It’s once again that fraught time of year when ponderous hacks, insufferable pedants and self-appointed tastemakers clog up the byways of information with unsolicited end-of-year best-of lists. Having served in the trenches of tenuous music journalism for much of my career, I, too, feel the compulsion, periodically, to submit these sorts of lists, even though I’m laughably more than several arms’ lengths away from any credible understanding of what passes for exceptional music here in the midpoint of the 2020’s. I realize I’m perilously close to sounding like cantankerous rock crank Ritchie Blackmore (“the crap they play on the radio today is bloody awful”), but I seriously can’t listen to stuff like Charli XCX and grasp what the big deal is. But hey, while not as old as Ritchie (who renounced his hard-rock days with Deep Purple and Rainbow and now plays ridiculous baroque chamber music), I’m 57. I don’t exactly think I’m Charli’s target demographic.
This is not to say, however, that there wasn’t any amazing music produced this year. I’d suggest there’s great music on offer literally all the time … but some years, you just have to dig a little deeper for it. And while the death knell of guitar-based rock has been tolling for at least a decade now, there has been a bit of an uptick in heavier music, of late (refreshingly by a band other than the ubiquitous Foo Fighters). While not entirely my cup o’ concrete, the Kentucky band Knocked Loose recently appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live (flanked by screamy pop succubus Poppy) to play a little ditty called “Suffocate.” I was in Dublin, when this went down, but it was suddenly all over the press how millions of Kimmel viewers felt personally shocked, offended and frightened by the performance in question, some even suggesting that apologies were in order. After reading about that kerfuffle, I dutifully dialed up the track on YouTube. In fact, let’s go there now, in case you, like me, missed in the first time around.
Now, I can’t speak for you, but when I hear this stuff – while I applaud the bottom-heavy crunch and walloping power chords – the second the screechy vocals come into the mix, I just can’t take it seriously. It’s reduced to comedy, for me (although it apparently scared certain viewer to tears, which is frankly ludicrous). I want to like it (I do enjoy the way Poppy merrily skips onto the stage at 01:12), but musically, it’s just kind of forgettable, to me. There’s no there there. The second it’s over, I couldn’t hum it for you if my life depended on it. But, as with the aforementioned Charli XCX, being that I'm a greying rock dad in his late `50s, mine aren’t really the ears they’re looking to reach.
But my ears have had their fill, this year. While I renounced it for literally years, I have started using Spotify more, if only out of sheer convenience (despite the fact that they do not actually have everything on offer). My Spotify “Wrapped” just popped up, recently, informing me that I evidently spent 576 minutes, this year, listening to Cop Shoot Cop, a band that acrimoniously broke up precisely 30 years ago. How THAT for cutting edge? Get off my lawn, you crazy kids!
So, without further self-effacing, apologetic ado, herewith I present my top ten songs of 2024. Because Spotify, as mentioned, largely sucks from a giant tube of rancid bean paste, they don’t have my tenth track, so look beneath for the Bandcamp link to that.
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