2024 music in review (aka what Spotify Wrapped should have been)

Playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0yz6DxyUIr8wOXIa6tyV7R?si=851599f5afca41f3

Word count: about 4k

The conceit for this playlist spawned from my dissatisfaction with the latest iteration of Spotify Wrapped. Broadly, I don’t consider it to be an accurate reflection of my overall music taste - I mean, 5 songs/artists is such a small number compared to the actual amount of music that I listen to on at least a semi-regular basis. This year in particular, my music taste has opened up significantly with the help of one of my friends (you know who you are <3). Thus, I decided to take my top 21 artists from the last 12 months according to www.statsforspotify.com and pick one song by each of them. The playlist is in reverse order (i.e. #21 first, #1 last). If 21 seems like an arbitrary number, it’s actually slightly less so than the original number, which was 20; I saw Father John Misty at #21 and ultimately decided I needed to include him.

I am making this playlist on December 7/8, 2024. My song choices are influenced by the contexts I’m working within at this specific moment in time.

#21. Father John Misty.

She Cleans Up - Mahashmashana (2024)

Father John Misty is one of the artists who my aforementioned friend introduced me to earlier this year. We started . . . wait, I think I may have listened to I Love You, Honeybear on my own? And then God’s Favorite Customer, and Pure Comedy, and the new album pretty much as soon as it came out a couple of weeks ago. Lyrically, FJM basically has two modes (which sometimes coexist): a deep, exhausted cynicism about the world, and an equally deep love for the people he’s close to.

I would place She Cleans Up mostly in the former category with hints of the latter. Fascinatingly for a song written by a cis man, it’s about feminine rage and the expectation placed on women to “clean up” after men’s mistakes. I especially like the undercurrent of his own anger on others’ behalf.

#20. Hayley Kiyoko.

for the girls - PANORAMA (2022)

I’ve been listening to Hayley’s music since a little before her first album, Expectations, came out in 2018. I’ve always been really into the contrast between her fairly mainstream pop sounds and the rawness of a lot of her lyrics. She manages to capture the experience of queer yearning in a way that resonates with me.

for the girls is in some ways a lyrical outlier in the broader context of her work. It’s just a feel-good pop song about being a girl who loves girls, and even though I’m not a girl, there’s something in the way that she’s crafted this song that I see myself in. It’s also, pardon my language, a fucking bop.

#19. MARINA.

Mowgli’s Road - The Family Jewels (2009)

I started listening to MARINA, then known as Marina and the Diamonds, in maybe 2014? It was definitely pre-Froot. I like Froot fine, and I do dig her foray into concept albums with Electra Heart, but the album of hers that I’ve always connected with the most is her first, The Family Jewels. It’s a little rough around the edges, a little unpolished, but I think I love it more for that.

Mowgli’s Road is a song about being unsure of who you are, something that resonated super hard with late-teens me and still holds up to this day. Also, the music video is wild — definitely check it out if you have the time.

#18. Phoebe Bridgers.

Chinese Satellite - Punisher (2020)

I discovered Phoebe Bridgers via a friend in undergrad who I’ve since lost touch with (and whose name I think I’ve forgotten? Oh no . . . the perils of deleting your Facebook account). She is, in fact, the entire reason I saw the first boygenius tour in 2018 (I was at the front, I have pictures, I had no idea at the time the absolute cultural phenomenon they would become). She’s the reason I even know who Lucy Dacus is (Lucy Dacus, previously my #1 artist on Spotify for multiple years in a row, still probably my favourite solo artist of all time). I connected with Lucy’s music the most out of all three members of boygenius, but I connected with Phoebe’s first, and she’ll always be special to me because of that.

Chinese Satellite is one of those songs that took me a little while to understand, partly because of the sheer abstractness of a lot of Phoebe’s lyrics, partly because once I understood it, it hit so close to home. She’s singing about learning other people’s songs because she wishes she wrote them — hello, Phoebe, that’s how I feel about this song that you wrote. Just, like, ugh. So good.

#17. Janelle Monáe.

Americans - Dirty Computer (2018)

I got into Janelle Monáe’s music with this album, and I’ve never really been able to connect to any of their other music in the same way. I don’t know, there’s probably something I’m missing. I do think this is hands down one of the best albums of all time, as evidenced by its permanent place in my rotation.

Americans is . . . okay, so, I’m a dual US/UK citizen. I was born and grew up in the US, and then I left in 2019 to study and live in the UK. I ended up being there for about 4 and a half years before coming back, and I have no plans to leave the US again. This song encapsulates a lot of what I feel about my citizenship in this country, my ties to it that I can ignore but never erase. Whenever people panic about the political situation, I’m like, yeah, but if I leave then I can’t fix things. I need to stay. I will defend my land. I am American.

#16. The Chicks.

Long Time Gone - Home (2002)

I grew up listening to the Chicks, specifically this album and its predecessor Fly (1999). For a really long time I wasn’t even aware of the political context of their music — I just knew that it was the only country music I was able to connect with in any meaningful way. As an adult, the more I listen to them, the more I appreciate how incredibly good they are at what they do. They understand the conventions of their genre so well, and they use those to communicate so effectively.

Long Time Gone hits harder now than it ever used to. I grew up in rural Arizona, in a town that I would not willingly live in again for multiple reasons that aren’t even political or related to my queerness. I have not been back to that town since we moved in late 2014, less than a year before I left Arizona for college in Chicago. This song is about having left the place that used to be your home and maybe still is in some ways.

#15. Queen.

Killer Queen - Sheer Heart Attack (1974, remastered 2011)

Right, so, I’m pretty sure the only reason Queen is as high ranked as they are is because of one specific song. Unusually for the way that I typically consume music, I have yet to listen to an entire Queen album start to finish. I should change that.

I think what I connect with in Killer Queen is mostly, like, the vibes. I really like the vibes. The descriptions of this mysterious, incredibly wealthy and also incredibly dangerous woman are very fun to me. Also the ways that the band mess around with time signatures — and the instrumental palette. Yeah. There’s maybe some metaphor in here about overconsumption/excess being dangerous.

#14. Bayside.

Go To Hell - There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive (2024)

I’ve been a casual listener of Bayside for a few years now, but nothing quite clicked until their most recent album, released this April. They’re not difficult to place in terms of genre — much like The Chicks, they know their niche and they’re very good at it.

Go To Hell is a song about trying your hardest and failing because of circumstances that are beyond your control, which is something that I struggle with a lot and have been particularly struggling with this year. This is one of the things that can be so powerful about music — just feeling heard, feeling seen, and experiencing that as part of a piece of art that is also beautiful.

#13. Rush.

The Wreckers - Clockwork Angels (2012)

God, this one was really hard to choose. I very nearly chose Halo Effect from the same album — I nearly broke my own rule and put both songs on the playlist (I didn’t, because I don’t want it to be completely unwieldy) — but I ultimately went with The Wreckers because it’s the one I’ve played on repeat.

Rush is another artist who I started listening to this year. The first album of theirs that I heard was, naturally, Moving Pictures (1981, remastered 2011), followed by Clockwork Angels and most recently Power Windows (1985). Clockwork Angels is my favourite album of theirs; I’ve been informed that I have good taste.

The Wreckers is basically a song about being hypervigilant. Hello, I have trauma. It also contains a water metaphor, which . . . you’ll learn the significance of that for me later in this playlist. Clockwork Angels is a concept album (and the band’s only concept album in terms of having a narrative throughline from beginning to end), but, like, not quite as concept-heavy as a lot of other concept albums. The concept is broadly steampunk dystopia. Also, I love a fade out. Bring back fade outs.

#12. Carly Rae Jepsen.

Gimmie Love - Emotion (2015)

Initially I started listening to Carly Rae Jepsen when I went to college, shortly after the release of Emotion, out of spite. Call Me Maybe had blown up a few years before, and I’d been through the semi-misogynistic phase of “eww, girly pop music” and come out the other side of that. What I came to realize as I listened to more of her music is that girly pop music, when done well, is incredibly valuable to me. It’s just as emotionally deep as any other music.

Gimmie Love is about having really intense feelings, being aware of them, wondering if the intensity is too much, and deciding to give into it anyway. I definitely have never related to this in my life. At all. Also, the production on Carly’s music in general is top tier.

#11. boygenius.

Ketchum, ID - boygenius (2018)

So I’ve been listening to all of these songs as I add them to the playlist and do my little write ups about them, and, uh, I’m crying now.

I saw boygenius live in November 2018 because of Phoebe Bridgers. I had no idea who Julien Baker or Lucy Dacus were before walking into that venue and hearing their music. Because at the time of that tour, the band only had the 6 songs of their EP to play together, each of the individual members did a set of their own music first. Then they did their set together, and they played Ketchum, ID last, without mics, with Phoebe on acoustic guitar and no other instrumentals. I cried then. I don’t think I’d ever heard the song before.

(I did also see their tour in 2023, and what a massively different experience it was. Still special to me, but in a different way.)

And now . . . I am back in the States, in a college town, and the feeling of being so disconnected from any physical place that you don’t even know where your home is has been part of my emotional landscape for years. I was homeschooled until college, and then I went to college in a completely unfamiliar city where I didn’t know anyone except the people I was meeting there, and then I left that city four years later. I’m starting to feel more connected to places, though. I like that.

#10. Mitski.

Love Me More - Laurel Hell (2022)

We’re starting to see a trend here of me having actively listened to mostly women artists in college and not having branched out until later. Mitski is no exception — I’ve been listening to her music since sometime in the late 2010s, possibly not until after the release of Be the Cowboy. However, it wasn’t until Laurel Hell that I found something of hers that really clicked. I did also see her tour of this album, which definitely helped to cement it as my favourite album of hers.

Love Me More is an absolute sock in the gut of a song about wanting to be loved enough to outweigh the BS inside your head. Lyrically, Mitski has never pulled any punches, and this is no exception. I don’t know if there’s really anything else I can say about this song.

#9. Jorge Rivera-Herrans.

Open Arms - EPIC: The Troy Saga Official Concept Album (2022, re-released 2024)

EPIC, the first and current project of Jorge Rivera-Herrans (known to fans as “Jay”), is a musical based on Homer’s Odyssey. It currently exists in audio form with some supplemental animatics. The musical is structured in 2 acts of 20 songs each for a total of 40 songs. It’s also structured in 9 sagas of 3-5 songs each; Act I has 5 sagas, and Act II has 4. I started getting into it this summer after the release of the first saga of Act II, The Thunder Saga.

Open Arms is from the very first saga, which details Odysseus and co. leaving Troy and encountering the lotus-eaters. This song, in fact, shows Odysseus’ comrade Polites convincing him to ask the lotus-eaters where to find food. Taken out of the context of the musical (as much as it can be, lol), it’s a song about being open to the world around you, which is something that I personally value very highly. After all, it’s much easier for people to trust you if you show them that you can be trusted.

#8. Hozier.

Unknown / Nth - Unreal Unearth (2023)

I started listening to Hozier shortly after the release of Unreal Unearth last year, and then fell off his music late this spring following two pretty intense breakups, because I associated him strongly with both of my exes. Unreal Unearth was the album of his that I’d connected with most, though, so I’m using this as an excuse to listen to the whole thing in order to pick a song for the playlist. His music is definitely very up my alley — I’ve just historically found it more difficult to connect with music written by cis men.

Again, I had a very difficult time choosing a song here, and I want to shout out the one I nearly went with, First Light. I think it’s a pair with the one that I did choose — I don’t think either song can exist without the other. It’s just that Unknown / Nth is the first song on this album that I properly connected with, and as soon as I got to it just now, I experienced a physical reaction to hearing the opening. It highlights something that I’ve been experiencing my whole life — no matter how long someone’s been gone, no matter how badly they hurt me, I don’t stop loving people. (Also if they’re not gone, which has sometimes been the case.) Also, though I don’t think this is the intended meaning, I’ve at times definitely taken the final line to mean that I should remain unknown, that knowing me inherently causes pain. No points for guessing where that idea originates.

#7. Magdalena Bay.

Tunnel Vision - Imaginal Disk (2024)

I heard the first single from Imaginal Disk, Death and Romance, when it came out earlier this year, and thought it was an okay song. I have since developed the opinion that most of the non-single songs on the album are better than it! Anyway, I didn’t get into Magdalena Bay properly until the full album dropped, at which point I became reasonably infatuated. They are absolutely not the biggest musical preoccupation I’ve developed this year — we’ll get to that later.

Imaginal Disk is a concept album about a character who is undergoing a process of self-purification and (dubious) enlightenment by having a literal disk (think CD-ROM) inserted into their brain. Tunnel Vision is about the sort of obsessive focus on fixing yourself once you become aware of all your personal shortcomings. Also it just fucks.

#6. Borislav Slavov.

Raphael’s Final Act - Baldur’s Gate 3 (Original Game Soundtrack) (2023)

I have . . . no excuse for this. This was my most-listened song of 2023. These days I’m more normal and listen to chunks of the entire soundtrack at a time, but, yeah.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an RPG made by Larian and set in the Forgotten Realms, the canonical setting for Dungeons & Dragons. It’s been out for over a year, so I’m just going to put spoilers here, because the title of this song is honestly kind of a spoiler in itself. Anyway, Raphael is a devil who is an optional boss fight (if you don’t fight him, I don’t think you get this song in-game, although I haven’t tried yet) and who sings a song while you’re fighting him. Extreme theatre kid energy (this is also evident in every other interaction you have with him). Probably my favourite video game soundtrack of all time overall, and not just because of this song.

#5. Lucy Dacus.

The Shell - Historian (2018)

Listen, I love Home Video as much as the next gay. It has a song about daddy issues on it! But Historian kind of literally saved my life in 2019. I don’t think I would be here without it.

You’re already aware of the context in which I first encountered Lucy Dacus’ music — her set was the first in that concert in November 2018. She opened with an unreleased song (how I wish I remembered anything about it!) and then proceeded to mostly play songs from Historian. I remember hearing this song for the first time as a senior in undergrad majoring in cello performance and being absolutely floored by the idea that I didn’t have to be the thing that I’d been trying to be for basically a whole decade. Oddly, when I sat down and listened to the album afterwards, Addictions was the song that first grabbed me.

The Shell is, like most of Lucy’s songs, incredibly concise lyrically. She’s writing about a couple of things here — the feeling of being disconnected from your body, being unattached to having a body at all, and the decision to let go of the pressure to make art out of your sadness. Both things I’ve experienced, and both things I desperately needed to hear as a college senior.

#4. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

Persistence - Omnium Gatherum (2022)

King Gizzard might be the proggiest band on here. They’re another recent addition. I’ve listened to a few of their albums, including their latest album Flight b741 — they tend to do concept albums, although Omnium Gatherum is a compilation album of songs that were cut from other albums. The common thread throughout their music is its combination of silliness and sincerity. These guys really love what they do, and it shows.

Persistence might be one of the silliest songs in their entire discography. It’s a love song (?) about a flying car (???) It’s also musically so cheesy. But, like, the idea of being persistent — of not giving up on someone or something you love — is very sweet and might in fact be saccharine if presented in a less lighthearted way. I dunno, I just like the song. (I told myself I might pick a different song from this album — I lied to myself.)

#3. The Crane Wives.

Arcturus Beaming - Beyond Beyond Beyond (2024)

I’ve been tangentially aware of The Crane Wives for years because of fandom things, but had never properly sat down and listened to them until this year. Unlike some of the other new-to-me music that appears on this playlist, I found this myself, and almost by accident. When this song came out as a single, I listened to it because of the title (the star Arcturus has personal significance to me) and then didn’t listen to anything else of theirs until the full album came out. Now I’ve listened to several of their older albums as well, but Beyond Beyond Beyond remains my favourite (for now).

Although I’ve more recently connected super hard with a few of the other songs on the album, I’m picking Arcturus Beaming for this playlist because of its hopefulness. Coming directly after the midpoint of the album, it propels a tone shift away from the breakup vibes of the first half and into the sort of cautious anticipation that fuels the remainder of the second half. The final verse, with lyrics “There’s more to life than suffering” and “Nothing will change until I change,” is the type of thing that drags me out of my depression lows and reminds me that I do have some form of agency in my life, no matter how limited.

#2. Madds Buckley.

Driver’s Seat - single (2024)

I first became aware of this song when Madds was promoting it on TikTok shortly before releasing it in March. When it came out, I listened to it on repeat and also almost immediately listened to her two most recent albums, Sunset on Summerville (2022) and My Love Is Sick (2023). I really like her writing, and I’m excited to see more of it.

Driver’s Seat — I learned just now — is about one of the protagonists of My Love Is Sick, which is a concept album about two people in a sapphic relationship (with, uh, a song about the protagonists of Genshin Impact thrown in for funsies?). It’s basically Daddy Issues: The Song. Like Apple by Charli XCX, Driver’s Seat uses apples as a metaphor for generational trauma. The car metaphor that Madds centers this song around speaks to me for reasons that I will not reveal on the public internet.

#1. The Dear Hunter.

Waves - Act Iv: Rebirth in Reprise (2015)

Listen, there was always only one choice here.

So, hilariously, the first time I tried to listen to this album (my introduction to this band), I was at work and was having one of the worst shifts I’ve had at this job before or since (as of the date of writing this), so I didn’t end up finishing. A few days later, I gave it another try. I’ve never fallen in love with music so quickly and completely. Within days I’d listened to the rest of the Acts, the band’s initial project, a planned 6-part series of concept albums — 5 of those exist, and the 6th might never be made. The band is currently focusing on other projects.

The story of the Acts follows the character who the band is named after, whose real name we’re never actually told (fans mostly refer to him as Hunter). In Act Iv, he’s assumed the identity of his dead half brother. Waves finds him on board a ship returning home from World War I. During a storm, he reflects on his failed relationship with his only ex, while still managing to feel some hope for the future. I just . . . the sounds, you know? So big. So expansive. And also the idea that even in the bleakest of situations, there’s always some hope to be found.

And, well, the water metaphor. So . . . actually two days from now, exactly a month after my birthday, is the anniversary of the D&D session in which my first ever character’s funeral took place. He was given a Viking-esque sea burial. And I think about that — I asked for him to be permanently killed off. I chose that. I’m playing an AU version of him right now, where he survived. But I had to let go of that part of myself in order to return to it. And just sort of this idea in Waves of something dying and of there still being hope in that death . . . the water washing the slate clean in some ways.