#gnjsoty2k24

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Wristwatch" by MJ Lenderman

MG:

There's a pretty famous 2015 study that confirms a positive correlation between a personal preference for bitter flavors and "everyday sadism." Don't feel too called out if you take your coffee black or your chocolate dark, there's a lot of space in the word "preference" and, kinda, no offense, all social studies are pseduoscience. But what, I wonder, about bitterness? "Wristwatch" is far and away the bitterest song of the year -- just the way MJ Lenderman sings "Well," leaves that tang in my mouth. In terms of our current moment in pop psych, bitterness is very much out. You don't want to relate to people that way! It makes you less attractive and it makes the other person too powerful! But bitterness is just a feeling we all have, it's spontaneous, it simply happens. Better to capture it with both mystery and precision, as Lenderman does here, than to make it like a dragon and pretend it doesn't exist. Indeed, our multifaceted devices are a poor substitute for human connection, but that doesn't mean human connection isn't perilous. The layers of bitterness fold on themselves in the style of something sweet -- the flaky croissant. Ultimately, by way of his unconditional expression, Lenderman captures a fuller spectrum of flavor and, I'll probably be proven wrong about this with enough time, that's what most people truly prefer.

DV:

As someone without an iphone and also possibly someone a little too old, I have completely missed out on the "Find My Friends" aspect of our ever-expanding surveillance state - no one is asking to add me and I'm not asking to add anyone. And to be clear I prefer it that way. But I think of my kids, growing increasingly close to the time when they'll have their first cell phones, and I wonder if I'll be able to resist then. Wouldn't we both feel just a little more secure if we knew where we all were at all times? What if there's an emergency? What if we're not checking our notifications? Is there something we're trying to hide? The arguments pile up, terribly. And here's MJ Lenderman to tell me that even with whatever semi-fucked relationship he's describing here, whoever is telling him he's wasting his life, he still knows where they are at all times - knows enough to know when they're alone. What weird fucking information to have about someone! Something that for - rounding up - one hundred per cent of human history would make you a threat is now something that's the setup, the scene setting in the first verse, for one of the year's best guitar pop songs. This is where normal is in 2024, and I can't decide if it's better or worse that the song encompassing this moment is catchy enough that I didn't even notice it at first.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Defense" by Panda Bear & Cindy Lee

DV:

Every couple years MG forces me to learn what Panda Bear is currently doing and therefore every couple years I'm forced to reckon with the realization that whatever he's doing still works for me, like some grim countdown to the point where one of us finally gives up on making things (I am determined to win; if Grooves N Jams and Tumblr have both crumbled to dust I will still come out of retirement to write about some Generation Gamma Rebecca Black ripoff just to make the point.) Anyway: "grim" is the word for "Defense", a breakup song that sounds defeated almost before it begins. The guitar chugs in a downbeat loop until eventually the drum joins it to plod dejectedly forward. Even Lennox's vocal seems resigned; "Here I come" has rarely sounded as hopeless as it does here. The effect is surprisingly intense for a latter-day Panda Bear song, though at this point maybe I just need to stop being surprised.

MG:

Allow me to be existential for a moment (the Panda Bear demands it) because I am already weary of writing on the internet! There are no stakes for me anymore. When I first started using the internet in 2001 virtually everything I encountered was created by a "real" person and I felt real, too. I had a great many thoughts about obscure music and a great curiosity to hear more and weirder music and both those needs were met by the internet in ways life in suburban Chicago failed. Now when I use the internet I think it is largely with a fondness for that remembered past because the internet today is the abyss. I never know what's real and I feel yucky all the time. I keep pushing my work onto the internet as if it's some wound I'm seeking to bandage but pus and blood keep leaking sideways. I hate it here, I don't want to be here anymore, but there's nowhere to go. I thought I would relate better to my suburban neighbors in adulthood, but my yard is a chaos of native plants, leaves, and unmowed grass while the woman next door is still raking and trimming in mid-December.

I spent most of the year not really getting the whole deal around Cindy Lee. Diamond Jubilee is specific, it's aesthetic, but it's also repetitive and, gasp, but I must -- derivative. Yeah, y'all I made it to that great age where the returns of the culture spinning on its axis are diminishing and I've heard it all before and if I wanted to hear it again I'd just listen to whatever of it I liked when I was in college. Cindy Lee, in fact, dates back to that era. Perhaps these are flowers that got lost in the mail for, like, twenty years, ok? I most appreciate "Defense" for that chugging, downbeat loop. For making sense of Cindy Lee. For ripping when nothing rips me anymore. I gave up weed this year, but I was a stoner before the weed and I'm a stoner still, and those feathery little notes that waft through the smoky haze on "Defense" are something of a pure delight.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Hell of a Ride" by Nourished by Time

MG:

I failed to submit anything from Nourished by Time's brilliant Erotic Probiotic 2 to last year's SOTY, but, thankfully, this year's Catching Chickens EP was also full of gems. Over vibrant, euphoric rave piano and distorted guitar Marcus Brown gives it all up, murmuring "I don't know why, I guess it never felt like mine." I know that feeling and it makes the endings less painful but the flip side is that you're never responsible for caring about or fixing anything because it all belongs elsewhere. I share these grievances, I live in this same sick world where the third place is the iPad and you have no emergency contact because your parents are dead. It's not enough to mix the joy and the grief anymore -- if we're going to say goodbye, something better has to follow.

DV:

Even now I'm not convinced this isn't some lost shoegaze song; Nourished by Time conjure up the ghost of mid-period Slowdive so well. But for all that that genre's having a third wave, Marcus Brown's howled, metallic vocal keeps "Hell of a Ride" from tipping into that revival - thankfully, since shoegaze very quickly blends into aural wallpaper. He's angry, remorseful, and most of all the dominant force of the song. At a few fascinating points, he's speaking with two voices - providing commentary before syncing back up with the lead. Nourished by Time's synth tone is incredible, but it's the vocal that kept me coming back.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"head" by claire rousay

MG:

Both enigmatic and ordinary, claire rousay's work is always so pointed, thoughtful, and considered that it captures something extremely specific and poetically mundane. Her palette of samples breathes life into the autumnal swell of guitar and strings creating a simulacrum of any average early October afternoon. Taken as a whole, "head" is almost anti-cinematic. Too real to be cellophane, even as it's clearly a framed shot. At the end it even falls apart in an abrupt "fuck!" the way reality always intrudes on the false beauty of our daydreams. But in rousay's case, the daydreams themselves are a refract of reality, like losing yourself in the thought of doing laundry after work. It's contrary and human, the way all contrary things are.

DV:

What an incredibly depressing song (complimentary.) Banking time giving head like it's armor against the worse moments that are sure to come; the nearly two minutes where the song seems to disintegrate slowly; the way that the narrator ends up dead at the end. I'm not sure what feels worse, though the ending is unexpected enough that I still almost expect it to be another fakeout like the instrumental bridge. "head" is the mundane dissolution of life and meaning and reality, tragic yet enveloping. In clumsier hands it might be unbearable or tip into parody, but rousay makes it sound undeniably relatable.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Pluto" by Raveena

DV:

There was a good two month period earlier this year where my top ten for 2024 threatened to be entirely songs from Raveena's overlooked Where the Butterflies go in the Rain. It's an immersive album, one I lost myself in while cooking and walking and working and eating and living. And "Pluto" is a gorgeously dense encapsulation of the best of it. Raveena jumps from death to life and love in a few lines, she swoops cleanly between the largest metaphysical questions and the tiniest corporeal ones in a moment. "Pluto" similarly surprises; the production might feel like a warm bath, but it blends an array of influences into a whole so harmonious that Raveena is able to pull off a spoken word interlude, a second verse that's entirely different from the first, and a post-chorus that might steal the spotlight from the main hook - and make every one of those elements sound entirely natural. It's a world contained in a song, moving at the speed of Raveena's thoughts and bringing us alongside in the process. In "Pluto", Raveena has created a song like a shared secret. Every time I hear it, even now when it's easily my most-listened song of the year, it feels precious, intimate, and yet like the kind of experience I want to share with everyone around me.

MG:

"Pluto" sounds of a piece with "BIRDS OF A FEATHER," both employing pastel, fluffy, unabashedly pretty sonic palettes. Raveena is a bit more unconstrained in her conventions, more willing to go fully baroque than Billie Eilish, and her success with excess is owed largely to her beautiful voice. To describe it as delicate would betray its rich depth but to describe it as robust would betray its subtleties. Perhaps it's deliberate, since they invoke the same insect, but Where the Butterflies go in the Rain distinctly recalls Mariah Carey's Butterfly in all its satin and gossamer glory. But even Mariah (god help me) couldn't reach these levels of 2-ply cashmere softness! Even her "Butterfly" is a touch more commanding and demanding than the faerie-dusted sheen and light, loose orbit of "Pluto." For all of poptimism's promises, it's taken us about thirty years to feel comfortable making these girly-ass records again -- call the genre's Saturn return "Pluto."

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"In The Modern World" by Fontaines D.C.

MG:

Fontaines D.C. are embracing the anxiety of influence, where they could have wedged further into the boring but perfect crevice of their gloomy, articulate post-punk they instead poured light over everything they love -- with varying degrees of success. This band is capable of creating an expertly made luxury sweater but instead prefer the charms, flaws and character of a homemade garment. If that's the goal, who better to reference than Lana Del Rey? Frankly, her influence on the last decade of music cannot be overstated. "In The Modern World" is overripe and oozing with her mid-century sepia-toned production and Grian Chatten fully leans into the fleshy ache of longing delivering lines full of protest like "if it matters, you complete me." This song lacks a bit of Lana's poetry and sophistication but makes up for it by incorporating the same unhinged call and response vocal dynamics as Nick Cave used on "The Weeping Song." If it's not all perfectly put together or seamlessly worked out, so much the better. The imperfections, the failure to scale to the world our heroes built, the vulnerability to evisceration -- this is art and this is humanity and these are also the diminishing returns of modernity.

DV:

Okay but there is a difference between not feeling anything and not feeling bad, right? And I guess that's the point here: not feeling anything sounds like a nightmare, not feeling bad sounds like a dream. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from pop culture it’s that dreams are traps. In this way they’re very much like the modern world that Fontaines D.C. sing about, a place where we are all going to spend the rest of our lives but also a place that we both like and despise. It's the sort of grandiose pronouncement that it feels like only rock music really does in 2024, and to their immense credit the Fontaines pull it off. Grian Chatten sings the modern world with a sort of passionate resignation: he’s not given up performing it, but he knows this song won’t change anything. About the breakup, about the world, about himself. That feels bad, at least to me. But at least it’s feeling something. Maybe that's all we really have in the end.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Era" by Tayla Parx ft. Tkay Maidza

DV:

Now, some people say "era" is a term owned wholly and completely by Taylor Swift in 2024. But I say, words change hands all the time. Some people say she's too powerful, too omnipresent. But I say, we have shouldn't give her any more credit than she deserves. Some say nothing can stop her. But I say, we've got to start somewhere, and that somewhere is with "Era", a better song than Taylor Swift's released in an eternity. This is a joyful, joyous bop and a vital step in reducing the amount of space taken up by Swift in the pop sphere, and I'm only slightly unserious about this. Admittedly: in one sense this is just a hype song, and we all love those but also how much do we need another one? But it's in the details that "Era" becomes something truly special. Parx and xSDTRK deliver a production that snaps and bangs, but also soars and swoops - it demands attention from the first hit and never relents. Yet Parx more than rises to the level it demands, her nimble flow skipping through the song, pivoting and leaping and never staying still for more than a moment. And the lyric? I don't want to overstate it but "My one-two step/ Ciara" deserves a Nobel Prize. Not to be outdone, Tkay Maidza brings a characteristically dynamo energy to her verse: every line or couplet an aphoristic gem, the sort of thing you could have overlaid on a desaturated photo and gone viral with once upon a time. Together they're unforgettable - in a more just world, they'd be enough to bring down a juggernaut.

MG:

I've given the monoculture more thought this year and instead of the position I'd previously maintained ("we are still in a monoculture, we have always been in a monoculture") I've shifted my stance to "there was never a monoculture." What we thought of as a monoculture was nothing more than the low visibility of anything counter to the mainstream. But, like, goths are nothing new! Not to again bring up the makeup videos but a popular pro/con year end position was in response to so-called "microtrends." In the sense that I'm referring to them, microtrends are just anything that's popular on TikTok for a day or a week or whatever a standard unit of time is over there. But what stood out to me about these microtrends is that it wasn't the same groups of people reinventing themselves constantly, it was one group dominating for a period and then being supplanted by something quite opposite -- MedSpa beauty with lots of filler and botox and everything overdrawn and exaggerated vs. "butterfly eyes" which use the natural contour of creased skin to create an iridescent effect of wing-beats on the face. You can't do both, it's not the deterioration of monoculture, it's highlighting the fact that we could never all be the same.

Anyway, that's all largely taking place in the physical realm. Mentally, I think we're closer to a version of monoculture, and "Era" reflects that. No, this song does not supplant Taylor Swift's monopoly on the word, if anything it's closer to the omnipresent dupe; the world already has great fondness for "eras" so name your song "era" and capitalize on the zeitgeist! But it's not just fondness, our status as an online society steered by complicated algorithms and overexposure means that we are all very much in tune with our multiplicity of identity. We are all in various eras at all time. Our gluttony era when we eat a meal. Our fasting era when we're between meals. Our messy era when we need to shower. Our clean girl era when we're in the shower slathering our bodies with fresh slop. It goes on, our boats beating back the ceaseless current.

[groovesnjams]

gRooVES 'n JaMs S. O. T. Y. 2024

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"Calling You Out" by Charly Bliss

DV:

Their formalist experiments (an epic with only one chord! a piano ballad that holds the drums in reserve until the end of the song!) remain fascinating, but Charly Bliss's real strength is their ability to funnel fraught, complicated tangles of emotion into punchy, punky pop songs. "Calling You Out" is dense, a web of guilt and trauma that Eva Hendricks can name but can't escape, even as she realizes the way it's hurting her current relationship. But Charly Bliss can turn it into three minutes of nonstop hooks, a barreling bubblegum confessional. When I saw Charly Bliss this fall there was someone wearing a Carly Rae Jepsen shirt in front of me; that felt like a good comparison point for the kind of emotionally vulnerable, sonically polished pop music they're doing now. But I've since seen people dismiss "Calling You Out" (and Forever) using the exact same comparison, as if it's diminishing the band to operate in this register. This is very silly, if only because not even Carly Rae Jepsen can pull it off consistently. No one can! But if there's one thing I love it's a complicated pop song, and if there's one thing this phase of Charly Bliss are great at it's exactly that. Nothing lasts forever, but making something messy into an unforgettable chorus comes about as close as anything.

MG:

The way people feel about Charly Bliss and Carly Rae Jepsen now is the way people felt about Cheap Trick and the Cars then. Give it time, you can't win 'em all. I imagine that as their generation ages, it's more difficult for these acts to resonate with an audience because there's something inherently suspicious about adults who are still cosplaying teens. Unlike, say, Avril Lavigne, Charly Bliss always marry their stunted emotions to candy-coated confectionery hooks -- like one of those chocolate Easter bunnies that is hollow on the inside, but this one is also dipped in rainbow sugar crystals. It's charming and addictive; overwhelming and sickening. Charly Bliss are nothing if not polarizing -- often in the course of a single album or within the tastes of a single listener. On "Calling You Out" they're taking every trick and it works, they've shot the moon.