Brandon Rupp (also known by his mononymous musical title “beandon,” under which he releases music and DJs as KZSU’s Student Music Director) explores a new title and gives unfiltered feedback, regardless of the genre. Feel free to send him music; he’d love to take a look!
Editor’s Note: This article is a review and contains subjective opinions, thoughts and critiques.
2024: a great year for art; merely a year for all else. I am here to speak on the former. There is plenty of music that I, for one reason or another, could not include, such as my song of the year, Chappell Roan’s non-album single, “Good Luck Babe.” Here are five honorable mentions that, at some point, were on the list:
15. Jack White — No Name
14. Kendrick Lamar — GNX
13. Cameron Winter — Heavy Metal
12. St. Vincent — All Born Screaming
11. Mdou Moctar — Funeral For Justice
10. Mo Troper — Svengali
Kind of a tough sell: lo-fi power pop sung by an Alvin-and-the-Chipmunks soundalike. But the melodies and arrangements here are undeniable. Following Troper’s fantastic 2022 album, “MTV,” this is yet another gleefully strange concoction. It borrows from the playbooks of Jon Brion and Guided by Voices, featuring dense wordplay paired with world-class hooks around every corner. Despite the fact that most of Troper’s songs barely hit the two minute mark, the majority of this album’s 22 tracks would probably make my top 50 songs of the year: “The Face of Kindness” is a catty banger, “Push Around” is a triumphant closer and “For You to Sing” may be the year’s best lo-fi gem. A must-listen album unfairly pushed under the rug.
9. MJ Lenderman — Manning Fireworks
This year’s big grower for me. As a massive fan of the late Jason Molina (of Songs: Ohia) and the late David Berman (of Silver Jews), I was initially skeptical of Lenderman’s acerbic poetry, slack-jawed delivery and alt-country aesthetics as mere imitation. But dammit, this is a joyful and wittily constructed album. “Wristwatch” and “She’s Leaving You” are two of my top songs of the year. The former pairs beautiful lap steel passages with devastating lyrics, and the latter single-handedly revives the art of being a ’90s indie rock sadboy. While tracks like “Rip Torn” manage to underwhelm, the album nonetheless manages to drift through its 38-minute runtime without wiping the stupid grin from my face.
8. The Cure — Songs of a Lost World
I considered writing a one-sentence review: “It’s the Cure.” On second thought, however, it is an impressive feat for the best band of the 1980s to return 45 years after their first release with an album this strong. Besides “Bloodflowers,” an unsung classic, the Cure have been skating by on good graces since the early 90s. Put less nicely, they’ve been in a creative rut. That is where “Songs of a Lost World” comes in: a “Disintegration”-esque goth rock epic with vast soundscapes and introspective lyricism. Upon a bed of chugging bass and effervescent synths, the album goes toe-to-toe with anything from their heyday. Like any good emo, it brings many a tear to my eye.
7. Father John Misty — Mahashmashana
When the Technicolor strings exploded in the first seconds of Josh Tillman’s latest paragon of the post-ironic, I had to grip my armrests to stop myself from collapsing. But as I gathered my bearings over the course of the album, I realized just how much depth he baked into these cosmic goofs. This is his most grandiose effort yet, stuffed with orchestral stabs and even a noisy Christian pop tune straight out of the megachurch industrial complex. Perhaps the key-changing cowboy disco of “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All” is the album’s most successful genre exercise. Between stray references to being a “Pynchon yuppie” — a quick way to my heart — and a verse dedicated to explaining the plot of Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” Tillman has reached a lyrical stride as well. After the shaky “Chloë and the Next 20th Century,” FJM has bounced back with his finest in a decade.
6. Swans — Live Rope
To include or not to include live albums, that is the question. I had to buy a physical copy of “Live Rope” just to listen to it, as it was a limited-time fundraiser gift to finance the latest studio album by legendary post-rock outfit Swans. After surrendering myself completely to this eight-track, three-hour-long(!) masterpiece, I cannot help but think it is one of the finest releases from the band. These tracks are the band’s extreme soundscapes stretched to their absolute limits. For instance, over the course of the hour-long “The Beggar,” the band bursts into chaotic slide guitar passages and free jazz drumming before settling into a propulsive groove that develops over 30 minutes. However, this album will admittedly not appeal to most readers: proceed with caution.
5. The Lemon Twigs — A Dream is All We Know
The overwhelming triumph of ’60s throwback outfit The Lemon Twigs is thanks to the devil in the details: that chiming G#7 in the verses of “My Golden Years,” the soaring theremin that crops up a couple times, the spring reverb on the snare in the doo-wop “In the Eyes of the Girl” and the jangly 12-string tones heard throughout the record. Looking past the retro sound and tongue-in-cheek aesthetics, this is power pop perfection in its finest form. Find me a 2024 song better constructed than “How Can I Love Her More?”, a horn-heavy jubilee unafraid to throw in a bar of 3/4 to spice things up. If the album weren’t so well written and lovingly constructed, I may be tempted to write-off the band as a mere tribute act of the great bands of the ’50s and ’60s. However, the album frequently matches (or surpasses) many of that era’s classics, leading me to believe that the D’Addario brothers are the real deal… and time travelers.
4. Cindy Lee — Diamond Jubilee
A drag queen releases a 2-hour-long hypnagogic pop album onto Geocities? That’s a combination so tailor-made for me it can’t be fair for the rest of these albums. Truth be told, I’ve known Cindy Lee’s work since she fronted Women. a band responsible for “Public Strain,” one of the best records of the 2010s. Her latest solo project, “Diamond Jubilee,” is a different beast entirely: it is a series of Brill Building classics heard through car speakers in a David Lynch film. I can’t think of the last time I’ve truly lost myself in the unique universe of an album: the woozy harp arpeggios of “Always Dreaming” or the sad cowgirl balladry of “Dallas” are truly otherworldly. May Cindy Lee inspire us all to sport a wig and fur coat to make sprawling, idiosyncratic and irrefutable rock music.
3. Charli XCX — BRAT
It goes without saying that “BRAT” is a cultural phenomenon. Beyond the idea of a “brat summer” or the wonderfully crude iconography of lofi-text on a puke green background, this is a spotless pop album which I’ve had on repeat all year. It is not hard to understand why this album is so inexplicably linked to its paratextual images. Between the Hitchcockian string stabs in “Sympathy is a knife” or the Harmony Korine referencing “Spring Breakers,” this is an album that understands that the best music is, in its own way, cinematic. Sometimes, it’s about what you don’t see, such as when Charli asks you to “guess the color of [her] underwear.” Other times it’s in the characterizations, like the Dimes Square girl in “Mean girls” ripped straight from Red Scare podcast. Beyond this, Charli’s vulnerability and introspection turn this album into something much larger than a vehicle for Top 40 hits. “BRAT” outlines the potential next step for pop music: deceptively simple, self-aware, fun, subversive and unabashed.
2. Geordie Greep — The New Sound
Is it any surprise that the guy with a legal name straight out of a Thomas Pynchon novel created the year’s most adventurous musical romp? Plucked from the imagination of a Looney Tunes x Frank Zappa collaboration, “The New Sound” combines peak progressive rock precision with the strangest music this side of his previous band, black midi. Though it is likely too early to say, this album may reach higher highs than any of prior achievements. Certainly “Holy, Holy,” a multi-part, Latin jazz epic about a pathetic incel trying to micromanage his encounter with a prostitute, is a new masterpiece from the Greepster. This is probably the only lead single of the year complete with stank-face guitar solos over triplet guitar chugs and effervescent harmonies delivering the line “I want you to put your hand on my knee.” The literary basis of the album is also admirable: more than any album of the year, there’s plenty of unreliable narration, nuanced detail and explosive poetry. Beyond stunt instrumentation, the album draws a greater depth of emotion than I usually associate with progressive music: the deconstructive “The Magician” must be heard to be believed. A new peak for 21st century progressive rock.
1. Vampire Weekend — Only God Was Above Us
After the 2016 departure of Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, the not-so-secret weapon behind their early sound, the fate of the band was in the air. 2019’s “Father of the Bride,” despite its adventurous song structures and jam band experimentation, raised eyebrows even higher. It seemed the boat-shoes-and-Oxford-shirt-wearing band we all knew and loved was moving away from the aesthetic that made them so fresh in the independent rock scene. With “Only God Was Above Us,” however, Vampire Weekend assuaged any fears. In fact, for a band that has only slapped their name on near-perfection, they have achieved the impossible and created their best record yet. Equal parts baroque orchestration and layered lyricism, the album sees the band in full form with their most expansive and emotionally compelling album yet. After dozens of listens, I still discover new details in its unfolding sonic theatrics: the Beach Boys harmonies underlying the uplifting string runs of “Ice Cream Piano” or the fact the band sampled their own drum part (from “Mansard Roof”) for “Connect.” The latter detail ties into the album’s immense self-reflexivity, both on their legacies as musicians and members of the human race: as Ezra Koenig puts it in “Capricorn,” the band members are now “too old for dyin’ young.” Still, they remain, imparting legendary music for enjoyment by generations to come.