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2024 in Review: Albums I Purchased This Year

2024-12-27 10:12:50 -0600 CST

This is the third time I’ve compiled some favorite album releases from the year. Here are my previous two posts:

I went in a slightly different direction this year. One of the goals I set for myself this year was to purchase more music, as a way to support artists I enjoy. Streaming services are wonderful for consumers and terrible for musicians, and I wanted to be more active in how I engaged with musical artists this year.

My goal was to purchase one album a month. I ended up buying 12 albums total this year, although I didn’t stick to the calendar very well (5 were purchased in December as I realized I was behind on my goal). Not all of my purchases were released this year, but many of them were. Without further ado, here are the albums I purchased this year.

2024 releases

I always have a soft spot for new music. Here are the albums released this year that I liked enough to purchase.

Mount Masu, Yīn Yīn

This album has extremely high replayability. There’s a wonderful balance of driving pocket grooves, lush synth textures, and beautiful slow jams. I have a hard time imagining a person who doesn’t like this album at least a little bit.

Mustard n’Onions, Ghost-Note

Hands down the best funk album of 2024, possibly the entire 2020s, possibly the entire millenium! I saw them live at the Parish Theater in Austin, TX and it was one of the best shows I can remember seeing. Absolute artistic mastery from start to finish. I loved it, and the recorded album is just as fantastic.

Do What You Want, Bill Laurance

If you’re looking for the 100% tastiest overdriven Rhodes tones you’ve ever heard, please do yourself a favor and check out Do What You Want. The opening track “Set Piece” is dark and moody and delicious.

Talkie Talkie, Los Bitchos

Possibly the most fun release of 2024! I love this album and can listen to it nearly on repeat. In fact, I did just that for the entire month of October, and some of November! I love the way Los Bitchos incorporates cumbia rhythms into their rock music. It feels familiar in the structural simplicity, but they rock hard and keep things interesting throughout.

Goat, Goat

The first time I listened to this album, I was not super impressed with it. But something drew me back for a second listen, then a third. It ended up having one of my highest listening counts of any album this year. This album was released shortly after my dog died, and it really matched the “fuck it” brand of depression I was feeling. There is something cathartic about this album in the way that it is so free, so raw, and so visceral. The production confuses me with it’s chaotic mixing style, but somehow it adds to the energy of the album. This album “spoke to me” the most of any album this year, but I have trouble articulating exactly why, because I don’t think it’s the “best” album from a musical perspective.

Lagos Paris London, Yannis & The Yaw featuring Tony Allen

This EP was algorithmically recommended to me, and I’m so glad it was! The second track “Rain Can’t Reach Us” is definitely my fav, but the whole EP is solid.

I enjoy reading artist bios, and I was curious that this EP was dual-credited to “Yannis and the Yaw” and “Tony Allen”. I learned that Yannis and the Yaw is a side project from the lead singer of a band called Foals whose name is, unsurprisingly, Yannis. When I started reading about Tony Allen though, I learned that he died in 2020. Oddly, the story behind this EP is kind of hidden, but their bandcamp page tells the story that Yannis had an opportunity to spend a 2-day session recording with Tony Allen in 2016, meaning this EP was 8 years in the making 🤯. I hadn’t heard of Tony Allen before, but I learned he was quite a powerhouse in his own right. He was the drummer and music director for Fela Kuti, well-known as a pioneer of the Afrobeat genre. According to Kuti’s wikipedia page:

Kuti once stated that “there would be no Afrobeat without Tony Allen”

(the source Wikipedia links to does not include a primary source for the quote, so it might be invented… 😐)

The drumming on the Lagos Paris London EP is really captivating to me, and apparently is representative of the Tony Allen’s style (and maybe Afrobeat more broadly? I’m not too familiar 🤷) which doesn’t emphasize the 2 and 4 backbeats like standard rock/funk/jazz, but instead emphasizes the downbeats and plays a lot of syncopated rhythms on top. I also really like the singing on the album, which makes me want to listen to Foals since the bands share a lead singer.

Three, Four Tet

I haven’t listened to this album in several months, but on my first listen I wrote these notes:

Big Party, FORQ

I am bummed that I missed FORQ at Monk’s Jazz Club in Austin earlier this month! I was out of town, otherwise I would have been there in a heartbeat. This was another algorithmic recommendation. In fact, FORQ was recommended to me by listening to “Shubh Saran radio” on TIDAL (same with Lydian Collectiive, see below). I wanted to buy the album Hmayra by Shubh Saran but I couldn’t find it for sale anywhere other than Apple Music and I didn’t want to deal with weird DRM bullshit. (I don’t even know if Apple still does that, but I’m not willing to risk it.) This album was probably the album I listened to the least out of the albums I purchased, but I really like the compositions. I’m excited to listen to this more in 2025.

Older releases that I purchased to backfill my music collection

Culcha Vulcha, Snarky Puppy

This might be my favorite album of all time. I absolutely love it from start to finish and I wanted it for my personal collection.

Aftersun, Bill Laurance

The textures and rhythms in this album are just fantastic to me. I came across this album a couple years ago and decided I liked it enough to purchase it.

Return, Lydian Collective

I wasn’t familiar with Lydian Collective before this year. I found them by listening to “Shubh Saran radio” on TIDAL. I really got into this “math rock” style of music this year, and this album is great! I’m considering buying some of their sheet music from their site and learning some of the songs next year.

Roll the Tape, Adam Deitch Quartet

This was one of my top albums from 2023 and I wanted to have it in my permanent collection.

Reflections

Last year I recognized that I was leaning too hard into a “listen to everything” approach to music. It meant that I was very rarely re-visiting albums that I enjoyed, and I missed that. This year I listened to far fewer albums, and I let myself re-listen to albums that I really loved. This was a much more enjoyable experience to me and I’m going to try to carry this forward into 2025.

Happy listening y’all!