The 2024 Confusingly Made Up Awards for the Best Songs
Another year, another GREAT crop of songs to whittle down into ten arbitrary, totally made up awards. There was a metric buttload of good music this year, so choosing this group was part arduous labor, part random number generator. That said, like every year, I had a bunch of fun coming up with them and even more fun discovering and listening to them. And, if you haven’t heard some/any of these, well then hopefully you will too.
Let’s get started, shall we?
The Second Annual Conquest of Gaul Award for Song Best Designed to Appeal to Me, The Person Writing This Listicle, Specifically
“Alexis Feels Sick” by The Jesus Lizard
That the Jesus Lizard would ever come back in any meaningful way, much like the real Jesus, always felt like a fantastical pipe dream. But unlike the real Jesus, the Jesus Lizard actually did, and for a moment, maybe they did avert the apocalypse.
The guitars are jagged and angular, the drums are hyper-processed, the bass is thumping, and David Yow is as incoherently nonsensical as ever. There are many great songs off the band’s new album: “Hide & Seek,” “Grind, “Moto(R).” But “Alexis Feels Sick” has that special Jesus Lizard vibe: the spacious production, the off-kilter delivery, and that grimy ick feeling that some…thing is just not quite right.
If there is any part of you that enjoys, likes, or even vaguely vibes with noise rock, hardcore, or just rad, wicked good tunes, this is the saga for you.
Lenny Kravitz’s Dreadlocks Memorial Award for Best Cover Song
“Be Quiet And Drive” by HEALTH (originally by Deftones | 1997)
Taking what is probably the greatest band to come out of the 90’s nu-metal space’s probably greatest and best-beloved song and make it your own is no small task. HEALTH is consistently one of my most-listened to acts every year, and this effort, as well as their collaborative single with Bad Omens and SWARM, “THE DRAIN,” made sure that that statistic continued this year.
HEALTH were certainly able to make the alt-metal classic their own, changing Steph Carpenter’s art-rocky haze-filled guitars into a choppy, string-adjacent mechanism, and replacing Abe Cunningham’s grunge-inspired drumming for their own arcade-palette, EBM-style drum machine. And Jake Duzsik’s patented soft, cold, ethereal vocals give an incredibly mind-bending twist to Chino Moreno’s original (brilliant) hyper-emotional scream-laced delivery.
If somehow there were fans of HEALTH that had never heard the original before, I could totally hear this convincing them it was a HEALTH original—the mark of a perfect cover.
Sweatin’ to the Oldies Robert Smith Award for Best Goth Workout Song
“Black Eye” by Allie X
If you like the 80’s, and I know you do, this song has fucking everything. The “orchestra hit” stabs at exactly the right moments, the old-school 808, the hidden electric guitar buried under a pile of glorious synthesizers, “Black Eye” has it all.
Immediately from the start, this song has all the momentum, that drum machine constantly driving you to keep dancing, or soul-cycling, or shadow boxing (it is called “Black Eye” after all), and it never lets up. Allie X’s vocal delivery can easily match and hold up to anything from the Jim Steinman discography, especially that post-breakdown vocalization…gives Bonnie Tyler a run for her money.
All this, plus the very dark lyrics, leads to the greatest Jane Fonda workout tape soundtrack anyone ever made, just replace the unitards and sweat bands with trench coats and corpse paint. Hey, we all gotta stay in shape.
The “Are You a Wizard” Meme Award for “Did you seriously make a beat out of a 1/4 second snippet of HBO’s Succession?”
“don’t rely on other men” by JPEGMAFIA
JPEGMAFIA has always been something of a dark beat wizard, conjuring the most addictive, delicious hooks from the most harmful ingredients, like his hyper-pen-clicking on “Thug Tears,” or the naturalistic clapping and Heaven Can Wait sax samples of last year’s ingenious collaboration with Danny Brown, “Scaring the Hoes.” But this, pulling a random half line from an otherwise inconsequential conversation in a prestige television drama series, is some seidr blood magic.
That the rest of the song (and the drum and bass behind the weird samples) is great too doesn’t hurt, but Brian Cox’s “I hear you went down / down / down…” becomes a kind of trance-inducing mantra as Peggy’s voice fades away, replaced by a soul-moving heavenly choir and strings and an otherworldly guitar solo. This is truly stunning production that I can only assume came from a blót for Surtr.
The Ronnie James Dio Memorial Award for Goat-Throwing Hell Fucking Yeah!!!
“Fader” by Mr. Gnome
Not a lot of seven-plus-minute songs make it on year end lists. But GODDAMN is this one worth every single second. “Fader” may be a sludgy, robotic affair, more in line with old-school stoner metal from Kyuss or Sleep than anything Dio performed, but the feeling!!! Holy shit is it the most rocking out I’ve done this or any year in easily a decade.
And not only is the guitar work exceptional—the monster solo at the five-minute mark is worth this award alone—but the production of the rest of the song, full of fuzzy pedals, kick-ass drums, and Nicole Barille’s over-reverbed vocals giving equal parts Grace Slick and Dan McCafferty, is something that has been missing from good ol’ rock and roll for a long time.
The “Goddammit, I Can’t Get Caught Dancing in the Grocery Store Again” Award for Being Everywhere, But Somehow Not Everywhere Enough
“Good Luck, Babe” by Chappell Roan
Not knowing Chappell Roan existed in 2023, when she released The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (great title reference, by the way), is one of my great music criticism regrets. But, fortunately, she deigned to grace us with a non-album single this year, so I have an excuse to talk about some of the most gloriously smooth, nostalgic synthpop that has blessed these ears.
Absolutely everything about this song is great. The synths float over you like cotton candy clouds, the beat shuffles hazily through her diss-filled landscape, the Phil Collins-esque drum breakdown at the start of the bridge is brilliantly subtle, and the way she belts “I TOLD YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOO” before the final chorus is just godly.
Chappell Roan is a masterful songwriter and I cannot—absolutely cannot—wait to see what she does next.
The Whoa Man Award for Hearing Colors and Seeing Sounds
“Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose” by Father John Misty
Everything about Father John Misty’s brilliant Mahashmashana screams “swan song,” and “last album ever,” with its massive, swelling strings, indulgent track lengths, and relatively bleak outlook (even for him, which is pretty damn bleak). While I, very obviously, hope that isn’t true, it sure would be a sound to go out on.
This long-time-live-favorite-finally-recorded-for-the-album combines Joshua Tillman’s biting, intellectual storytelling with the piano and drums from a Vince Guaraldi Trio album and the bad-trip psychedelic string orchestra of Beck’s Sea Change. It’s the perfect combination of comforting and horrifying to go along with Tillman’s tale of being trapped in a drug den with know-nothing fascist yuppies who won’t shut up while tripping mega-balls.
This song also sees another entry into my long-running document of greatest lines in popular music. As the final verse winds down, Tillman is describing how his self-medicating has permanently ruined his experience of the world:
Dawn long broke by the time
I realized that I’d lost my mind
I ate an ice cream dazed in the street
But it never taste quite as sweet
Again
The Magnitude Award for
POP! POP!
“That’s My Floor” by Magdalena Bay
A lot, and I mean A LOT, of Magdalena Bay’s second proper album is absolutely, dazzlingly brilliant. So picking any one thing off of it was quite a task. There’s the infectious groove of “Killing Time,” or their version of playing the hits with “Image,” or even the 90’s pop nostalgia of “Death & Romance.” But once I saw this song live, I knew there could be no other.
I’ve never seen such an oddly diverse group of ages, from Gen-X first-time grandparents to the tweens of Gen-Alpha…headbanging to a pop song. The overdriven bass lines and rump-rattling synth melodies blasted through the speakers, our bones, and our very beings, eviscerating our Earth-bound consciousness so as to ascend to a higher plane of understanding. People were screaming with joy, people were crying in ecstasy, people were laying prostrate in the sacred glow of pure pop perfection.
Having shed our human forms, and united in divine purpose, the cult of Magdalena Bay’s Floor will reign for a thousand years.
The Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes Baby Corner Award for Best Duet
“Rare” by Bullion & Carly Rae Jepsen
Wow, there’s a…LOT of synthpop this year.
And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Unlike the other pop songs we’ve talked about so far, which were mostly big, loud dance numbers (and that one just before this that turned everyone in the world into a “I Have No Mouth And I Must Bop” cult), this song is so beautiful and tender it could change a life.
Much of Bullion’s Affection is full of fun, almost simplistic ditties, drawing heavily on inspiration from Burt Bacharach and Christopher Cross’ Arthur soundtrack, that are a wonderful kind of golly-gee-shucks good fun.
But this duet between Nathan Jenkins and the inimitable Carly Rae Jepsen is STUNNING. The synths open with a sliding attack and long delay, imploring the listener to delve in further. Each artist has their verse, Jenkins doing his best Phoenix impression, and Jepsen being magnificent as usual, but their shared chorus is where the magic really happens.
Jenkins’ delivery is straightforward while Jepsen flits and dives around him, showing why she’s the one true pop singer. And the breakdown after the second chorus?! Why is there still no chef’s kiss emoji? Bullion’s production of Jepsens’ vocalizations, having them blip and bloop in and out of frame while fading from earshot, is so beautiful I could cry.
This one will be revisited for years to come.
The Von Dutch Award for Number One I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your number one I’m your
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YEAH!
Alright, those songs were all fantastic, but those were just the ones I could think of silly award names for. There’s WAY more awesome songs from this year in the playlist below, including songs from Adrianne Lenker, Goldfrapp, Bat for Lashes, Billie Eilish, Childish Gambino, clipping., Cold Cave, The Cure, Denzel Curry, FKA Twigs, Future Islands, IDLES, Jack White, Jessica Pratt, Judas Priest, Kendrick Lamar, MGMT, Nilufer Yanya, Porridge Radio, Remi Wolf, Sabrina Carpenter (obviously), Same Lee, St. Vincent, Tyler, The Creator, and so, so many more! Check it out now!
