2024 Music Year-in-Review
I used to write super thorough music-year-in-review posts and while this isn’t fully that, I did feel like writing up a little bit about what I enjoyed this year. Nearing 50, I find it as important as ever to dig for new (and new-to-me) music while also revisiting old favorites. I like albums, I shuffle playlists, I get value from Release Radar and Discovery Weekly, and I appreciate recommendations from friends and others whose tastes I align with.
Here are a few favorite albums from this year with one-sentence recaps.
- Błoto: Grzybnia (Dope Polish hip-hop influenced electronic jazz.)
- The Linda Lindas: No Obligations (Super fun modern punk from the younger set.)
- Norman Sann: Pressure (Proof hip-hop lyricism and playfulness isn’t dead.)
- Common and Pete Rock: The Auditorium Vol. 1 (The masters can still do it.)
- Godfather Don: Thesis (A surprise album from an underground stalwart that has that late-90s backpacker passion to it.)
- LL Cool J: The FORCE (I didn’t like it the first time around, but the more I think about it, the more I appreciate that someone whose first album came out 40 years ago can still put out an intriguing, challenging record.)
- Salvatore Draggato and The Rugged Nuggets: Thoughts of You (Funk that I wish was twice as long.)
- Abdullah Ibrahim: 3 (And speaking of old masters… at 90+, f/k/a Dollar Brand is still at it!)
- Onra: Nosthaigia (Like his Chinioiseries, except with deep crate gems from Thai 45s.)
Each quarter of the year, I build playlists with music (of any time period) that I’m currently digging and listening to. Then, at the end of the year, I use Playlist Sorter to pull out any tracks from the current year out of those four playlists and add them to a final year-end “favorite tracks of the year” playlist. This is that playlist (and yes, I know, boo Spotify, but that’s where I’m still streaming for the moment).
Let’s finish with a few year-end stats from last.fm: