Wednesday, February 12, 2025

A Few of My Favorite Things 2024 Edition – Part One: The Albums

By Henry Lipput

Better late than never (as usual) here's my year-end album favorites from 2024. This time around I've selected ten albums that have, with their tunes, lyrics, arrangements, and voices have tickled my ears. There are old favorites as well as new tunesmiths who last year hit me right between those ears. So let's dig in and (as if you need to be told again because if you didn't you wouldn't be reading this) support indie music!

The Shop WIndow, Daysdream (Jangleshop Records)

Daysdream is The Shop Window's first new album in two years following A 4 Letter Word in 2022.  This double LP is two mini albums with one being Days and the other Dream. The Days disc is filled with upbeat jangle and indie pop sounds while the Dream disc has a more melancholy feel with its dreampop/shoegaze elements. The singles "I Run" and "It's A High" cover the jangle while the epic 7-minute closing track "Made In Heaven" is already, as far as I'm concerned, a dreampop classic.

Favorite track: "Made In Heaven"


Steve Conte, The Concrete Jangle (Wicked Cool Records)

For The Concrete Jangle the New York-based rocker Steve Conte joined forces with Andy Partridge of XTC and the two of them co-wrote the five songs on Side One. The flip side is all Conte all the time and as much as I love Partridge these five songs are my favorites on the album. These guitar-driven tunes are pop gems with tunes and arrangements that could have/should have been a mid-Sixties AM radio hit (and might just be one now on the interwebs radio).

Favorite track: "Girl With No Name"


Tamar Berk, Good Times For A Change (Bandcamp)



Good Times for a Change is Tamar Berk's fourth album in four years and it's her best yet. Her production and arrangement skills continue to shine and her crack band hits their marks on every song. Berk writes honest lyrics as an act of therapy with many recalling  conversations; and the responses she didn't make at the time. She's also a master of mood, going from the upbeat 80's exercise video vibe of "Good Impression" to the somber "Sorrow is Hunting."

Favorite track: "Artful Dodger"


The Pearlfishers, Making Tapes For Girls (Marina Records)


On Making Tapes for Girls, the latest album from The Pearlfishers (their first in six years), David Scot and company present an album full of wonderful tunes and arrangements. Two of the highlights are the singles that came out prior to the album’s release. Both the title song and “We’re Gonna Make a Hit Record, Boy” are trademark classic sounding pop from the band. On “Hold Out for A Mistic” and “Put the Baby in The Milk” Scott pulls off the neat trick of having an uplifting message without being preachy. 

Favorite track: "Making Tapes For Girls"


Young Scum, Lighter Blue (Bandcamp)



I was a big fan of Young Scum's 2018 debut self-titled album so was excited when I learned Lighter Blue was being released last year. The last we heard from them was their song "Seltzer" on the 2019 "sunshine psychpop" compilation F.A.R. Out from Fadeawayradiate Records. Lighter Blue not only continues the band's jangle pop leanings but also their whole broken-heart vibe. 

Favorite track: "Got Mad"


Greg Williams, Stone on Stone (Bandcamp)


Having been part of Australia’s Splurge band, The Young Homebuyers, and The Everys,  Greg Williams’ Stone On Stone is his first solo release this century.   He’s obviously been influenced by other musicians from his home country.  “Rock Song” and “Just for Fun” may remind you of the crunchy guitar sounds of Hoodoo Gurus and “This Life” and “The Things That Make Me Happy” have the melodic grace and vocal of the late Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens..

Favorite track: "The Things That Make Me Happy"


SUPER 8, Retro Metro (Think Like A Key Music)

With his new album, Retro Metro Scotland’s SUPER 8 -- aka Trip aka Paul Ryan -- continues to delight and surprise us, as he’s been doing for the last six years, keeping us guessing about what he has up his musical sleeve. Retro is the word that may be the answer to the some of the songs on the album. He opens it with an instrumental theme song like one from an early 60s pop show. "Keep Doing It" sounds like an early Kinks song. And he's dusted off the lovely "Mary Jane" which first appeared on his second album 2018's Turn Around Or … 

Favorite track: "Another Me"


The Black Watch, Weird Rooms (ATOM Records)

On The Black Watch's Weird Rooms (ATOM records) they are again led by singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Andrew Fredrick this time with his son Chandler l California for Austin, Texas, to record the new album. The Black Watch is known for its dream pop sound and there’s plenty of that on Weird Rooms. Although it’s not always clear where Fredrick’s influences come from the album’s first song “Myrmidon” has“Dear Prudence” -inspired pacing and production, there are also “Walrus”-strings. On “Gobbledegook” the band gives us an example of a different kind of classic Black Watch pop gem and on the title song has Fredrick’s acoustic guitar along with a terrific interplay of electric guitars. 

Favorite track: "Miles & Miles"


The Jack Rubies, Clocks Are Out Of Time (Big Stir Records)

Clocks Are Out Of Time from The Jack Rubies is their first in over 30 years. It doesn’t turn back in the clocks in a daylight savings time sort of way as much as it continues the streak the band had in the late 80s and early 90s..And it doesn’t hurt that the band on Clocks Are Out Of Time is composed of the original line-up.  Even though The Jack Rubies were a year of two late to be included in NME’s fabled original C86 collection, the songs “Angeline Soul” and “Heaven Shook Me” would have not only fit perfectly on that cassette but would have made a killer double A-side single.

Favorite track: "Angeline Soul"


Amy Rigby, Hang In There With Me (Tapete Records)


It's appropriate that Amy Rigby is following up her 2018 release The Old Guys with an album about turning 60. On Hang In There With Me Rigby looks back over her career in "Hell-oh Sixty" and to me "Requiem" is about the joys and frustrations of songwriting. On "Dylan in Dubuque" she borrows a riff from Stealers Wheel (although it's not clear if the song is about Rigby as solo acoustic act early in her career or about the actual Bob). As you get older you may want to catch up with old friends as Rigby does in "O Anjali" or break ties with someone who did you wrong in the past ("Bricks").

Favorite track: "Bricks"