The Best of 2024

I really shouldn't call it the "Best of". Maybe "My Favorites of 2024" would be better. I've looked at the lists on most of the major music publications, and there's a lot that I haven't heard. I actually got through Charli XCX's Brat, and Beyonce's Cowboy Carter (Beyonce was mildly entertaining). I couldn't make it through Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet. Hey, I don't really like music that is manufactured rather than performed, so there's that. I did appreciate a few songs from contemporary popular artists on a stroll through The Best Songs of 2024 from a mainstream publication, but not enough to run out and buy or bookmark anything. So, here's the one's I liked a lot this year:

The Lemon Twigs A Dream Is All We Know

New York's finest power-poppers come through in spades. Beatles, Beach Boys, Byrds, Raspberries, they do it all and make it sound fresh and new.

Fantastic Cat Now That's What I Call Fantastic Cat

An indie rock "super group" of singer songwriter multi-instrumentalists makes a rollicking fun record with a positive attitude. Only slightly more rocking than power-pop, think Rockpile, Cheap Trick and a touch of Americana.

The Weeklings Raspberry Park

This one forms a great power-pop triumvirate with the two previous. Weeklings have made their mark as a Beatles cover band, and a really good one. The originals are all solid pop/rock. Super covers of She's Leaving Home and I've Just Seen A Face, and a mash-up of Satisfaction and Mr. Soul that is brilliant.

Nick Lowe Indoor Safari

Not really a new record, but a collection of singles and EPs from the last ten years or so, all done with Los Straightjackets. It's nice to have it all in one place, and they have really become a great band together. The excellent Trombone and Don't Be Nice To Me are standouts, but it's all solid Nick Lowe after ten years since his last LP. 

Bill Charlap Trio And Then Again

Just one great jazz trio doing standards. But with Charlap and his talented sidemen, it is inventive and spontaneous jazz with what Downbeat magazine calls "seamless interaction and extrasensory communication". Great jazz.

Jenny Scheinman All Species Parade

Scheinman has been making interestingly unique jazz for quite a while, and almost all of it is easy to approach and yet challenging in it's own way. Featuring a cast of greats that Scheinmen has worked with before, everything comes out very fine. The sound of a mature artist with ideas to spare.

The Palomar Trio The Song In Our Soul

Hearkening back to the early swing jazz of the 1920s and 1930s, and featuring songs from that era, this record is just a joy. Tap your foot, sway in your chair, and smile, smile smile. 

Louis Cole nothing

Jazz fusion/pop/funk/ electronic/orchestral music. When have you heard that combination before? Louis Cole teams up with the Metropole Orkest jazz orchestra to produce a great record that is a genre to itself.

Continental Drifters White Noise & Lightening: The Best of Continental Drifters

A "best of" from a band that last recorded in 2001. I really loved everything they did (all four records). One of my favorite neglected bands of all time.

Shelby Lynn Consequences of the Crown

We've been waiting for twenty years for I Am Shelby Lynn #2. This isn't quite that, but it is closer than she's ever come, and one heck of a great record. 

St. Vincent All Born Screaming

Another solid outing from Ms. Clark, with great songs, killer vocals, and scary aggression. What can't this woman do with a guitar? 

Vampire Weekend Only God Was Above Us

The smartest indie rock band around gives us a great one, the best since Contra. If you were a little disappointed with Father of the Bride, they are back in spades.

Willis, Carper, Leigh Wonder Women of Country

A six-song EP that lives up to the title. Everything's good, and there's two new ones from Kelly Willis' pen. Carper and Leigh hold up their end of the bargain just fine.

Lance Cowen So Far, So Good

A respected Nashville publicist makes his first record in his sixties. A little bit like a new Guy Clark album sometimes, and of course that is high praise. He can sound a bit like John Denver, and he can get a little twee, but there are lots of great songs and beautifully recorded acoustic instrumentation.

Wings Band On The Run (Underdubbed Mixes)

Often considered McCartney's best Wings/solo effort, it sounds even better stripped of the orchestration. The live-in-the-studio One Hand Clapping from the same time period is big fun too.

John Leventhal Rumble Strip

After producing a gazillion great records, Leventhal steps out on his own. Gentle, lovely, mostly instrumental acoustic gems with two vocals by wife Rosanne Cash. Relax and listen to some darn good music. 

Mark Knopfler One Deep River

Craftsmanship. Since 1996, Knopfler has made one subtly great record after another. Yes, he's a wonderful guitarist, but he's also an equally gifted songwriter, and his singing has a heartfelt and well-worn comfort to it. You can get just over Dire Straits by now. 

Continental Drifters

One of my favorite nineties bands has been busy with the back catalog lately, and it's great news for fans. The band made four studio records between 1994 and 2001. The eponymous debut 1994, Vermillion 1998, Better Day 2001, and the German market release Listen, Listen 2001, a tribute to Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny. In 2003, they released Nineteen Ninety-Three, recorded in the title year before Vickie Peterson and Susan Cowsill joined. 

In 2015 came Drifted: In The Beginning and Beyond, a two CD set that re-released the Nineteen Ninety-Three material, the entirety of Listen, Listen (both of which were out of print), and a slew of demos, rarities, live tracks, and one-offs done for tribute records. The earliest recordings (1993) are good but are not quite as exciting as their main releases. The Listen, Listen material is essential listening. The rest of the various material is solid and nice to have collected. The set is a must for fans of this excellent band. 

Continental Drifters Live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2023 documents a recent reunion set that samples most of the catalog and the band sounds great. The recording is good, but maybe not great, probably from the soundboard. They're having lots of fun and it is a hot set.

And now in 2024 comes White Noise & Lightening The Best of the Continental Drifters. It's a well-curated single CD (or vinyl LP) that shows off most of their ample talents and top notch songcraft. In the annals of wonderful bands woefully neglected, Continental Drifters are near the top of the list. If you've never heard them, the recent Best Of is the place to start. If you loved the band and didn't catch the Drifted release, it is well worth your time and money.

Continental Drifters Continental Drifters 1994

The Continental Drifters were a fabulous band that made multiple great recordings that somehow went largely unnoticed. There's no logical reason for it. They had several fine songwriters, three or four lead singers, former members of The Cowsills, The dbs, Dream Syndicate, and The Bangles, and a rich blend of rootsy Americana, New Orleans swamp rock, and intelligent pop songcraft.

This is their debut (an earlier 1993 recording wasn't released until 2003, and that was a different line-up), and it's shockingly good for the first time out. With five different band members writing songs, you get their best work, plus some very well selected covers.

They do Gram Parson's Song For You, Michael Nesmith's Some Of Shelly's Blues, The Box Top's Soul Deep (a great choice, and a perfect version), and Goffin-King's (and Dusty Springfield's) I Can't Make It Alone. It's a brilliantly esoteric mix, and they put a unique stamp on every one of them. The originals are all top quality, too.

Susan Cowsill and Vicki Peterson are an interestingly rough mix, and Cowsill is especially expressive in an raw, edgy, angry way that cuts right to the bone. Peter Holsapple and Carlo Nuccio are both good singers and songwriters. The band is all so talented and they work so well together, it had to be a huge hit. But of course it wasn't.

The band went on to make two more near-perfect studio records, Vermilion 1999, and Better Day 2001, and a Sandy Denny/Richard Thompson tribute called Listen, Listen (and you should), also in 2001, on the German Blue Rose label, that apparently is something of a collectable, gauging by the outlandish used CD prices.

I like them all, but none more than this debut.