As 2024 unfolded, that now familiar thought that there is less new music that interests me was in my head a lot. And it's true, from a quantity standpoint, I probably bought fewer new releases than any other prior year. That said, as far as quality goes, when I started to assemble this list I realized that my fears of new music drying up are unfounded.
Now I will say, this year was lacking that singular, blow away unbelievable number one record. There were lots of excellent, excellent records, but there wasn't that one that I went back to on repeat non stop. After a lot of consideration, I ended up putting the J. Robbins record at number one this year. I’m not sure it would have been the number one record most prior years, but in 2024 the stars aligned. And it really is a great record.
I debated that number one spot for a while as Swami and the Bed of Nails, Gentlemen Rogues and Custody all put out albums that could be argued as being the best. For the Swami record, I mostly just wish that it was longer. It leaves me wanting more in a way that's almost unsatisfying sometimes. It's right up there and it might be more accurate to call it 1B as opposed to 2.
The Absolute Best New Records of 2024
02 - Swami & The Bed of Nails - All Of This Awaits You... - Swami
03 - Gentlemen Rogues - Surface Noise - Double Helix / Shifting Sounds
04 - Custody - 3 - Brassneck / My Ruin / Combat Rock Industry / Shield / Sell The Heart
05 - Fig Dish - Feels Like The Very First Two Times - Forge Again
06 - Stress Eater - Everybody Eats - Silver Age
07 - Fastbacks - For WHAT Reason! - No Threes
08 - Short Straw Fate - Forgotten But Begotten - Self Released
09 - Pinhead Gunpowder - Unt - 1234 Go!
10 - The Hard Quartet - The Hard Quartet - Matador
11 - Cloud Nothings – Final Summer – Pure Noise
12 - Four Lights - Four Lights - Bypolar / Double Dōs
13 - Bad Year - Bad Year - Snappy Little Numbers / Motorcycle Potluck
14 - Surrender - Summer Never Comes - Waterslide
15 - Spells - Past Our Prime - Snappy Little Numbers / Big Neck / Rad Girlfriend / Keep It A Secret / Shield
I don't normally list or rank reissues reissues at the end of the year, but it's become very apparent that the older I get, the more I'm drawn to the more formative music of my life. I tend to play records from the 90s as much or more than new releases these days, so I figure it's probably worthwhile to point out some of the best as there were outstanding reissues this year.
From the hip hop side of things, the label 90s Tapes had an insane year. I put five of their records in my top fifteen reissues and they had others that didn't make the list that were also very good. They also claimed the number one spot with their rerelease of the 1993 Yall So Stupid LP, which was a desperately needed reissue that they knocked out of the park. It was also nice to finally get a double LP, full artwork version of one of my favorite hip hop records of all time, Casual's 1994 masterpiece Fear Itself.
For the punk, indie and rock records it's certainly hard to beat Sicko's reissues of all four of their full length albums. Multiple colors of vinyl, remastered sound, new liner notes and bonus tracks all make these must haves. I did rank all four together instead of splitting them up since they were released at the same time and I don't want to have to try to rank individual Sicko records against each other and the rest of the 90s. It's too chaotic to try. There are some on this list I haven't written about yet, so I want to also point out in particular the Ween reissue of Chocolate & Cheese. It has essentially an entire album worth of bonus unreleased tracks. I wish they'd do that for Pure Guava as well.
It's difficult to rank these as I'm sort of juggling how much I like the record and how good it sounds and how comprehensive it is along with the records being in different genres. So while something like Boys Life probably has the best packaging of anything on the list, I can't ever say I like Boys Life more than Casual. And while I like Casual more than Yall So Stupid, 90s Tapes had a much nicer overall release when you take into account sound quality, artwork and completeness than Get On Down. Everything on this list is great and the differences between number one and number fifteen are kind of trivial at the end of the day. Not to mention we had reissues of Organized Konfusion, Shipyards and Unwound that are just outside of this top 15.
The Absolute Best Reissues of 2024
01 - Y'all So Stupid - Van Full Of Pakistans - 90s Tapes
02 - Sicko - All Four Albums - Top Drawer
03 - Casual - Fear Itself - Get On Down
04 - Jesse - Complete Discography - Waterslide Records / Little Rocket / Sounds Of Subterrania /Rad Girlfriend Records
05 - Overwhelming Colorfast - Two Words - Beihai Park
06 - Ween - Chocolate & Cheese - Rhino
07 - Yaggfu Front - Action Packed Adventure! - 90s Tapes
08 - China Drum - XXX - Mad Butcher Classics
09 - Boys Life - Home Is A Highway - Numero
10 - The Troubleneck Brothers - Love/Hate - 90s Tapes
11 - Boogie Down Productions - Edutainment - Get On Down
12 - Da Homlez - Abandoned In Da Streetz - 90s Tapes
13 - Ultimate Fakebook - This Will Be Laughing Week - Rocket Heart
14 - Saafir - Boxcar Sessions - Rare Breed
15 - Mystidious Misfitss - A Who Dat? - 90s Tapes
As usual I will likely be taking a break for a few weeks to start up the year and recharge my batteries a bit. As I go into the fourteenth year of doing this stupid website, I do think a lot about wrapping it up at some point, or at least maybe changing up what I do on it a little bit. I don't know what I'll end up doing, but I'm pretty sure that it will be business as usual in 2025 at least. Merry New Year everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment