The Best Of Me, 2024

 

2024 was a long, exhausting year for me. I spent most of this year working on a big cool project that will be out in 2025, but I couldn't afford to step away from any paying work to focus on that, so I've just been a bit overwhelmed all year until, I don't know, a couple days ago. Fortunately, I'm proud of a lot the stuff I did publish this year. Narrowcast actually turned 20 years old in October, and Government Names also turned 20 in May, and I didn't even observe those anniversaries at all, so... I'll mention it now, I guess. 

- For the first issue of the new zine Rantipole, I wrote a lengthy profile of Susan Alcorn, and I highly recommend purchasing the issue, it's full of great stuff.

- For Vulture, I wrote a playful piece ranking every Coachella lineup. 

- For Billboard, I worked with Andrew Unterberger for many months on a big piece on music licensing for television, and I also ranked the tracks on The Cure's Songs of a Lost World. 

- For Complex, I wrote about disrespectful diss tracks and Meek Mill's tweets.

- For Stereogum, I did some really fun, illuminating interviews with Raphael Saadiq, Logic and The Offspring for their We've Got A File On You series. 

- For the Baltimore Banner, I wrote a piece I've wanted to do for many years, interviewing members of Little Feat about the time they spent recording in Maryland in the '70s during which my own father met the band. I also wrote about pieces about Brittney Spencer, Combat, D. King, the SubScape festival, Kix, J. Robbins, Super City, and Cris Jacobs, and columns about the closing of Rams Head Live and the death of Twofer Tuesday. 

- For Spin, I interviewed EarthGang and Maggie Rose, and analyzed the Grammys ceremony and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's class of 2024, I wrote pieces memorializing Steve Albini and Wayne Kramer of the MC5. I ranked the catalogs of a lot artists, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Kinks, Madonna, Tom Petty, Queen, Mary J. Blige, Bon Jovi, Tracy Chapman, X, and Wilco. I also did year-end lists of the best EPs and the best hip-hop albums by women of 2024. 

- I talked about Taylor Swift on Times Radio, appeared on the Shoving Wilco podcast.

- Here on Narrowcast, I made lists of the best R&B singles of the 1980s and the best alternative singles of the 1980s. I made deep album cuts playlists for Scarface, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Charli XCX, Black Sabbath, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Sinead O'Connor, Kool & The Gang, Common, Sabrina Carpenter, Beastie Boys, Norah Jones, Cher, and Sleater-Kinney. as well as some artists who passed away in 2024: Maze's Frankie Beverly, Toby Keith, Rich Homie Quan, Greg Kihn, World Party's Karl Wallinger, and Melanie. And I just did year-end lists of my favorite albums, singles, remixes, and TV shows of 2024. 

- As far as making music, this year I produced and played drums on my newest band Lithobrake's self-titled debut album, and I think what we did on that record is really something special. I also released a couple of songs from my solo project Western Blot called "Wrong Again (Hit Em)" and "End of the Bargain."