When I decided to do a music wrap up for 2024 that went beyond the Spotify Wrapped/Apple Music Replay (I'm a happy Apple Music user!), I decided to do a list of songs because I feel like it’s more approachable than offering a list of albums you have to play cover to cover, and there’s no way I would want to pick one album. I also picked 15 to give me some grace with my selections - this list could easily have been 24 or 25 songs, but more than 10 and less than 20 feels like the right amount.
I’m no professional music critic, musician or even particularly well-rounded on genre (comfort zones are alt rock, alt country, folk/singer-songwriter).  But, with all that being said, I’ve been meaning to get back to writing and I’ve actually tried to keep up with what was new this year, so this felt like a natural idea.
I set out a simple set of rules for myself:

My main influence in music discovery has been NPR Music (it feels wrong to not shout them out!), but a bunch of stuff from some old faves also popped up this year, along with songs from TV and movies.

I hope you’ll take a moment to listen to a few songs, and I hope you enjoy any one of them as much as I did this year! You can find the playlist versions on Spotify and Apple Music! The links throughout are Spotify links (I understand that that's where people are) to specific songs or albums.

The last bit of editorializing I’m going to do is say that the subtext across the majority of this list that I loved the lyrics first and foremost - I’m a lyrics person. I like poetry and storytelling and that’s the emphasis across the board.

Now, with all this preamble out of the way, without further ado, my top 15 songs of this year, starting at 15, and counting down!

I rounded out my list with Gracie Abrams, and specifically Close To You largely because it feels like a spiritual successor to a lot of Lorde’s earlier work. The hook in the chorus is just so catchy, and I think what draws me to this is the familiarity of some of the musical phrases. The biggest thing is it feels brighter than similar works by Lorde. It’s shiny and hopeful and the way Gracie sings about the excitement of a new crush or potential lover is infectious.

Okay, what can I say about this one? I wasn’t particularly familiar with Tipsy before I heard Shaboozey’s spin on it. But this song makes me want to two step and toss some shots back. 

It’s such a great bar anthem, and I feel like if I hear it in 5 years I’ll still be as stoked about it as I was this past year. It was virtually inescapable for a few months leading into summer, and it’s just so catchy! It’s also outside of my core comfort genres, but I think I’ve been trending toward more country and folk as the rest of the industry seems to have been this year.

I’m a sucker for the type of riff you find here on “Blacking Out”. The lyrics also feel relatable in maybe not a healthy way, but it made me feel something. Dedric captures the banalities of living - isolating after a breakup (presumably) and trying to find ways to numb the feeling, disinterested in doing so socially. It’s a great refrain for darker moments and did get a good number of plays from me this year. Specifically the verse: "You and I have always made our separate enemies / But we have all the same old friends / We always laugh that they would have to choose whose friend to be / If this whole thing ever ends" really hits the specific pain that comes from losing friends in a breakup.

The “eerie” (only word I can think to describe it) surf-rock-esque opening hook confused me at first, but it’s grown on me and hoo boy do they get into it in the lyrics. The gals have thrown together another great shoutable chorus about dating shitty people - nothing like a quick quip to turn around an insult - even if you’re also the shithead, shouting back “it takes one to know one” is cathartic, releasing and wonderful! 

I’m not the biggest Bartees Strange fan, but his voice really evokes some big emotions for me. And I tend to enjoy his more rock-adjacent songs. On his 2022 album “Farm To Table”, the song “Heavy Heart” really resonated with me. This song feels like a logical follow-up from “Heavy Heart” - and it feels like things are rockier than ever, and justifying both the substance use and the acknowledgment that you’ve screwed up feel like positive steps or an attempt to change, or at least that’s how I read it. I think a lot of people would relate to the feeling that it’s hard to be sober, and the understated way he delivers that line really feels like a gut punch sometimes.

If I had to make a list of my top songs that made me cry this year, this one takes and eats the whole cake (though there was competition for that spot!). Rachael Price delivers an absolutely devastating recounting of young love long lost, that will always remain a sweet memory into old age. I first heard this on an episode of NPR’s “All Songs Considered” while I was sick in the summer. I was going for a ‘mental health walk’ and this came on. As this song was playing, I started weeping as I walked through a random neighbourhood in Toronto. I had to stop and re-listen a few times. Dreaming of the compromises you’d envisioned when so young, and the things irrevocably tied to their memory are astute musings that hit hard. “I will always be in love with how you loved me/ when we were twenty-five” is just such a good line. This didn’t make my heavy rotation for long, just because it makes me so emotional, and why it’s only at number 10.

I really like Valley - their sparkly brand of indie-pop just always plays so nicely. Their album “Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden” was full of some great bops. I think this maybe should’ve been the radio hit, though I understand why “Bass Player’s Brother” got the airtime. This song, while sad, about falling away from a friend and partner has such a good rhythm and a hooky little chorus that I had this (and a few other tracks from the album) on repeat for a few weeks. I also love the line “from strangers to friends, to strangers again/ I knew from the start this is how it would end”.

I’ve become a bit of a sucker for a twangy guitar line. I also feel this one resonated particularly strongly for me because I turned 30 this year, and have been feeling this self-improvement kick, and have been watching friends do similar. It speaks to where I feel like I am, as well as many of my friends. “A new mantra every other week” sums it up perfectly.

“Brat” was undeniably the album of the summer, and I wasn’t immune to its charms. I really couldn’t decide which song I wanted to highlight here, between my three favourites: “360”, “365”, and “I think about it all the time”. To me, the juxtaposition between “360”, “I think about it all the time”, and “365” (which reads as a reprise of 360) really spoke to how I’ve been feeling - questioning my priorities and progress in life, but just saying fuck it, and having fun. I picked 360 mostly because I like the lyrics coupled with that infectious beat. I love how she’s telling us that she doesn’t care what we think (though that isn’t likely the whole story), and that we should all probably be a little less self-conscious.

Okay, I was admittedly late to the Cassandra Jenkins album this year, but the whole album has been on repeat for about 3 weeks now. The whole album (“My Light, My Destroyer”) is weird and spectacular. I could’ve picked nearly any of the songs from this album. I just think this one is so sweet and beautiful. This song also gives the album its namesake from the chorus: “My Lover, My Light, My Destroyer”

The whole album is worth your time.

I could’ve picked any song off of “Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now”. (Other standouts include “Back For The Funeral” and “Living Well”; for a happier track, see “When Our Friends Come Over”) The whole album is a masterpiece of songwriting. Woods weaves beautiful and relatable tales throughout. I picked “It’s Been Like That For A While” specifically because of how relatable the storytelling feels for me, having grown up in southern Ontario. I can’t count the number of times I’ve visited Buffalo in my life, crossing the Peace Bridge. Beyond that, the little “O Canada” trill also tickles something in me. The story of a relationship that feels on the rocks, that’s been that way for a while, also lands with such a resounding thud in my psyche.

This is another album that warrants a full listen.

I first heard about Wild Pink from NPR's All Songs Considered in 2021, when they shared  a song with what is possibly my favourite song title of all time: “Oversharers Anonymous”. I also spent a lot of time with that 2021 album, “A Billion Little Lights”, this year (and highly recommend you listen to). This song is my favourite off their album “Dulling the Horns” from this year. John Ross has built a chunkier, more distorted sound over this album, without losing that beautiful twang that accompanied his earlier work. The lyricism remains steadfast as ever, and the poetry of Ross’ work isn’t lost on me, even if sometimes it’s hard to make it out over the guitars. He asks important questions like “how long can you phone it?” on “The Fences of Stonehenge”, and it found a place in my heavy rotation this year.

I think Katie Crutchfield has found the magic formula on this song. The lilting backing banjo line throughout, the twee guitar twang underneath her haunting and beautiful vocals, and MJ Lenderman offering backing vocals through the chorus all combine to put together a song that I kept coming right back to this year (ha!). 

Anybody who can toss a word like reticent so seamlessly into the lyrics has a hold on me. The vulnerability she lays out here is lovely and relatable, singing about the challenge of opening yourself up to a partner ("laying out eggshells") who is (presumably) emotionally available and supportive of you, whose "love is written on a blank cheque". The challenge is in fighting your worst instincts, and finding a way back to trusting that you're secure in love. I often catch myself singing along idly when it comes on, because it's so dang catchy!

In terms of artists who made me cry this year, Katie Gavin tops the list (if only because “Twenty-Five” was the only Lake Street Dive song that got the tears flowing this year). Her album “What A Relief” was a masterclass in songwriting. Something on the album is nearly guaranteed to make you cry. Picking one song off this one was tricky (my other standouts are “Casual Drug Use” (very relatable, less sad), “Sweet Abby Girl” (brutally sad, about losing a pet) and “Keep Walking”(hopeful, wistful, lovely)). I think it had to be “Inconsolable” though. The fiddle provides a perfect backdrop for Gavin’s recounting of the challenges of opening up to partners when you don’t have a good framework for that from your upbringing. It’s hopeful though, as she looks to the lizards, who never get taught to run in the river but intrinsically understand, and sings “if we keep going by the feeling, we can get by”. I had the fortune to see Katie live earlier in December, and hearing the whole room sing "we're from a long line of people we'd describe as inconsolable, we don't know how to be helped" was a deeply moving experience. Strongly encourage you give this whole album a listen.

I think if I was doing an albums list, I’d probably give the number one spot to the final Japandroids album. “Fate and Alcohol” was everything I hoped it would be when I saw it announced in the summer. It was everything I could’ve asked for in a send-off from a band that has been an important part of my life since I first heard “Celebration Rock” more than a decade ago.

Japandroids have this weird ability to release albums that fit so perfect into my experience at the moment they come out. They’ve continued this tradition with their latest. We find Brian King walking the streets of Toronto on a cold December day off the top of the album (“Eye Contact High”) and chasing the feelings of lost and newfound love (or even an eye-contact crush in passing) across the album.

I could’ve picked any track off this album (seriously, they’re all great! Another standout: “D&T”), and this certainly wasn’t the song on the album that got the most plays from me this year (“Chicago” takes that honour), but I think it has to be “Upon Sober Reflection”. King sings about the experience of unrequited love and does so in a way that deeply resonates for me. He finds himself asking “am I ten years too early/ [or] ten years too late?” which is something I’ve certainly felt at times!

The pre-chorus rolls to a stop right before the anthemic chorus rises up with him singing “don’t wanna know if you love me / if you ain’t gonna do something about it” - a cry out to resolve the ambiguity he's feeling.
From there, as the chorus fades down, the guitar swells with the typical Japandroids speed and flair into this spectacular bridge where he asks “how can someone so careful with their touch / at the same time be so careless with their love?" as the drums kick in. 

The peaks and troughs of how this song progresses has helped it find a spot in my running playlist interestingly and I find myself wanting to shout along whenever it comes on.

I’ll miss getting new releases from Japandroids every few years, especially because they’ve provided such good markers of different periods of my adult life. But if this is their send-off, I think I can live with that. This is another album (where if it’s your sort of thing) that you should listen to cover to cover.

To wrap up, I want to say that 2024 was a great year for music! There was so much more that I could’ve added to this list. For more new music from 2024: everything that I liked that I heard that was released this year is in two playlists, one for each half of the year! (First half here: [Spotify][Apple Music], second half here: [Spotify][Apple Music]) These are more comprehensive lists, often with multiple tracks from the same artist, as I picked the highlights from their albums that I kept on heavy rotation.

Thanks for reading! Once again, you can find the whole top 15 playlist on Spotify and Apple Music!