All through December and January, the CAPC staff has compiled an inventory of our favourite popular culture artifacts from the earlier yr. In contrast to most year-end lists, we don’t declare that these are the “finest.” Relatively, these are the issues that introduced us essentially the most pleasure and satisfaction within the final 12 months.
For 2024, our favourite music included goth icons, a hip-hop grasp, suave post-punk, Tay Tay, and extra.
Songs of a Misplaced World by The Remedy
When an iconic band returns after a years-long absence, there’s at all times that fearful query: What in the event that they’ve misplaced no matter it was that made them so particular and beloved within the first place? Little question that was on the forefront of everybody’s thoughts when The Remedy—icons of goth and various music—introduced Songs of a Misplaced World, their first album in fourteen years. Previous albums like 2008’s 4:13 Dream and 2004’s self-titled album had their moments, however they had been largely hit-or-miss affairs, and a far cry the band’s most celebrated work, like 1989’s Disintegration.
However when The Remedy launched the album’s first single, a sprawling six-minute music titled “Alone,” there was a collective sigh of reduction. Crammed with dirge-like synths, moody guitars, and Robert Smith crying out “That is the tip of each music that we sing/The hearth burned out to ash/And the celebrities grown dim with tears,” it turned out to be the music that Remedy followers had been ready for all this time.
Songs of a Misplaced World finds Smith ruminating on grief and loss. The existential angst that drove such goth classics as 1982’s Pornography remains to be current, however tempered with maturity and expertise. “I Can By no means Say Goodbye” is a heart-wrenching ballad in regards to the demise of Smith’s brother and “And Nothing Is Perpetually” was impressed by a deathbed promise. In the meantime, epic nearer “Endsong” attracts on Smith’s reminiscences of watching the Apollo moon landings, and laments the lack of that innocence.
Smith is at present in his mid-60s. His famously tousled hair is thinning and his trademark make-up appears to be like somewhat extra ridiculous on his wrinkled face. Nonetheless, his voice stays as distinctive and highly effective as ever, and his band’s music remains to be simply as stirring and evocative—and gloomy!—because it was again within the “glory days.”
—Jason Morehead
GNX by Kendrick Lamar
It’s exhausting to think about how Kendrick Lamar may’ve had a greater 2024. He demolished Drake in a multi-song beef saga, landed the halftime gig for the 2025 Tremendous Bowl, and dropped the shock album GNX that captured the entire web’s consideration. We’ll probably look again at 2024 as the height of his run as hip-hop’s brightest star and the world’s most revered—and feared—rapper.
Having the proverbial championship belt doesn’t matter a lot except the music delivers, although. That’s the place GNX succeeds, giving listeners slices of the sprawling and sometimes conflicting persona that folks have come to like, showcasing as soon as extra that Lamar certainly comprises multitudes. “Squabble Up” is for followers longing for the West Coast bounce of his vicious and viral Drake diss, “Not Like Us.” For many who love Kendrick at his most dense and complex, spinning tales and wordplay that calls for shut consideration, there’s “Reincarnated” and “Gloria.” There’s even some deep inside baseball on his departure from TDE on the somber “The Coronary heart pt 6.”
Past all this, the album’s most fascinating and notable side is that regardless of Kendrick clearly holding rap’s prime slot, GNX‘s social gathering vibes are background noise to his continued tortured wrestling along with his duty as a neighborhood chief and his craving for a deep religious life. Success and vanquishing one’s rap foes doesn’t remedy all; it merely makes the existential extra urgent. The most effective instance is the back-half of “Reincarnated,” an homage to Tupac Shakur, one wherein Kendrick imitates Shakur’s circulation and samples his ’90s music “Made Niggas.” Lamar leverages the music for a second of religious interrogation, one thing Christians may register as not too far faraway from St Ignatius’s examen. Lamar turns spiritually introspective, launching right into a dialogue along with his father, readily understood as heavenly, organic, or each: “Father, did I lastly get it proper? All the things I did was selfless.”
The examen reveals Lamar has been extra sinner than saint, regardless of placing on for his neighborhood. Right here, GNX teaches us that gaining the world solely complicates issues of the soul. Past the chart toppers, that is the true present GNX presents to discerning listeners prepared to contemplate Lamar’s religious wrestling even atop the mountain of stardom.
—Claude Atcho
Like Unto Lambs by Luxurious
Cease me should you heard this rock n’ roll story earlier than. A younger band begins producing a ton of buzz for his or her intense sound, loopy stage presence, and controversial picture. Then, simply as they’re about to interrupt massive, they get in a horrific automobile accident that sidelines their music profession. Subsequently, three of the members change into Orthodox monks and now, almost thirty years after that fateful accident, they’re making among the finest music of their profession.
That’s the story of Luxurious, and it’s a doozy. (If you wish to know extra, I extremely advocate watching the Parallel Love documentary, which is at present streaming totally free on Tubi.)
The self-released Like Unto Lambs continues the band’s raucous-yet-melodic tackle post-punk (suppose Fugazi meets The Smiths meets Radiohead), with a triple guitar assault and punishing rhythm part. After which there’s frontman Lee Bozeman, a slender bespectacled determine (and a kind of aforementioned monks) with a voice like Morrissey and lyrics that plumb the depths of human brokenness and depravity in addition to the heights of divine grace and sovereignty.
On account of their diverging paths, the 5 members of Luxurious don’t report and launch music all that always—their earlier album, the additionally glorious Trophies, was launched again in 2015—so after they do launch a brand new album, it’s an occasion. And it’s definitely worth the wait.
—Jason Morehead
Dwell in Amarillo, Texas by Hayden Pedigo
“Once I’m on the highway, I inform those who Amarillo is a flat, windy, scorching, chilly, brutal, and considerably ugly place to lots of people. However I say, I believe Amarillo is sort of a phenomenal place. The pauses in my music, the explanation they’re there may be in Amarillo the flat plains that go on endlessly and ever, they’ve at all times been refreshing to me. They really feel like a large, lengthy pause.” So says Hayden Pedigo on his newest stay report and it will be exhausting to enhance on the sparse magnificence of those acoustic songs.
Like his beloved Amarillo, Pedigo’s music is punctuated by an understated magnificence that’s each meditative and mournful. This report is all of the extra outstanding for being stay. Songs with this a lot subtlety often don’t combine nicely with crowds, however there’s such a reverential silence from the viewers that the applause on the finish comes as a shock.
Lest you suppose it’s only a post-production scrub, check out among the footage from Pedigo’s Instagram wherein complete crowds sit down in scummy venues simply to let his music wash over them. If I see the person stay, I’ll in all probability do the identical factor.
—Cameron McAllister
“Sizzling to Go!” by Chappel Roan
Chappell Roan was arguably essentially the most talked-about rising pop star of final yr. Though The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess dropped in September 2023, it actually took off in April after she delivered a show-stopping set at Coachella—together with my private favourite monitor, “Sizzling to Go!” The music turned a slow-burning hit, touchdown on Billboard’s Sizzling 100 3 times—in June, August, and October—earlier than peaking at No. 15. A staple of her stay reveals, “Sizzling to Go!” even made its means into the Guts tour, the place Roan carried out it alongside Olivia Rodrigo.
Campy, enjoyable, and irresistibly danceable, “Sizzling to Go!” is the form of music that burrows into your mind—the second you hear it, you’re buzzing the lyrics and itching to be taught the dance. The music video completely captures Roan’s infectious power, that includes her educating the routine to Springfield, MO locals, together with her personal grandparents. And that’s the magic of Chappell Roan—her music doesn’t simply make you need to dance; it makes on a regular basis moments really feel somewhat brighter. For this mother, it even made commutes to work and faculty drop-off and pickup traces with the youngsters much more enjoyable in 2024. By some means, if you’re singing alongside to “Sizzling to Go!,” you’re feeling just a bit extra able to deal with regardless of the day throws at you.
—LuElla D’Amico
Lust for Gold by Starflyer 59
I’ve been a fan of Jason Martin and Starflyer 59 for 3 a long time now, ever since I used to be captivated by the syrupy-thick shoegaze sounds of their 1994 self-titled debut album (generally known as Silver as a result of its monochromatic album artwork). For thirty years now, I’ve been following Martin’s music, with every new Starflyer 59 album a must-purchase.
Martin has at all times been vulnerable to nostalgia, even on his earliest albums. So it’s no shock that 2024’s Lust for Gold discovered him ruminating on previous friendships (“1995”), youthful reminiscences (“YZ80”), and even the self-importance of a life spent pursuing wealth and luxury (“Lust for Gold”) in his cigarette-stained baritone.
However what makes Lust for Gold significantly satisfying for long-time followers like myself is how Martin contains quite a few throwbacks to the heavy shoegaze of Starflyer 59’s early days. From the heavy riffage of “909” and to “Lust for Gold”‘s attractive surf riffs to the swirling suggestions of “My Lung,” it’s a delight to listen to these “traditional” sounds over again, and proof that generally, you actually can return once more.
—Jason Morehead
Taylor Swift’s “Eras” Tour
Once I’m making dinner for the youngsters or driving my daughter to ballet, I typically pause earlier than placing on music and ask myself: What Period am I in in the present day? If work was tough, I’ll flip to Popularity. If I’m feeling somewhat dreamy, it’s Folklore. If I’ve had an important day and need some further bounce in my step, I’ll placed on Fearless or Pink. And let’s not even discuss in regards to the temper that requires Midnights or The Tortured Poets Division.
Certain, you may name it primary—however in 2024, Taylor Swift’s “Eras” Tour made historical past, surpassing $2 billion in income and changing into the highest-grossing live performance tour of all time. Clearly, I wasn’t alone in mapping my feelings onto her discography. With 149 reveals throughout 5 continents, the tour was greater than only a live performance—it was a worldwide cultural occasion.
My 9-year-old daughter and I noticed it on the massive display screen, and she or he’s nonetheless making friendship bracelets for anybody who will take one, encouraging all her Swiftie pals to Communicate Now. Taylor Swift didn’t simply make music in 2024; she outlined the yr. From Eras dominating theaters to The Tortured Poets Division breaking information, she was the soundtrack to so lots of our lives. And because the yr got here to an in depth, one factor was sure: in 2024, we had been all in our Taylor Swift Period.
—LuElla D’Amico
Solely God Was Above Us by Vampire Weekend
Solely God Was Above Us is a top-notch return to the heights of Vampire Weekend’s 2008 debut and 2013’s Fashionable Vampires of the Metropolis, however the years have discovered the band rising weary, significantly uninterested in all method of discordance and strife. To place it extra strongly, Vampire Weekend have struggle on their minds: “You don’t need to win this struggle / ‘Cuz you don’t need the peace” they cry out within the opening monitor. And in “Gen-X Cops,” Ezra Koenig’s voice foregrounds reluctance: “Dodged the draft however can’t dodge the struggle.”
The band’s newest album considers jingoism and the softer imperialism of the educated elite, pugilists with actual energy and prep-school wannabes with one thing to show. The weariness feels earned (and, talking personally, resonant) in a world of dissension. But when the subjects betray exhaustion, there’s no trace of it within the songcraft, which shows Vampire Weekend at their most electrifying, unifying their myriad influences into what could also be their strongest album but.
—Micah Rickard
“To the Flowers” by Whereas She Sleeps (Music Video)
Whereas She Sleeps’ “To the Flowers” has one of the best music video I’ve seen in years. I’ve listened to a number of Whereas She Sleeps since my YouTube algorithm launched me to this music in early 2024 and most of their music is commonplace metallic/hardcore fare. However “To the Flowers” has a decidedly completely different sound. Its melodic parts improve the more durable ones, encompassing a spread of feelings the lyrics had been crafted to evoke.
That is the place the cinematic music video not solely elevates the music however turns into a standalone masterpiece. Custom says merely filming a band play devices could be a music video, however should you’re going so as to add video to music, why not make it imply one thing? I’ve watched “To the Flowers” muted and, not surprisingly, it’s good as a self-encapsulated silent brief movie.
I gained’t spoil the narrative, seen by way of non-sequential clips, however what the three stars (Anna Thornley, Robert Peach, Jill Welsh), director Sean Lengthy, and cinematographer/editor Arran McKenzie have crafted is nothing wanting breathtaking. A story of affection and loss, grieving and overcoming despair, I ask why I’ve put myself by way of the feelings of watching the video for the umpteenth time, but once more swallowing the lump in my throat. For those who’re a glutton for simultaneous punishment and inspirational storytelling, expertise the video.
—Chris Fogle
