Best of 2024

Favorite Films of 2024

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As usual, I go by what was released theatrically in Boston and/or made available to stream in the US in 2024 even if I saw at least two of my top ten at TIFF 2023 (which also played at least four others that I couldn’t score tickets to then.)

1. DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD

I know, most viewers might not have the patience for a 163-minute, mostly black-and-white Romanian film about a production assistant (Ilinca Manolache) expending copious effort on a myriad of lowly tasks for what amounts to a public service announcement, spliced in with scenes of a 1981 film about a female Budapest taxi driver. But you should—a satire and a critique of film production, social media and Romania itself, Radu Jude’s singular achievement (and this is the man whose previous feature was called BAD LUCK BANGING, OR LOONY PORN) is to wickedly utilize humor as a balm in expressing outrage at a world gone off the rails.

2. PICTURES OF GHOSTS

Kleber Mendonça Filho (BACURAU) utilizes the essay film to both celebrate and scrutinize his coastal hometown of Recife, Brazil. Abetted by his own narration, the film is a marvel of editing as the present day often mirrors and occasionally contrasts with archival footage he and his family shot of his home, the cinemas he once worked in as a projectionist and other imagery of Recife throughout the past five decades from a cornucopia of sources—all the way to a playful finale that not only re-emphasizes the meaning of the film’s title but also comes to life with an unlikely but evocative needle drop for the ages.

3. ROBOT DREAMS

From the Spanish director of TORREMOLINOS 73 (of all people), this animated feature adapted from a graphic novel is an unexpected gem. Telling of the fractured friendship between a Dog and a Robot (no other names are given and/or needed), its whimsy and warmth is sharpened by real emotional stakes and conflict, offering up a fun-house mirror version of the world where animals and machines are able to form deep, vulnerable connections. Sweet, funny and unexpectedly one of the best ever films about friendship (and New York City), I can’t even imagine a feature-length version of BOJACK HORSEMAN turning out this well.

4. PERFECT DAYS

An unexpected late-career triumph from Wim Wenders; that it’s simply a character study about Hirayama (a superb Kōji Yakusho), an aging man who cleans Tokyo public toilets for a living only adds to its allure. This might be the closest Wenders has come to successfully making “slow cinema” with scene after scene of Hirayama methodically doing his work with pauses for bicycling, picking up paperbacks from his favorite bookstore, and listening to music on cassette tapes while driving through greater Tokyo. I’ve rarely seen such an extensive depiction of a character’s relationship to music and how it informs and fortifies his well-being and also his environment. 

5. HARD TRUTHS

Welcome back, Mike Leigh. His first contemporary film since 2010’s ANOTHER YEAR is also his most brutal since ALL OR NOTHING and maybe his most aptly titled since BLEAK MOMENTS. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, rudely snubbed of an Academy Award nomination gives a towering performance as one of the rudest, most irritable, broken and heartbreaking characters since maybe Jane Fonda in THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? It’s hilarious, then harrowing; when it nearly gets to be all too much, it offers not so much relief as it does perspective and something approaching grace without pulling any punches. 

6. THE BEAST

The first Bertrand Bonello film I’ve loved is very loosely adapted from a Henry James novella pairing Gabrielle (Lea Seydoux) with Louis (George MacKay) across three time periods: 1904 France, 2014 Los Angeles and a near-future heavily shaped by artificial intelligence. They inhabit different personas (Mackay especially effective as he transforms from a European aristocrat to a 21st Century incel) but can never fully connect with each other for reasons not fully apparent until the end of the film. A real strange trip rewarded by multiple viewings, I would’ve never previously thought to compare Bonello to David Lynch (RIP) but here we are.

7. JANET PLANET

Pre-teen angst has served bespectacled, mousy 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Zeigler) well, or at least to the point where she has her single mother (Julianne Nicholson) delicately wrapped around her finger during a pivotal summer in her life. Set in 1991, esteemed playwright Annie Baker’s directorial debut inevitably feels like it could be autobiographical but what’s striking is how it uncovers so much nuance in its internal, seeking, near-deadpan approach. Little about the film feels forced or false and yet it doesn’t feel like many other films, allowing for hints of magical realism deployed with an unusually subtle touch.

8. FLOW

I don’t recall having two animated features in a year-end top ten before (although ROBOT DREAMS, a 2023 film received a delayed release); like #3, this Latvian production has no dialogue, conjuring a world out of movement, facial expressions and textured sound. Still, I was not expecting the full, expansive and wonderfully bizarre journey this goes on. As a flood sweeps through the landscape, a lone cat and various other animals fight to survive and encounter near-spiritual and metaphysical realms. Stirring and just a little trippy, it deserves to become this generation’s FANTASTIC PLANET.

9. BIRD

Andrea Arnold (AMERICAN HONEY) returns with what feels like an ideal of homegrown, personal cinema: searching, dreamlike, wild, a world in perpetual motion that’s chaotic and sometimes dangerous yet yearning for and occasionally capable of beauty. Brashly combining kitchen-sink realism with that of the magical kind is a new wrinkle for Arnold; some would argue she really goes for it and not all will know what to make of the Franz Rogowski’s character. Fortunately, her cast is up to that challenge—in particular, real find Nykiya Adams, as idiosyncratic and fully developed as Katie Jarvis was in Arnold’s FISH TANK.

10. EVIL DOES NOT EXIST

So, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, what are you doing now after all that acclaim for DRIVE MY CAR? A study of an environmental threat towards a remote community where a corporation wants to open a glamping (i.e., glamorous camping) site, you say? Far more Tarkovsky than Kore-eda, this is leisurely paced, visually stunning and in the end, near-impenetrable. Still, arguably no other filmmaker would so totally depict the utter futility of “information meetings” where the concerns of said community are both heard and blithely dismissed or take two characters who initially seem buffoonish and unexpectedly flesh them out until they’re nearly as sympathetic as the two protagonists.

11. THE FEELING THAT THE TIME FOR DOING SOMETHING HAS PASSED

The peculiar way writer/director/often-naked star Joanna Arnow views the world will inevitably seem off-putting to some but enchanting to others for how she finds the humor in absurdities and indignities without taking herself too seriously or losing focus of what makes them seem so real. After all, who can’t relate to the mounting pressure of being asked to bring an unwanted piece of fruit home with them?

12. THE OLD OAK

Ken Loach’s supposed final film is one of the more socio-politically relevant titles you’ll see in these challenging times, taking a fairly straightforward premise (clash between natives and Syrian immigrants on the eve of the Brexit vote) and suffusing it warmth and pain and seemingly every other emotion in-between.

13. BETWEEN THE TEMPLES

Although firmly set in the present, this feels more like a throwback to shaggy ’70s New Hollywood style but the humanity with which Nathan Silver depicts his two main characters (Jason Schwartzman and national treasure Carol Kane) is lived-in and not hackneyed (which also goes for their chemistry).

14. HERE

In Belgium, as a Romanian construction worker and a Chinese doctoral student (specializing in the study of moss) circle around each other, it’s not so much a trajectory of gaining momentum as it is becoming attuned to one’s environment, going with the flow and savoring each step at a time.

15. THE BRUTALIST

A Great American Epic like no one makes anymore, only it’s about weirdos, probably made by a weirdo himself. When you consider all the art that reflects the triumphant, the noble, the mainstream, it’s thrilling to see something so deeply felt and also transgressive in its furthest-reaching moments when it continually threatens to come undone.

16. INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL

Chill-out Cinema: beautiful, languorous, not altogether impenetrable but mysterious, serene without seeming blank. Seven months later, I can’t entirely recall everything that happened within its 179 minutes but I would gladly watch it again.

17. HIS THREE DAUGHTERS

This evolves from pretty ordinary to something unexpected and deep but not without lightness or lyricism. A real breakthrough for filmmaker Azazel Jacobs, though he might not have pulled it off without such a strong cast, especially Natasha Lyonne in a role both seemingly written for her and in the end, unexpected.

18. ANORA

Sean Baker’s films tend to thrive on his direction and the performances rather than the screenplays, so ignoring a few structural faults is easy enough. Reserve most praise, however, for Mikey Madison who not only tackles a challenging role, her gloriously profane, full-bodied bravura turn has nearly no precedent.

19. CHALLENGERS

Welcome back, Luca Guadagnino, though I don’t think this audacious, excessively entertaining triangle film might’ve worked as well with anyone other than Zendaya.

20. CROSSING

Levan Akin showing that AND THEN WE DANCED was no fluke with Mzia Arabuli giving off some rare, prime Suzanne Pleshette energy here.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

A Real Pain, About Dry Grasses, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point, Close Your Eyes, Flipside, Ghostlight, Good One, Hundreds of Beavers, Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All, La Chimera, Late Night With The Devil, Mother Couch, Rumors, Seagrass, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Sugarcane, The Bikeriders, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, The Seed of The Sacred Fig, The Teachers’ Lounge, The Taste of Things, Thelma, This Closeness

Favorite Older Films Seen In 2024

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Seconds

Of the hundred-plus older films I watched last year, the two standouts were titles I hadn’t viewed in over two decades. Seconds, John Frankenheimer’s 1966 oddity about a middle-aged businessman who undergoes mysterious reconstructive surgery and wakes up in the younger, glamorous body of Rock Hudson now scans like something Charlie Kaufman might’ve written had he been a member of that generation (and an early partaker of LSD.) Rewatched on The Criterion Channel, I’d clearly forgotten how INSANE it was, as much a middle-finger to middle-class conformity as The Swimmer two years later only zanier regarding the genres it attempted to deconstruct (horror and absurdism in contrast to the later film’s melodrama.) Featuring dialogue-free sections as expressive and engrossing as the best silents, Seconds is also notable for Hudson’s out-on-a-limb turn—there’s a reason why nearly every clip reel for the man includes the incredible final scene of this.

The year’s other eye-opening rewatch was a 35mm print of the 1955 film Pather Panchali at the Harvard Film Archive (my first visit there since pre-pandemic.) I previously saw it in a film class in the late 1990s, but it made little of an impression, blurring together with all the other cinema I was consuming then. Now, I can appreciate how special and genuine it is. While rural India in the early-20th century remains as foreign a place imaginable to me, director Satyajit Ray’s humanism marks such barriers as irrelevant. Anyone tuned into what it means to be alive should relate to his depiction and understanding of family dynamics, community and how we all contain multitudes—Ray even allows the petty, antagonistic neighbor woman to later exude a hidden depth and empathy for others.

Happy Hour

Ten Favorite First Time Watches:

1. HAPPY HOUR – This 2015 feature from Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car) about a quartet of thirtysomething female friends stood out—not just for being over five hours long (I watched it over three nights) although that length is key, for the amount of time spent with the characters is crucial as we witness their mundane lives and gradually comprehend how much they are like our own.

2. VENGEANCE IS MINE – An unearthed 1984 made-for-television production from Michael Roemer (Nothing But a Man) was particularly notable for how its messiness nearly felt like a Cassavetes film in spots, with Brooke Adams’ lead performance as complex and iconic as any she ever gave.

3. AMADEUS – In my attempt to watch every Academy Award winner for Best Picture, this is possibly the best one of the 1980s; rarely has the opulence and spectacle of it all had such a solid, nay, sobering philosophical foundation: What makes art great is that not everyone is capable of such greatness.

4. MAHLER – My recent Ken Russell kick led to his typically bonkers and visually beautiful revisionist biopic of the composer which, as an added bonus portrays the wackiest conversion to Catholicism ever.

5. WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES – I still may never watch Satantango, but I finally saw my first Bela Tarr film, which lived up to its hype of this director rewriting the language of cinema and also provided this takeaway: It’s the end of the world as we know it, and János is decidedly not fine.

6. POSSESSION – This inexplicable psychological horror still invades my thoughts three months on. That subway corridor scene is like a Cassavetes joint if Gena Rowlands (RIP) had literally gone stark raving mad and John decided to film it.

7. THE PHENIX CITY STORY – Surely a seedier and more believable view of small town 1950s Americana than anything else I’ve encountered. Also, it felt far less like a time capsule than it should have.

8. THE GO-BETWEEN – I admittedly watched this to see if I recognized the score pilfered from it for May December (and boy did I ever); however, talk about a slow burn that absolutely sears once it reaches its boiling point (Margaret Leighton’s determined frenzy here makes for one of the most visceral scenes, ever.)

9. TWO LOVERS – Flush with lyricism in constructing a realistic love story, this is the first James Gray picture I’ve unreservedly loved. Perhaps he was at his best when not-so-high-concept, or maybe just Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow were unexpectedly, perfectly cast together.

10. SHOCK TREATMENT – Thrillingly anticipates this century’s escalation of consumerism and access-to-instant-stardom, not to mention Richard O’Brien’s songs which nearly rival the more iconic ones of its predecessor The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Honorable Mentions:

Crossing Delancey, Fear of Fear, A Master Builder, My Life As A Zucchini, The Plot Against Harry, The Selfish Giant, Starship Troopers, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Tales of Hoffman, Twentieth Century (1934), The Verdict, Young Soul Rebels

Favorite Re-Watches*:

All of Me, The Devils, The Lady Eve, The Last Detail, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Opening Night, Pather Panchali, Ratcatcher, Seconds, Still Walking, Times Square, The Virgin Suicides

(*not counting anything for 24 Frames)

2024 in 12 Photos

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Kicked off the year with a real vacation to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. From the balcony of our resort, I spotted this odd, castle-like structure next door.

Late Winter, late in the day: A walk along Fort Point Channel in Boston, the imposing Post Office a monolith against a waning, if still piercing sun.

Spring: A familiar sight to anyone who has ever walked across the Commonwealth Ave. overpass on Mass Ave. (we love our “Aves” in Boston, no “Avenues” for us!)

A stroll near Davis Square in Somerville before attending Independent Film Festival Boston; somewhat gentrified since I lived walking distance from here a quarter-century ago but still quirky in a few corners.

I work right near the Charles River; one afternoon, I caught a glimpse of one of many rowing crews that train there in warmer months, along with a waterfowl companion (and a view of the new Parcel 12 over-the-Mass-Pike-high-rise development on the right.)

Stopped at Allandale Farm in Jamaica Plain near the Summer solstice to pick up some plants and was not expecting to see this lilypad-heavy pond in the back.

An outtake from my Northern Vermont photo essay, this rather imposing Optometrist graphic was one of many unique signs adding color to downtown Montpelier (and yes, I just noticed the guy sitting inside looking towards my camera.)

In Portland, Maine for an early Autumn visit: one couldn’t ask for a better Old Port tableaux, seabird and all.

Initially, lack of rain made for earlier-than-usual, somewhat diminished foliage but by late October, it seemed more vibrant than any other Autumn in recent memory.

Millennium Park, mid-November: taking solace in nature as I tend to do, this path providing encouragement to keep moving forward.

Back to the Charles, taken one morning days after the previous photo near the corner of Memorial Drive and Massachusetts Avenue from the Harvard Bridge on my way into work.

Closed out the year visiting family in South Carolina. We took a walk on Christmas Day near Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island; here’s another path leading somewhere potentially treacherous (no wheelchair access, indeed) but also possibly sublime.

2024 Booklist

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I read Robert A. Caro’s The Power Broker this year; I admit I did not know it existed until late 2023 when I saw Turn Every Page, the insightful documentary about Caro and his longtime editor Robert Gottlieb. Along with news that the 99% Invisible podcast would be spending all of 2024 reading the book and discussing it in monthly installments, there was no better time to tackle this 1100+ page biography of city planner Robert Moses. I began it in mid-January, consuming anywhere from 20 to 120 pages at a time, roughly keeping pace with the podcast until October, when I hunkered down and finished the last 250 or so pages.

It’s a great book provided one is actually into learning about city planning and receptive to lengthy reads. Although Caro (very) occasionally drives deep into the minutiae of government law and procedure, The Power Broker endures mostly because of its readability (I know, what a concept) which for Caro translates into a beautiful command of language and pacing, even structuring chapters to end on cliffhangers (no matter how mild.) Fifty years after publication, his thesis—that power not only corrupts but has an often negative effect on all those coming into contact with the corrupted remains relevant, particularly in the past decade where politics and power are concerned.

Still, I read 54 other books this year! Here are ten newish favorites in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.

Hanif Abdurraqib, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

Abudrraqib’s stunning track record places him in that rarefied air of seemingly being able to write and publish anything he pleases no matter how oblique or unlikely a premise. This latest memoir utilizes basketball (and, in particular his own cultural relationship to the sport) as a jumping off point for a myriad of subjects that, no matter how far-reaching or intensely personal never scans as oblique.

Charles Busch, Leading Lady

Drag performer extraordinaire Busch is a figure one always hoped for a memoir from and this one doesn’t disappoint. In addition to relaying a fascinating life story and career, the camp auteur behind Die, Mommie Die! lovingly dissects his origins and development as an actor. Coming from someone who has always taken his craft seriously, this is invaluable both as a drag testimonial and as a performer’s manual.

Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist

An essential companion to Mark Harris’ Mike Nichols: A Life that, like its infamous, iconoclast subject stands apart on its own. One would think Elaine May’s elusiveness would prove challenging for any biographer, but Courogen approaches it from a more-critical-than-celebratory perspective that is exactly right (even if it didn’t make me further appreciate Ishtar.) May contained multitudes (and continues to do so) in service of an ultra-specific talent.

John S. Garrison, Red Hot + Blue (33 1/3 series)

I’ve loved Red Hot + Blue, a compilation of modern artists covering Cole Porter songs since it came out in 1990; Garrison’s entry in this ever-valuable series of mini-books about a single album highlights the project’s AIDS-charitable origins and purpose, recognizing it as a cultural bellwether of queer-friendly art and expression across generations. With him examining how it fit into the culture of its time (the height of the AIDS epidemic) it also reminded me of how profoundly it impacted my own taste and nascent identity.

Will Hermes, Lou Reed: The King of New York

Lou Reed warrants a biography that captures him at his best and his worst; Hermes’ immensely entertaining attempt, with chapter headings chronologically referencing all the places its subject lived and worked mostly within New York itself is buoyed by not shying away from Reed’s inconsistencies and faults; it also gradually builds enough momentum to make a solid case for his genius in his spite of (and often because of) all that. 

Nathan Hill, Wellness

Hill’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Nix proves it was no fluke, adding new hues and an innovative structure to one of the novel’s most-used scenarios, the gradual dissolution but also potential endurance of a marriage. He writes as wittily and perceptively about the early 90s (when his protagonists first meet) as the near-present where they confront/attempt to make sense of midlife, to a point where this 600+ page epic rarely ever drags or falters.

Miranda July, All Fours

As July approaches fifty, her particular aesthetic feels anything but tired. One can track palpable growth and change through her film and literary works and her latest of the latter emits a bold willingness to go out on a limb and into the unknown. It begins as a deceptively simple story about an artist headed off on a solo road trip and then takes a hard left swerve… and then another, and another, with the reader ending up nearly as transformed as the story’s heroine.

Ann Powers, Travelling: On The Path of Joni Mitchell

It’s not the first book about Joni Mitchell I’ve read, but it’s likely the best. Instead of the usual chronological biography/career assessment, Powers takes a more personal approach. Less a of throughline than an intricate echo chamber, she confronts the music and myth of Mitchell like Rob Sheffield did in his great Beatles book, but Powers is less generous, more skeptical. The tension she creates wrestling with both admiration and criticism of her subject is nearly as sustaining a journey as the one Mitchell documented on her album Hejira.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

If the collected writings of Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael are decent starter kits in understanding how film criticism works, Rosenbaum’s prose is the advanced, graduate level text. Collecting essays on film, music and literature across his career (but with an emphasis on work since his retirement from The Chicago Reader in 2007), these essays are reminders of his openness, his idiosyncrasy and his mastery of forgoing academic jargon, writing for a would-be mass audience without pandering or dumbing it down.

Bob Stanley, The Story of The Bee Gees: Children of the World

Following his two doorstop-sized summations of pop music both rock-era (Yeah Yeah Yeah) and what came before (Let’s Do It), this music journalist/musician (co-founder of Saint Etienne) tackles a single band with one of the richest and most unusual backstories and career trajectories. With the focus of a critic and the enthusiasm of a fan, his relaying of the Gibb Brothers’ accomplishments and quirks (they really were weirdos) ends up a nifty companion and supplement to the fine 2020 documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.

Here’s my complete 2024 Booklist, with titles in chronological order of when I finished reading them:

  1. Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts
  2. Charles Busch, Leading Lady
  3. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Winter
  4. Derek Jarman, Chroma*
  5. Nathan Hill, Wellness
  6. Michael Cunningham, Day
  7. James Harvey, Movie Love In The Fifties
  8. Michael Palin, Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years
  9. Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra**
  10. Chris Molanphy, Old Town Road
  11. Will Hermes, Lou Reed: The King of New York
  12. David Thomson, Remotely
  13. Marcello Carlin, The Blue In The Air*
  14. Alan Bennett, Keeping On Keeping On
  15. RuPaul, The House of Hidden Meanings**
  16. Bob Stanley, The Story of The Bee Gees: Children of the World
  17. Ann Patchett, The Patron Saint of Liars
  18. Hanif Abdurraqib, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
  19. Peter Heller, The Dog Stars*
  20. Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard
  21. Sloane Crosley, Grief Is For People
  22. Karl Ove Knausgaard, Spring
  23. Justin Torres, Blackouts
  24. Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again
  25. Jessica Max Stein, Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography
  26. Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs*
  27. Simon Reynolds, Futuromania
  28. Miranda July, All Fours
  29. Daniel Clowes, Monica
  30. Ann Powers, Travelling: On The Path of Joni Mitchell
  31. Richard Russo, The Risk Pool*
  32. Ruth Reichl, The Paris Novel
  33. Alexander Chee, How To Write an Autobiographical Novel
  34. Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Mad Honey
  35. Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety
  36. Sylvie Simmons, I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen*
  37. Haruki Murakami, Novelist As a Vocation
  38. Sarah Thankam Mathews, All This Could Be Different
  39. Carrie Courogen, Miss May Does Not Exist
  40. Steve Wynn, I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True
  41. Robyn Hitchcock, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left
  42. Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle*
  43. Matt Foy and Christopher J. Olson, Mystery Science Theater 3000: A Cultural History
  44. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker
  45. Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys
  46. Lili Anolik, Hollywood’s Eve
  47. Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir
  48. Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake
  49. Paul Scheer, Joyful Recollections of Trauma
  50. Cheryl Strayed, Wild
  51. Jonathan Rosenbaum, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
  52. Andy Cowan, B-Side: A Flipsided History of Pop
  53. Dave Hickey, Air Guitar
  54. John S. Garrison, Red Hot + Blue (33 1/3 series)
  55. Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead

*Re-read. **Audiobook.

2024: Abandon The Crowd

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We’ve reached the end of this year-long project where I posted an annual playlist every week in chronological order. I kicked it off acknowledging my uncertainty as to how comprehensively one could sum up a single year in 30 or 40 songs; 50+ weeks later, I don’t have a definitive answer to that question, only confirmation that each year produces a wealth of great tunes—it’s all a matter of seeking them out or, more specifically, remaining open to discovering them.

As noted in my Best Albums of 2024, this year was a particularly taxing and chaotic one (as will most national election years be going forward, I fear.) Music (and art in general) provides, if not a reason to endure it all, at least some comfort and enjoyment. The power of a song you want to play over and over again is not to be denied or underestimated. Thus, the return of simple but utterly transcendental pop music (Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, even the first Billie Eilish song I’ve unabashedly loved) felt as inevitable as the disco/dance revival from four years before. If some artists couldn’t sustain such a vibe over an entire album, bite-sized highlights such as Jamie xx’s Robyn-starring sonic whirlwind or Aussie jangle-pop outfit Quivers’ precise, invigorating 1980s pastiche provided abundant nourishment.

Increasingly and (given the times) predictably I gravitated towards music that offered relief and a sense of blissful escape: Real Estate expertly channeling Big Star and The Go-Betweens, Kacey Musgraves edging further into folk-rock worthy of prime Sheryl Crow, Michael Kiwanuka reemerging after a five-year absence on a bed of lush and gently effervescent soul. Still, there’s tension in the gap between the pillow-soft soundscapes of Cigarettes After Sex, Hurray For The Riff Raff and Arooj Aftab and the spikier dissonance of Nilufer Yanya, Father John Misty and an ever-musically-evolving Yola. Splitting the difference between these poles is another returning veteran: while Alison Moyet’s reimagining-tracks-from-her-past-catalog project Key yielded enough varied results for it to just miss my top ten albums list, “Such Small Ale”, one of its two new songs offered solace in its arresting melody and Moyet’s undiminished voice but also urgency in its rejection of complacency, compelling us to think about where and how we find (and remain open to finding) meaning and purpose in this crazy, frustrating and occasionally sublime world.

2024: Abandon The Crowd

  1. Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Alibi”
  2. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso”
  3. The Last Dinner Party, “The Feminine Urge”
  4. Father John Misty, “She Cleans Up”
  5. The Cure, “A Fragile Thing”
  6. Gossip, “Real Power”
  7. Jamie xx/Robyn, “Life”
  8. Yola, “Future Enemies”
  9. Tindersticks, “New World”
  10. Arooj Aftab, “Raat Ki Rani”
  11. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, “The Bells and The Birds”
  12. Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham, “Crying In The Night”
  13. Pernice Brothers, “Who Will You Believe”
  14. Gruff Rhys, “Peace Signs”
  15. Quivers, “Never Be Lonely”
  16. Beabadoobee, “Take a Bite”
  17. Alison Moyet, “Such Small Ale”
  18. Kacey Musgraves, “Cardinal”
  19. Nilufer Yanya, “Like I Say (I Runaway)”
  20. Camera Obscura, “Big Love”
  21. Cigarettes After Sex, “Baby Blue Movie”
  22. Beth Gibbons, “Floating On A Moment”
  23. Laura Marling, “The Shadows”
  24. The The, “Cognitive Dissident”
  25. Cassandra Jenkins, “Clams Casino”
  26. Julia Holter, “These Morning”
  27. Michael Kiwanuka, “Floating Parade”
  28. Waxahatchee, “Bored”
  29. Another Sky, “Playground”
  30. Pet Shop Boys, “Feel”
  31. Billie Eilish, “Birds Of A Feather”
  32. Vampire Weekend, “Prep-School Gangsters”
  33. Brittany Howard, “Prove It To You”
  34. Suzanne Vega, “Rats”
  35. Orville Peck, Kylie Minogue & Diplo, “Midnight Ride”
  36. Real Estate, “Flowers”
  37. Pond, “(I’m) Stung”
  38. Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!”
  39. Jessica Pratt, “Life Is”
  40. Maggie Rogers, “Don’t Forget Me”

Best Albums of 2024

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Limiting this to a top ten, although I’ve included eighteen more recommended albums at the end (in alphabetical order by artist); as these things tend to shift over time, a few may end up on a future iteration of this list.

10. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Woodland

One advantage of creating timeless-sounding music is that as long as the songwriting remains sharp and inspired, a venerable career is nearly guaranteed. Granted, this is Welch’s first new album under her own name in well over a decade (and also the first to co-credit longtime partner/collaborator Rawlings) but it’s also the most vital she’s come across since 2001’s Time (The Revelator). It doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it doesn’t necessarily have to as Welch and Rawling’s acoustic folk feels both as out-of-time and relevant as ever.

9. Jessica Pratt, Here In The Pitch

Similarly out-of-time, Pratt’s fourth album (and the first of hers I’ve heard) sonically resembles a world securely preserved in amber (in this case, one from the mid-1960s) but here’s the catch—I wouldn’t go so far to call it retro. Rather than trying to fully recreate a past aesthetic (such as a Bacharach/David pastiche), she crafts songs that resemble transmissions from an interior plane or at least something only known to her. Never musty nor obscure, her miniatures, like the disarming, haunting “Life Is” are occasionally striking enough to stop one in one’s tracks.

8. Julia Holter, Something In The Room She Moves

More than five years on from her ambitious, often intimidating double-LP Aviary, Holter re-emerges with something seemingly crafted for these uncertain times, a gentle fever dream serving as a balm but also as a stimulant. “Celestial” feels like an apt description of the vibe it often goes for (the less charitable might say “spacy” or just plain “strange”.) If one gravitates towards music that’s by nature obscure or unknown, Holter’s your god and while I have trouble retaining her melodies (“These Morning” a notable exception), there’s enough going on in her sonic palette to hold my interest.

7. Hurray For The Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive

Having spent years confused and intrigued by the moniker of Alynda Segarra’s long-running project, they first captured my attention with the propulsive, anthemic “Pierced Arrows” from 2022’s Life On Earth; this follow-up is a different proposition, a concept/road trip album centered on Segarra’s recently deceased father that delves into an Americana as vivid as it is divergent from what Welch and Rawlings offered this year. Despite the immediacy of opener “Alibis”, it’s a slow-grower of a record, kind of like the last Big Thief album only arguably more focused. 

6. Beth Gibbons, Lives Outgrown

Sixteen years after Portishead’s third (and apparently last) record, vocalist Gibbons’ first solo album is a totally unexpected gift: apart from her ever-distinct vocals, it’s like little her band ever did, opting for acoustic and/or orchestral arrangements that sometimes recall Out of Season (her 2002 collaboration with Rustin Man), but only slightly. As one would hope for from such an iconoclast, this feels nearly as fresh as Dummy did in 1994 in how it often surprises the listener: the not-cloying child’s choir in “Floating On A Moment” for instance, or the percussive momentum driving the thunderous “Reaching Out”. 

5. Gruff Rhys, Sadness Sets Me Free

Fifteen years after their last album, I no longer pine for a Super Furry Animals reunion as vocalist Gruff Rhys has produced a back catalog as nourishing as his old band’s. Sonically, this is not wildly different from 2021’s Seeking New Gods, carrying on that record’s orchestral sweep and pastoral climate. What’s new is a melancholia that Rhys communicates eloquently and defends convincingly, from the opener title track to closer “I’ll Keep Singing” (which cunningly reprises the former.) Also, delicately soaring non-single and hidden gem “Peace Signs” is (for what it’s worth) one of my most-played songs on Spotify this year.

4. Laura Marling, Patterns In Repeat

Arriving four years after Songs For Our Daughter which was crafted in anticipation of having a child, Marling’s latest is about actually becoming a mother. While such a concept risks preciousness, her gimlet-eyed view has only softened slightly. With her arrangements stripped down to percussion-less, near Fan Dance-levels, the resultant song cycle is her most complete-sounding album since 2015’s Short Movie or maybe even 2010’s landmark I Speak Because I Can. “Child of Mine” could be a future standard, while the extraordinary “The Shadows” relays Marling’s rare talent as beautifully as anything she’s done since her first recordings as a teenager.

3. Arooj Aftab, Night Reign

As with Jessica Pratt above, this Pakistani-American vocalist’s fourth album snuck up on me and offered considerable solace during an exhausting year. With a deep tone occasionally reminiscent of Sade, one could categorize her music (much of it sung in her native tongue) as a jazz/world music fusion, maybe a cross between Natacha Atlas and Cassandra Wilson. Still, Aftab’s unique blend of genres and cultures is arguably her own. “Raat Ki Rani” even has something approaching a hook but much of Night Reign scans like a velvet-smooth burrowing into a subterranean, way-after hours dreamscape—an enchanting place to let go and get lost in.

2. The Cure, Songs Of A Lost World

Long-anticipated, The Cure’s first release in sixteen years fully lives up to the promise suggested by hearing at least half of these songs in concert eighteen months ago. Remembering most of his strengths and qualities that no one else could ever hope to replicate, Robert Smith makes it sound so easy (even though the last four Cure albums would suggest otherwise.) Perhaps adhering to a rather narrow aesthetic this time (there’s nothing like “Friday I’m In Love” here) helped center him to make such a commonly focused, solid work. It won’t replace Disintegration or even Wish as anyone’s favorite Cure LP, but like the shockingly strong Tears For Fears reunion album two years ago, this is, against all odds or good reason, a “legacy artist” at the top of their game.

1. Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer

In large part because of her brilliant single “Hard Drive”, Jenkin’s previous album nearly ended up my favorite of 2021 before Aimee Mann unexpectedly dropped her own return-to-form. It was for the best as Jenkins’ follow-up is a real advance. Not that she could ever top “Hard Drive”, a singular creation that first appeared at a crucial moment, but My Light, My Destroyer makes an altogether more persuasive case for her as an artist. On paper, it appears to be a jumble, mixing catchy rockers (“Clams Casino”, “Petco”) with introspective ballads (“Only One”, “Omakase”), short instrumentals and conversational snippets (“Shatner’s Theme”, “Betelgeuse”) and unclassifiable combinations of some or all of the above (the gorgeous, mysterious “Delphinium Blue”.) And yet, I’m enchanted every time I put it on, compelled to consume all 37 minutes of it at once—not an easy feat in an age where there’s just so much music to pick from and pay close attention to. Happily, spending ample time with Jenkins reaps considerable rewards.

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

  • Alison Moyet, Key
  • Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham, Cunningham Bird
  • Another Sky, Beach Day
  • Brittany Howard, What Now
  • Father John Misty, Mahashmashana
  • High Llamas, Hey Panda
  • Katie Pruitt, Mantras
  • Maggie Rogers, Don’t Forget Me
  • Michael Kiwanuka, Small Changes
  • Nilufer Yanya, My Method Actor
  • Pet Shop Boys, Nonetheless
  • Quivers, Oyster Cuts
  • Real Estate, Daniel
  • SUSS, Birds & Beasts
  • The The, Ensoulment
  • Tindersticks, Soft Tissue
  • Wand, Vertigo
  • Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood