2024 Music: Songs of the Year 50-21

50) Domwoofer - le Fatty Acide (Nouveau Big Beat)

This is a fun little song to kick off the top 50; weird acid synths with a nice dynamic dance beat and some eclectic, weird vocal samples for a bit of sprightly, mindless entertainment.

49) Cinderella - Remi Wolf (Funky Soul Pop)

This song grew on me a lot (or regrew, I guess) at the end of the year; I liked it at first but it barely scraped into my top ten songs of its week of release. But I think there's just a really solid bit of songwriting flow to make it one of the more catchy and memorable bits of pure pop, largely due to her funk soul influences.

48) Murals - Dim Gray (Norwegio Prog Rock)

Dim Gray did one of my and Jez's combined favourite songs of 2022, and this was a long-awaited followup. It's much in the same vein and therefore here it is in my top 50 again. They have a unique sound to the way they play guitars and have the atmospheric, smoky vocals giving this a pure sense of psychedelia but also impassioned music composition.

47) To Get It Right - Phosphorescent (Indie Folk)

You'll likely get sick of hearing the name Phosphorescent by the end of these writeups, as you may well have the last time he put out an album of pure original songs in 2018 (he had four songs in my top fifty that year as well). He's just an incredibly moving singer-songwriter and this song is the heartfelt, melancholic conclusion of his remarkable album. Which you'll hear more about.

46) The High Room - Storefront Church (Baroque Pop)

This is a song that's likely quite high on my and Jez's combined song list for the year as it made his top twenty. A quirky and sweepingly dramatic song full of dense orchestrations and storytelling songwriting.

45) Rogue - James (Alt Rock)

James have always been one of my stalwarts for doing great, solid rock music since I discovered them (and that was very late in their extremely long and storied career). This song's a great example of a very competent band in complete control of their sound and it's catchy and dynamic and fun.

44) We've Got You (i - Spark) - Vienna Teng (Indie Pop)

Effectively this song is kind of half in a high position on my and Jez's combined song lists as Vienna Teng did a second track as part of an EP and then a third song that combined the two previous tracks - and that resultant combination ended up very high on Jez's list. But I was a big fan of just the first part in isolation, with good orchestrations and nice progressive pop feeling.

43) Impossible House - Phosphorescent (Indie Folk)

Ah, more heartfelt folk songwriting from Phosphorescent. This song has great instrumentation and has a nice catchy hook to it so I always remember the chorus but I'm likewise always surprised when I hear it in full and realise how well the instrumentation augments the song overall.

42) X's - Cigarettes After Sex (Dreampop)

I've been a big fan of Cigarettes After Sex (the band; in reality I never, ever have sex) since their debut in 2017, and this was a highlight of their album this year, just providing an oasis of peaceful, dreamy, intimate bedroom pop in a world of chaos.

41) Jungle Full of Ghosts - Johnny Delaware (Americana Folk)

In a similar vein to all of Phosphorescent's entries here, Johnny Delaware delivered some excellent solid songwriting with a touch of Americana twang. This song's got a slight haunting vibe to it which really augments the solid folk movements.

40) §6 - Opeth (Progressive Metal)

You'll be hearing more about Opeth and their album "The Last Will & Testament" but this was my favourite track from that album. Not as diverse in the fusion elements here as "§5" which was listed on my previous post, but full of great head-banging moments and clever prog switches and tempo changes to make a really dynamic bit of metal music.

39) Only See Her - Jharis Yokley (Experimental Percussive Electrojazz)

I described Jharis Yokley, a drummer by trade, as doing the same kind of stuff as Brian Eno was doing in the 70s but with modern technology. This song's a bit off the deep end in terms of experimental structure, but his drumming keeps it driving forward and the heavy layers of production make it fascinating.

38) Balu - Elbow (Alt Rock)

Similar to James, Elbow have always been able to deliver some really excellent, solid music in a fairly conventional genre space (their Mercury Prize winner The Seldom Seen Kid I ranked as my third favourite of all the Mercury Prize winners when we did them as a retrospective, as a sidenote), and this song has some cool riffs and effects to make it really stand out among conventional pop rock songs.

37) The Curse (Blood of an Innocent Is Spilled) - Tigran Hamasyan (Armenio Electrojazz Prog)

Tigran Hamasyan delivered a pretty epic album of some kind of music that traversed the borders between jazz, modern classical and prog rock, but it was patchy and didn't quite deliver in terms of logical flow. So instead, I'd recommend just giving this one track a go because it distills everything that was cool, fascinating and epic above all about that album into a short, digestible package.

36) Astrology & Context - Winnetka Bowling League (Indie Pop Rock)

I found myself this year (and you'll hear more when I get into my top 20) drawn to the types of songs I might describe as modern 'power ballads'. And this is a key example, coming from a fairly upbeat pop album from the band fronted by Hilary Duff's husband, just taking the tempo down and producing a sad pop ballad that very much tugs at my heartstrings.

35) Sympathize - Mary Ocher & Your Government (Avant-Pop)

On the other side of the musical spectrum, this song is a quirky beat-centric piece of music that delivers a tongue-in-cheek bit of satire throughout and just feels punchy and enjoyably blunt.

34) Like the End - James Blake (RnB)

One of the last artists I expected ever to make my top 50 of the year, I generally hate James Blake's music for the simple reason that he's got a really good voice but he distorts it out of recognition through excessive post-production effects. But then naturally in this case when he's NOT doing that, instead he delivers a really powerful bit of music with some quirky electronic touches that really builds and flows well.

33) Things Will Fall Apart - Louis Cole, Metropole Orkest & Jules Buckley (Orchestral Electrofunk)

I feel like I'm pinballing between genres for these last few songs. Here we're far more in Mary Ocher territory, with a strong almost breakbeat percussive element and this big melodramatic orchestral arrangement over the top of it that all feels bombastic and excessive in a delightfully quirky way.

32) True Crime - Tom Snowdon (Dreampop)

Yep, pinballing back for more heartfelt music now. Tom Snowdon has a voice that can carry the weight of the world, and there's a lot of really impassioned, even emotion-cracking moments on this powerhouse vocal performance that leaves me feeling oddly bereft and haunted.

31) El Paso del Gigante - Kinky (Latin Funk Rock)

And swinging back to upbeat funk here; this song is an enormous amount of fun, with Latin jazz swing in its DNA but ultimately it's just a dynamic dance track based around cool riffs and beats.

30) Waku (Minaral a Minalay) - Christine Anu (Torres Strait Islandso Folk Pop)

I'd never put a whole heap of stock in Christine Anu as an artist, but this song really took me by surprise - again it's intimate and heartfelt and has a beautiful string arrangement to summon up the feelings along with its lyrical story about the prominence of tradition in her family.

29) Between Two Points - David & Romany Gilmour (Prog Rock)

I really enjoyed this collaboration between David Gilmour (the less-cooked Pink Floyd luminary) and his daughter Romany. She has a great voice for this kind of music, and David's soft, sombre guitar playing gives this great atmosphere and drama.

28) Shake Shake - Jon Muq (Ugandano Folk Pop)

A bit of sweet fun as we near the top end of my year. This song has that quality of the inclusive singalong that I love in lots of music from the African continent. Jon Muq has a clear, stirring voice and a real joie de vivre in the way he delivers this.

27) Frogs - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (Gothic Orchestral Rock)

I really wanted to love Nick Cave's full album this year after being really taken by this lead single (but alas, it didn't quite work for me). This song though has a wonderful sense of the surreal through the big string arrangements and the way it works with Nick Cave's increasingly gravelly-as-he-ages voice. Both weird and moving.

26) Crows - The Miserable Rich (Art Folk)

I just realise I have two songs in a row with titles that are just "plural animals". This song is more specifically about crows, and is right up there on the twee, quirky scale. But there's something about the staccato piano and the playful vocals here that really works for me and makes this a really fun song full of good movement and energy.

25) Glimmers - Jane Paknia (Experimental Electropop)

And, in fact, it's three songs in a row titled "plural noun" at least. This song is another one that really grew on me at the end of the year on relistening. I love its avant-garde construction and how much the production and instrumentation together with Paknia's voice deliver such a unique combination of sounds.

24) Cry Wolf - Katrina Ford (Art Rock)

This is another song that delivers some of those power ballad vibes. Less so here because it is more electropop in style but it has these big moments of drama where the keyboards just augment Katrina Ford's plaintive, defiant vocals to make a song with really killer impact.

23) One of These Days - Perry Blake (Art Pop)

I said at the time we listened to this song that if there was an award for 'bassline of the year', this song would win it. Perry Blake's songwriting style did wear thin on me a bit for his album overall, but this track remains one of my favourites because it combines his melodramatic style with cool underlying funk to make a really interesting overall texture.

22) Sanitized - Katie Gavin (Indie Pop)

This was a real surprise package for me, largely because I really didn't care for the rest of Katie Gavin's album, but I love how this song switches keys so effortlessly to start out in this uncomfortably almost dissonant style before switching to this major key chorus, and back again. It's just a cleverly written pop song with lyrics that feel amusingly tongue-in-cheek in a post-Covid world.

21) Aye Walking Oh - Sam Lee (Progressive Folk)

 This song is a real slow-build in a lot of ways, given that Sam Lee sings almost arhythmically for a lot of it, but his voice is amazing and when it really does build together with the woodwinds in his arrangements, I find it absolutely scintillating. And that's why it sits here just missing out on the very top end of the year.

So that's it for post 2. Likely tomorrow I'll take some time and write up my top 20 songs and hopefully my top 25 albums of the year as well if you're really lucky. But otherwise by the end of next week I'll aim to have all the music as well as my books of 2024 completely wrapped up.