To make some extra room on my favorite songs list from yesterday, i removed all the cover songs. And now i'm posting them today. While outdoing an original can be a nearly impossible feat, though it's been done a few times, these artists certainly give it a go. And i love them for that.
Andy Bell (featuring Dot Allison and Michael Rother) - "I'm in Love... (Justin Robertson's Deadstock 33s Remix)"
A whole lot of people, including Ride's Andy Bell, singer/songwriter Dot Allison, Neu!'s Michael Rother and producer Justin Robertson come together for this excellent version of The Passions' "I'm in Love with a German Film Star."
Deary - "No Ordinary Love"
Shoegazy London duo Deary have been one of my favorite acts of the last couple years and this year, they made Sade's "No Ordinary Love" their own,
My Transparent Eye - "Candy Says"
Anyone who likes The Velvet Underground is okay in my book, so kudos to New York's My Transparent Eye.
Cody Blanchard - "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement"
Shannon and The Clams member Cody Blanchard provided the B-Side to a posthumous Jay Reatard 7" released earlier this year. He takes a Ramones classic and turns it into something haunting and uniquely his own.
SUSS - "This Land Is Your Land"
New York ambient country and Americana band SUSS essentially provided a soundtrack for the appalling state of things back in January with an absolutely devastating instrumental rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." It nails the mood completely.
And on that somber note, tune in again tomorrow for some of my favorite songs of 2025 that did not come out in 2025, though for some reason or another i just now heard for the first time in 2025.
Oh good, you're back. It was actually kind of hard to limit myself to just 100 songs this year, though i don't believe i have an actual favorite this time around. But i listened to the shit out of these all year long. As per usual, these are in no particular order. Can you imagine trying to rank 100 songs? I mean, what's really the difference between #96 and #97? Let's get real here. Anyway, check out the list below and listen to a handful of them now.
1. Black Lips - "Satan (I'm Tired of You)"
2. Maruja - "Look Down on Us"
3. Dean Blunt & Elias Ronnenfelt - "1"
4. Ozean - "Streets of Chrome"
5. Whirr - "Enjoy Everything"
6. Dean Wareham - "You Were the One I Had to Betray"
Along with the scores of new artists and new music that floods my speakers, every year also brings me a slew of discoveries, older tunes that are new to these ears and cement themselves to my psyche just as much as any instantly pre-ordered new jam. This year brought me some old Middle Eastern film score music, some avant garde jazz from Texas, '70s folk that i only previously knew from samples, a spoken word oddity with folk and drone made by a witch, some early new wave from San Francisco, an old French chanson artist rediscovering himself through synth pop and jazz in Japan, old school funk and soul, some private press power pop years ahead of its time, an experimental mix of electronic music, post-punk, new-wave, and jazz, and piano demo from an '80s proto-emo band. You know, the good stuff.
I can't imagine 2024 without these tracks blasting aside the new stuff, so check 'em out below.
1. Ahmed Malek - "Theme Djalti"
2. Hannibal Marvin Peterson & The Sunrise Orchestra - "The Bombing"
3. Bonnie Dobson - "Light of Love"
4. Barbara, The Gray Witch - "Witch's Love Song"
5. Units - "I-Night"
6. Pierre Barouh - "Les Uns et Les Autres"
7. Bobby Womack - "Across 110th Street"
8. The Bob Hughes Band - "You Broke My Heart"
9. Peter Gordon and Love of Life Orchestra - "Young Girls"
10. The Hated - "Words Come Back (Piano Demo)"
I'll be back tomorrow, and you should be too for my favorite old movie discoveries of 2024.
It was actually kind of difficult to limit myself to just 100 songs this year. We really did get a lot of amazing work from a lot of amazing artists in 2024. Let's keep up that pace for 2025. We're gonna need it.
Anyway, i'm just jotting these down at random, as i wrote them down in my notebook in the first place, except for number one. I love everything on this post, but nothing hit me quite the way that Fat Dog's "King of the Slugs" hit me this year. It's my favorite. Check out the whole list, and few tunes, below, my favorite 100 songs of 2024.
1. Fat Dog - "King of the Slugs"
2. The Smile - "Bending Hectic"
3. Justice w/ Tame Impala - "Neverender"
4. Grandaddy - "You're Going to Be Fine and I'm Going to Hell"
5. Flowertown - "00"
6. Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu, & Marta Sofia Honer - "Ten Hour Wave"
7. Dead Bandit - "Circus"
8. Slow Salvation - "Japan"
9. Mark Peters - "Cinder Flower"
10. The Hologram People - "Isola Dei Morti Viventi (Main Theme)"
11. Sam Morton - "Cry Without End"
12. Zetra - "Holy Malice (Annabel)"
13. Sarita Idalia - "Spirit Ditch"
14. Chelsea Wolfe - "House of Self-Undoing"
15. Near Beer - "Al Pacino"
16. Akira Galaxy - "What's Inside You"
17. Gwendoline - "Conspire"
18. Joyer - "Silver Moon"
19. Lip Critic - "It's the Magic"
20. IDLES - "Pop Pop Pop"
21. Pink Milk - "You Will Follow Me to Hell (Night on Earth)"
22. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis - "Emergence"
23. Girls in Synthesis - "Lights Out"
24. Daisy Rickman - "Feed the Forest"
25. Winged Wheel - "Sleeptraining"
26. Meatbodies - "Hole"
27. Orcas - "Under the Milky Way"
28. Winter - "Sallow"
29. Babyrose & BADBADNOTGOOD - "Weakness"
30. Honey Radar - "Combat Paper"
31. Thom Yorke - "Knife Edge"
32. Overmono & The Streets - "Turn the Page"
33. Beings - "Happy to Be"
34. Dawn Chorus & The Infallible Sea - "Reveries"
35. Xeno & Oaklander - "Magic of the Manifold"
36. The Garrys - "Cakewalk"
37. Belong - "Souvenir"
38. Bill Baird - "Invisible"
39. TR/ST - "Soon"
40. Jessica Pratt - "Life Is"
41. Magdalena Bay - "Death and Romance"
42. Midwife - "Killdozer"
43. Beak> - "Strawberry Line"
44. Robert Ashcroft w/ Ruth Radelet - "Faded Photograph"
45. The Drin - "Tigers Cage"
46. Tupperwave - "My Lucky Stars"
47. Tristwch Y Fenywod - "Ferch Gyda'r Llygaid Du"
48. R. Missing - "The Down that Creeps"
49. KITE with/ Anna Von Hausswolff & Henric De La Cour - "Losing"
50. Previous Industries - "Dominick's"
51. Sleepwalk - "Lucky to Be"
52. Mica Levi - "Slob Air"
53. STOMP TALK MODSTONE - "Purple from Love"
54. Flesh of Morning - "The Devil in Me"
55. Fontaines D.C. - "Starburster"
56. Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan - "A Shared Sense of Purpose"
57. The Gabys - "Cursed"
58. Cold Cave - "Hourglass"
59. Wand - "Hangman"
60. Cindy Lee - "Kingdom Come"
61. Animal Piss, It's Everywhere - "Beach Song"
62. Washed Out - "The Hardest Part"
63. The Body - "End of Line"
64. Hatchie - "Eyes Without a Face"
65. White Shape - "Knives Down"
66. The Submissives - "Obsessed"
67. Anthony Green - "Megadeath"
68. Raudiver - "Leave"
69. Wussy Duo - "Cellar Door"
70. Clinic Stars - "Only Hinting"
71. Cassie Ramone - "Together"
72. Inner Magic - "Discovery"
73. The Serfs - "Regen"
74. Ideal Living - "Loving and Still"
75. Art d'Ecco - "Serene Demon"
76. Mount Eerie - "I Walk"
77. Paten Locke - "Canseco"
78. HEALTH - "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)"
79. Sadplanet - "Walk"
80. Broadcast - "Follow the Light"
81. L'Eclair w/ Klaus Johann Grobe - "Lotus"
82. Sons of Zoku - "Nu Poeme"
83. Kompromat - "I Let Myself Go Blind"
84. Deary - "Aurelia"
85. Pounds 448 & Bohemia Lynch - "Power Grid"
86. Sunshy - "Stop Saying How You've Been"
87. Trophy Grief - "Everything Ends"
88. Beth Gibbons - "Floating on a Moment"
89. Fine - "Losing Tennessee"
90. The Olivia Tremor Control - "The Same Place"
91. Boyhood - "Shells"
92. Knifeplay - "Spirit Echo"
93. Disarme - "Change"
94. Soaring - "Sun"
95. Minuit Machine - "Hold Me"
96. Ka - "Tested Testimony"
97. Kendrick Lamar - "Not Like Us"
98. The Mellons - "Tell Me Why"
99. The Odd Pattern - "Letarg"
100. The Cure - "Endsong"
And one to grow on...
101. The Moment of Nightfall and Tony Jay - "Kori no Mori (Ice Forest)"
As per usual, i'm certainly leaving something off. Be back here tomorrow for my favorite old song discoveries of the year.
I really do love finding old music that knocks my socks off. That rush that comes from discovering some dusty, old nugget is one of the best things about being a music collector. And this year proved fruitful as always, giving me a dreamy '90s Japanese mix of psych folk, space rock, and shoegaze (probably my favorite thing i heard all year, new or old), UK psych organs, old soul, German psychedelic fusion, more psych rock, space rock, Canadian proto-punk, 80's synth pop, disco, and a Depeche Mode side project that for some reason i never paid attention to before. Check it out below.
1. Shizuka - Plan for Solitude
2. Arzachel - Queen St. Gang
3. Lee Moses - What You Don't Want Me To Be
4. The Motherhood - Soul Town
5. Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera - Dream Starts
6. Dunebug - Speeed
7. Simply Saucer - Bullet Proof Nothing
8. Escape from New York - Save Our Love
9. Tommy Seebach - Bubble Sex
10. Recoil - Bloodline
And there you go. Tune in tomorrow for some first-time movie watches for me from this year.
I don't think i have a favorite song for the year. Rather, i guess i have 50. So here are 50 songs from 2023 that the year would have sucked without. Check 'em out.
1. The Lost Days - Outro
2. Deary - Fairground
3. Algiers - I Can't Stand It
4. FVNERALS - For Horror Eats the Light
5. Frank Ene - I Always Meant to Do You Harm
6. M83 - Laura
7. Kosaya Gora - Te Slova
8. Allison Lorenzen & Midwife - Glycerine
9. Bono / Burattini - Trick or Chess
10. Harp - I Am the Seed
11. DAIISTAR - Tracemaker
12. Angel Olsen - Nothing's Free
13. Waste Man - White Horse
14. Troller - Gore
15. Bodywash - No Repair
16. Vanity Mirror - Tuesday's News
17. The Waeve - Kill Me Again
18. The Lemon Twigs - What Happens to a Heart
19. Dorotheo - Las Nubes
20. Sofie Royer - Mio
21. Ty Segall - Void
22. Kite - Remember Me
23. White Beast - Fencewalker
24. Estrella del Sol - Figura de Cristal
25. Animal Piss, It's Everywhere - Dream of No Alarm
26. Slowdive - Chained to a Cloud
27. Drab Majesty - Vanity
28. Mammatus - Expanding Majesty
29. Mandy, Indiana - Sensitivity Training
30. Model/Actriz - Mosquito
31. Portrayal of Guilt - I (One Last Taste of Heaven)
32. Tombstones in Their Eyes - We Are Gold
33. Mondo Drag - Passages
34. Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan - A Fresh Dawn for North Cheshire
35. Full of Hell & Nothing - Spend the Grace
36. Large Plants - Tendril
37. Retep Folo & Dorothy Moskowitz - The Awakening of Love in the Spring
38. Forever Pavot - Les Amants
39. Sexores - Magallanes
40. JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - Scaring the Hoes
41. Melody Fields - Jesus
42. Arianne Churchman - The Luminous
43. Body / Negative - Everett
44. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Face Time
45. Depeche Mode - My Cosmos Is Mine
46. Wurld Series - Alive with Flies
47. Jay Royale - The Wise and Lakid
48. Sunlotus - Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me
49. Adam Miller - Everybody's Been Burned
50. Sprain - Margin for Error
Be back tomorrow for 10 older songs i got into this year.
Hey you! Here are 100 songs i really loved this year in no particular order whatsoever. Except for number one. I think that one's my favorite. Anyway, without further ado...
1. Mapache - "I Love My Dog"
2. Burial - "Strange Neighbourhood"
3. Father John Misty - "Funny Girl"
4. Vibrations of the Sun - "Web of Wire"
5. Mutterlein - "Mother of Wrath"
6. YGGl - "Imagine"
7. Winged Wheel - "Monsella"
8. MWWB - "The Harvest"
9. Project Lazarus -"Прощай Земля"
10. The Lazy Eyes - "Fuzz Jam"
11. Alabaster dePlume - "The Sound of My Feet on This Earth Is a Song to Your Spirit"
12. The Golden Filter - "Drive"
13. Shamir - "Cisgender"
14. Alto Arc - "The Model Gospel"
15. Robert Stillman - "Cherry Ocean"
16. Domotic - "Conclusive"
17. Pneumatic Tubes - "Magic Meadow"
18. VOWWS - "One by One"
19. Just Mustard - "Still"
20. Zeal & Ardor - "Hold Your Head Low"
21. Enumclaw - "2002"
22. SAVAK - "Recanted (Free the Singer)"
23. Whitney K - "While Digging Through the Snow"
24. Project Gemini - "June"
25. Horsegirl - "Anti-Glory"
26. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - "The Dripping Tap"
27. Chelsea Wolfe - "Oui Oui Marie"
28. ixi w/ Ane Croft - "As Within So Without"
29. Listening Center - "Memoire"
30. Thom Yorke - "5.17"
31. Plato III - "Sorry if I Dissed You"
32. Zola Jesus - "Lost"
33. The Smile - "The Same"
34. Sound of Ceres - "Arm of Golden Flame"
35. Wah Together - "Teen Vito"
36. Cosmo Vitelli - "High Blood Pressure"
37. Kelly Lee Owens - "Sonic 8"
38. Los Lucha - "Slowly Clean"
39. Crime of Passing - "Vision Talk"
40. Devil Master - "Acid Black Mass"
41. Stomp Talk Modstone - "I'll Believe"
42. Teen Suicide - "Coyote (2015-2021)"
43. Final Light - "In the Void"
44. HTRK - "Valentina (Cali Hwy Version)"
45. Ghost Funk Orchestra w/ Zitronen - "Bedford"
46. Zombi & Friends - "Sirius / Eye in the Sky"
47. Revelators Sound System - "George the Revelator"
48. Kikagaku Moyo - "Monaka"
49. Sacred Skin - "Far Away"
50. Braxe + Falcon w/ Panda Bear - "Step by Step"
51. Conway the Machine - "It's a Green Light"
52. Sven Wunder - "Sun-Kissed"
53. Unloved - "Thinkin About Her"
54. Communicant - "La Roue"
55. Eerie Wanda - "Sail to the Silver Sun"
56. Omerta - "Amour Fou"
57. Julia, Julia - "Do It or Don't"
58. Kutiman w/ Dekel - "My Everything"
59. Lalalar - "Hata Benim Gobek Adim"
60. Billy Woods - "Asylum"
61. SOUL GLO w/ McKinley Dixon & Lojii - "Spiritual Level of Gang Shit"
62. Danger Mouse & Black Thought - "No Gold Teeth"
63. Sam Gendel & Antonia Cytrynowicz - "Something Real"
64. Infinity Knives & Brian Ennals - "A Melancholy Boogie"
65. Principles of Geometry - "Jeopardy"
66. Girls in Synthesis - "Watch with Mother"
67. Winter w/ Hatchie - "Atonement"
68. The Gabys - "The End of Love"
69. THROTH - "Letterman Is a Liar"
70. Szun Waves - "Exploding Upwards"
71. Misha Panfilov - "Waves"
72. METZ w/ Joe Talbot - "Come on Down"
73. Boy Harsher - "Burn It Down - Rework"
74. The Hologram People - "Kommune"
75. Magdalena Bay - "All You Do"
76. Algiers w/ Billy Woods & Backxwash - "Bite Back"
77. Dark Canyon - "Taste of Honey"
78. Mark Peters w/ Dot Allison - "Switch on the Sky"
79. NCY Milky Band - "Le Cascadeur Fleuriste, Pt. II"
80. The Mellons - "So Much to Say"
81. Sault - "Heal the World"
82. EggS - "How It Was Before"
83. Roy Montgomery - "Aura of the Afterlife 1"
84. Gift - "Feather"
85. Men I Trust - "Girl"
86. Malibu - "So Far Out of Love"
87. Tai Chi Tommy - "Nightmares"
88. Old Fire w/ Bill Callahan - "Don't You Go"
89. Backxwash w/ Morgan-Paige & Michael Go - "VIBANDA"
90. CS + Kreme w/ Bridget St John - "Would You Like a Vampire"
91. Pink Milk - "River of Glass"
92. Melanie - "Paris"
93. Fucked Up - "Strix"
94. Molly Lewis - "Miracle Fruit"
95. Gloria de Oliveira & Dean Hurley - "All Flowers in Time"
96. EABS - "Lucifer (The New Sun)"
97. Animal Ghosts - "Stellar"
98. Death Parade - "Somewhere to Stay"
99. Zetra - "Call of the Void"
100. Beach House - "Superstar"
I'm sure i have forgotten something. Be back tomorrow for a mess of old songs i discovered this year.
