As I have the last few years, these podcasts are expansions of my favorite albums of the year; songs that wouldn’t let me go or representations of albums that I loved but didn’t quite make my top 20. These are – mostly – songs with words and creating a concentrating emotion or image; as opposed to the companion playlist, Spaces, which are – usually instrumental and create a landscape or a vibration for me.
In a broad sense – you’re used to this if you’ve been reading me for a little while – this starts with some anthems and ends with some prayers, through my crooked eye, of course. Your mileage may – and probably should – vary.
- Miko Marks, “I’ll Cry For Yours (Will You Cry For Mine)” – The last few years have given us a bounty of tribute records that expand and subvert the sometimes perfunctory nature of these collections and My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall is one of the best I’ve ever heard. Assembled to go along with Randall’s terrific memoir of the same name, this pioneering black country artist’s work gets fresh, loving treatments. There isn’t a dud in its entire length, but probably my favorite is this searing, explosive read on a Randall tune I didn’t previously know, originally recorded by ’90s country singer Tamra Rosanes. Up until literally the night before I started writing this, I was sure I was kicking the playlist off with the next song, off my favorite record of the year, but walking under a fragile snow through the empty streets of my neighborhood, this song (which had been steadily moving toward the pole position of the playlist) said, “No, dumbass, this is the tone of the year and the tone of the music that spoke to you it’s all in there, between Miko Marks’ voice and those horns.” “Our wounds will heal through tears and time. When they draw up sides, can you cross that line?”
- Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive)” – From the moment I heard it, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past Is Still Alive felt like their masterpiece (so far), one of the best singer-songwriter records I’ve ever heard, and my record of the year. I had to play the whole thing back as soon as it ended. Every song on this record is perfect – arrangements pop, their voice has never sounded better – but this was the single song I reached for most often when I was down, and it’s a spectacular example of Segarra’s ability to stitch together perfectly captured moments with direct address and craft a mammoth dagger planted squarely in the heart. “Tattoo with a needle and thread, most of our old friends are dead. So test your drugs, remember Narcan; there’s a war on the people, what don’t you understand?”
- Chuck Prophet, “Wake The Dead” – Long one of my favorite songwriters, Chuck Prophet refreshed his sound with an album-length collaboration with Salinas cumbia band Qiansave. That album – of which this is the title track – is the loosest, most powerful album Prophet’s made in a while; the sharply observed lyrics and his supple voice slide beautifully through these rhythms, both illuminating the shadowy spaces of the other. “If they ask you any questions, go ahead and tell the truth; if we have to, we can plead insanity. If it’s good enough for you, it works for me.”
- Tim Easton, “Everything You’re Afraid Of” – My first favorite Columbus songwriter – based in Nashville for many years – put out his best record in years with the loose, ragged-and-right Find Your Way and this was the centerpiece in my mind, another song that gave me so much solace over the year I can barely sum it up (though I certainly tried when he did it at Dick’s Den this year and I was a bawling mess). “Ask yourself how you can help someone else who’s in pain today. Take all those worries, put ’em in a big ol’ book; leave the book on a stranger’s shelf. Now, congratulate yourself. Send a meaningful prayer of sympathy to all your enemies.”
- Sinkane featuring Tru Osborne, “Everything is Everything” – Another of my favorite Columbus exports to the world, Sinkane made another spectacular record with We Belong, ornate but loose, dancefloor grooves sprinkled with interesting arrangement choices and beguiling melodies. With a vocal assist from Tru Osborne, this song is another in his long line of quintessential summertime jams alongside “Runnin'” and “Here We Be.” “That’s the problem with tomorrow; always one day away. I want to be free in this moment; well, this is what I pray.”
- Ledisi, “Stay Here Tonight” – I loved Ledisi’s detour into the work of Nina Simone, but her new record of originals, Good Life, was exactly what I needed – like sinking into a bubble bath with a perfectly cold martini at the side; like the first time you hear Coltrane’s Crescent. The gleaming crystal keyboard line over crunchy drums, around her swooping voice blend beautifully. “Let’s be clear – you gotta say it right now: is it true?”
- Adeem the Artist, “Wounded Astronaut” – Knoxville breakout Americana star Adeem the Artist followed their astonishing White Trash Revelry with the knottier, denser Anniversary that took a little longer to reveal its pleasures but hit me even deeper. This biting, deceptively easy-going look at the way we men treat women knocked me sideways – ripping a scab off rarely comes with as catchy a sing-along chorus as this. “Oh, the women I have loved and left injured in the shadows of my childhood dysfunctions playing out in real time… Were that I was younger, I could have put to use my wonder to imagine better ways a healthy partner is defined.”
- The Paranoid Style, “Print the Legend” – Literary rock band The Paranoid Style, led by married couple Elizabeth Nelson and Timothy Bracy, put out their best record yet this year The Interrogator, making excellent use of Peter Holsapple (The dBs, Continental Drifters) and this catchy barbed wire-tumbleweed was one of my favorite songs of the year; an alternate universe urban “The Road Goes On Forever” that questions if there was ever a party in the first place. “Jill Collins grabbed the bag and then she grabbed the wheel. Sidney was shot, and near-passed-out, when he made his last appeal: ‘Keep me safe and keep me alive, and I’ll settle the score.’ They held hands and they laid eyes, before she pushed him out the door.”
- Brittany Howard, “What Now” – With Howard’s sophomore solo outing she made a hard-hitting record every bit the equal of the Alabama Shakes work I initially fell in love with. The swinging drive of the groove here underpins the barely restrained rage of the lyric and vocal in an intoxicating way. “If you want someone to hate, then bring it on me.”
- Joshua Ray Walker, “Thank You For Listening” – One of the finest new honky tonk singers, Joshua Ray Walker, in the midst of a fight with colon cancer, put out a gorgeous record of stripped down, acoustic takes on many of his finest songs and this lone new tune is one of his best, a four a.m. whisper of gratitude and reminder why any of us make things. “Thanks for listening to all my sad songs. Thanks for loving me when I sing the words wrong. Makes the bad times not seem so long.”
- Hilary Gardner, “Jingle Jangle Jingle (I Got Spurs)” – I got to see one of my favorite jazz singers Hilary Gardner’s new project with the Lonesome Pines at Mezzrow around last year’s Winter Jazz Fest, and I liked it – I’d love hearing Gardner sing the phone book – but I was a little disappointed it was more movie-cowboy songs than the Western Swing I’d hoped for. Getting to live with the record, On The Trail With the Lonesome Pines, I love it. This Lilley and Loesser tune – which I first knew from Popeye as a kid, but was a focal point of a Tex Ritter Best Of I wore out in my 20s – sums up everything I love about her witty, winsome approach to these songs and the interplay with this crack band, especially the vocal nudges from guitarist Justin Poindexter. “Oh, Bessie Lou, though we’ve done a heap of dreaming, this is why it won’t come true: I’ve got spurs that jingle jangle jingle as I go riding merrily along. And they sing, ‘Oh, ain’t you glad you’re single?’ and that song ain’t so very far from wrong.”
- Brittney Spencer, “Desperate” – One of my favorite new country singers exploded with a phenomenal front-to-back debut record My Stupid Life, and as much as I loved the first single “Night In,” this song got its hooks in me – with sharply detailed production that shows every nuance of Spencer’s voice and a bolt-from-the-blue pedal steel line around immediately relatable but never stupid lyrics, and a fist-pumping chorus about ambiguity and anxiety; a combination I’m always a sucker for. “I’m so used to hiding from the whole truth; caught between the holding back and worrying how you’ll react.”
- Aoife O’Donovan and The Knights, “All My Friends” – Aoife O’Donovan continues to stun me, and this title track on her album-length collaboration with chamber orchestra The Knights, is an addition to her canon of some of the best songs written by anyone of my generation. The use of the orchestra – and horns from brass quartet The Westerlies – gives me chills every time I play it, while her voice and the lyrics give me hope through tears. “I always knew, and so did you, that we were going to war. Now years have passed; I’m trying to remember who it is for. If we reach 36 or if the door gets slammed, at least I know we’ve tried for all my friends.”
- Waxahatchee, “The Wolves” – Waxahatchee keeps trumping herself and Tigers Blood is another triumph with warm, sharply observed songs; maps for living in the world in dusky, luminous production and sparse arrangements. “You’ve been proving yourself wrong with or without me here. You don’t look around, you don’t check the score; you cause all that trouble, then you beg for more on every warm horizon of what I let disappear.”
- Adrienne Lenker, “Sadness As A Gift” – I like but don’t love the band Big Thief, so it took multiple conversations around the Big Ears Festival about their lead singer Lenker’s set being the favorite set of one person after another to get me to check out her gorgeous solo record Bright Futures. The violin-drenched arrangement here sets a perfect tone for the steely resignation of the song and her voice way up front and bright with I think two male voices hovering around it like moths. A perfect song in a damn fine album. “Just leaning on the windowsill. You could write me someday, and I hope you will. You could see the sadness as a gift, and still, the seasons go so fast.”
- Sierra Ferrell, “Dollar Bill Bar” – This was Sierra Ferrell’s year, breaking out to bigger venues and capturing the ears of a wider range of people than my crowd of roots rock weirdos, and it’s incredibly well-deserved. She blends and braids the various strains of American music into personal, relatable songs as well as anyone working today; the arrangement on this with a moaning, sarcastic harmonica and a jaunty shuffle on the drums, is a perfect example. “If I had a dollar for every single hopeful heart, well, honey, I could break a hundred down at the dollar bill bar.”
- Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, “Backsliders” – River Shook and their band continued expanding on the variety of textures and rhythms that made Nightroamer such a delightful jumping off point with Revelations but make some space for the vintage honky tonk shitkicking numbers that they write better than anybody else, like this mournful morning-after statement of purpose. “Now I got one foot out the door and you’re still getting dressed. Hate that I can’t say no as easily as you say yes. I’m a real piece of shit and you’re a vixen in a dress. I thought we was movin’ on but I was wrong I guess.”
- Kyshona, “Where My Mind Goes” – Kyshona made my favorite of her records so far with Legacy, like the last couple of songs taking on the history of American music with open arms but also her family history and the legacy of black music. This gripping, dark gospel stomp sums up much of what I love about this record. “Where my mind goes when you tell me that I just can’t carry on. It’s where my mind goes – you can’t stop me. I’ll keep moving on.”
- N’shai Iman, “Can’t Take It” – I discovered rising Columbus singer-songwriter N’shai Iman this year and this song enraptured me, some of the finest alternative R&B or is that just the mainstream of R&B these days, I’ve heard in a long time with a subdued under-my-skin groove and a stunning vocal. “I can’t feel your touch from so far away; I need hands-on assistance.”
- Meshell Ndegeocello, “Another Country” – Meshell Ndegeocello’s No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin pulls off the brilliant magic act of simultaneously exulting Baldwin and taking him off the pedestal and out of the box that tries to make one of the great literary minds simple and digestible. This soaring song bursts from distorted spoken word into a chiaroscuro sunrise. Beautiful. “Gold brown red brown, more greed grows inside. Make more love, never grief.”
- Arooj Aftab, “Whiskey” – I loved Arooj Aftab’s earlier records, especially Vulture Prince and the collaborative Love in Exile, but even as a fan I was unprepared for the stunning Night Reign. This contemporary torch song blends the guitarist of Gyan Riley and Kaki King with Maeve Gilchrist’s harp, Jamey Haddad’s percussion, and Linda May Han Oh’s bass into a rich landscape for Aftab’s vocal to flow through. “We’ll fade into the night on waves of your perfume. I’m drunk, and you’re insane; tell me how we will get home.”
- John Moreland, “Visitor” – John Moreland, one of my favorite songwriters in the Guy Clark or Elizabeth Bishop tradition of turning a situation around and seeing how the light hits it from all sides, made another perfect record this year. This title track is a hymn to finding ways to live with one another, with a circling organ over subtly grimy drums. “I’ve been stoned and scared of my reflection. I can see your shifty smirk from the depths of my depression, but I will not be your puppet or your payment, your easy entertainment, for I’ve made amends for me.”
- Rapsody featuring Erykah Badu, “3:AM” – Rapsody’s Please Don’t Cry knocked me over, front-to-back, but this sleepy slow jam produced by Lonestarmusik, S1, and Jemarcus Bridges, thick with lazy horns and an instant-classic Badu hook was an early favorite track of mine and still beguiles me. “I loved to laugh with you – you were never my mistake; a blessing.”
- Lucky Daye, “Top” – Maybe my favorite straight-down-the-line R&B record of the year, Lucky Daye’s honeyed vocals flow beautifully around the big crunch of the drums and bass on this track, produced by D’Mile. “I can feel your water comin” over me, diving underwater till I’m lost at sea.”
- Ice Spice, “Gimme a Light” – Ice Spice’s diamond-hard percussive flow gets a fantastic showcase on this Sean Paul-sampling sparse track produced by RIOTUSA. “She gettin’ loud but nobody moved; watch the TV, I’m makin’ the news.”
- PinkPantheress, “Turn It Up” – This single from English singer-songwriter PinkPantheress brought her work into sharp relief for me and it was one of my favorite discoveries of the year (another case where I’m late to the party). This song about a tenuous relationship (if not obsession) uses moody production that has flavors of 2-step garage around its edges to evoke that feeling when the mood in a club shifts better than almost any song I can remember. “Tell me why you’re always here at night? Turn it up! It seems to me it’s the only time I see you. And when I thought I found my purpose in life, you’re not there.”
- Shannon and the Clams, “The Moon is in the Wrong Place” – Shannon and the Clams’ gorgeous and heartbreaking new record – this is the title track – was born out of struggling with the untimely death of Shannon Shaw’s fiance, Joe Haener; I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. This record is a balm and a reminder that we can even dance about the terrible times; sometimes we need to. “Colors changed when you left this world – now everything’s a whiter shade of mauve. I’m seeing bright spots, shiny objects that you use for those you love: I spy seafoam, I spy olive, I spy golden candlelight. I spy something that you told me in the last week of our lives.”
- Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, “We’re Still Here” – This duet statement of purpose is a highlight of Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s second collaborative record Trying To Be Free, with a killing Alvin guitar solo and gorgeous intertwined B-3 and piano, connecting the two kinds of honky tonks that were fertile soil for the evolution of American music. “Well, a music business man with a music business smile said the songs that I write were old and out of style. But I’ve been boppin’ these blues for for over forty years. Hell, I don’t know where he is but we’re still here.”
- Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please” – Obviously one of the biggest breakout successes this year and I loved Short n’ Sweet as much as everyone, with this grinning put-your-man-in-his-place song and its vibe pop/roller disco groove. The rippling synth lines and those twangy smears on the vocals got their hooks in me immediately. “Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another; I beg you don’t embarrass me, motherfucker.”
- Kaitlin Butts, “Other Girls (Ain’t Havin’ Any Fun)” – Kaitlin Butts’ Roadrunner! is my favorite contemporary reimagining of Western Swing in many years and this kiss off torch ballad is a highlight in a record full of highlights, featuring pedal steel like smoke rising off her in a film noir spotlight. “They say, ‘Other girls don’t act like this,’ that it’s poison on the tongue. They say, ‘Other girls don’t act like this,’ oh, but other girls ain’t having any fun.”
- Emily Nenni, “I Don’t Have to Like You” – This standout from Emily Nenni’s great Drive & Cry has a swaggering, easy going beat dripping with organ shoving her voice into the foreground. “Well, it took time but I learned how not to feed the flame of folks like you. I can’t linger or I’ll burn a hole, that’s just what my eyes do.”
- Luci Kaye Booth, “Damn Good In a Dive Bar” – This favorite track for me from Booth’s great The Loneliest Girl in the World has a simple arrangement that uses space around those guitar stabs and dusky drums very effectively but for me, this one is all about the tumble of words with the razor-cut alliteration and internal rhymes belied by the perfectly nonchalant vocal delivery. “All eyes on the high-rise Levi’s in the low light; boys say, ‘Hey there, ain’t you a sight.’ You can write my name in Sharpie on the wall, but you can’t take me home when they’re calling last call. Two-dollar buzz, breaking neon hearts: I look pretty damn good in a dive bar.”
- Maren Morris, “Push Me Over” – I’ve long been a subscriber to the theory (I first heard from the Supersuckers’ Eddie Spaghetti) that every band’s disco record is my favorite record of this, and now I’ve added Maren Morris to that list. This overheated seduction was one of my favorite jams of the summer and works just as well in the cold of December. “Even if it’s just tonight, you still got me to the other side, but did you push me over, or did I? Either way, I gotta say, no hesitations.”
- Carsie Blanton, “My Good Friends” – This highlight from Carsie Blanton’s terrific After The Revolution uses a campfire-folk arrangement to get this simple, profound message about how much we need other people in times of celebration and need. “When the darkness descends, I call up my good friends. They come down to the riverbed and crack me up until the light gets in.”
- Amy Rigby, “Bad in a Good Way” – One of my favorite singer-songwriters, Amy Rigby, returned with her best record in years – maybe since Middlescence – Hang In There With Me. One of my favorite modes of Rigby is her character writing, and this affectionate eyebrow-raised capture of a life through his funeral was an instant favorite of mine; a stunning example of her laid-back, beckoning delivery and an interesting arrangement, shot through with drones. “He was the same as desert weather, he held it all together. Dry and gritty with a chill, but he wished nobody ill. He was pure Play It As It Lays, he was as sure as ‘Glory Days,’ the ones they thought would never end. Beneath it all, he was a friend who found a way not to be sad at all the love he could’ve had. He wasn’t good the way they say; he was bad.”
- Queen Naija, “Good Girls Finish Last” – One of my favorite discoveries this year and one of my favorite R&B singles – the circling, “No you don’t know what you want,” gets stuck in my head for days every time I play it.
- Shemeika Copeland, “Only Miss You All The Time” – Blame It On Eve was a high-watermark for one of the most storied blues-folk singers of my lifetime, pairing Shemeika Copeland’s voice in astonishing form paired with Will Kimbrough’s production and stabbing guitar on this song (which Kimbrough also co-wrote), a sparse punch in the chest and a flickering flame in the darkness on a record that struck me over and over. “I miss you, lover, I miss you, friend. If I never see you again: it wasn’t you, it wasn’t me; just a love not meant to be.”
- MJ Lenderman, “She’s Leaving You” – I resisted the Lenderman record Manning Fireworks at first – praise was a little too effusive, a little too universal, but as soon as I finally heard it I was in love. This song in particular, with its keening chorus, “It falls apart; we’ve all got work to do” and that chiming, ragged guitar gave me the best early-Wilco-conjuring feelings I’ve gotten from any record in many years.
- George Strait, “Rent” – This highlight off George Strait’s remarkably consistent 31st album Cowboys and Dreamers opens with a directly addressed shoutout to its two (now gone from us) songwriters, Texas master of empathy and hooks Guy Clark and Keith Gattis (whose “El Cerrito Place” is one of my favorite ballads of the last 20 years and made my “Parting Gifts” playlist last year), and makes excellent use of Strait’s elder statesman voice and a subtle, devastating arrangement. “He said, ‘The war took my brother. The good Lord took my mother. And the years, well, I don’t know where they all went. Until that roll is called up yonder, all I can do is wonder if I even did enough to make a dent. But I made a few good friends, and I always paid my rent.”
- Linda Thompson featuring Kami Thompson, “The Solitary Traveller” – This opening track from Linda Thompson’s return Proxy Music, named because these originals are performed by other artists, set the tone for an astonishing return, with a magical vocal from Thompson’s daughter Kami. “Lonely life, where is thy sting? Lonely life? There’s no such thing.”
- Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets, “Crying Inside” – At long last, the collaboration of one of the great power-pop (and other modes) songwriters and surf champions gave us a full-length and it exceeded even my high expectations. This song in particular is as good as anything Lowe has ever written and recorded. “I’m standing in a jolly crowd – joking, laughing a little too loud. Looking like the model of a man who’s got it made. But my repartee is just to disguise all the hurt I’m trying to hide.”
- The Harlem Gospel Travelers, “We Don’t Love Enough” – For their follow up Rhapsody, back with producer and mentor Eli “Paperboy” Reed is a luminous cover of The Triumphs’ “We Don’t Love Enough” that I first heard on the seminal Numero comp Good God! They don’t just do it justice, they take it into space. The way they sing “It’s a shame…” was as heavy as whole lyrics on other songs and a much needed message in this fucked-up year.
- Etran de L’air, “Igrawahi” – I’ve liked all the bands I’ve heard out of the Tuareg blues-rock scene exporting to the Europe and the States over the last ten years, but Etran de L’air – who I was lucky enough to see twice this year, at festivals that sometimes feel on opposite ends of the spectrum, Big Ears and Gonerfest – bring a different flavor with a rhythm section that recalls the loose euphoria of garage rock.
- Charli XCX, “Club classics” – I didn’t love Charli XCX’s Brat quite as much as her last record but that was an extremely high bar for me and it was full of sticky candy and swirling summer jams. This grappling with nostalgia/tipping of the hat, set to a powerful groove was a favorite. “Play the track fast, not slow; pull it back twice, let go.”
- Love Fiend, “Just For Eddie” – Another undeniable groove and grappling with nostalgia and the sometimes-disconnection baked into how we live our lives, and a beautiful eulogy (I think) from an angle more inspired by vintage ’70s pub rock and a cornerstone of one of my favorite rock records of the year. “Save a nickel, save a dime, so you can play a song one at a time: ‘Trouble in Mind’ or ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ the 45’s got you under its spell.”
- Freak Genes, “Clear in the Night” – This cracked garage/industrial blend from Cincinnati’s Feel It records feels tailor-made for fans of Gorgio Murderer and Optic Sink, and is their most beguiling worldbuilding on record yet. “Excess on demand.”
- X, “Big Black X” – If Smoke & Fiction really is their last statement, pioneering West Coast post-punk band X – still with the original members John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom, and DJ Bonebrake – it’s a hell of a way to go out on. Ending this little section of the playlist with another deep groove and a gimlet eyed looking back, cut with diamonds and sung like a heart being sprayed by a flamethrower with the two voices coming together on maybe my favorite chorus all year. “Stay awake and don’t get taken. We knew the gutter, also the future.”
- Gouge Away, “Maybe Blue” – Transitioning out of that handful of songs with a favorite young rock band that grew out of X and their scene, and the hardcore boiling around them, and crafted a completely fresh, head-knocking mix of elements I thought I’d grown tired of before hearing Deep Sage. “Can we go back to when the ceiling was breathing? Can we go back to when the wood grain was dripping?”
- Ancient Peach, “Lovers Run” – A favorite new local band featuring Ginny Riot – a musician I’d follow into any new project – on guitar and vocals (shared with bassist Lauren Lever), and their EP was the best heavy, swinging shoegaze I’ve heard in a long while. “No offense, but they never told; and the silence grows.”
- Angélica Garcia, “Juanita”– Garcia’s third album, Gemelo, knocked me sideways and the insistent beat and restrained vocal on the verses that both explode into a sculpture of fireworks on the chorus was a prime example of why.
- Bette Smith, “Happiness” – Brooklyn-via-Memphis soul-rock singer Bette Smith made her best record yet, Goodthing, expanding on the multitude of pleasures from The Good, The Bad, and the Bette but giving it a brighter, more nuanced three-dimensionality. “Take a shot of freedom. Now how ya feeling?”
- Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, “Mirage” – I was primed for The Ones That Stay after seeing a stunning Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters show at Natalie’s this year and this song that struck me live stabbed daggers in my heart on the record. That shattering piano line the steel guitar orbits around, giving her band space to breathe, grabs me by the collar every time. “I take a toothpick and I walk outside – the sky is lavender and rose gold. Another sweet and salty summer night; an empty road that smells like charcoal. I strain to hear the angels sing, but they don’t owe me anything.
- Memphis Royal Brothers, featuring Wendy Moten and Jim Lauderdale, “Brand New Heart”—This Memphis supergroup/Royal Studios house band features a backbone of legends like Lester Snell, Charles Hodges, and Michael Toles. On this debut record, they pair that tasteful firepower with killer new songs. This duet between legendary country songwriter Jim Lauderdale and Wendy Moten is a love duet for the ages. “Love’s an invitation to start your life again; a perfect celebration that doesn’t have to end.”
- Ella Langley, “I Blame the Bar” – Like I suspect a lot of listeners, I found Ella Langley through that ubiquitous TikTok song, but the more I dug into her record hungover it kept revealing things, and this song has the best bad-idea-seduction chorus in years, up there with classics like Dolly Parton’s “Why’d You Come In Here Looking Like That” and Ani Difranco’s “Shy.” “No, I don’t blame you that it didn’t work out. Even if I used to, baby, I don’t now. It was the two-for-ones, being young and dumb, that everyone’s gotta go through.”
- Dehd, “Hard to Love” – Another example that friends are the most reliable indicator of new bands as two different pals suggested Dehd’s record Poetry and I fell quickly in love, and this dust-spattered reckless backroads drive is a prime example of what keeps me coming back to it. “Gotta love the good man, but that ain’t what I want. Give me someone rough and tumble, someone hard to love.”
- Raul Malo, “I Got Stripes” – One of the great American voices paired with one of the quintessential American songs, Johnny Cash’s Leadbelly adaptation, exceeded even those high expectations and gave us probably the definitive version; damn sure the only one that made me forget the original for as long as it’s running. “Them chains, them chains, they’re about to drag me down.”
- Thee Sacred Souls, “Price I’ll Pay” – Cali sweet soul torchbearers Thee Sacred Souls knocked it out of the park with the sun-dappled harmonies and silky rhythms of Got a Story To Tell. In a record of gems, this one stuck in my throat every time I played it. “With every new season, I want to explore you.”
- Muni Long, “Type Questions” – This finger snap-driven torch ballad was an immediate standout for me from Muni Long’s consistently great Revenge and a song I’ve revisited often over 2024. “I’m good at making something out of nothing – how come you never asked me if I have a husband?”
- Moor Mother and Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty, “SOUTH SEA” – Moor Mother continued her streak of one of the great no-filler exploratory catalogs in music today with The Great Bailout. This expansive 9-minute track finds Moor Mother in her spoken word mode with fascinating backgrounds shifting between wordless gospel croons, vocalese, and a questing, mournful clarinet rising out of a horn section. Gorgeous and haunting. “Sometimes the killing is silent / So silent you can almost hear the chaos of people gathering / spells and curses in their head”
- The Bellrays, “All The Rage” – After a six-year gap, Lisa Kekaula’s soul-injected rock band returns with a record of wall-to-wall firey power. This one captures the riffs, surging vocals, and swinging stomp of a rhythm section that’s always made The Bellrays so intoxicating. “Is it the morning after or the night before? This room is getting darker than it’s ever been before.”
- Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin, “What’s You Gonna Do When The Word’s On Fire” – Symbiont, a masterpiece in folky, collaged, deconstructionist indigenous futurism brings together Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin and finds all of their interests and earlier work coalescing in a way that dazzles me every time. “You are a fragment of a whole carrying with you a small, small role that multiplies with you. Remember you instructions: at the end you too will return to soil.”
- Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, “Well Well Well” – Another extension and continuation of vintage Afrobeat that doesn’t shut out the present in any sense. A dance floor monster that orbits around Kuti’s sweet tenor and sticky horn lines I can’t help singing along to. “Many are falling and they don’t know because the world dey upside down.”
- Common and Pete Rock featuring Bilal, “So Many People” – In a similar warm, throwback mode the match-made-in-heaven pairing of Common and Pete Rock returns to the hip-hop-as-woman metaphor of so much of Common’s work with a beat full of interesting flourishes moving with a light touch, and remarkable feature vocals from Bilal. “She showed up for me in the darkest times; conversations with her re-spark my mind.”
- Mourning [A] BLKstar, “Just Can’t Be” – Cleveland’s avant-funk collective put out another crushing record with the lush and searching Ancient//Future, the interplay of the horns and vocals on this over the creeping flow of the beat sends this one over the top for me. “I am to blame, but you are the root.”
- Jenny Scheinman, “Ornette Goes Home” – Maybe this is a more likely candidate for the Spaces list, but violinist/composer Jenny Scheinman’s new one All Species Parade roared out of the gate with this eulogy/tribute that’s rich with the same kind of melodic earworms Ornette was known for and that beat and searching quality just sort of fused itself in my head alongside the Mourning [A]BLKstar – Scheinman’s violin glides over and through Bill Frisell’s guitar and Carmen Staaf’s piano, with Frisell’s frequent rhythm section of Tony Scherr and Kenny Wollensen slyly winking at the Haden/Higgins hookup without slavishly recreating it.
- Rema and Shallpopi, “BENIN BOYS” – I’m not as well-versed as I should be on the current Nigerian pop/afrobeats scene but I loved the silky, beckoning quality of this gold-plated pop collaboration as soon as I heard it. Those synth horn stabs both reminded me of the last couple of tracks and I thought set up the shift into the next few pieces. “If you play with the boys, you go collect.”
- Ibibio Sound Machine, “Let My Yes Be Yes” – One of my favorite contemporary funk bands, London’s Ibibio Sound Machine, continued their unique fusion of elements with a sensibility that balances the groove and the song with uncommon delicateness for as powerfully thumping as these tunes are, with their remarkable Pull the Rope. “A better way for me to find me, just need to get you, get you behind me.
- “Nubiyan Twist featuring Nile Rodgers and The Reflex, “Lights Out (The Reflex Revision)” – The same feeling as the above with a late ’70s flavor – even featuring one of the architects of that sound – from the same UK scene as Ibibio Sound Machine and remixed by long running DJ The Reflex, this is like eating too much candy or having three too many drinks. “Down with the silence. Free your mind, let’s shake with the vibrance.”
- Latto, “Big Mama” – Columbus native who came into her own in the Atlanta scene, Latto’s Sugar Honey Iced Tea is her best record yet and this seductive braggadocious track produced by COUPE, OZ, and Kid Masterpiece is an addictive string of earworms and hurts-so-good one liners. “Drinking out the bottle til this shit is done. On some Andre 3K shit, man, where the fuck my panties at?”
- Luno Moon and Garlic Jr., “DRUNK ON A WEDNESDAY” – There’s a fascinating scene of exploratory, avant-leaning R&B in Columbus right now and Hakim Callwood – in his Garlic Jr. guise – and Luno Moon are at the center of it. This twisty song – those stuttered synths under the insistent drums kill me – sums up that sense of stasis between unhinged exuberance and regret and is as addictive as the behavior in the title. “Here time isn’t linear, how much of it do we have? My nose and my arms are wide open – come closer to me, let’s relapse on our love.”
- Tinashe, “Getting No Sleep” – I love even the uneven Tinashe records, and I think Quantum Baby is one of her best – this clattering beat with the subdued synths sets up a smoky vocal that plays to all her strengths and a hook I hum for days every time I play it. “We ain’t getting no sleep, no, no, we’re just living instead. We can sleep when we’re dead.”
- Shovels and Rope, “Piranhanana” – Shovels and Rope put out their rawest, meanest, most rocking record with Something is Working Above My Head and it was a breakthrough for a band I already loved. This swinging steamroller of an early single conjures vintage T Rex and AC/DC with the close harmonies melting into gang vocals. “Forlorn, used to lose it – skips the beat and gets straight to the bruisin’.”
- MC Lyte, “All Day All Night” – With a laid-back boom-bap infused organ trio- recalling backing track produced by Easy Mo Bee, a revitalized MC Lyte made something that always makes me grin like an idiot, a standout on a brilliant restatement record 1 on 1. “Older now, with him here in front of me, it was clear he had no idea what he’d done for me: made me feel love, gave me hope like ‘Yes,’ in a world full of nopes, it was me that he caressed.”
- Masha Marjieh, “Come Inside” – I’d been waiting for a proper Masha Marjieh – a crucial component of the classic run of one of my five favorite Detroit rock bands of my lifetime (I said what I said) The Deadstring Brothers – solo record and the psych-drenched Past Present Future more than delivered. This deliberately paced distillation of desire is a highlight for me on a record without any weak links, with one of my favorite bass lines and a organ part I want to sink into. “Whisper to me softly, please, how you’ll take me when you need.”
- Samora Pinderhughes, “Drown” – I’ve liked Samora Pinderhughes but his performance at LPR during Winter Jazz Fest this year meant I was hungry for this new record and I was more than rewarded by Venus Smiles Not in the House of Tears, a damn masterpiece that’s still revealing truths to me. And this blown-glass piano ballad fucking levels me. “No sound, no sound around. I’m not too proud of what I’ve found. It won’t change until I face it, take a deep breath, and drown. Don’t take your eyes off the sea.”
- Zach Bryan, “Bass Boat” – Speaking of songs that leveled me this year – I liked most of The Great American Bar Scene the way I like most of Bryan’s work; I’m a sucker for Springsteen-ish words sprayed like a firehouse. But this is one of the maybe 10 songs of his that hit me like a sledgehammer, piano-driven, and that backing vocal like a shadow or a conscience wrapped around the words. Just perfect. “I ain’t never been one for cheap excuses, and apologies have always been a little late or useless, but if you give me four minutes and a little bit of time, I’ll make them old days an old friend of mine.”
- Maia Jarrett featuring The InBetweens, “Hold Me” – This striking single from Maia Jarrett, carrying on the lineage of her father bass player Noah Jarrett and featuring Jarrett’s collaborative trio The InBetweens with Conor Elmes on drums and percussion and Mike Gamble on guitar and electronics on sympathetic backing, is one of the most assured debuts I’ve heard in a very long time. Jarrett’s words and piano create an entire universe here, a forest of dancing razor blades and smoke that is specific in its intent but leaves enough mystery to keep me intrigued. “Being the girl that I used to hate: stable enough to open my eyes to fate.”
- Cassandra Jenkins, “Clams Casino” – I loved Jenkins’ last record and My Light, My Destroyer, might be even better. It’s a slower burn but keeps sharing things with me, and this song – with its sidewalk-dancing rumble and guitar bursts – got me immediately. “I might never land on solid grounds. Part of me will always be in the clouds in an old suit in my hotel room, but I don’t wanna laugh alone anymore.”
- Melissa Carper, “Borned in Ya” – Carper crosses western wing and honky tonk with a modern sensibility as well as anyone working and this ferocious, infectiously fun drawing of sides, with stinging electric guitar and a rich baritone sax telling the story as much as her intriguing voice, should be a standard if there’s any justice in the world. “Mama she sang to us, she borned it in us, and Daddy played those old records, and I remember sometimes he’d cry to hear those soulful sounds. Now I know what Daddy found.”
- Dwight Yoakam, “I’ll Pay The Price” – The modern master at mixing the ancient and the immediate, Dwight Yoakam returned with his best record in almost 20 years – Brighter Days – and this song is pure, vintage Dwight in the best possible way. “Take any deal thrown by your hand and pay the price to hold it again.”
- Maya de Vitry, “Compass” – Maya de Vitry’s song “How Bad I Want to Live” from 2022’s Violet Light was an immediate anthem and guiding light for me, on a record whose beauty I’m still digging into. Her new one The Only Moment was another stunner with a tight band that made me sorry I couldn’t make her tour stop at Natalie’s work with scheduling. This is my favorite song from it, insistent, burrowing right into my chest. “Sorry to hear that I let you down. Sorrier to know you were thinking I was here just holding up high some idea you had about me. I get it, I get mad too.”
- Katie Mae and the Lubrication, “Hard Enough” – One of the most exciting new Americana bands to come down the pike in a minute, from the fertile Phoenix scene, Katie Mae and the Lubrication’s The Sighs & Strength hit every pleasure center I have focused around that genre with sharply defined songs and crisp playing. This was an instant favorite of mine from that first line. “Well, I picked up all my habits from my stupid-ass friends; I always feel lucky just to see them again. Life’s too short too let good loved ones go, too long without you telling them so. And everything else is hard enough.”
- Watershed, “Sensational Things” – Columbus powerpop lifers Watershed returned in 2024 with one of their best records yet, Blow It Up Before It Breaks, up there with Star Vehicle and The More It Hurts, The More It Works. Re-teaming with Tim Patalan, it’s a collection of finely polished, vibrant gems, speckled with enough of the dust of living life to keep them interesting. This song about clinging to and finding that beauty in life is easily in my top ten for a band I dismissed early and really came to in the last 15 years. “I was killing time at the 8 Ball; ran into the drummer from my old band. As luck would have it, he was still going at it. Over drinks, we hatched a plan. Wondering who would show up as the band’s tuning up, I spotted you by the stage, all alone. As I stepped to the mic, you swayed and closed your eyes. I knew I was finally home.”
- PyPy, “Poodle Wig” – The single set I was sorriest to miss at this year’s admirably-rain-fighting Gonerfest was Montreal’s PyPy, and their record Sacred Times ground glass in that wound. This hooky, buoyand song is a prime example of the joys splashed all over the record.
- Davóne Tines and the Truth, “This Little Light” – At the forefront of modern and avant-garde opera, Tines took my breath away at Big Ears, and his tribute to the great Paul Robeson, ROBESOИ, more than delivered on what made me weep in the Tennesee Theatre at one in the afternoon. Robeson was one of my Grandmother’s – the font of all my taste, pretty much – favorites and I hate to speak for the dead but I think she would have loved this ecstatic, wrenching cry of a version of this at least as much as I do. Maybe more. “Let it shine.”
- Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, “Hashtag” – The partnership who’ve given the world the catalog with the most classics in all of roots music for the last 30 years returned with the breathtaking Woodland Studios. Every song on it kills me, but this tribute to Guy Clark both a mentor for them and an inspiration for the kind of deep empathy and understanding, gives me chills every time. “You laughed and said the news would be bad if I ever saw your name with a hashtag. Singers like you and I are only news when we die. So here I’m sitting ’round another night, looking at your boots, Jesus Christ.”
- Aaron Lee Tasjan, “Shining Down” – A highlight from the remarkable Jesse Malin tribute/fundraiser Silver Patron Saints, Columbus expat based in Nashville Aaron Lee Tasjan – who also put out a great record of his own this year, Stellar Evolution – who kicked around Malin’s New York milieu for some formative years, turned this wistful miniature from Sunset Kids into a hushed cri de coeur. The atmospherics – the massed vocals, the glistening finger-picked guitar – fit the gorgeous vocal perfectly. “I found another path through the broken glass. Everything was trash, but it all worked out. Keep on shining down on my life.”
- Steve Dawson, “Time To Let Some Light In” – Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Dawson who I’ve been a fan of since Dolly Varden put out one of the best records in a career that doesn’t have any bad ones, Ghosts, this year, digging deeper into the intersection between laurel canyon singer-songwriter and Hi Records buttery soul, with – as usual – some of the greatest players working in one of the best music scenes in America, including the supple rhythm section of John Abbey and Gerald Dowd alongside the simmering organ of Alton Smith. “Freedom is another word for scared to death. I’m old and I’m tired and I’m running out of breath. It’s time to let some light in; I’ve done enough crying.”
- Joy Oladokun, “QUESTIONS, CHAOS, & FAITH” – Joy Oladokun’s Observations From A Crowded Room was the only other record that immediately made me think “Fuck, record of the year,” alongside the Hurray for the Riff Raff I mentioned at the beginning of this list, and it’s still up there. I still play it almost daily – the opening up of Oladokun’s soundworld with electronic rhythms, choral backing, new textures on her astonishing voice, stepped up the work of an artist I already loved. Thanks for reading whatever part of this you did – I leave you with this hope-at-a-slant slice of beauty. “Nothing is certain, everything changes. We’re spirit and bone, marching to the grave. There are no answers, there are only questions, chaos and faith.”
Screen of Distance 