80 Favorite Songs of 2024 - The Rest

Combining the last 23 songs into one long post to wave goodbye to a excellent music year

As a kid (and teen), I loved going to the all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Back then, quantity definitely reigned supreme over quality. And it was never just salad that was unlimited, it was often things like steak or shrimp (I’m thinking of Sizzler’s) and of course, dessert.

The trick was not filling up on garbanzo beans and carrot sticks and having enough room for two brownies, a scoop of chocolate and strawberry ice cream, and a sampling of whatever other sweets were available.

This was back when I really believed we had two stomachs: One for “meal” food and one for desserts. Because no matter how distended my midsection got, I seemed to always be able to inhale the desserts.

Now I tend to gorge on music instead of buffets. Mainly because most of the buffet places have closed and my tastes have become more refined, preferring food prepared especially for me. Thankfully, the fullness from 12 hours a day sampling from the month’s new releases hasn’t broken the scale (yet). But it often overwhelms my brain and it can become difficult to differentiate the wheat from the chaff.

At the start of each year, I create a playlist of songs that stand out to me and anytime I hear anything that tickles my eardrum, I add it to the list. This was my method for 2024 as well. And was how I culled my list from 400 to 80 songs.

I should have narrowed it further, to 50, but I didn’t, and now I’m overstuffed with yesteryear’s sonic gems.

I’m not going to include YT clips for all 23 songs that complete this list, but I will share a small blurb for each. Click the song-title’s hyperlink to play the YouTube clip of the song.

Below is a Spotify playlist if you prefer that method. At the bottom of this post is a playlist of all 80 tracks, combining parts 1-5 and part 6.

After this, I’ll be returning to the music memoir essay format you all know and love, with a sprinkling of other goodies just to keep you on your toes!

But until then, here are my final 23 Favorite Songs.

1. Bonny Light Horseman - Lover Take It Easy

I wrote about Bonny Light Horseman for my Top 10 Albums of 2024 post. Here’s a bit of what I said.

2. Torres/Fruit Bats - Married For Love

An indie super-duo. Torres’ most recent album, What an Enormous Room, is quite good and worth checking out, but I connected deeper with her EP A Decoration, a collaboration with Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson (who is also 1/3 of Bonny Light Horseman). Starting off with double D’s!

3. Almost Twins - Mosaics

This German band is friggin’ awesome. “Mosaics” is my favorite of their 2024 debut album Hands/Trees. The musicianship is stellar, the melodies intoxicating and always surprising.

4. Rufus T. Firefly - Reverso

No, this is not Groucho Marx from Duck Soup sound-bites looping, but a band from Madrid that writes catchy indie rock, sung mostly in Spanish.

5. Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard - Leatherbound

Keeping the pop smarts going, with a bit more bombast, replete with glorious vocals and a catchy, simple guitar riff that might be your next earworm.

6. Nudista - Different Eyes

Another band that was new to me in 2024. Not sure how I discovered them. Sounds kind of like if Beck wrote an alt-country pop song and sang it as a duet with Phoebe Bridgers.

7. Ed Harcourt - 1987

Ed Harcourt has been releasing brilliant singer-songwriter pop records since 2001 and deserves way more accolades. “1987” is simply gorgeous and so is his latest album, El Magnifico.

8. Nada Surf - In Front of Me Now

I love a gorgeous melody more than I love breathing. But when it’s paired with poignant, wise, heartfelt lyrics, it’s pure sonic ecstasy. This song resonates so much with me. sample lyric:

I used to be stopping while I was trying
I used to be landing before I was flying
I used to be haunting not just remembering
In the middle of summеr, I was Decembering

Always rе-writing what I was reading
But also doubting what I was conceiving
I used to be dropping when I was collecting
I could have been building, but I was dissecting

Today, I do what's in front of me now

9. Everyone Says Hi - Only One

How can you listen to “Only One” and remain in a mental funk? It’s got one of the catchiest melodies I’ve ever heard. I am bopping my head to and fro just thinking of Everyone Says Hi.

10. Blind Pilot - Just a Bird

Blind Pilot is back with another collection of smart, sad, melodic pop tunes. Like the last 9 songs, this one is wistful, sweet, and everything in between.

11. David Gilmour/Romany Gilmour - Between Two Points

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour’s first solo album in a decade features the gorgeous vocals of his daughter Romany Gilmour. Evocative feels like an inadequate descriptor, but it’s also right on the money. And the guitar solo that closes the song is David Gilmour perfection.

12. Jon Anderson/The Band Geeks - True Messenger

Jon Anderson (vocalist for the greatest prog rock band, Yes) has paired with The Band Geeks, another stellar bunch of musicians for his latest album. I was more than pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed True from beginning to end. It’s heartening to see the progressive icons continuing to progress.

13. Gong - All Clocks Reset

I had no idea that legendary cult prog band Gong had put out a new album until I heard “All Clocks Reset” on an XTC-themed podcast of all places. There is definitely a Partridge/Moulding vibe on many of the songs on Unending Ascending, none more so than this catchy, twisting track.

14. Sean Ono Lennon - Starwater

I became a huge fan of Sean Ono Lennon when I heard the first Claypool Lennon Delirium album six years ago or so. Since then, I’ve loved everything Lennon has been involved with. Asterisms is not officially a SOL solo album, as the band is listed under all 7 members’ names, but I’m not typing out all that. I would describe the album as a perfect merger of experimental jazz, ambient, and classic progressive rock. It’s all instrumental (I think, it’s been a while since I played the whole album).

15. Charles Lloyd - Defiant, Tender Warrior

Keeping it in the jazz vein, we segue to saxophonist Charles Lloyd, who has played with pretty much all the greats in the jazz scene since the early 1970s. The 85-year-old sounds as spirited and creatively juiced as ever on his latest, a double album titled The Sky Will Still Be Here Tomorrow.

16. Kreidler - Tanger Telex

I had no idea when I heard Kreidler on a playlist mix from someone on Substack (sorry for not remembering who — if it was you, show yourself!), that the German band has been making genre-exploding music since 1994. They’ve scored movies, live art shows, theater, you name it, they’ve done it. They describe their sound as including elements of electronic music, pop, avant-garde, post-rock, IDM, ambient, neoclassical, krautrock, or electronica.

17. The Radicant - Wide Steppe

I subscribe to several modern progressive rock groups and magazines, and to be honest, most of what I hear does nothing for me. So when I put on The Radicant, after a glowing review, I was slapped in the face and ordered to pay attention. “Wide Steppe” feels like a song from a movie, it’s got a cinematic, expansive vibe, with hypnotic vocals that don’t so much sing as soar. It reminds me of the best work from Max Richter. It’s extremely emotional music.

18. Storefront Church - The High Room

I wrote about Storefront Church in my top 5 albums of the year post (they were #2) which you can read about by clicking here.

19. Laetitia Sadier - Who + What

Best known for her work in Stereolab, Laetitia Sadier has been putting out brilliant solo work since 2003. You will get elements of the Stereolab sound here but with an added jazz vibe. “Who + What” is a song to listen to with headphones. There’s a ton of stuff happening, with percussion, synths, and vocal lines moving all around, filling up all the joyous spaces of the brain.

20. Nala Sinephro - Continuum 6

I refer you to the words of my colleague

Sam Colt

, who chose Nala Sinephro for his ninth favorite album of the year, in our group post just a few weeks ago.

“This is a serene and beautiful project that moves with melodic purpose, with both an epic scale and a sense of understatement. The album centers on a single arpeggiate chord, and Nala modulates it, extends it, and lets it carry us like a riptide. Trickling harp, tumbling drums, plucky synths, and intimate saxophone all move in lockstep, generating a buzz that invites us to feel but never tells us what our feelings should be. This is captivating, smooth, imaginative, somewhat futuristic jazz. Listen closely and its details transform relentlessly; let your mind drift and it resembles what I’d imagine floating in space would sound like.”

21. Kelly Moran - Superhuman

From Wiki:

Kelly Moran is an American composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Brooklyn. Her music spans classical, electronic, minimalist, jazz, impressionist, and metal genres. In many of her compositions, Moran utilizes electronic musical techniques in combination with the John Cage-pioneered technique of the prepared piano.

Some of her songs seem to require “superhuman” abilities as she layers piano lines over each other like a collage.

22. Cowboy Sadness - Billings, MT

I wrote about Cowboy Sadness for my top 10-6 albums of the year post. They are my current favorite ambient band, and their album Selected Jambient Works Vol. 1 was my most-played album of 2024.

Here’s what I wrote:

Cowboy Sadness is a collaboration of members from The Antlers, Bing & Ruth, and Port St. Willow. I was already a fan of all three, but together they’ve created something incredibly beautiful, hypnotic, calming, and unexpectedly emotional.

23. Anoushka Shankar - In The End

Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Indian Classical musician Ravi Shankar, is just as talented and prolific as her legendary father.

Her 2024 album, Chapter 2: How Dark it is Before Dawn, is the perfect album to put on if you just want to drift away, away from your thoughts, your worries, and your aching body. It’s transformative in all the best ways. And the perfect ending track to end this 80-song playlist.

• Phew, I’m relieved to have finished this project. I do feel stuffed to the rim with 2024 tunes, but I’m planning to “purge” myself of last year’s songs to make way for 2025!

• I’d love to know your thoughts on (any of) these 23 favorites.

• And it is Spotify-only, but here’s a playlist of all 80 songs, for your listening pleasure.

• I’ll be back with a brand new essay soon! Thanks for stopping by and see you next time.