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I’ve decided that I’m going to get back to blogging on a regular basis in 2025.

So preemptively, I figured I would list my favorite music of 2024. In a very particular order, my favorite albums of 2024:

Tigers Blood, Waxahatchee. I saw Katie Crutchfield for the first time this year, and I am very grateful. She is among my favorite singer-songwriters. I picked her song “Ruby Falls” as one of my favorites of the millennia. This album is your opportunity to meet her and love her. Don’t miss it. You’ll be the poorer. (Saw where someone compared Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman singing together on “Right Back to It” to a “ragged-ass Gram and Emmylou” and I’m here for it.)

Manning’s Fireworks, MJ Lenderman. My boy crush of 2024. I love guitars, I love sly lyrics, and I love artists who are in on their own joke. So I love MJ Lenderman, and can’t wait to see him in person. The fact he is Katie Crutchfield adjacent (he plays on “Tigers Blood”) is a boon to both of them. Just sayin’. And I’m very hopeful about his next album. It’ll tell us a lot. I’m hopeful.

Woodland Studio, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. I could listen to “Empty Trainload of Sky” from here till the day I die and not get tired of it. I will die on the hill that “Revelator” is THE country album of the 21st Century. To my nieces and nephews who listen to and love Morgan Wallen, all I can say is, “Listen, people. Listen.” As Maya Angelou counsels, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.

Mahashmashana, Father John Misty. I’ve liked Josh Tillman for a long time, saw him at the Met in Philly when he and Jason Isbell co-headlined a tour before the pandemic, and his recent song “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All” says it all.

And his World Cafe interview.

Deeper Well, Kacey Musgraves. Loved her debut album Same Trailer Different Park (2013) and a fan since, Slow Burn was awesome, and this is another winner. She reminds me in some ways of Sheryl Crow in the sense that they both seem to have surrounded themselves and collaborate with really great songwriters. And both seem to be on a journey and finding their way, in a good way.

Honorable mention:

Small Changes, Michael Kiwanuka

Only God Was Above Us, Vampire Weekend

Cowboy Carter, Beyonce

Good Together, Lake Street Dive

Leon, Leon Bridges

The Great American Bar Scene, Zach Bryan