My 2024 Mixtape

In a quintessential New Jersey political scandal, U.S. Representative for the Garden State’s 5th District Josh Gottheimer did as so many do come December and posted his Spotify Wrapped playlist to the social media sewer system formerly known as Twitter. His Top 5 played songs from 2024 were all by Jersey’s favorite son, Bruce Springsteen. Except, as some Internet sleuths quickly uncovered, this playlist was a fake. Rep. Gottheimer then did what any politician does and 1.) Backtracked and 2.) Said it was All A Joke, a variation of It Was Taken Out of Context, explaining that, yes, ok, he did fake his Spotify Wrapped list, you humorless scolds, but that’s only because he shares his Spotify account with his children and so, the fake Spotify Wrapped playlist was a truer indication of what was in his heart. Honestly, I’m inclined to side with the Representative on this, at least, in a way, because in his pitifully craven need to demonstrate to his supporters that he’s a Man of Springsteen, his birdbrained faux pas evokes how Spotify is rotgut musical curation source in the first place. Don’t let the algorithm curate your taste, curate your own.  

That is why I have once again eschewed sharing my favorite songs of 2024 via Spotify Wrapped, not least because I do not even have Spotify, to instead concoct a mixtape of my favorite songs of 2024. A mixtape not being sent by mail, because I’m plum out of Maxell cassette tapes, but a mixtape transcribed to the blog, which is to say to ancient interweb papyrus. It’s a mixtape I carry closer to my heart even more than usual because, I confess, 2024 turned out to be one of those years where the music meant more to me than the movies. (Except where embedded, click on the title of the song to listen.)

My 2024 Mixtape 

 

Collect, Torres. The transcendently husky-throated Torres as the angel of death – “I’m here to collect” – as the only law west east of the Pecos. This song was released all the way back in January and even given the state of the nation, it portended the end of the year mood in ways I never would have anticipated.

Alibi, Hurray for the Riff Raff. Downshifting, a little, in a manner of speaking, because this, too, is a song about death though Alynda Segarra lyrically carves out the middle ground between resilience and surrender and melodically conjures the ephemera of vapor trails in the evening sky.

 

Total Control, Morgan Wade. A song clearly written from the road, not just in the lyrics but in the groove, how you can practically feel the mile markers slipping by another after another, it’s like if a slice of 70s lite rock had taken up residence in Nashville. It’s all brought home in Wade’s magnificent Appalachian drawl, and her kind of clipped phrasing, never letting her voice loose which makes it ache that much more. I could listen to this song a hundred times in a row.

Wide Open Heart, Dwight Yoakam. Big year for old school rock ‘n’ rollers releasing new records, like Pearl Jam, like The Cure, like X, like the Kims (Deal and Gordon), but I most preferred this old cowpunk getting his kicks out one more time.

She’s Leaving You, M.J. Lenderman. An impossible song. A hooky rocker with a bitchin’ guitar solo melded with verses imploring to Treat Yo Self and a chorus recommending to also give good old-fashioned therapy a go.

Do It Again, Sheryl Crow. Middle age’s B-side to youth’s “All I Wanna Do” A-side. Maybe you had to be there in 1994 to truly appreciate this one.

Gypsy, Fleetwood Mac. Though my co-worker thinking the greeting card on my office desk bearing an illustration of Stevie Nicks was Taylor Swift was a personal low point in 2024, it was still a great year for the patron saint of pop music – she released a new single, appeared on SNL, and got pop culturally consecrated by new Glinda Ariana Grande as a “good witch.” (Thanks, Ariana, some of us already knew that.) More than any of that, though, I cherished the live album released this year from Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 Mirage Tour and I especially cherished listening to the version of this old favorite, over and over, one of the ones where Stevie spiritually renders a band named for its rhythm section as just Nicks instead, and the annual reminder that some songs never go out of style.

Soup, Remi Wolf. Lotta good pop music this year, like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Coincidence” where she sounds, I swear, like she commandeered some petulant dorm room dude’s guitar and sang him an answer, and Kylie Minogue’s personal “Friday I’m in Love,” but this shimmering ode to romantic obsession was my favorite true blue pop song of the year. Those “oh, ohs” in the chorus are the sound of someone who doesn’t quite realize she’s totally unglued. It’s Natalie Wood in “A Splendor in the Grass” with a glitter cannon.

Sympathy is a Knife, Charli XCX. Crippling insecurity as a series of sonic lightning strikes. 

So Sick of Dreaming, Maggie Rogers. Every song is good on Roger’s new record, but this is one that popped out to me first and has stayed with me longest, a dreamy bop about putting your dreams away highlighted with a mid-song spoken word breakdown that’s like the indie rock version of Phife Dawg on Tribe Called Quest’s “8 Million Stories.”

Cry for Me, Magdalena Bay. I have always loved disco music in and of itself, but the last 8 years of American life really put into perspective for me why so many people must have flocked to discos in the 70s. Indeed, when things got heavy the last few months, I would just cue up this track and visit the nu-disco in my mind.

The Day the Mississippi Died, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. Sonically, it makes little sense to follow disco with these stalwarts of Americana, but emotionally it’s just right. This is a campfire singalong for the end of the world, and my favorite song of the year. 

I dug my hands deep into the black Mother Earth

Tried to raise my spirits up for what it’s worth  

You laughed and said, “Aw honey, now what did you expect?”  

Not these tears and nightmare years where madness goes unchecked