannequin Pussy,” and no, I wasn’t surprised to find out that they turned out to be a punk band.

And while I purchased and enjoyed their 2014 self-titled debut, there was evidence of growth and who the band would become with their 2021 EP Perfect that culminating in their best work to date, the album I Got Heaven that the band created with producer and mixer John Congleton.

There’s always been a debate as to what “punk” is, so I will start with this: punk is more of a mindset than a definitive sound. The Ramones clearly tried to include Beach Boys melodies and guitars into their music, and The Clash played around with reggae, dub, and dance rock, so punk can really just be about anything that punk wants to be.

In that light, yes, this is a punk already. It’s raw, loud, and in your face, but it’s also vulnerable and withdrawn, all aspects being powerful and beautiful. The albums starts with a punch to the face with “I Got Heaven” and continues with jabs to the gut in “Loud Bark”, and “Nothing Like” before taking a breath with “I Don’t Know You,” that vulnerability I was talking about that washes over you with a wave of crashing guitars.

And while things ramp up slightly with “Sometimes” there’s no warning of the brutal assault that is “OK? OK! OK? OK!”

This is punk band that has paid its dues and is now flexing its creative muscles, and doing it soundly.

Rounding out the punk rock music I enjoyed this year are two fairly new bands, Teen Mortgage and Wine Lips, who take two very different approaches to punk. The former is very much garage punk and the latter dives headfirst into psychedelic punk. Both are good in their own ways. Check them out.

Looking over this list of artists over the last year I have to laugh. When people ask me what kind of music I like I usually tell them anything that goes “boop boop beep” or punk.

All of the bands I’ve already mentioned are punk, or at the worst, punk adjacent power pop. And this next set of performers? All electronic and/or dancy is some sort of fashion.

What can I say, I like what I like.

Kelly Lee Owens definitely put out what I thought was, if not her best release to date, certainly her most accessible. Does that mean it’s less experimental and maybe more mainstream, more poppy? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. Pop just needs popular, and sometimes it’s more than OK to give the people what they want. Popular isn’t always bad; sometimes it’s pretty fucking great. All of the above applies to Dreamstate, Owens’ release from 2024.

As much I would like to give Owens the nod for my favorite electronic album of 2024, nothing can touch the sheer creativity and brilliance of Jamie xx In Waves. It gets your body moving, but it’s also weird, not too weird, but weird enough to give it that edge. Simply put, Jamie xx goes harder, weirder, and more mainstream than Owens, bouncing from one extreme to the other, sometimes in the same song. I wish I could put it into better words than “fuck, it’s just that good” but it really is. I’m listening to again right now as I type this up.

For a chill, and yet also dancy album, look no further than Bohmer’s Bloom. How does one make an album that is chill as fuck but also makes you shake your ass? Listen to Bohmer and you’ll see how it’s done.

And honestly the remaining acts are all elecontronic/EBM. Rounding out the rest of the list are TSHA, who hews closer to pop than Owens does, and Worried About Satan, who definitely goes far more experimental than Owens does, or has.

Last, but not least, if you were worried that synthpop was dead (it’s not; nowhere close), we have Black Nail Cabaret producing solid synthpop-goodness that sounds like it could have gone toe-to-toe with the synthpop greats of the 80s-90s.