Top 10 of 2024

At the beginning of the year, I had a hard time finding music that really resonated with me. I shouldn’t have worried. Starting with late March’s JPEG RAW, the new favorites came. And didn’t really stop. In the end, I didn’t have much trouble pulling together 10 albums (and a few honorable mentions) to recommend.

As always, I’ll just remind you that my tastes run mostly to rootsy genres like Americana, folk, and the blues. I’m always game to hear something from the new singer-songwriter, y’know? These picks reflect all that. But, erm, there might be a surprise in here.

I usually start these entries with No. 10. But to shake things up, I’ll start this year with No. 1. That’s the order I wrote these in, anyway, so it feels right.

1. $10 Cowboy, Charley Crockett – Crockett somehow managed to release two exceptional albums in 2024 (Visions of Dallas is the second). You could probably even think of them as one brilliant double album. If forced to choose, this is the one I’d take to the desert island. It’s full of smart, hummable songs. Crockett’s vocals suggest both New Orleans and, erm, something like west Texas. That’s not a combination that’s easy to land—at bottom, those are two pretty different cultural sensibilities, y’know—but the success here is undeniable. Another irresistible sensibility: world-weariness. I can’t resist that. Should that worry me? Check out the title track, as well as “America, and “Good at Losing.” Or any of four or five other songs (“Hard Luck & Circumstances?”). $10 Cowboy is full of riches. Nothing else could’ve been my top album of the year. Highly, highly recommended.

2. MJ Lenderman’s Manning FireworksManning Fireworks is, shall we say, off-kilter. Both in its lyrics and in Lenderman’s vocals. And, yes, that’s all a compliment. Quirky, Clem Snide-style vocals always work for me. So too here. As for the lyrics, who can resist something like “I wouldn’t be in the seminary if I could be with you” (from “Rudolph”)? Or the series of drunken, quoted non-sequiturs in “Rip Torn,” including the challenge to think about the differences between milkshakes and smoothies? I can’t, won’t resist. Check out: title track, “Rudolph,” “Wristwatch.”

3. Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past Is Alive – I’ve been a fan of Alynda Segarra—who is Hurray for the Riff—for a long time. Since, I suppose, their earlier days when you didn’t have to stretch quite so far to hear the New Orleans street-kid in the delivery. Segarra’s folk-rock vocals are still beautiful; they may just be a bit more “general” Americana now (if that even makes sense). Anyway, here those engaging vocals are paired with a set of songs that look back . . . at hard times and, well, surviving. Try: “Alibi,” “Ogallala,” and “Colossus of Roads.”

4. Shooting Star, Benjamin Tod – There are several former street buskers/rail-riders on this year’s list, and I’m not sure if that says more about 2024 or me. Hmm. Do I want to skip out and become a full-time hitchhiker? (I’d be terrible at that.) Anyway, Shooting Star is the solo offering of Tod, whose primary gig is leading the excellent Lost Dog Street Band. Tod, notable (in my mind) for his scary neck tattoo, brings his punk outlook to songs that are about as classic-country as any newly written set could possibly be. Tod’s delivery is direct but downright involving. Check out: “Shooting Star,” “I Ain’t the Man,” and “Satisfied with Your Love.”

5. Songs of a Lost World by the Cure – I sure didn’t expect an album from the Cure to land—in goddang 2024!—on my Top 10 list. The band still sounds like 1984, which will always be a good thing. But after all these years, the band still has something to say. These are songs about what might’ve been, about the better world we could’ve created. Sigh. The album opener, “Alone,” sets the mood.

6. JPEG RAW, Gary Clark, Jr. – As I said, JPEG RAW was the first album I really fell for in 2024. And it was just what I needed. As nearly every review at the time noted, with JPEG RAW, Clark transcended—deliciously—the categories (blues, blues-rock) the industry had previously assigned him. R&B, psychedelia, funk—they’re all his now. And more. Boundaries blurred. P.S. One of the best concerts I saw in 2024 was Clark’s concert at the Met in Philly. Start with: “Habits,” “JPEG RAW,” or “Maktub.”

7. Our Time in the Sun by Jeremie Albino – Last year’s Tears You Hide didn’t come to my attention, so Our Time in the Sun came as a revelation. The echoes of several genres can be heard, but it was the soulfulness of songs like “Baby Ain’t It Cold Outside” and “I Don’t Mind Waiting” that grabbed me first—and fully. The songwriting is stellar, too. I’m keeping an eye on Albino. He’s gonna be a star.

8. Woodland, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings –  Welch and Rawlings are Americana royalty, if that can really be a thing (Queen Gillian???). Years pass between albums at this point, so Woodland—another set of smart, gentle modern folk songs—probably came long after fans like me hoped…. But the album is a salve, forcing you to pay attention. The deep cuts are probably where you’ll find a lyric takes your breath away. Try: “North Country” or “Howdy Howdy.” P.S. Just a few weeks ago, I saw Welch and Rawlings in concert. They brought the house down. See them whenever you can.

9. Rectangles and Circumstance by Caroline Shaw & So Percussion – For something completely different (for me), how about a collaboration between classical composer Caroline Shaw and So Percussion, the best dang percussion quartet in the business? Stir in, too, some texts (or, ok, “texts”) from the likes of William Blake, Emily Dickinson, and Gertrude Stein. The result? Layers of sound—and layers of fun. Start with “This.”

10. Wyatt Flores’s Welcome to the Plains – I’m from Oklahoma, so I know all about the particular Okie brand of pride for a place that’s beautiful but also full of pain, both historical (e.g., the Trail of Tears) and ongoing (the weather, rural poverty). Flores captures all that in the opening title track—and then goes on to explore themes like small towns, the smothering shallowness of college life, and, well, death. There’s a lot of death on this album, really. Are you ok, Wyatt? Try: the title track and “Oh, Susanna.”

Honorable Mentions: Light Verse, Iron & Wine; Corb Lund’s El Viejo; Tigers Blood, Waxahatchee; St. Lenox’s Ten Modern American Work Songs; Sun Without the Heat by Leyla McCalla; Another Heart, Ann Savoy; C.P.E. Bach: Symphonies – From Berlin to Hamburg, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin; Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter; Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free, Bonny Light Horseman; Third Coast Percussion’s Currents/Volume 3; Moon & Stars, The Mavericks; Billy Strings’s Highway Prayers; Go Placidly with Haste, Jason Treuting; and Even the Forest Hums: Ukrainian Sonic Archives 1971-1996, various artists.

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