I have lately been thinking about Steve Voce. He died thirteen months ago, exactly one month short of his ninetieth birthday, and it is an indication of the high esteem in which he was held that I only found out, by accident, about his death last month.
Who was Steve Voce? He was a successful Merseyside businessman - possibly a used car salesman - who in his spare time listened to and wrote and broadcast about jazz. For almost half his life he wrote columns and record reviews for Jazz Journal - the only British jazz magazine readily available to the teenage me of the seventies and early eighties - and for nearly as long as that he hosted a show on Radio Merseyside entitled Jazz Panorama. In more recent years he also served as a jazz obituarist for The Independent.
Voce was a writer of scabrous but articulate humour, and many Jazz Journal readers turned to his column first as a matter of routine. When writing about the jazz that he knew and loved, his knowledge was so detailed and deep as to be regarded authoritative, and so - in an oddly logical parallel to James Hamilton writing about dance music in Record Mirror - his views ended up carrying a lot of weight.
He was not shy to express his views and to do so bluntly. He knew what he liked - and, more problematically, what he did not. In stark parallel to the hopefully benign umbrella under which all music critics have today settled, in an increasingly desperate attempt to keep the music industry and monied advertisers on board, Voce called things as he saw them. His love was for jazz as most jazz adherents continue to perceive it - the classic stuff; Ellington, Hawkins, Parker, Gillespie, Miles, Woody Herman, Swing in general, the West Coast of the fifties. Of these players and their nearly innumerable satellites, Voce wrote with obvious passion and in encyclopaedic detail.
Towards other branches of jazz he was markedly less charitable. He disliked Dixieland and most twenties jazz - and positively, and vocally, loathed free jazz, which he was destined always to view as a pretentious con trick. "If this is 'where it's at'," he commented in 1965, aged thirty-two, of Ayler's Bells, "I'm better off without it." He also took an exceptionally dim view of pop music, as most sixties British jazz followers did, and was not remotely fond of jazz-rock and fusion.
Paradoxically, Voce was not a complete jazz reactionary. In the sixties and seventies in particular he was a very early and keen champion of new developments in British jazz. He raved about Mike Westbrook's band when most of its members were still schoolboys or college students. He approved heartily of the likes of Neil Ardley and Michael Gibbs, the latter of whom he eventually ranked on the same level as their mutual hero, Gil Evans (whose adventurous work Voce continued to champion well into the eighties). He spoke and wrote warmly about Ian Carr and in particular Nucleus. He adored - most likely fancied - Carla Bley, and in the Jazz Journal 1972 critics' poll he ranked Escalator Over The Hill as his top album. He seemed to view free improvisation as a valid ingredient, as opposed to the whole recipe. As far as the great fork in the late fifties jazz road was concerned, he opted to follow the Miles Davis modal path rather than the Ornette Coleman one (his 1995 Independent obituary of Don Cherry was accordingly somewhat curmudgeonly, whereas his 2004 obituary of Steve Lacy was far more generous; see also Derek Bailey [2005] versus Mike Osborne [2007]).
Yet a bluff curmudgeon is how Voce seemingly preferred to be known - and, in his later writings, an increasingly right-wing and homophobic one (he was, unsurprisingly, on first-name terms with Philip Larkin). Jazz Journal, his principal channel of expression, was an unashamedly reactionary enterprise, staffed almost wholly by genially bitter and ageing (and nearly exclusively male) cricket fans who felt that it had all gone dreadfully wrong after Parker (and therefore rendered The Wire necessary in the early eighties). The magazine preferred to focus on veteran Swing players who still survived and performed; Panama Francis, Bud Freeman, Eddie Miller, Peanuts Hucko. The names Voce successively gave to his Jazz Journal columns tell their own and incrementally barren story; What'd I Say, It Don't Mean A Thing, Scratching The Surface and, in his final years, the ominously-titled Clinging To The Wreckage, in which latter he wrote with comprehensive relish and palpable love about old music made mainly by long-deceased musicians, for a residue of an audience which might have only barely existed.
The reason why Voce's passing was scarcely noted may well have been down to the fact that music writing was not his sole career. He was outside the hive. He had a day job which he obviously did well enough to provide a base of support for what too many people still view as an idle hobby. It is probably the same reason why I will be unlikely to be remembered as a music writer. Yet I note that for more than half a century Voce was close friends with Humphrey Lyttelton - the essential difference between the two being that Voce would have been extremely unlikely to find any time in his life for Radiohead, if indeed he had ever been aware of them.
But in his prime Voce wrote for a readership which was indeed clinging to the wreckage, or what they viewed as wreckage caused by a Modern World they could not, and therefore refused to, understand. They clung onto their vision of jazz as the sole beacon of truth in their own recognised world as they manned the barricades to fortify themselves against tomorrow's intruders. They were afraid of losing their selves and the parameters of identity by which such selves could be constructed.
And this is, said the author magically about to link to the present subject, exactly the same mindset which is occurring with music writers today. There is, admittedly, infinitely more at stake and at risk in 2024 than there was in, say, 1980, the year Americans opted to dismiss a perfectly competent President and replace him with a televisual strongman demagogue.
While it is melodramatic to speak in the sepulchral tones of the recently-deceased James Earl Jones - the last surviving major cast member of Dr Strangelove - about the final pages of human history being written, it would not necessarily be farfetched to consider doing so. We know in our bones that, nearly eight decades after his passing, Hitler has won and that humanity has not only failed to evolve but seems completely happy to regress. When I was growing up in the seventies, I was shown bright pictures, both actual and metaphysical, of the sparkling future that awaited all of us in the following century. We were not promised an unforgiving, technology-enabled reverse to medieval feudalism with its attendant barbarism, although perhaps the writers whose tales I eagerly read in the Damon Knight-edited anthology A Science Fiction Argosy were right about robots replacing humanity, sans those writers' saving, if finally naïve, optimism.
In such dreaded circumstances, it is the natural instinct of human beings to seek protection and shelter, and it is this tendency that I have identified in the many, many end-of-year 2024 album polls that I have so far seen. Of course we know that all end-of-year polls are nonsensical, semi-random contrivances to aid brand recognition (and thus potential demographics for the benefits of pined-for advertisers) and viewing/readership figures, and that moreover such polls may do far more unintentional harm than intended good to the music which they claim to document and celebrate (in that order) - after all, once 2025 has dawned, who still wishes to be stuck with any records of 2024? The remorseless urge to push on and "develop," the eternal nowness which actually robs the music of its year from being in the present tense - no, it cannot provide pleasure here and now, it must be annotated and carved into the rock of records and made to relate to its damnable, crippling history and is therefore instantly turned into stone (happy birthday for yesterday, Jeff Lynne) - serves, if anything, to prevent music from going forward. Why should it when 2025 "promises" a new record by such-and-such, the same system, the identical leisurely stroll around the virtual Blenheim Palace Gardens of dogma-engineered heritage?
I look at these 2024 polls and their content does not resemble the 2024 through which I have lived. Theirs is a user/consumer/industry-friendly distortion of what actually happened. They are trying to sell back to me their version of a year which has, at the time of publication (unless you happen to be in the Southern Hemisphere), not yet ended.
And I am not buying it. In their frantic craving for protection against what Trump or Musk or whoever is likely to thrust upon their world - maybe the only "world" they have ever known - they look to, and promote, music which reflects their own, rapidly-diminishing world. Going back to Jazz Journal for a moment, I remember that their choice of album of the year in 1980 was a four-LP box set on World Records (the ambition of that name!) entitled The Louis Armstrong Legend, a careful compilation of what were then all of the available Hot Five and Hot Sevens recordings from what at the time was over half a century ago - yes, the Super Deluxe repackaging of Rock's Indebted Tapestry is not a recent notion.
There was a moderate degree of outrage about recordings from the 1920s collectively being the best thing released in 1980. Adherents, however, argued fervently that without those Armstrong records - which continue to constitute some of the finest and most avant-garde music of the twentieth century - jazz as it was known in 1980 would simply not exist. Who was sixteen-year-old me to argue - I plodded uphill to the James Kerr & Co. Ltd. shop at 98 Woodlands Road and bought a copy - and moreover I chuckled at the thought that this might be a gleeful overturning of some statues, confirmation of end-of-year polls' elemental absurdity. Who gives a spuddock whether it's the Hot Five or the Art Ensemble Of Chicago (no Louis, no Lester) on top? In the same year the NME writers' lists purposely excluded anything by the Pretenders and included a single by Nick Kent's Subterraneans which was pointedly about Chrissie. I learned not to take polls seriously at a very early age.
But here I be, not having compiled an end-of-year album poll in something like fifteen years (don't bother looking it up and "correcting" me; I know what I did and didn't do) so why now? Why this late and possibly final stage?
I felt that I needed to say something, to correct the general distortion in the rest of these polls or at least gently point out a different and possibly more fruitful road. In addition, I felt that I needed to clarify some key matters when it comes to the art - and it is an art - of listening. When contemplating the following list of one hundred albums, succeeded by a second list of over 450 other albums, you may consider that I have gone mad or become a musical wino, drunkenly swigging music, rather than a connoisseur. Or that I'm bullshitting.
None of these things is the case. I am profoundly aware of the evils associated with unregulated streaming enterprises. And yet the three-and-a-half years plus that I have thus far spent streaming music have, if anything, liberated me, may even have saved me from the care home. I suddenly find that I am able to locate and listen to nearly anything, and that is what I have been doing. Not even Sir Elton John could afford to buy or download every album that comes out. None of us can, due to the fact that we have to spend a fair proportion of our money on such decadent fripperies as food, heating and shelter.
However, I can attest to you that I have listened to and absorbed every single one of these albums. In many cases - and this to a degree (though not Degree Absolute) influenced what went in my top hundred - I have liked what I heard sufficiently to purchase the album in question. However, a lot of what I did get is via downloading; I turned sixty this year, and increasing limitations of storage space and personal physical capabilities mean that it is infinitely easier to usher new music into the house via our laptop and to listen to any music in that manner (as opposed to spending half an hour painfully sorting through acres of compact discs - I adamantly do not "do v*nyl," speaking of pretentious con tricks - to find the music in question).
Furthermore, I listen to music pretty well most of the time, including when I'm working (when I'm able to do so), hence everything of worth eventually gets to me. In addition, tired of the wearily false yay-saying of mainstream music media, including our wretched radio system, I have picked up recommendations for music via social media and also prolonged listening to Radio France/FIP, a genuinely eclectic network of Government-funded stations which makes our hoary old channels seem prehistoric in their "300 algorithmic oldies only" moat of musical suet. Many of the records you might not recognise in these lists I came across, and was introduced to, on FIP.
HOW I COMPILED THESE LISTS, AND WHAT IS CONSPICUOUSLY MISSING FROM THEM
There was no great science involved in compiling the lists. I went through all the albums from this year that I bought, prioritised them for my Top 100 (though not all of them; several, including Beabadoobee and Coldplay, regrettably didn't make the cut, although it must be emphasised that this does not devalue their considerable merits), then did a thorough search of everything else that was, pace the late Robert Palmer, in my system and gave them a list of their own.
As far as the Top 100 itself was concerned, I found that I had to identify and rank a discrete top twenty. I initially tried to do this with the whole of the list but found ranking the remaining eighty albums impossible. Many of those eighty have an absolute right to be in the top ten and it is only for reasons of numerical space that they are not. I have therefore come up with an alphabetised list of what would have constituted numbers 21-100.
This left the thorny issue of the other 450 or so albums which were on my longlist. For the sake of sanity I have simply listed them all, again (with two exceptions which really belong together) in alphabetical order. Once again, any of these albums would in other circumstances be fully entitled to a Top 100, and in some cases a top ten, placing. Just because I couldn't get them in - and I reluctantly had to take some out - doesn't make them lesser records.
Please remember that it was not my intention to make a "complete" or "definitive" list of the year's best music. What you will read here is unlikely to be cited in any encyclopaedia or Wikipedia entry and is, like anything else, subject to my own personal whims and biases, for better or worse (I think mostly the former, but then I would say that, wouldn't I?). Make your own list or better still don't bother making one at all.
WHAT ISN'T IN THESE LISTS, AND WHY
Observant readers will note the marked absence of many albums which have met with otherwise seemingly universal critical approval and there are several reasons for that, not the least of which has to do with what I was talking about earlier, apropos "frantic craving for protection."
It is my reluctant duty to suggest to you that, when participating in end-of-year music polls, the overwhelming majority of music critics tend to pick...the kind of albums that aren't really getting made any more (there's a similar tendency with Academy Award nominators), albums which essentially do not have anything to do with, or say to, the world we are now forced to inhabit, if not the world we have been inhabiting for some time.
And, although I am reluctant to nominate a scapegoat for that tendency, nevertheless I feel compelled to do so for the greater good. It strikes me that the undue reception given to Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman represents the essence of everything that is wrong with music criticism, and what we are expected to derive from what is, whichever way you choose to look at it, pop music.
Now Lenderman's day job, as guitarist of the band Wednesday, helped to furnish us with Rat Saw God, one of 2023's very finest "rock" albums. But I suspect critics have overreacted to Manning Fireworks as a consequence, and moreover this reception has perhaps underlined why that profession is steadily approaching extinction. Yes, here we have wry character studies and beautifully-hewn observations of a systematically-shrinking community, all very polite, perfectly designed to appeal to the white college-educated middle classes who not so secretly frown down on working class scruffs who go out and dance, fuck and make a noise with their do-you-even-call-that-music racket - and also to English Literature graduates who take up music writing as a pretext to indulged in extended lyrical analysis, as if history hadn't proved time and time again that people don't listen to the words; then again, as quite a high proportion of would-be music critics are musically illiterate, it would be too much to expect analysis of the actual music, or how delivery, tone, placing and approach can affect or alter it.
My feeling is, as it has been for some time, that these critics harbour actual contempt for genuine pop music - as I will be demonstrating below - and its consumers, and some might argue that if this were extended to a sociopolitical level, it could in part explain why Kamala Harris lost and Trump won; because, yes, Biden stayed too long and didn't give Harris nearly enough time or space to differentiate herself satisfactorily from her predecessor - or, more likely, the kind of Democratic Party that its rich donors want isn't the kind of Democratic Party that anybody else really now wants - and because too many people prioritised superstition over first-hand experience (or more importantly considered themselves too precious, pure and important to go out and sully their hands with voting) - but also, and you'll hear it everywhere, the people who were hurting (regardless of who was actually responsible for the pain) did not feel that they were being listened to, or addressed. They felt Harris was using initiation code words to preach to the converted, even if the converted were nowhere to be seen.
This is not to condemn Harris - far from it; anyone who stands up for Mingus' Let My Children Hear Music is speaking my language - but what was being offered seemed out-of-date and deprived of function. It really does seem to me that records like Manning Fireworks belong to a mythical yesterday, when everyone was refined and knew their place. I suspect most of the inhabitants of Mr Lenderman's town would probably have voted for Trump and kept each other awake at night howling Morgan Wallen songs while trying to find their way back home. Another symptom of this regrettable tendency, though to a slightly lesser extent, was Adrianne Lenker, who may well indeed have a Bright Future if or when she decides to learn how to sing.
Cowboy Carter - the entire, twenty-nine track download edition, please - is not included because, not just because its physical launch was seriously botched, but because it is an album which one can admire or be momentarily bedazzled by, but which is impossible to love, which was not the case with Resurrection. Moreover, the record does not seem to advance on the innovations Ray Charles made with Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music - a genuine case of the oppressed taking over the music of their oppresors - sixty-two years ago, whereas Mickey Guyton's authentically and justifiably angry House On Fire does appear in my 100 because she means it with her music, rather than treating it as another expensive fashion accessory; see also the numerous country albums which appear in both lists, from Willie Nelson to Zack Bryan and Johnny Blue Skies (a.k.a. Sturgill Simpson) via the exceptional (even by Kasey Musgraves' own high standard) Deeper Well, but alas not Woodland; Gillian Welch and David Rawlings were responsible for Time (The Revelator), one of the very greatest albums made by anybody, twenty-three years ago, but have never bettered it, and all I now hear are empty, bland gestures encased in musically conservative wrappings.
More of the latter can be found on the Clairo album, another overhyped example of how entitled people would prefer pop music to sound like - i.e. like it was still 1971 - as performed by the demure, down-to-earth daughter of the Chief Marketing Officer of Golftop, who helped his buddy to start up a record label on which she could release her music. Actually I got taken aback on several occasions listening to some perfectly pleasant and imaginative songs only to be told that it was Clairo (writing and) singing them. Nevertheless my preference is for 2024 pop music to sound like 2024. Albums by Jennifer Lopez, Katy Perry, Meghan Trainor and others got jeered at and/or ignored, but all sounded just fine to me, while the Camila Cabello and Ariana Grande albums were more than just fine (for the British equivalent of Clairo, see The hyped-up-to-their-teeth Last Dinner Party, whose album isn't here but sounds pretty good if you can manage to ignore who they are). Sabrina Carpenter, on whose case we were several years back when you could only find her albums with difficulty on import, is, of course, sui generis (and to people who don't find "Espresso" perfect, insolent pop - well, as Mr Murphy has suggested on many occasions, you picked the wrong place to stay); suffice it to say that Sabrina is everything Clairo could, and will, never be.
(and the new Dua Lipa album, much more focused and sure of itself than its critically-overloaded, can-carrying predecessor from the recent Dark Ages, is remarkably good sunshine listening too! Confidence Man, however, beyond question delivered 2024's best "dance pop" album; hit after hit after blessed, but better than Madonna, hit.)
I certainly didn't have the urge or the stomach to tolerate The Cure's long-awaited (by too many) Disintegration 2 sequel, nor Nice Cave's portentous and self-righteous Wild God (if only - it will make you fall asleep again), nor the sentimental accolades given to ageing wasters who were big, or at least heard of, when 6 Music listeners were kids. As someone steadily nearing pensionable age (if my body will allow me to do so), this is no exhibition of ageism; a look through my lists will reveal work by Richard and Linda Thompson, Nick Lowe and his spiritual heir Richard Hawley - just because he isn't trendy any more doesn't mean he stopped making great records - and, well, everybody from Wadada Leo Smith to Ian flipping Hunter, the latter sounding hungrier than he's done in decades. Meanwhile, octogenarian John Cale just got on with it and made a naughty album fully worthy of brat guru status - and, although I largely avoided placing archive material from departed musicians (apologies to Arthur Russell's Pictures Of Bunny Rabbit and McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson's Forces Of Nature: Live At Slugs', both of which are somewhere beyond fantastic) in either list, Ryuichi Sakamoto's noble swansong could not be overlooked, nor could Shellac's To All Trains, nor could (although nearly everyone did) Lou Reed's belated final statement, a work of extended quiet ambience, the long-awaited bookend to Metal Machine Music - and, heck, if Laurie Anderson and John Cale are both in there, so should Lou.
What jazz there is in this year's lists is comparatively minimal, and most of the best stuff (esp. Messthetics/James Brandon Lewis and Jeff Parker), despite or because of being American, totally dispensed with, and better still disregarded, the fatal tendency of too many British jazz players to relapse into ambient noodling (looking at you, Nubya Garcia and the quite overpraised New Age muzak of Nala Sinephro) in order to ensure a better chance of airplay on a moribund BBC radio network which now clearly only views music as an anaesthetic (all those interchangeable chillout/mindfulness/calming sequences, bereft of presenters or stimulation of any kind - remain unconscious and obedient). Still, Shabaka Hutchings and Cassie Kinoshi got in, owing to better organisation and more active imagination, although in truth I am waiting for the ghost of Peter Brötzmann to rise and splutter over the top of all of this. In the meantime, veteran Norma Winstone and relative newbie Kit Downes just know about quietude.
I should further make it clear that I have no time for the smoke and mirrors of the delusion-laded writer attempting to woo gullible readers with superficially impressive-looking but analytically hollow purple prose to sell a bill of goods and endeavour to dazzle with hazy record collector chimeras. For instance, grown professionals can claim about Still House Plants that their album If I don’t make It, I love U sonically "often resembles This Heat’s Deceit via Hyperdub compilations and Tilt-era Scott Walker." Ooer, missus, look at my massive collection (on second thoughts, don't). Actually the record sounds like Jeff Buckley's band tuning up, or, if you prefer, "an accidental scratch in the groove from Jeff Buckley’s Grace." Maybe just listen to the latter in a format which doesn't scratch. "You can feel a subconscious assimilation of early 00s R&B mixed with
slowcore and Midwest emo. It’s comparable to a no-wave D’Angelo or
Lauryn Hill" - no, pal, you can. Only you. Completing the gibberish bingo card, "Still House Plants embrace, rather than shun, sounds absorbed from childhoods spent in working-class environments." Continued page 94.
2024: A TALE OF TWO GIRLS - WAIT, I SEE MORE!
In the end, and up until eight days ago, the story of music in 2024 was ultimately and only going to be about Taylor Swift and Charli xcx. This has not been reflected in the year's album polls. One of these women is omnipresent at or around the top, whereas the other has scarcely been mentioned at all, which I consider deliberate.
Before I get any deeper into that dichotomy, however - hey, by the way, remember David Kushner who had that ethereal hit "Daylight"? He came back with a cracking album this year, entitled The Dichotomy - I should look at, and explain, my choices for the top ten (oh, and by the way, the Chappell Roan album technically came out in September 2023. You're welcome).
At number ten is Shaznay Lewis, sometime of All Saints, whose last two group albums were spectacularly and vividly good; her second solo album is explosively innovative pop which, had it been written and recorded by somebody half her age, would now be roundly applauded. There isn't a bad track on it. The record puts most of its more allegedly hallowed contemporaries (e.g. Songs From My Lost Laundry List) in the shade.
Diamond Jubilee has been slightly and unfairly downgraded in my list, but I reeled with wonder when first I heard it on YouTube on a Sunday afternoon some sunnier months ago; that rarity of rarities, a fully self-contained album not owing much of anything to anyone and which succeeds in creating its own impermeable world. And it's only the second-best album this year to do that! Out on proper physical on 21 February; start saving up now. Oh, and it's CANADIAN (well, of course)!
There's no due date (yet?) for physical release of CHROMAKOPIA but what a startlingly inventive album from start to finish which, unlike a lot of this year's other albums, told me things I didn't already know, or did but in a far more interesting way. Meanwhile, GNX appeared by magic the morning after my operation and I only knew about it because Lena came to see me and told me the news. We listened to it two mornings later, by which time I was back at home, and were spellbound by its absolute and in some cases hilarious ("MUSTAAAAAAARD!") certainty. That comes out on physical on 1 March, by the way.
If you're going to have brat, you need to have Britpop (and not just because Charli pops up on it, here and there), an astounding triple album (unlikely to come out on CD) full of wit, adventure, ambition and above all mourning for SOPHIE, whose own and very fine posthumous album must also be taken into account and absorbed.
Everybody has taken Vampire Weekend for granted and downgraded them. This is most unfair, since Only God Was Above Us might be their best, and is certainly their most moving, album; "Hope" is a "Hey Jude" for these benighted, traduced times.
But I have FIP to thank for introducing me to Delhi's Peter Cat Recording Co. BETA is their second studio album; there was a compilation in 2018 entitled Portrait Of A Time: 2010-2016, while their official debut Bismillah appeared the following year. Although I came to the latter belatedly - it's on download and LP but not on CD and has never been publicised anywhere - I reckon it might be my favourite album of the decade, up there with Janelle Monáe's Dirty Computer. What PCRC do is to take the elements of what some people would call classic (i.e. seventies) pop, integrate them into a more contemporary indie setting and scientifically elongate them into episodes of extended self-interrogation. Something like "Memory Box," which may now be one of my favourite songs ever, could theoretically go on forever - and yes, there is for me a "hospital nightmare" aspect to this, but not really in a negative manner; the overall impression is one of a more lavish Cornershop. BETA continues this development in many engaging ways, "People Never Change" being its very own "Memory Box": "People never change, but I will/‘Cause I never give a fuck, that I'll never be enough."
The main "problem" music critics have to face, and come to terms with, in 2024 is Taylor Swift. I placed the word "problem" in quotation marks because what music critics, by and large - Rob Sheffield being an honourable exception - cannot come to terms with is the (to them) uncomfortable fact that Taylor is the most important pop star there has ever been. Bigger and longer-lasting than the Beatles (as McCartney, happily mucking in with Taylor's audience and clapping along, would doubtless attest), more widespread and generous than Presley, Swift has altered the atoms of pop, what its history and present tense, if adroitly but honestly mixed, could mean, not just for music in the future, but for society. Her mother-and-daughter audiences care not one toss for critics or canons. She herself is more thoroughly versed in every pop and rock "canon" than anyone - and people can't come to terms with that "she."
Taylor's story is so thoroughly integrated and expertly threaded throughout her entire career; it is as if she has succeeded in creating an intricately-detailed world for herself, and therefore by extension for everybody else. So The Tortured Poets Department - which has to be listened to in its entire Anthology form - continues and concentrates its focus on that story, which has mainly to do with a brief but wild affair with the lead singer of a band, the drummer for which band is presently due to marry...Charli xcx.
You see where we're going here. One of these women is critically lionised while the other is, at best, politely tolerated. The only conclusion to be drawn is that critics are taking sides, and it's to do with assumed "credibility." They assume "Sympathy Is A Knife" is a song about Taylor, which it is not. They are far too stuck-up to admit bedazzlement in respect of perfectly-damaged pop songs like "von dutch" and "360," let alone the two clearly heartfelt SOPHIE tributes. They affect to ignore "Girl, It's Confusing," particularly the remix involving Lorde which is one of the most radical singles pop has ever seen. Following some seven decades of bloody man-versus-man beef punch-ups in pop, which surely also achieved its apex this year with Kendrick's "Not Like Us," which manages not just to diss Drake successfully but do it hilariously and adventurously and make the beef stand for a whole lot more, maybe even a whole society, Lorde admits she was mistaken, the two women muse on how The Industry thrives on setting women against each other, and both make up and agree that The Industry is the real enemy. Men in rock have fights. Women in pop level up, make up with each other and get on with it.
But, if you need the whole Anthology, you also require the full, two-CD edition of brat and its remixes, literally seeing the songs through a looking glass. Taylor consolidates, Charli pushes ahead with an absolute justification of the dozen years of PC Music - as also reflected in Flaw Flower, the brilliant album by Zoee, one of the key voices on "Hey QT," which features one of the year's best and most desolate pop singles, "Microwave." Seven copies of the album on cassette remain on Bandcamp at the time of writing - with some of the most sheerly creative and avant garde things ever to be heard on a pop album. It has to be a top draw - and, until eight days ago, it was the top draw.
This is why you have to wait until the very end of the year. I saw the album being recommended by somebody on Bluesky. Amusing cover, I thought; must check it out. The album apparently only came out on 11 December, a fortnight before Christmas. It was only very briefly available on streaming but never mind, the whole album is on YouTube.
I sat there on Sunday afternoon listening to the album on YouTube and was thunderstruck. That evening both Lena and I listened to it. We agreed it was more than just an event.
I know little about 3776 except they are what in Japan are called an "idol group," i.e. a girl group whose members are artists in different fields but not primarily, or at all, musicians. Nevertheless there is an incredible and inexorable complexity about the songs on this album, which latter represents a full-blown concept concerning nothing less than the birth and death of the universe, incorporating Mount Fuji, as its title implies.
The songs are bizarrely brilliant, like High Llamas (nice but not great album this year) threaded through Cornelius and possibly even the Carla Bley of Escalator, and are linked by a deadpan, high-speed Japanese narration telling, presumably, the album's story. Songs and interludes crash into each other like drunken dodgems and at most points there are approximately a million different things happening at one time - the whole world at once, or is it just Tokyo at rush hour? The album ends with the exact same drone with which it began - again, much like Escalator. Like Diamond Jubilee, it doesn't need a universe because it created one itself. Imagine Girls Aloud or Little Mix coming up with "Revolution 9" but all set to a beat and memorable tunes. This is pop music that defies configuration with a Name. In his later years, Steve Voce was apt to buttonhole colleagues and confide to them in a melancholy fashion, with regard to his beloved notion of jazz: "We've lived through the best of it, haven't we?" Nothing else to look forward to, nothing new to discover, no reason to live any further. The fact is that we are living through the best of things right now, and should revel in them, in defiance of the impending worst.
PUNCTUM'S 2024 TOP TWENTY
1. 3776: The Birth And Death Of The Universe Through Mount Fuji
2=. Charli xcx: brat and it's completely different but also still brat
2=. Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
4. Peter Cat Recording Co.: BETA
5. Vampire Weekend: Only God Was Above Us
6. A.G. Cook: Britpop
7. Kendrick Lamar: GNX
8. Tyler, the Creator: CHROMAKOPIA
9. Cindy Lee: Diamond Jubilee
10. Shaznay Lewis: Pages
11. Meshell Ndegeocello: No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin
12. Jessica Pratt: Here In The Pitch
13. Brittany Howard: What Now
14. Leyla McCalla: Sun Without The Heat
15. Confidence Man: 3AM (La La La)
16. 1999 WRITE THE FUTURE: hella (˃̣̣̥╭╮˂̣̣̥) ✧ ♡ ‧º·˚
17. Yard Act: Where's My Utopia?
18. Billie Eilish: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT
19. Charlotte Day Wilson: Cyan Blue
20. John Cale: POPtical Illusion
NUMBERS 21-100
Arooj Aftab: Night Reign
Laurie Anderson: Amelia
Public Service Broadcasting: The Last Flight
(both albums about Amelia Earhart, subjectively and objectively respectively)
BADBADNOTGOOD: Mid Spiral
Cat Burns: early twenties
Camila Cabello: C,XOXO (Magic City Edition)
Sabrina Carpenter: Short N' Sweet
Fat Dog: WOOF.
Fievel is Glaque: Rong Weicknes
Fontaines D.C.: Romance
Fraud Couture: Amazing Investment Opportunity
(heard Ben Watson playing some incredible stuff off this on Soho Radio! On Bandcamp only)
Nelly Furtado: *7*
Childish Gambino: Atavista
Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown
David Gilmour: Luck And Strange
Ginger Root: SHINBANGUMIKim Gordon: The Collective
Peggy Gou: I Hear YouJohn Grant: The Art Of The Lie
Geordie Greep: The New Sound
Mickey Guyton: House On Fire
Armand Hammer/billy woods/ELUCID: We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
Idles: TANGK
Cassandra Jenkins: My Light, My Destroyer
Johnny Blue Skies: Passage Du Desir
Justice: Hyperdrama
Philippe Katerine: Zouzou
KAYTRANADA: TIMELESS
Kit Sebastian: New Internationale
Michael Kiwanuka: Small Changes
KNEECAP: Fine Act
L'Impératrice: Pulsar
Kelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate
Lemon Twigs: A Dream Is All We Know
Liniker: CAJU
Dua Lipa: Radical Optimism
Mach-Hommy: #RICHAXXHAITIAN
Magdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk
Sananda Maitreya: The Pegasus Project: Pegasus & The Swan
(the comeback nobody noticed)
The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis: The Messthetics And James Brandon Lewis
Elaine Mitchener: Solo Throat
Mount Eerie: Night Palace
Kacey Musgraves: Deeper Well
Mustafa: Dunya
Kate Nash: 9 Sad Symphonies
Nemhasis: Verbahtim
Molly Nilsson: Un-American Activities
O.: WeirdOs
(best saxophone/drums duo since John Surman and Stu Martin)
Pearl & The Oysters: Planet Pearl
Orville Peck: Stampede
Pet Shop Boys: nonetheless (expanded edition)
Lou Reed: Hudson River Wind Meditations
Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn: Quiet In A World Full Of Noise
Ride: Interplay
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
St Vincent: All Born Screaming
ScHoolboy Q: Blue Lips
serpentwithfeet: GRIP
Nadine Shah: Filthy Underneath
Shellac: To All Trains
Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers: Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens
SOPHIE: SOPHIE
Tems: Born In The Wild
tripleS: <ASSEMBLE24>
Rosie Tucker: UTOPIA NOW!Kali Uchis: ORQUÍDEAS PARTE 2 (Deluxe)
Kamasi Washington: Fearless Movement
Jane Weaver: Love In Constant Spectacle
Tierra Whack: WORLD WIDE WHACK
WILLOW: ceremonial contrafact (empathogen deluxe)
Lainey Wilson: Whirlwind
Remi Wolf: Big Ideas
Jamie xx: In Waves
Nilüfer Yanya: My Method Actor
Zoee: Flaw Flower
THE REST
070 Shake: Petrichor
A Certain Ratio: It All Comes Down To This
Ab-Soul: Soul Burger
Gracie Abrams: The Secret Of Us (Deluxe)
Abstract Crimewave: The Longest Night
James Acaster: Hecklers Welcome
Actress: Statik
Adeem The Artist: Anniversary
(ahmed): Giant Beauty
Poppy Ajudha: Poppy
Melissa Aldana: Echoes Of The Inner Prophet
Allie X: Girl With No Face
Marina Allen: Eight Pointed Star
ALVILDA: C'est Déjà L'heure
(from France; year's best girl power-pop record)
Les Amazones d'Afrique: Musow Danse (Bonus Edition)
Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling & Andreas Werlin: Ghosted II
Marcia Ambrosius: CASABLANCO
Erika Angell: The Obsession With Her Voice
Anycia: PRINCESS POP THAT
Omar Apollo: God Said No
Arab Strap: I'm totally fine with it 👍don't give a fuck anymore
ARXX: Good Boy
Joan Armatrading: How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean
Arrested Development: Bullets In The Chamber
Artemas: pretty
AURORA: What Happened To The Heart?
J Balvin: Rayo
Bonnie Banane: Nini
Bashy: Being Poor Is Expensive
William Basinski: September 23rd
Bastille: &
Bat For Lashes: The Dream Of Delphi
Bbymutha: sleep paralysis
Beabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves
Joe Bel: Family Tree
BERWYN: WHO AM I
Yaya Bey: Ten Fold
Bibi Club: Feu De Garde
BIG SPECIAL: Postindustrial Hometown Blues
BIG|BRAVE: A Chaos Of Flowers
BigXthaPlug: TAKE CARE
Bilal: Adjust Brightness
James Blackshaw: Unravelling In Your Hands
James Blake & Lil Yachty: Bad Cameo
Bleachers: A Stranger Desired
The Blessed Madonna: Godspeed
Mary J Blige: Gratitude
Blood Incantation: Absolute Elsewhere
(OTT but if you're going to do this, do it this way. Sorry Mannequin Pussy but you didn't convince me)
Blu: Love (the) Ominous World
BODEGA: Our Brand Could Be Yr Life
Kate Bollinger: Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind
Betty Boo: Rip Up The Rulebook
James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Transfiguration
Patricia Brennan Septet: Breaking Stretch
Brigitte Calls Me Baby: The Future Is Our Way Out
Luisa Brina: Prece
Bring Me The Horizon: POST HUMAN: NeX GEn
British Murder Boys: Active Agents & House Boys
Zack Bryan: The Great American Bar Scene
Bubble Love: Bubble Love
The Bug: Machines I-V
The Bug Club: On The Intricate Workings Of The System
Anna Butterss: Mighty Vertebrate
Cadence Weapons: ROLLERCOASTER
Bill Callahan: Resuscitate!
Caribou: Honey
Eliza Carthy: No Wasted Joy
Cassyette: This World Fucking Sucks
Jennifer Castle: Camelot
Cavalier: Different Type Time
Chanel Beads: Your Day Will Come
Manu Chao: Viva
Chastity Belt: Live Laugh Love
Chat Pile: Cool World
Eric Chenaux Trio: Delights Of My Life
Kenny Chesney: Born
Chief Keef: Almighty So 2
Rachel Chinouriri: What A Devastating Turn Of Events
Chlöe: Trouble In Paradise
Chrystabell & David Lynch: Cellophane Memories
Dorinda Clark-Cole: Determined
Cloud Nothings: Final Summer
Cash Cobain: Play Cash Cobain
Cola: The Gloss
Coldplay: Moon Music
J. Cole: Might Delete Later
Common & Pete Rock: The Auditorium, Vol. 1
Clarissa Connelly: World Of Work
Tony Conrad & Jennifer Walshe: In The Merry Month Of May
Nikka Costa: Dirty Disco
Charley Crockett: $10 Cowboy
Sheryl Crow: Evolution
Crowded House: Gravity Stairs
Crumb: AMAMA
cumgirl8: the 8th cumming
Burton Cummings: Above The Ground
Grace Cummings: Ramona
Denzel Curry: King Of The Mischievous South, Vol. 2
Emily d'Angelo: Freezing
Karl d'Silva: Love Is A Flame In The Dark
Dagny: ELLE
The Dare: What's Wrong With New York?
Andra Day: CASSANDRA (cherith)
Erika de Casier: Still
De Schuurman: Bubbling Forever
Kim Deal: Nobody Loves You More
Deco: Destination: I Don't Know
Isaac Delusion: Lost And Found
Janet Devlin: Emotional Rodeo
Alvaro Diaz: SAYONARA
Madi Diaz: Weird Faith (Deluxe)
The Dining Rooms: Songs To Make Love To
DJ Anderson do Paraíso: Queridão
DJ Suzy: Haunted Disc
DMX Krew: Spiral Dance
Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal
(really, what the hell is this doing all the way down here?)
Dolores Forever: It's Nothing
Du Blonde: Sniff More Gritty
Ducks Ltd.: Harm's Way
eat-girls: Area Silenzio
John Early: Now More Than Ever
Einstürzende Neubauten: Rampen (apm: alien pop music)
Wendy Eisenberg: Viewfinder
Ekko Astral: pink balloons
Elephant9 & Terje Rypdal: Catching Fire
Eliza & The Delusionals: Make It Feel Like The Garden
ELUCID: REVELATOR
ELUCID: INTERFERENCE PATTERN
Empress Of: For Your Consideration
English Teacher: This Could Be Texas
Noga Erez: THE VANDALIST
Anna Erhard: Botanical Garden
Everyone You Know: Ain't Smiled In Ages
Everything Everything: Mountainhead
Ex-Easter Island Head: Norther
Experential Orchestra: American Counterpoints
Ezra Collective: Dance, No One's Watching
Ezra Feinberg: Soft Power
Fennesz: Mosaic
Sierra Ferrell: Trail Of Flowers
Anna Ferrer: Parenòstic
Field Music: Limits Of Language
FINNEAS: For Cryin' Out Loud!
Kelly Finnigan: A Lover Was Born
FLO: Access All Areas
Luis Fonsi: El Viaje
Foster The People: Paradise State Of Mind
Four Tet: Three
Frances Forever: Lockjaw
Mabe Fratti: Sentir Que No Sabes
Fucked Up: Another Day
Future & Metro Boomin: We Don't Trust You
Future Islands: People Who Aren't There Anymore
Galantis: Rx
Angelica Garcia: Gemelo
Orla Gartland: Everybody Needs A Hero
Dana Gavanski: LATE SLAP
Katie Gavin: What A Relief
Myriam Gendron: Mayday
Ghetts: On Purpose, With Purpose
Ghost Dubs: Damaged
Freddie Gibbs: You Only Die 1nce
Girl In Red: I'M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!
GloRilla: Glorious
Jess Glynne: JESS
Goat Girl: Below The Waist
Joe Goddard: Harmonics
Godfather Don: Thesis
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD
Ruth Goller: Skyllumina
Chilly Gonzales: Gonzo
Gorgon City: Reverie
Harry Górski-Brown: Durt Dronemaker After Dreamboats
Gossip: Real Power
Ariana Grande: Eternal Sunshine
Green Day: 'Saviors'
Griff: Vertigo
Daphne Guinness: Sleep
Gunna: One Of Wun
Sahra Halgan: Hiddo Dhawr
Halsey: The Great Impersonator
Mary Halvorson: Cloudward
annie hamilton: stop and smell the lightning
The Hard Quartet: The Hard Quartet
Roy Hargrove's Crisol: Grande-Terre
Lalah Hathaway: VANTABLACK
Richard Hawley: In This City They Call You Love
Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band: Loophole
Paris Hilton: Infinite Icon
Julia Holter: Something In The Room She Moves
Jon Hopkins: RITUAL
Hovvdy: Hovvdy
Hozier: Unreal Unearth: Unending
Kate Hudson: Glorious
HUMANIST: On The Edge Of A Lost And Lonely World
Ian Hunter: Defiance Part 2: Fiction
Nailah Hunter: Lovegaze
Hurray For The Riff Raff: The Past Is Still Alive
HYUKOH & Sunset Rollercoaster: AAA
Ice Spice: Y2K!
Illuminati Hotties: Power
The Innocence Mission: Midsummer Swimmers
Vijay Iyer/Linda May Han Oh/Tyshawn Sorey: Compassion
James: Yummy
Boldy James & Conductor Williams: Across The Tracks
Wendy James: The Shape Of History
Dora Jar: No Way To Relax When You Are On Fire
Bryony Jarman-Pinto: Below Dawn
Jawnino: 40
Jlin: Akoya
Joan As Police Woman: Lemons, Limes And Orchids
Norah Jones: Visions
I. JORDAN: I AM JORDAN
JPEGMAFIA: I Lay Down My Life For You
Judas Priest: Invincible Shield
Juniore: Trois, Deux, Un
Ka: The Thief Next To Jesus
Rae Khalil: CRYBABY
Kehlani: Crash
Khurangbin: A LA SALA
Killer Mike: Michael & The Mighty Midnight Revival, Songs For Sinners And Saints
Cassie Kinoshi's seed. with NikNak & London Contemporary Orchestra: Gratitude
Knocked Loose: You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
Allegra Krieger: Art Of The Unseen Infinity Machine
David Kushner: The Dichotomy
Lava La Rue: STARFACE
La Femme: Rock Machine
Miranda Lambert: Postcards From Texas
Latto: Sugar Honey Iced Tea
LAUREL: PALPITATIONS
John Legend: My Favorite Dream
Ravyn Lenae: Bird's Eye
Lescop: Rêve Parti
The Linda Lindas: No ObligationLinkin Park: From Zero
LL COOL J: THE FORCE
Charles Lloyd: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
London Grammar: The Greatest Love
Jennifer Lopez: This Is Me...Now (Deluxe)
Lord Spikeheart: The Adept
Los Bitchos: Talkie Talkie
Los Campensions!: All Hell
Nick Lowe: Indoor Safari
Rosie Lowe: Lover, Other
John Luther Adams: An Atlas Of Deep Time
Mira Lu Kovacs: Please, Save Yourself
Shelby Lynne: Consequences Of The Crown
Lizzy McAlpine: Older (And Wiser)
Declan McKenna: What Happened To The Beach?
Kali Malone: All Life Long
Tamela Mann: Live Breathe Fight
Roc Marciano: Marciology
Margaux: Inside The Marble
The Marias: Submarine
Masoc: challenge accepted
MAVI: Shadowbox
Lauren Mayberry: Vicious Creature
Mdou Moctar: Funeral For Justice
Shawn Mendes: Shawn
Pat Metheny: Moondial
MICHELLE: Songs About You Specifically
MIKE & Tony Seltzer: Pinball
Mildlife: Chorus
Milkweed: Folklore 1979
Elijah Minnelli: Perpetual Musket
Amaia Miranda: Mientras vivas brilla
Father John Misty: Mahashmashana
Mk.gee: Two Star & The Dream Police
Momus: Ballyhoo
Moor Mother: The Great Bailout
Christy Moore: A Terrible Beauty
Megan Moroney: Am I Okay? (I'll Be Fine)
Megan Thee Stallion: MEGAN: ACT II
Fred Moten/Brandon López/Gerald Cleaver: The Blacksmiths, The Flowers
Mount Kimble: The Sunset Violent
Musical Jazz: eightEEn
N'Zeng: The Trip
Naemi: Dust Devil
Milton Nascimento & esperanza spalding: Milton + esperanza
The Necks: Bleed
Helado Negro: Phasor
Willie Nelson: The Border
Neue Grafik: Dalston Tape Vol. 1
Nia Archives: Silence Is Loud
Nicolette & the Nobodies: The Long Way
Nidia & Valentina: Estradas
Nines: Quit While You're Ahead
Normani: Dopamine
NxWorries: Why Lawd?
Ombiigizi: Shame
(Kevin Drew's new project; closest you'll get to a Broken Social Scene record this year)
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp: Ventre Unique
Gabriela Ortiz: Revolución Diamantina
Christopher Owens: I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair
Shabazz Palaces: Exotic Birds Of Prey
Fabiana Palladino: Fabiana Palladino
Jeff Parker & EVA IVtet: The Way Out Of Easy
Carly Pearce: Hummingbird
Pearl Jam: Dark Matter
Katy Perry: 1432
Peter & The Roses: Peter And The Roses
Phosphorescent: Revelator
Peso Pluma: Éxodo
PNAU: Hyperbolic
Poppy: Negative Spaces
Port Sulphur: Meta Guru
Cesar Precio: La Suite Logique Des Choses
Project Gemini: Colours & Light
Purple Disco Machine: Paradise
Kevin Puts: The Hours (Live)
Pye Corner Audio: The Endless Echo
RaiNao: CAPICÚ
Rakim: G.O.DS NETWORK - REB7RTH
Rapsody: Please Don't Cry
Real Estate: Daniel
Rahim Redcar: HOPECORE
Redd Kross: Redd Kross
The Red, Pinks And Purples: Unwishing Well
Rema: HEIS
The Rheingans Sisters: Start Close In
Tommy Richman: COYOTE
Daisy Rickman: Howl
RM: Right Place, Wrong Person
Joanne Robertson & Dean Blunt: Backstage Raver
Porter Robinson: SMILE!: D
Maggie Rogers: Don't Forget Me
Natascha Rogers: Onaida
Daniel Romano: Too Hot To Sleep
Rosali: Bite Down
Lucy Rose: This Ain't The Way You Go Out
Maggie Rose: No One Gets Out Alive
claire rousay: sentiment
Bill Ryder-Jones: Iechyd Da
Gruff Rhys: Sadness Sets Me Free
Laetitia Sadier: Rooting For Love
Saagara: 3
Saint Etienne: "The Night"
Saint Levant: DEIRA
Jack Savoretti: Miss Italia
Scene Queen: Hot Singles In Your Area
Scooter: Open Your Mind And Your Trousers
Section 25: Move On
Shabaka: Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
Shakira: Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran
William Shatner: Where Will The Animals Sleep? Songs For Kids And Other Living Things
Caroline Shaw with Sō Percussion: Rectangles And Circumstance
Shovel Dance Collective: The Shovel Dance
SilkRoad Ensemble: American Railroad
Skee Mask: ILP19 - Resort
Sleater-Kinney: Little Rope
The Smile: Wall Of Eyes
The Smile: Cutouts
Joe Snow: Elephants
Snuts: Millennials
SOFT PLAY: HEAVY JELLY
Laetitia Sonami/Éliane Radigue: A Song For Two Mothers/OCCAM IX
Astrid Sonne: Great Doubt
SPRINTS: Letter To Self
Vince Staples: Dark Times
Ayra Starr: The Year I Turned 21
The Staves: All Now
Juanita Stein: The Weightless Hour
Colin Stetson: The Love It Took To Leave You
Stick In The Wheel: A Thousand Pokes
Sunset Rubdown: Always Happy To Explode
Mohammes Syfkhan: I Am Kurdish
Taimashoe: Put The Trash Out
Tapir!: The Pilgrim, Their God And The King Of My Decrepit Mountain
Tasha: All This And So Much More
Aaron Lee Tasjan: Stellar Evolution
Alfie Templeman: Radiosoul
Thee Sacred Souls: Got A Story To Tell
Theodora: BAD BOY LOVESTORY
This Is Lorelei: Box For Buddy, Box For Star
Linda Thompson: Proxy Music
Richard Thompson: Ship To Shore
THUS LOVE: All Pleasure
Tiflis Transit: A Thought Is Not A Feeling
Justin Timberlake: Everything I Thought It Was
Mary Timony: Untame The Tiger
Tinashe: Quantum Baby
Tindersticks: Soft Tissue
Tones And I: Beautifully Ordinary
Rafael Toral: Spectral Evolution
Meghan Trainor: Timeless (Deluxe)
twenty one pilots: Clancy
Tyla: TYLA
Underworld: Strawberry Hotel
Unessential Oils: Unessential Oils
The Unthanks: In Winter
The Veronicas: Gothic Summer
Bob Vylan: Humble As The Sun
Milan W.: Leave Another Day
Tashi Wada: What Is Not Strange?
The WAEVE: City Lights
Walt Disco: The Warping
Warrington Runcorn New Town Development Plan: Your Community Hub
Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman: Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On
Water Damage: In E
Waxahatchee: Tigers Blood
Faye Webster: Underdressed At The Symphony
Koe Wetzel: 9 Lives
Jack White: No Name
Wild Pink: Dulling The Horns
Immanuel Wilkins: Blues Blood
Yasmin Williams: Acadia
Norma Winstone & Kit Downes: Outpost Of Dreams
Wishy: Triple Seven
Chelsea Wolfe: She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
Wu-Lu: Learning To Swim On Empty
Wussy: Cincinatti Ohio
Xavi: NEXT
Xiu Xiu: 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips
Xylitol: Anemones
Yatta: Palm Wine
Dwight Yoakam: Brighter Days
Lola Young: This Wasn't Meant For You Anyway
Young Miko: .att
Lechuga Zafiro: Desde Los Oídos De Un Sapo
Alice Zawadski/Fred Thomas/Misha Mullov-Abbado: Za Górami
ZAYN: ROOM UNDER THE STAIRS
John Zorn: New Masada Quartet, Vol. 3 (Live)
