Hey there, if you're listening to this and you support us on Patreon, you can hear it via the Patreon page and free. You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week we share our best albums of 2024. I'm Jim DeRogatis. And I'm Greg Cott. We'll also hear some selections from our production staff. In a minute, Jim's going to kick us off. Lights are going up. Snow is falling down. There's a feeling of goodwill around town. It could only mean one thing. McRib is here.
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Thank you, Mr. Cott. Before I begin, the annual spiel about how we rank our favorite albums of the year, what that superlative best means to us, criticism is entirely subjective. These are the albums that we enjoyed most listening to for the past 12 months. All right, granted, we're recording this late November. I'm actually going to start with one, though, that caused more cultural conversation than any record I can recall, maybe ever. I am, of course, talking about...
Queen Bee's turn toward country music, okay? Wow, everybody had a think piece about what Cowboy Carter meant. As I said when we reviewed it, the word I didn't read nearly enough among the hundreds of thousands of words of... of cultural significance was fun. What a great pop album Beyonce gave us. Sprawling audience.
Audacious is the only word for it, right? Not because we had the reigning black diva of the pop music world venturing in the country. I mean, she grew up in Texas, okay? You know, she knows country music. She knows its history. We talked when we reviewed it about that track that pays homage to Linda Martel, you know, Forgotten. great black artist who put out a killer country album in 1970. And then you have Beyonce.
cashing in, not even cashing in, everybody would, who wouldn't want to be on a Beyonce record? We have everyone from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson to Shabuzi and Miley Cyrus happy to chime in. these songs that, yes, many of them have the standard country tropes. Many of them are pointing out that black musicians contributed as much to country as any other genre in American music. all of this but we have a pop sensibility and Beyonce having
Just a great, fun time recording. Do you still listen to this album? Every time I go back to it, it grows for me. It's a very good pop record. There's no doubt about it. And the one thing I like about it is that it works as an album. Yeah. It does. I think there was a disservice done to this record in terms of the narrative. Oh, it's a country record, but it's not really a country record. No, it's a Beyonce record that has some country influences on it.
It's a Beyonce record about the state of America, and that is one thing that some of the cultural commentary got right. But I'm going to play a track that's just pure fun. This is Levi's Jeans. Boy, I'll let you be my Levi's Jeans. so you can hug that rear end all day long. How can you not like Beyonce throwing that out? This is Beyonce from Cowboy Carter. to bring it on. No, you wish you had my Levi jeans when you're popping out your phone.
Levi's Jeans by Beyonce. That's actually my number 11 album of the year, Greg. We're going to get seven picks each. We're going to talk about our whole list later in the show. We'll post them on the web. But I think the first one you're going to actually talk about. is what number eight number eight for you number eight and another album as an album i love artists who are still thinking in terms of the album and tyler the creator has actually been a really strong example of that
decade. We never could have predicted that in the early days of Odd Future. We thought it was kind of a, you know, a trend-hopping kind of, you know, transgressive for the sake of being transgressive type of little outfit and it's obviously... you know far exceeded those expectations. Tyler first and foremost. Chromacopia is an example of a terrific record basically where he's looking back at his childhood and it is quite a difficult listen in some ways because
He's extremely vulnerable on this record. I also love the fact that not only is he talking about his young life growing up in Hawthorne and Inglewood in California, outside of L.A., Tough neighborhood, but the strength of his mother, who is the... The narrative thread in this record is Benita Smith, his mom. And a voice on the record. As well as many other female artists on this record as well in terms of representing their viewpoint. Many of these songs are written from a female perspective.
So the density of the arrangements, he's a great producer, a lot of textures, three-dimensional type of sound. You put it on the phones, and there's all sorts of stuff happening in the foreground and in the background that brings you in. into this world. I love the way he's sort of addressing the idea of coming to grips of growing up without a father and whether he can be a good father someday, grappling with that idea. So there's a lot of stuff in here that is worth...
mulling over. And this track, I think, exemplifies that, Take the Mask Off, about his idea of, you know, I'm scared to be a parent, you know, but I got to take the mask off. And, you know, what am I really scared of? So an example of how... deep he's digging on this record. Take the mask off from Chromacopia, the new Tyler the Creator record.
Now Cubs getting validation from the dumb and confused. Now you're facing 5 to 10 because you have something to prove. Let's talk about it. I hope you find yourself. I hope you find yourself. That's my number eight record, Chromacopia, Tyler, the Creator. Yeah, a great album, Greg, and it came in on my list at number 10. We are now going to turn to our Columbia College intern. It seems to slight him to call him that. He's been a fantastic producer on the show, Max Hatlam. All right, Max.
What's the album you listen to most in 2024? Well, the album I listen to the most is an album by an artist named Chelsea Wolfe, and it's called She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She. I love that title. Right, yeah. It's been my favorite album almost the entire year. It came out in February.
And it's been a great year for music. I've heard a lot of stuff I like, but nothing managed to unseat this. This is kind of PJ Harvey meets Diamanda Galas. Wow. Oh. Wow, I'm not familiar with either of those names. those are so 90s we're getting old greg kind of like what do you love about it what do you love about it everything i love everything about it i love that She just has this kind of, like, gothic overtone to all the stuff.
that she's done and she's done a lot of different stuff it's like she started off doing like lo-fi garage rock type albums then drifted into electronic territory then made some heavier like doom type stuff Apparently these started off in more like the Doom territory. And then when she started working with this producer named Dave Siddick, it turned into this electronic, heavily... trip-hop influenced, industrial influenced.
album. And she has said that that transformation felt very appropriate to her because she was also going through a very personal transformation of getting sober while she was making this album. which I think is really cool that that's kind of like reflecting the change she made in her life. Well, it's definitely good stuff, Max. It's excellent stuff. But, you know, Junior, do listen to P.J. Harvey and Diamanda Colossus.
What are you going to play? I'm going to play the song Tunnel Lights. It's, I think, the second single that she released off the album. And it just perfectly nails that blend of trip-hop and industrial music for me. Tunnel Lights by Chelsea Wolfe. What a great recommendation by Max. Very good. Okay, it's my turn, Greg. I am going to go with the number nine album on my list, Shellac to All Trains.
Obviously, we suffered the loss of Steve Albini earlier this year. We did a bonus podcast and we covered the news on the radio show. It just exploded. I think that there was such love, respect, admiration. sometimes enmity, for Mr. Albini over what he accomplished in the last four decades of indie rock. I think, you know, the sound of three brothers, really. Albini... Bob Weston on bass and Todd Trainor on drums. You know, you can hear in this harsh grating music.
how much these guys love to play with each other. Yeah. Right? It's a great band. Only the sixth Shellac album in 32 years, the first in something like a decade. But they came together. They had something to say. It's short. It's focused. It's ferocious. And wow, if there is a more prescient... kind of foreshadowing in music.
Obviously, Albini suffered a heart attack. He didn't know that he was nearing the end of his life. But ending these ten songs with a track called I Don't Fear Hell, which is everything you need to know about Albini. It starts out... The lyric that grips me every time starts out, something, something. He couldn't even be bothered to finish the line. When this is over, I'll leap in my grave like the arms of a lover.
powerful you know and also sarcastic and funny uh because he tells us i don't fear hell i'm gonna know a lot of the people there you know and for a guy who had this reputation as someone who was ferocious scathing relentlessly truthful as he saw the truth. You know, I respect the music Albini made, and I respect many of the stances he took, and wow, Two Wall Trains is a heck of an epitaph. This is the song, I Don't Fear Hell.
Something, something, something when this is over. I'll leap in my grave like the arms of a lover. And if there's a heaven, I hope they're having fun. Because if there's a hell, I'm going to know it. Shellac. I Don't Fear Hell, Two Oil Trains. Man, you need this album in your life. Just as a, like, you know, every once in a while you need a bucket of cold water in the face. Yeah. That's this. You know, it's one of those records that if you're going to go out, it's a...
It's a hell of a way to go out. Steve Albini, Shellac, what a band. We will miss them. Emdu Maktar, my number seven album of the year. Great guitarist, Funeral for Justice is the name of the album. Emdu Maktar, part of that desert community, those nomads in Niger, in Africa. the Tuarag community of Islamic nomads in Northern Africa. They have developed this whole sound from that community that has become...
somewhat popular around the world. It's really traveled well. They call it desert blues, that mix of western blues music and psychedelia with this traditional folk music from Africa. And Mokhtar is a master of it, a brilliant guitarist, touring with a quartet. And what a band. I got a shout out to the drummer, Solomon Ibrahim, is an amazing drummer on this record.
and on the touring ensemble. Mikey Colton, the bass player, is a punk veteran from the D.C. scene in Washington. So he's kind of the outlier in the band. He's the producer on the record. But they get a really live, vibrant sound on this record.
there's a tendency to westernize this music and make it sound more polished than it actually is but I think what's happening here is you get that grit and the lyrics even though you need a translator for some of them You can hear the passion in the music, and it's really talking a lot about colonialism and what's happened to Africa in the wake of, in this case, in Niger, French colonialism.
persevering after that. And really, what this Desert Blues has really been about, the struggles of the people. It's about the community. And I love that aspect of it. It is punk. rock for its own country. I love this album. I got it at number 12 on my list. Here's a little bit of Funeral for Justice from Emdu Maktar. The song is Oh France. Thank you. That's O'France from Emdu Mokhtar.
my number seven album of the year, Funeral for Justice. When we return, we're going to share more of our favorite albums of the year and hear more selections from our production staff. That's in a minute on Sound Opinions. And we are back. We are having some of the most fun we ever have all year because we are talking about our favorite albums of 2024, the ones we think are the best. I'm going to talk about my number eight pick.
Next. Because I am one, how could I not dive into an album by a band called English Teacher, okay? But there wasn't a given necessarily that I would love it as much as I do this record.
right English teacher is a group from leads they are falling neatly into this trend that we have both talked about that sounds boring i think if you've never heard these bands sing speak all right i'm talking about wet leg, I'm talking about dry cleaning, I'm talking about idols, where the charismatic front people of these groups are talking through their vocals as much as they are singing them.
personality as gripping as Lily Fontaine, the leader of English Teacher, and as witty and as funny. I mean, just listen to some of the song titles. I'm not crying. You're crying. Not everybody. gets to go to space although I don't know with all these mega corporations sending rockets up maybe everybody will get to go to space What I think sets English Teacher apart on This Could Be Texas, since the album I'm talking about, is just how intricate and thoughtful and creative the instrumentation is.
Okay, Lily Fontaine is clearly front and center in the spotlight. The sing-song, speak-sing thing is so distinctive. But wow, is this an inventive bit. This could be a Radiohead record. We didn't have Lily. And, you know, it took me a long time to learn to appreciate Tom York. I think Radiohead fronted by Lily Fontaine would be a-okay with me. I'm going to play a track here that's typical of her wit.
It was a hit in the UK. You know, the song is called The World's Biggest Paving Slab. And Lily is telling us, I am the world's biggest paving slab, but no one can walk over me. And there are variations. of that throughout the song. And at some point, she kind of... you know, admits like, sometimes I feel like I'm stepped on all the time, right? Just like all of us. That mix of anger and self-confidence, it is always going back and forth.
I love this band, and not only because of the name, English Teacher, from This Could Be Texas. biggest pain is love. So watch your opposite. The World's Biggest Paving Slab by English Teacher. Man, I loved it. This record makes me, I'm happy just hearing it again. Yeah, it's a great record. It's also in my top 20. And speaking of great records, Charlotte Ammons has been on my list since the beginning of the year, really. This album came out spectacles back then, and it just...
hangs so well. I listened to it again in the last week, and does this hold up as well as I thought it did? And it does. The backstory here, this is the third album from Shirley, but her first since 2016. She's from Durham, North Carolina. She's a poet and a rapper. She blends hip-hop with indie punk rock and R&B. She's a songwriter, an emcee, a bassist, a producer, a poet. She's being scrutinized on this record. She's talking about what it feels like to be scrutinized.
scrutinize because you don't fit in. identifies as a queer black woman, an identical twin, a poet who happens to rap, a singer who slips between genre. No one can seem to figure her out. Where does she fit? Where do you belong? wrestling with that idea here. And meanwhile, she's collaborated with some amazing artists, you know, Indigo Girls, His Golden Messenger, and Michelle Indeggio Cello. But this is the album that I think is really the record that's...
speaks to her talent as an artist. That whole idea of otherness being addressed in this record. Charlotte Ammons with Diablo Miss Spectacles, and here's a track from it called Short on Sound of Paintings. What your daddy That is short from Charlotte Ammons, my number six album of the year, Spectacles. Andrew Gill, our producer, has got another album that he loves. And you know what?
You didn't surprise me with this pick. I kind of saw it coming. I do want it to be totally clear. I tried to not pick this album, and I was trying to convince myself, but I just... Eventually I was like, these records just ain't hitting. And I went back and remembered, I was like, oh yeah, Pedro the Lion put out Santa Cruz this year. And I listened to it again and it's...
Just a masterpiece, I think. This one, I think, is in the top two or three of records he's put out in his entire career. I just love whenever David talks about playing the drums as a kid. It has been a recurring theme, and he talks again a lot on this album. Yes. So he's in the middle of this project of five albums about places he lived when he grew up. This is the third one. On this one, he's kind of high school age. It's sort of like been chronological.
against David Bazan's songwriting over the years could be a lack of subtlety. With this record, he's achieved this sort of subtle symbolism and arc involving sort of like nature. begins the album kind of pushing against his nature. And there's all these images throughout the record of different natural, including like, if I don't cry now, the rocks will cry out, you know, like the tree. There's a song, the tall.
And by the end, he finally feels some sun on his face when he finally finds a place for himself to exist in this world within music. But the song I want to play is Spend Time, which is, you know. near the end of that progression. And he's talking about how he's still... couldn't fully give himself over to it. I think melodically, musically, it's just a really catchy album. Like, every track on this record is great. And as a whole, it's even better. So yeah, Pedro Lyon, Santa Cruz.
It is honestly the best album I listened to this year. All right. Pedro the Lion's Santa Cruz, a pick from Andrew Gill. Bazan is just an important artist. Oh, yeah. Well, we had him for a live taping a year or two ago. Fantastic event. The adoration of his audience is very apparent. Yeah, fantastic event. And Andrew Gill is...
one of the members of that audience. You know, there's nothing better than a true fan. If you're going to be a true fan about anything, make it be music. I am up to number seven on my list, Greg. I'm sort of surprised to not see it on your list. Idols. Tank. T-A-N-G-K, right? Now, we have been Idols fans from the beginning. We had Joe Talbot, the incredibly insightful front person of Idols on the show back in 2000.
We have admired the records they've made. I don't think they've ever made as much growth, though, as they did going into Tank. They're working with two brilliant producers that you would think are... are outside of their wheelhouse, Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beetz. And they are slowing things down at times. They are venturing onto the dance floor. But I'm going to play a track that highlights, I think, some of the invention.
You know, who would have thought that idols would get all stacks vault soul, right? You know, the song Roy is what I'm going to highlight. You know, he has become a father. He is still very angry at the world's injustices, but they are coming into a perspective of now it's not him just ranting and railing. Because you always got the impression earlier that...
But he was the guy standing on the soapbox, ranting and raving, ready to throw a Molotov cocktail. And if it cost him his existence, he didn't care. Now he cares because he's a dad and he cares about. us as well. Schadenfreude is the German concept of wishing ill on people you dislike. Talbot has said this album was fueled by
Freud and Freud, which is taking pleasure in good things happening to other people. And I can see being a dad, you know, those first steps or the first words or, you know, the face your kid makes. First time, you know, you give them broccoli or give them ice cream, right? You know. That is Freud and Freud. And this album has been a source of joy for me all year. I'm going to play that song I told you about, the Stax Volturn, Roy by Idols. So Roy by idols from the Tang.
T-A-N-G-K, I think I'm saying it right. Would it have made a top 30 for you? It's not even in your top 20s. Definitely a contender, but I almost felt guilty about Idols because they made top five albums for me. Yeah. The last three, four albums. I'm kind of like Andrew as Pedro the Lion. I'm kind of like really over the top in love with this band. Yes, they are experimenting, and I think they're heading off in a new direction, which could be quite exciting and pay off.
One band that has achieved payoff is... This band, my number five album of the year, Phenom's Not God. First of all, great album title. It is. You know, Seema, I've known Seema, and you have. Seema Cunningham and Macy Stewart have been mainstays of the Chicago. music scene for for a decade at least and they're just everywhere they've been working with multiple different configurations other artists they've done great work in those contexts I was not expecting
phenom to be quite what it has turned into. I had this picture of them. Well, they sing great harmonies, and they do this thing very well. And this just blew all that out of the water. They're using their harmonies, but in really unconventional ways. Almost like the Roaches or somebody like that. Harmony singing is not very conventional.
nor is their approach to their guitars. It's a two-guitar kind of band, and they are going at it in a very different way. It's not male testosterone guitar jamming. It is a totally different vocabulary that they've established for their voices, for their... guitars and then you add the songs and they've really
They've hit the trifecta here for me in terms of that. I love the way, I think to me it's like a boxing match. There's sort of jabbing and fainting and there's moments of waiting out your opponent and then boom, there's this surprise that comes in. And it's a cool, because I think it fits the...
tenor of the record, which is these relationships that you're talking about are really kind of off balance. And there's sort of a wry commentary going on in the lyrics about what's going on in their world. It's not, you know, like, oh, it's this, this.
It's black or white. It's somewhere in that gray area, and they're doing a great job of exploring that. I just love this record. Every song is a killer. The hardest thing for me to decide is which one to play. I'm going to play a little bit of Hungry from Phenom's Not There. God on Sound Opinions. That is Greg's pick, Phenom's Not God, the song Hungry. It was number six on my list. Now, Alex, we're talking Sabrina Carpenter, the song Taste. Yes, so...
Short and Sweet is the name of the album. The reason that it works well for me is that it is literally short. It's 14 tracks. I don't have time for... 20, 30 tracks. I just don't have the time and patience. Oh, you're a busy mom, a busy producer. Yes. Yes, I like that as an album and as a tour imagery in music videos, Sabrina has kept things very consistent. She has a clear vision for what her costumes, her hair, her makeup, her persona, all of these things, I think.
help make a great album is you have a unifying concept and theme. It's not just a bunch of songs that I like together. I think overall it keeps the big picture in mind. I like that this record and Sabrina in general. has she has a sense of humor she keeps things light and funny a lot of double entendres and I also think she has a slight dark sense of humor which I also appreciate what I loved about this album was that sonically there's a little bit of country
mixed in there. I like that it has some elements of modern pop and almost a Fleetwood Mac-ness to the guitars and the kind of dreaminess there. She's got a lot of lush, layered vocals. Also, for me, this record was an escape record. So Jim alluded to this, but I, you know, had a baby earlier this year, which is a very notably unglamorous, very exhausting, you know, the hardest work you'll ever do. Yes. And listening to this album was great.
escapism for me where Sabrina is, you know, wearing these glamorous outfits and costumes and, you know, she's singing about all different things, but the record just felt so buoyant in a time when, you know, around the world, things are going on that are very overwhelming. and very frustrating things in my own life that I was trying to navigate, that this record really...
was a comfort to me in a time where I felt very untethered. The song Taste is great. It opens the album. I leave quite an impression, five feet to be exact. I mean, that's kind of a nice boom right into the record. This is who I am. And I just think it's a great two and a half minute pop song. There's been a lot of attention to Espresso and Please, Please, Please. But I think this is another great song on the album. Well, well put, Alex.
you back together and if that's true you'll just have to tase me when he's kissing you Sabrina Carpenter. Taste is the song. Short and sweet is the album. We never talked about it this year, Greg. Alex just gave us a great overview of a record that made a big impact on pop culture. When we come back, we're going to reveal our very best. Best Albums of 2024 in a minute on Sound Opinions. And we're back. This week, the best albums of 2024.
Jim, what have you got as your number four album of the year? Number four for me, Greg, is Emil and the Sniffers' latest record. Cartoon Darkness. We reviewed it not that long ago on the show. It came out late in the year, but it really just hit me upside the head like a cinder block. I have loved Emil and the Sniffers since I first played them as a buried treasure in 2018. I had Comfort to Me, album number two, as my number one record of 2021.
Now we have cartoon darkness, which sees the group going in a little bit of a slicker, more produced. dare I say, metal direction. But it's metal in the sense of Steppenwolf. Right. Got my motor running, right? There's even a song here called Motorbike Song, and we're getting shout-outs to Harley Davidson. Front person Amy Taylor is obviously just a captivating presence on stage.
furious and very funny, self-assured, angry. You know, I mean, she's just exploding. She's a supernova. But she's... funny, whether she's taking on toxic masculinity in the form of the boyfriend who can't be pulled away from his Xbox, whether she is talking about her anger at bodies. shamer she is gonna wear a tiny bikini if she chooses to okay whether she's talking about foul intentioned social media commentators
doing in my head? No, they're not really. She's going to take off their head. Or whether she's singing a love song. This is a very unconventional love song. Chewing gum. I'm stuck on you just like a chewing gum. Amy Taylor is from Australia. This is a pub rock band. Consider it a chewing gum, not just generic chewing gum. I love this album. I love this song. The slight introduction of...
A little more slickness, I think, just shows that they are growing. This album gives me much joy. Chewing Gum by Emil and the Sniffers from Cartoon Darkness. Chewing Gum from Cartoon Darkness. Yeah, it's a great band. I have to say, this album is pretty darn good, but man, comfort to me.
is such a masterpiece, their 2021 record. My number one that year. Yeah, great record. This next artist, I don't think we've paid enough attention to. I haven't, because I think in some ways, Elucid gets overshadowed by... by his partner in many projects, Billy Woods. Lucid's from Queens, New York. He's a veteran of that New York City underground hip-hop scene. He's been putting on mixtapes for...
couple decades now. And this latest album, Revelator, wow. Talk about a revelation for me. It was like, okay, he's been making pretty good music all along. Great artist. But this record just blew me away. For about a week, this is all I wanted to hear. And some people would go, cut your nuts, because this is some harsh stuff. I think I needed some venting music. Given recent events...
I'm not going to go into any of that stuff, but I'll just say that venting is a good thing sometimes. The production should be noted. He's using a lot of samples, but there's also live drums and bass on this record. It's kind of like... an underpinning of that, and you feel it. I have a couple of uncles who came to this country because they learned a skill when they were in Europe after World War II, and that happened to be operating a lathe.
And I go, okay, I'm hearing a little bit of lathe in the background here. You feel like you're in an industrial setting, a futuristic factory. And Lucid's voice sometimes feels like it's, you know, he's out in outer space. Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me? What he's talking about is he's on ground zero. He's in a war zone. He's talking about what it's like to grow up in a city.
where it's divided. His family is his solace. His wife, his kids, they are his salvation. So you're seeing this redemptive thread amidst this chaos and fear and paranoia that this record paints. It's not an easy look. listen, but I found it riveting, and I found it very, very therapeutic in many ways, given recent events. The name of the album is Revelator, number four on my list of the year, and the track is The World Is Dog. elucid and sound opinions.
That's a lucid with a track called The World Is Dog. Kind of sums it up. Revelator is the name of the album. Well, filling the role for you that Abel and the Sniffers filled for me, Catharsis. Greg, I am going now. to a record that really hit me hard. Hooray for the riffraff. When I had not been previously, and this is my own ignorance, a huge fan of Alinda Sagara. The past is still alive.
is their ninth studio album. And you know, this album, when we reviewed it for the show and I spent a lot of time listening to it, I had to go back. Born in the Bronx. ran away from home, spent a lot of time as a busker. And what would, you know, it's a very old-fashioned word, like as a hobo, you know, hitchhiking and catching the rails across the country. And you know, on that journey,
observing what is America. I think Hooray for the Riff Raff's version of what America is is different than what a lot of people's is these days. but it's real and it's soulful, it's empathetic. There's a lot of philosophical musing going on here that is about both the things that Linda has experienced in their life, but also about what is America.
I'm a big fan of buffaloes, okay? So I got to play the song Buffalo. I think, you know, this is the best song about buffaloes in the history of great music. Above, Buffalo Ballet by John Cale and Buffalo Soldiers by Bob Marley. Searching for the Buffalo is what Hooray for the Riff Raff is singing. And it's not just that song. The whole album is...
this examination of American mythology and where we fit into it. So the past is still alive. I think all of this is commentary from Hooray for the Riff Raff. Just to catch the buffalo Some things take time Some things take time is to catch the buffalo. Two weeks is to catch the buffalo.
Buffalo by Hooray for the... Do you love that song as much as I do? Yeah, that album was a revelation for me, too. It's really great to see them make an album this great late in their career. Speaking of making a great album deep into your career, how's 45... years sound that is a red cross recent guests on the show for a good reason because their self-titled ninth album
is terrific. Double album. They were celebrating their 45th year. They had a documentary out, which is quite good. And a book. And a book. First album since 2019. The McDonald brothers, Stephen and Jeff, have been around since they were grade schoolers making music. And a very influential band, although not in the same sense. They don't sell. lot of records. I mean, they've done okay.
But they're probably better known as an influence within the music community than they are as a best-selling artist to a wider base. But I have to tell you, I just love this record. If you're looking for a way to get... into Red Cross what is this band all about you could you can't do any better than this record because I really think it's kind of a pocket history
of what they've been up to for the last four and a half decades. 18 songs, none of them overstaying their welcome. Six are in the two-minute range. So listen, if you've got a short attention span, this is a band for you. This is a record for you. They jump all over the place. They could do stadium rock. You want a big anthem for the stadium? We got that. And they can do big star power pop. We got punk. We got bubblegum. We got baroque. You name it, we can do it.
And they do it with a cleverness in the lyrics and the way they are approaching the harmonies. There's nothing like two brothers bouncing off each other, the trading vocals and lead vocals on these songs. Born Innocent, the last song on the album is basically about, it's their origin story. Where did they come from? We were born innocent. We were kids. And they went through some huge travails. One of them got kidnapped. The other one had major drug issues. And they hung in there.
Their innocence was corrupted at a young age, but they still managed to keep that optimism in their music, which is just an amazing thing to see. Born Innocent, great track from a great album, Red Cross' self-titled ninth album, my number three album of the year. That is Born Innocent from Red Cross. That self-titled art record, I know you love that too. That's your number five, right? Number five for me.
Well, we are up at our first best albums of the year. I'm not going to tip the hand for you, but it was a close call for me, and these are both fantastic albums. The album of the year for me is Mary Timoney's... untame. The Tiger. For a long time she was a signature artist in the DC area. Then she became a signature artist in the Boston area. You know, the bands Helium and Autoclave, X-Hex, her latest group.
The super group Wild Flag. The album she put out this year is her sixth solo album, Untame the Tiger. She has never let me down. I've been a fan from the very beginning. But why? Wow, this one just, I think, is her finest moment. This is one of the most tragically underrated guitar heroes of rock of the indie alt scene, whatever you want to call it.
Of the last 30 years. Brilliant guitarist. I would put Mary Timoney up there with Richard Thompson. I would put her up there with Glenn Mercer of the Feelys, right? And I use those two comparisons because she's so... like Thompson, where these are lyrical stories she tells, and like Glenn Mercer of the Feelys, or... Robert Fripp on the track Heroes by Bowie. It is a guitar lover's treat. It is a smart album lyrically as well. You really can't love without letting go.
Mary sings on the track, Domino's. And it means a couple of things. It's the end of a relationship for her. It is the death of her parents. It is thinking about mortality. I mean, I'm of Mary's generation. We are like the same age. And this is when you begin to realize, hey, you know. Things are breaking down. Yeah, yeah. How come I can't do that? It doesn't work the way it used to. I used to carry my bass drum in and not, you know, think about it twice. I just think lyrically, melodically.
guitar hero wise I gotta give a shout out to Joe Wong who's a fantastic drummer who produced it and Dave Friedman of the Flaming Lips mixed it but you know most of the credit 98% is Mary Timoney, a force who has never gotten the credit she is due. Love this album, Untame the Tiger. Love every song, but I'm going to play a song called The Guest. Come back home. You were the only one who never left me alone. I try and I try to say goodbye.
The Guest by Mary Timoney, Untame the Tiger, my number one album of the year. There it is on your list, number two. Yeah, you know what? It was neck and neck with the next album that I'm going to play. that you love as well. Yes, my number two. But these albums were one, two for me the entire year. They came out early in the year and there was nothing that could displace them. My number one album, no surprise, because you love it too, Sprint's Letter to Self.
People say, Greg, why is there no good rock music anymore? And I said, well, did you listen to my number one album from last year, this group called Wednesday? No, never heard of them. I literally was at a party three weeks ago where this was going. And these people were like in their 30s. Not old people like me.
And they don't know about Wednesday. I go, Carly Hartsman, great songwriter. Let's say Carly's got the U.S. Songwriter Award for the last couple of years. I would give the award for overseas, Dublin. Carla Chubb of Sprintz. I mean, and a great band, I have to say. So Carla owns Letter to Self, that voice. is just, it's like a wellness check on herself. This is kind of like a midlife crisis album for a woman who's around 30, you know.
And she's talking about the fact that you're 30, you're gay, you don't meet the standards for female singers in popular music, so therefore, you know, we're not really going to pay attention to you. It's an ulcerous look at this whole idea of what growing up is like, becoming, you know, navigating adulthood.
The existential question in the first song, am I alive? And the whole record explores this idea, am I fully alive? And if so, what am I doing with my life? Where are we going here? Everybody can relate to that. You know, you don't have to be 30 years old. You don't have to be gay. You can relate to it.
On that level, and that's the way I certainly related to it, this band is great, too, because she's got this voice that goes from like a whisper to a scream in a second. It just grabs you by the neck. And that guitar player, especially Colm O'Reilly, whoo! And a great rhythm section. Jack Callen on drums, Sam McCain on bass. One of the best bands you're going to hear.
Ever. You know, really. I'm glad you like this, and I will take credit. I think I first played them as a buried treasure. You did, and we love this record. Letter to Self is the name of the album. It's their first record. Yeah. I can't wait. wait to hear the next one. They've already put out a couple of singles since then. Here's a track called Ticking from the great debut album by Sprintz on Sound Opinions, number one on my list this year.
That is Letter to Self, the album. The track is ticking. The band is Sprint. It's number one for me. Jim, you've got Mary Timoney as number one for you. And we flip those spots. We love them both, and we talk. to both this year. Great interviews. Yeah, great year. Music is live and well in 2024. You can find my entire top 20 and Greg's entire top 20 on soundopinions.org. As always though, we want to hear from you. What did we miss that was your album of the year?
Connect with us on social media. Share your favorite and why. Meanwhile, Mr. Cott, what is on the show next week? Next week, Jim, another highlight of the year, Andy Serzan's annual holiday spectacular. This is not your straight. Right ahead, conventional holiday music show. You're going to hear some weird stuff that's really cool for the season. Don't forget to check out our bonus podcast where we add new songs to the Desert Island Jukebox. And we've had some notable ones.
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