THE BEST OF THE “BEST OF 2024” LISTS
A JOHN’S MUSIC BLOG REPORT
Quick Note: Starting next year, Tuesday posts will happen every other week. The Friday Report stays weekly. Look, I get it. I probably post too much. I often hear from friends that they have some “catching up to do” on the blog. Ideally, this slightly relaxed pacing will make things more enjoyable for everyone. If for whatever demented reason you need more John’s Music Blog in your life, you can always dip into the deep interview archive. Also… I’m still thinking about doing the third volume of the blog’s “Reader Mailbag” series, so keep those messages coming in. jchiaverina at gmail dot com. This is the final post of 2024. As always: Thank you for rocking with John’s Music Blog.
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m not a big year-end list maker. It’s an overwhelming task. I’ll try to give it a go and then I’ll give up fast. There’s too much music in the world, and I prefer to let it wash over me. I like consuming year-end lists in that same spirit—as a tidal wave of information. What do you want me to say? There’s something energizing about seeing a bunch of names intentionally arranged in a list formation. They serve as a reminder of the vast amount of creative action in the world, and the back-and-forth between the people making the stuff and the people taking it in.
My original intention for this blog post was to rank other year-end lists based on how much I do or do not like them. It wouldn’t be hard to clown a little bit, but that’s not fair. Different lists serve different purposes for different people. Though a bit of negative energy would likely help me grow my readership, that’s not exactly what I’m trying to do with John’s Music Blog. Anyway… I listen to a fair amount of music, but I’m always amazed at the stuff that slips past my radar. Here are 14 tracks that are new to me, discovered while chaotically surfing around year-end lists on a few long train rides to and from Bay Ridge. As I write this, I am listening to “Chicken Strut” by The Meters. Happy holidays!
CUZZOSX5 (Feat. BlueBucksClan) “STAY SAFE”
“STAY SAFE” is one of the catchiest LA rap songs I have heard all year, and it might’ve flown by me if it wasn’t for Alphonse Pierre’s list of his 27 favorite rap albums of 2024 for Pitchfork. On the track, a cozy, piano-driven banger, the five women in CUZZOSX5 have BlueBucksClan surrounded with nowhere to go. Been on repeat at the HQ.
Posición Unida "Pensar Positivo"
Over at Norman Brannon’s zine-turned-Substack Anti-Matter, two heavyweights of hardcore—Brannon, who has played in Shelter, Texas Is The Reason, and Thursday, and Ned Russin of Glitterer and Title Fight—chop it up about their favorite releases of the year. Posición Unida is a young DC band with a sick style and a youth crew spirit. I will always have a soft spot for gang vocals.
Boomkat is an undisputed master of its domain. It’s both a retail site and a music blog in its own right. “Ongaku 1” made the cut for their year-end wrap-up. Created by a Japanese lifer, the track is tasteful, dubby house, and you know Boomkat is going to be fucking with that. For our purposes today, we will not be getting into any modern classical music.
At the time of writing, Milwaukee rap expert Crimedawgbylaw has yet to throw up their 2024 list of the best Brewtown music, but they did post a mid-year roundup on Tumblr some months ago. That’s where I found “Tipping Cars,” a shmacking Milwaukee-style interpolation of a Snow Patrol classic. It’s as good as you think it might be. It’s been another banner year for Milwaukee rap. Tip: No Auto Mar 4 will help you get through the cold.
When I want to figure out what’s up with shoegaze, I turn to an expert: Eli Enis. His forthcoming book about the past, present, and future of the genre will be essential reading for anyone who still cares about guitars. His “Best Shoegaze Songs Of 2024” list for Stereogum provides a nice state of the scene, and it comes loaded with tunes. “辿り着く場所” has Amen breaks and guitars, a combination that I have always liked and I will always like, regardless of its popularity, which seems to ebb and flow. I still have my Addict Records 12 inches.
Kimdollars1’s cool Upper West Side round-up for Finals Blog sent me down an M Row wormhole, and that led me to a very recent collaboration the rapper did with Kay Glizz. It’s pure Aging Millennial Hipster bait to sample Cam’Ron, but I doubt M Row and Kay Glizz were thinking along those lines. They just made a good, knocking song that samples a Harlem legend.
I can always count on Kieran Press-Reynolds to pick the most frizzle-fried internet rap shit possible. If you don’t like this, you probably don’t like noise music, either. Seriously, though: After all the dust has settled, what is the rap song of the year? I’m going to think not too hard and pick something that I will surely have second thoughts about the second I finish typing this sentence: “Get In With Me” by BossMan Dlow.
It hasn’t been the biggest year for egg punk. What the fuck do I know, though? I found Fake Fruit’s album through a Madison Bloom blurb written within a Pitchfork list of the 30 best rock records of 2024. I have some vague memory of listening to a Fake Fruit record months ago and almost throwing it onto an edition of The Report, but I could not tell you if that is actually true. It’s egg-adjacent, and it’s got sax.
I enjoyed strolling through a year-end playlist selected by the online music enthusiast and content creator and whatever else Margeaux. “The Lonely Girl” has more breakbeats and more guitars and a pretty fire spoken word verse. Another W for rap rock. You know what I’m saying.
The Martorialist has been dishing out quality Bay Area rap tips to their readers all year. If you haven’t listened to any LaRussell yet, do so immediately. “A Gentle Gig” is by Seiji Oda, another favorite of that blog who I probably am not checking for enough. The tune lives up to its title: It is calm hyphy perfect for making the thizz face while wearing pajamas and a nightcap and holding a candlestick.
Earlier in the week, I happened to be listening to a live year-end mix by the London DJ Moxie. I was rocking fairly passively until “House Flava” came on. I will never not perk up when I hear something resembling hip house. That’s my particular damage. I grew up gripping Tyree Cooper singles from the dollar bin at Milwaukee record stores. Then I made some hip house myself. That’s a whole different story.
Was 2024 a transitional year for dance music? A recent piece by Shawn Reynaldo suggests that the post-pandemic surge of high-energy, irreverent dance music has given way to less bombastic beats. It’s hard to ascribe any grand narrative to contemporary underground music. People are so sequestered inside their own communities, which contain their own mini-zeitgeists and storylines, that it’s a difficult mission to take the temperature of the culture at large. Lord knows I’ve tried. But it does make sense that, for some people, a return to “good taste” and “sincerity” has been overdue. Where does that put a song like “Boys,” though? It is on Resident Advisor’s year-end list, and it is both dumb and smart at the same time. Good choon!
Soft Crash (Feat. Ready in LED) “Free Yourself (Extended Mix)”
Speaking of Reynaldo, I did some time with his year-end list, which includes “Freaky Horns” by JIALING, which is one of the best traditionalist Baltimore club tunes I have come across in a damn minute. But because I already knew that cut, the track from his list that I am including is “Free Yourself.” It’s not freestyle, but it still might work blasting out of a car in Staten Island.
There are some choice DMV rap selections on the end-of-year list compiled by Lawrence Burney of Baltimore mainstay True Laurels. The cut that stuck with me is a tune by an under-the-radar Richmond rapper named Luh Kiddo. You can hear the extended region’s energy in his flows, and the beat is cloudy and knocking. And now it is time for me to stop music blogging for the year.
#1 music blog of the year
Thank you for this list!