Note: as I mentioned last time, I'm a judge for the fiction category of the 2026 Ockham NZ Book Awards (books pubbed in 2025, longlist/shortlist/winner announced in 2026) so need to read about a dozen novels/story collections a month to be done by the end of the year and make longlist decisions early in Jan. I won't include any of these books in my summaries here, but will include them in my end of year reading stats. Safe to assume I'll crush last year's 100 books read (and whatever the previous record for physical books read might be).
Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand by Nick Bollinger (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2022)
A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2025) - kinda annoying how obviously this book was written for a North American audience so every aspect of NZ life needed to be glossed.
Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2021) - I'd seen Whiti talk about the recording of this audiobook on social media, so was keen to check out this version. (She does a great job).
May You Have Delicious Meals by Junko Takase (novel, audiobook, Japan, translated, 2025)
Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson (novel, audiobook, US, 2025)
New Transgender Blockbusters by Oscar Upperton (poetry, physical book, NZ, 2021)
A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran (novel, audiobook, South Korea, translated, 2025)
This is For Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee: the inventor of the World Wide Web (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2025) - the rare book where the author gets the subtitle rather than the title. Made me feel a bit less dark on the future by showing how the internet could have been ruined multiple times over the last four decades so maybe there's hope yet.
Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2025)
MOVIES & TV
Nobody Wants This - Season 1
The Chair Company - Season 1
Inside Llewyn Davis
Tick, tick... boom
Forrest Gump* - my daughter was watching it for the first time, and I found it hard to tear myself away to do the dishes or whatever. Moved a lit faster than in my memory.
Fighting with my Family
And quite a bit of WWE content, which may or may not translate into research for a project
I'm one of the judges for the fiction section for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, which means I need to read every novel and short story collection published in 2025 that is submitted for the awards. So far I've received two boxes of books (33 books in total) and there's at least one more box to come later in the year. I'd read three books already (score). So that's going to mean I smash some of the reading targets I set at the start of the year (read 100+ books, read 20+ physical books) but means some of the other targets will be harder to achieve (like read 10 non-fiction books by female authors).
(I could tally the numbers now and see, but I'm going to keep myself in the dark till I do my 2025 reading wrap up post).
Before the first box of books to judge arrived, I got a box of books I'd bought from the THWUP sale, which was mostly just Geoff Cochranes. I started a project to re-read all his poetry collections and come up with my own Best Of list, and compare it to the contents of The Collected Geoff Cochrane (which I bought but haven't read). I didn't quite finish this process before the Ockham judging bow wave hit, so this might be a Jan 2026 project :)
BOOKS
Into India, Aztec Noon*, Acetylene*, 84-484*, Pocket Edition*, Hypnic Jerks*, The Worm in the Tequila*, The Bengal Engine's Mango Afterglow* by Geoff Cochrane (poetry, physical books, NZ) - see above.
Tin Nimbus by Geoff Cochrane (novel, physical book, NZ) - Hadn't read this before. If you've only read Geoff's poetry, this novel is pretty much what you'd imagine his novel would be like. Alcoholism. Attention to life at the level of the sentence, the word, the syllable. And the sex scene - the chutzpah!
The Bookshop Detectives: Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth and Louise Ward (novel, audiobook, NZ) - Book Two in the series. Diminishing marginal returns.
The CIA Book Club by Charlie English (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)
Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod (non-fiction, audiobook, US)
Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (novel, audiobook, Japan) - was actually written before Convenience Store Woman (terrific) and Earthlings (even better), but translated into English after those two and published in 2025. Not as strong.
Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (short stories, audiobook, US) - Kinda hated that a story made me empathise with Jeff Bezos. But: goooood stories.
Audition by Katie Kitamura (novel, audiobook, US) - Flesh by David Szalay is still my favourite book on the Booker Shortlist
A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (non-fiction, audiobook, US) - both a superserious takedown of space colony hype and also quite funny.
Rusty Brown by Chris Ware (graphic novel, physical book, US) - a real doorstop of a book. Can be thrilling at the level of the page in terms of composition / juxtaposition, but can also feel slow and dense. Would be interested in what someone who reads a lot of graphic novels thinks.
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami (novel, audiobook, Japan) - think Earthlings x Never Let Me Go.
Electric Spark: the Enigma of Muriel Spark by Frances Wilson (non-fiction, audiobook, UK) - overpromised and underdelivered in terms of revelations (though there was certainly a lot of words).
+ 8 NZ works of fiction in my judging capacity, which I will remain cagey about.
FILM & TV
Honestly, the only thing I can remember watching (besides sport), was The Truman Show with my kids (first time for them, not for me). Maybe the odd Taskmaster episode. I tried watching Season 2 of The Night Agent, got bored. Season 2 of Squid Game: ditto. Season 1 of Untamed: samesies.
Books! Give me books! Or podcasts. Or another season of Unreal (please?).
Oh, I watched the Devo documentary, and Beau is Afraid, finished Black Mirror Season 7, and the documentary series Wrestlers about OVW (that was really good).
My in-laws inherited some money and took us to Japan in July. It was hot. It was humid. The ages in our party ranged from 10 to 70-mumble. I was the only one with any non-Duolingo, non-Google Translate Japanese education (School C baby!). We did a fairly standard Greatest Hits route (Tokyo, Kyoto/Osaka/Nara, Hiroshima).
The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe (novel, audiobook, UK) - good
Playworld by Adam Ross (novel, audiobook, US) - Felt like a novel written by someone immersed in the college creative writing industrial machine who takes a long time between books. Oh wait...
Pounamu Pounamu by Witi Ihimaera (short stories, audiobook, NZ)
How to Hold a Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell (fiction?, audiobook, US) - just don't.
Careless People: a story of where I used to work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ)
Courting the Wild Twin by Martin Shaw (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)
Universality by Natasha Brown (novel, audiobook, UK) - on the Booker Longlist... didn't hit for me like Brown's debut, Assembly.
Flesh by David Szalay (novel, audiobook, UK/Hungary) - on the Booker Longlist... this one hit for me. V v v v v good.
The Forgotten Forest by Robert Vennell (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ)
The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon (non-fiction, audiobook, France)
Pure Innocent Fun by Ira Madison III (non-fiction, audiobook, US) - contender for the most annoying book of the year.
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (novel, audiobook, NZ) - not what I was expecting. Much more subdued than I presumed from the hype.
Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito (non-fiction, audiobook, Japan)
Well Met by Jen DeLuca (novel, audiobook, US) - trope-city.
The Shetland Way by Marianne Brown (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)
Perspectives by Laurent Binet (novel, audiobook, France) - a few aspects are hard to believe, but there should be more intellectual romps.
A Lack of Good Sons by Jake Arthur (poetry, physical book, NZ)
The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward (novel, audiobook, NZ)
I went to see MJ Lenderman and the Wind at The Loons in Lyttleton at the end of March.
It was really great. The last 20 minutes of the set (before the encore) got a bit ambient/dragging on for my old, out-of-practice standing for four hours self. But either side of that: magic.
Opening act, Wurld Series, was also pretty good. Lenderman described them as weird. My wife said they looked like accountants who were also in a band. I think both descriptions are slightly unfair. They were more like if Midlake was a Flying Nun band (okay, maybe not as amazing as that sounds).
The thing I forget about concerts until I am back at one is how great they are for finding solutions to writing problems or coming up with new ideas. Something about being around all those other people - strangers mostly - but so much of the experience is personal and interior. Anyway, the novel I worked on last year and I thought needed to get much fatter and overtly "important"... well, I decided during the gig that maybe it would work as a novel-in-stories, and all the "fat" might be unnecessary.
READING
Stoner by John Williams (audiobook, novel, US, 1965) - A little late to the revival, or maybe I'm the start of the 3rd wave, but v v v v v good.
Gliff by Ali Smith (audiobook, 2024, novel, UK) - Triggering (not just in the title's similarity to my name) in the way Ali Smith can be: the slide to techno-authoritarianism shown from the other side, clear-eyed and pun-filled.
The reluctant fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (audiobook, novel, Pakistan/UK, 2007) - four hour audiobooks for the win. Any longer and the narrator addressing his American interlocutor framing may've become annoying. As is: great.
Several short sentences about writing by Evelyn Klinkenborg (audiobook, non-fiction, US, 2012). Loved the final section where VK dissects subpar sentences.
Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (physical book, poetry, NZ, 2024). My daughter's class had to memorise a sonnet by Shakespeare (each choosing a different one), so I learnt one of Neale's poems...The young house surgeon / jogs the tree canopied avenue (etc). I could feel my brain working in ways it hasn't for YEARS. So good.
Juice by Tim Winton (audiobook, novel, Australia, 2024). A good book in the end, marred by the fact the narrator said "cachet" instead of "cache" 90% of the time (post-apocalptic, so lots of caching)... Couldn't even be consistently wrong. (There were other mispronounciations, too. Tagging this for next time someone asks what my pet peeve is).
Going Zero by Anthony McCarten (audiobook, novel, NZ, 2023) - felt like it should have been a TV series, but also understandable why it wasn't.
Everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton (audiobook, non-fiction, UK, 2018) - I preferred the Alderton novel I read last year. This felt a bit random brain splurge. Sucker for structure, me.
The extraordinary disappointments of Leopold Berry, Sunderworld v-01, by Ransom Riggs (audiobook, novel, US, 2024) - Not really my thing.
(For those counting along, that's 9 books, which is what I averaged in Jan/Feb... so still on pace for 108).
MOVIES & TV
Adolescence - worthy of the buzz
White Lotus - Season 3 (okay, there's still one episode to go, but)
Paradise - Season 1
Severance - Season 2
Dune Part 2
(And my daughter finished all seasons of Gilmore Girls, include A Year in the Life... She got annoyed when I fangirled over the scene where Rory is at a Shins concert. Oh that we could live in 2000-2007 again (when many would have longed for an even earlier time)).
18 books so far this year. On pace for 108 (yeah, but, holiday reading... but also, no poetry collections yet...)
The Islanders by Christopher Priest (novel, physical book, UK, 2011)
Classic Priest tropes (twins, theatre, unreliable narrator) in his fantasy world that feel like Earth if only Europeans existed (so, kinda ick). More interesting conceptually than in execution.
The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong (novel, physical book, Aus, 2016)
Imagine Mark Waugh bloodied & stuffed in a car boot, reflecting on life. Loved all the backyard cricket stuff, brotherly tensions & dependency, the rise through to state cricket legend... The crime framing and twists felt less vital.
Funny Story by Emily Henry (novel, audiobook, US, 2024)
As if reader notes from Henry's last book (Happy Place) said, "We want the exact same setup, but give him tattoos and spend longer on the sex scenes"... Elevated by the GOAT narrator (Goatarrator?) Julia Whelan.
Doxology by Nell Zink (novel, physical book, audiobook, US, 2019)
Picked up on the promise of the elusive GOOD rock'n'roll novel. Starts by diagnosing a character with high-functioning Williams syndrome, which is unknown to all characters, and we keep this level of remove from most characters throughout. Oh well.
Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret (novel, audiobook, US, 1970)
Simultaneously an artifact of its era, a blueprint for others to follow (even picked up some resonances in Doxology, which I read concurrently) and an engaging yarn. Now to see what my 12y.o. daughter thinks 🤔
The Survivors by Steve Braunias (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2024)
The alleged final book in a true crime trilogy. Much like Palmerston North pathologist Cynric Temple-Camp's trilogy-capping The Final Diagnosis, which I read last month, there's great moments, but it lacks the cohesion of earlier books.
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (novel, Ireland, 2013)
Had a couple solo South Island car trips tin Jan to churn through the audiobooks. Listening to this in transit felt apt, and the slow accumulation of detail, meaning and connection paid off...
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (novel, UK, 2024)
...unlike this one, which felt like an extended creative writing exercise. No liftoff, no new layers exposed, dead on arrival.
Foraging New Zealand by Peter Langlands (non-fiction, physical book, NZ, 2024)
The author's Instagram is full of quirky finds & unique dishes, but this is more of a straightlaced field guide. Kinda wished the book had more personality, & maybe a few place-based 2 page spreads (foraging at the beach, etc)
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (novel, audiobook, US, 2023)
Game of Thrones meets Harry Potter "romantasy" that was apparently big on BookTok (shrug) & people took the day off work to read the 3rd book when it came out last month. The engine runs but no need to ride again.
Magic Pill by Johann Hari (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2024)
Hari both sides the Ozempic debate, with a heavy dose of Supersize Me-style autoethnography.
When it All Went to Custard by Danielle Hawkins (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2019)
I was once on a panel with Hawkins & Lloyd Jones (who demonstrated zero curiosity in commercial fiction/romance). Turns out, Hawkins is just as interested in the economics of farming as affairs of the heart. Time for Take 2.
Northern Lights (His Dark Materials book 1) by Philip Pullman (novel, audiobook, UK, 1995)
Thought I should check out what all the fuss is (was) about. Twas good. Not sure my kids are fantasy kids, so may not every go any further in this series.
The Colour of Magic (Discworld Book 1) by Terry Pratchett (novel, audiobook, UK, 1983)
Thought I should check out what all the fuss is (was) about. Twas okay. I'm not a fantasy guy (nor a this whole scene/character is a set up for a joke guy), so may not go any further with TP, though Pratchett heads may twist my arm.
Twist by Colum McCann (novel, physical book, Ireland, 2025)
Reviewed this one for The Listener...
Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah (novel, physical book, Tanzania/UK, 2025)
...and this one.
Total F*cking Godhead: The Biography of Chris Cornell by Corbin Reiff (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2020)
Reiff didn't get access to interview anyone in Cornell's inner circle, so relied on previously published interviews and articles. That distance is felt throughout, as is the fact there can't be any new revelations.
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins (novel, audiobook, US, 2003)
Hadn't read Robbins (RIP) before. Still not sure how representative this one was. Sooo many references to scrotums.
MOVIES & TV
Rogue Heroes (of the SAS) - Seasons 1 & 2
The Jackal - Season 1
Black Doves - Season 1
Ludwig - Season 1
The Kins of Tupelo - Season 1
Win or Lose - eps 1-4 (me and my son are really enjoying this)
I read 20 books that were released in 2024, but that's burying the lede. I actually read 100 books this calendar year, published between 1837 (The Pickwick Papers) and 2024.
I had five reading targets for the year, all of which I met, but there was no target for gross number of books.
How'd I do it? When you look at what format I consumed these books, the answer might seem to be through my ears...
But I actually listened to more audiobooks (85) in 2021. This is the first time in over a decade I've read as many physical books. Issues with my eyes (and attention span) aren't as bad as they were. Yay!
I've also been more ruthless with audiobooks, abandoning some early (these don't count towards the total and I won't drag anyone here) and moving onto books I'm more likely to devour.
Speak of which...
Best Reading of 2024
Outline by Rachel Cusk (2014)
If there's a theme for this year's top ten, it's clusters. This year I read five books by Cusk, and the Outline trilogy was an absolute highlight. The first book in the trilogy gets top billing here thanks to the thrill of seeing the magician pull the trick for the first time (autofiction with the merest silhouette of the author-narrator). Rather than diminishing marginal returns in the next two books, the power of Fay's self-abnegation only builds.
Holy Moses this was great. This seems weird to say, and only just occurred to me several weeks after reading it, but it's like a grown-up Fight Club. The disaffection. The bifurcation. The sardonic wit. But without the empty nihilism and cheap shocks.
Looking back, this might've been the book that got me back into the physical form. So much good Aotearoa NZ stuff still isn't making it to audiobook.
Wonderful. Part of me feels I shouldn't have loved it so much as it's lineage back through Jonathan Franzen is pretty clear (even without Oprah's seal of approval for Wellness), but it deals with things I'm interested in (and made me interested in things I wasn't previously) and feels big without being overblown or tryhard. Need to go back and read The Nix now.
I'm a sucker for stories that immerse me in a world I was sort of interested in already but not obsessively so, like Saturday Night Live (which Sittenfeld repatches as The Night Owls in her novel). Pair this with a not-too-typical, not-too-out-there love story and you've got a winner.
The good test of a book like this, which is trying to have its genre cake and eat it too, is whether you can remember much of the plot or characters at the end of the year. This one absolutely passes this test. Memorable and smart. *Chefs kiss*
Martyr by Kaveh Akbar (2024)
Maybe this is recency bias, but Akbar claims the title of best book actually published-and-read in 2024 (just pipping James by Percival Everett, Good Material by Dolly Alderton, and Intermezzo by Sally Rooney).
This could be the start of a bad joke: Acclaimed poet writes a literary novel about death, religion, sexuality, loss, nationhood and lies... Except it fucking rules.
The narrative hinges on a pretty incredible (as in: hard to believe, though not hard to predict) twist, and yet somehow it doesn't scuttle the whole enterprise.
The most fun you can have while being miserable. Highly recommended.
Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta (2023)
First non-fiction on this list. First Australian. First first nations. Second book by Yunkaporta to make one of my year-end lists.
A worthy successor to Sand Talk, but I'm worried I might come across as one of the wrong kind of fans of Yunkaporta's books (who Yunkaporta addresses in this latest book).
Subsequently, I took part in an cross-discipline, online competition-cum-capacity-building-thingamee about indigenous perspectives on energy and climate change. Yunkaporta was one of the guest speakers and he was the same caustic, insightful, unserious-and-dead-serious-simultaneously self as presented in his (audio)books.
Another book I was on the fence about reading (having already committed many hours to listening to the very good, but very Irish Franzen-y The Bee Sting already this year).
Another book I ended up really enjoying. I think I preferred this to The Bee Sting because it's a bit less Franzen-y and because I myself have been grappling with a plot point not dissimilar to (not a spoiler, guys) Skippy dying!!!
Another fat book cluster. Unlike with Nathan Hill, I preferred Murray's earlier book to his newer one. It felt wilder. Less Seriously Funny Family Saga and more Stranger Things without the STRANGE THINGS (though there's plenty of lower case strangeness).
Yeah! This was excellent. Funny, dark-at-times, possibly even profound. And it has dogs in it!
I really liked that the protagonist/narrator was late 40s (I think) but language and ideas still seemed to be alive to them. It felt true(ish) to my inner dialogue as a early 40s person.
Totally unrelated negative-impulse: I don't want to Google how old Elizabeth Bennett's parents are in Pride and Prejudice...
Nothing further to add, your honour. The Defence rests.
The great Ali Smith keeps on being great in uncomfortable ways.
It's incredible how much now-ness Smith gets into her books. You can pretty much lock in a slot in next year's list for Glif (and maybe it's companion piece, Glyph, if it comes out and I read it before the end of the year)... though I find the sight of the word 'Glif' very triggering as someone who often gets called Cliff in email, and occasionally Graig.
Poūkahangahatus by Tayi Tibble (2018)
I didn't write about thing about this in my December consumption diary because I hadn't actually read it before I left for Christmas up North, but I had it in my backpack and needed to read it to complete my goal of reading at least 10 single-poet collections this year.
It's crazy it took me six years to get to this collection. Crazy.
It's incredibly polished for a first collection published so young... annnnnnd this is where I stop myself from saying other condescending-sounding drivel.
This is the collection that convinced me that I need to read AT LEAST another ten poetry collections next year (with Tibble's sophomore effort top of the list).
Graphs and shit
A little more on how my 100 books breaks down... (sorry for the pixelation, for some reason posting graphs directly isn't working today).
Works in translation: 7
Works by non-white authors: 27
This gender split was interesting. Last year it was 35 female to 23 male authors, but going back to preceding years, 2024 looks pretty typical. Maybe it's because of the non-fiction I read? I read 19 non-fiction books by dudes and only 3 by females in 2024... Whereas with novels it was 34 females to 28 males.
Reading targets for 2025
Read 100 books (why not?)
Read at least 10 single-author poetry collections
Read at least 20 physical books
Read at least 10 non-fiction books by female authors
Here's a playlist to listen along to selections from the prizewinners in 2024...
Top ten* albums of 2024
White Roses, My God by Alan Sparhawk
I'm not usually a fan of ultra-processed vocals. Nor of solo albums where the artist is trying so hard to make an aural break from previous bands (in this case: the majestic Low, the raucous Retribution Gospel Choir and funky Derecho Rhythm Section).
But Alan Sparhawk, my God.
And while I'm a massive fan of Low (seeing them live at Bodega in 2016 is probably a top five gig), I wasn't so high on the glitchy, electronic sound of Double Negative (2018) and HEY WHAT (2021), so to take that glitchy, electronic angle and turn it up to 11...
But Alan Sparhawk, my God.
Of course, after the death of your life partner and band mate (Mimi Parker) you want to obliterate old selves. But to forge something so listenable from such angular parts? The best grief-stricken record since Hummingbird?
Whether you come to this record from a rock, slow-core, hip hop or electronica background, chances are it'll speak to you.
My God, Alan. Bless you.
Lived Here for a While by Good Looks
Album opener 'If it's gone' might have been my song of the year, if top ten albums didn't render themselves ineligible. Tracks like 'Self-destructor', 'White Out', and 'Can You See Me Tonight?' aren't far behind. But repeated listens allows slower tunes to rise up. 'Broken Body' is about disability, childhood and regret. 'Why Don't You Believe Me?' about a mother-son relationship where it's the son's turn to let the side down.
These guys are from Austin, Texas, but sound (to me, at least) Australian. In researching their origins I learnt about the disastrous lead-in to this album.
The day after they released their 2022 debut, the clairvoyantly titled Bummer Year, guitarist Jake Ames was nearly killed in a hit-and-run. After a long recovery, the band got back and they road, only for their van to catch fire and destroy all their gear, instruments, laptops, and merch.
Lived Here for a While is infused with the knowledge of how bad things can get, but also the joy of not being done just yet.
Big Swimmer by King Hannah
The first track I heard from this Liverpudlian duo was 'New York, Let's Do Nothing', a talk-sung indie track in the vein of Dry Cleaning Cassandra Jenkins, Wet Leg, The Weather Station, Bongwater, Life Without Buildings, Young Marble Giants (and, of course, the Velvet Underground)...
So of course I loved that song, but King Hannah has other modes.
The title track is a big, seventies style ballad, replete with backing vocals from Sharon Van Etten (who reappears later in the album). 'Suddenly, Your Hand' sounds like Courtney Barnett in her calmer moments. 'Somewhere near El Paso' is more of a noise-rock jam in the vein of Sonic Youth or Swans. 'Davey Says' is straight-ahead garage pop-rock. Elsewhere, there's moments of Bill Callahan's chugging guitar and ironic vocals. Other artists, like Slint and John Prine are name-checked directly.
And yes, I like the fact that Hannah Merrick talks to/mentions her guitarist Craig Whittle in her anecdotes.
He first me five years later
Said that Craig and I worked too well together
(New York, Let's Do Nothing)
Craig and I have been
Craig and I have been
Watching quite disturbing
Documentaries in the evenings
(Suddenly, Your Hand)
More songs should talk to Craigs. We're good people.
My Light, My Destroyer by Cassandra Jenkins
Speaking of Cassandra Jenkins, she's followed up her big hit (for a talkie indie track in the age of streaming) 'Hard Drive' from the 2021 album An Overview of Phenomenal Nature, with a more diverse, more musical, more confident collection of tracks.
The field recordings and found samples are still part of the mix, but Jenkins puts herself front and centre from the opener. 'Devotion'. Her delicate, reedy voice then morphs into a kind of Sheryl Crow/Natalie Hemby clone suitable for fronting a country-infected, rock-driven album standout. It's gutsy while also still being whispery. 'Petco' and 'Only One' are similarly poppy (though in different ways), helping to balance out the more experimental and ambient tracks.
Lighthouse by Francis of Delirium
Is this the greatest band from Luxembourg ever? Even ignoring the bonus points they scored for calling a song 'Cliffs', I think it is.
They play big songs about big feelings. Every time I listen to the album I think I have a different favourite track: today, it's 'First Touch'... 'Cliffs' being ineligible due to a conflict of interest. Actually, now it's 'Blue Tuesday' (take that, New Order). Or maybe it's 'Ballet Dancers (Never Love Again)?
(Parenthesis ftw!)
Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee
I felt like I'd placed other Waxahatchee albums in my top ten before, but searching this site suggest the closest Katie Crutchfield came was an honorable mention for Ivy Trip back in 2015.
Well, this here album feels like the apotheosis of what Waxahatchee has been building towards. It's sooo confident. The vocals are so far forward in the mix. The choruses are the kind you can lose your voice to. The rhythm section is gruntier. We've moved from barbeque playlist to spring cleaning with your headphones on.
The duet with MJ Lenderman, 'Right Back To It', is the greatest duet since... ('Islands in the Stream' is all I can think of right now... Karaoke brain)... And Lenderman provides backing on some other tracks, but this is all Crutchfield.
Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman
I've put this album lower in my ranking than my gut wants me to, because a) I wanted to give Waxahatchee some non-reflected glory, b) Boat Songs made my top ten in 2022 and c) I'm excited about seeing Lenderman with full band live in March next year, so I'm not a reliable witness.
Where Boat Songs felt very influenced by Jason Molina, Manning Fireworks has more of a Neil Young vibe (not just because there's a 10 minute song called 'Bark at the Moon').
There's still the sharp as a Stanley knife lyricism ('Please don't ask how I'm doing / draining cum from hotel showers / hoping for the hours to pass a little faster'), but now it's matched musically. And songs like 'She's Leaving You' show Lenderman can tone down the lyrical audacity and just deliver a SONG.
In Lieu of Flowers by Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties
Sometimes an album comes along that teaches you how to appreciate a genre you never really "got". So it is with In Lieu of Flowers which sent me down an emo (or emo-Americana) wormhole in 2024, but Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties remained pre-eminent.
I love the conceit. Dan Campbell, frontman of The Wonder Years, writes songs from the perspective of fictional frontman, Aaron West: a character study conducted through music.
I've written elsewhere how compelling I find artists who admit the charade while still performing it (see: Lana Del Rey, Dave Wyndorf). On the face of it, it seems harder to do this in a genre like emo where so much of its power supposedly derives from the baring of raw emotion and the punk-inherited conceit of having no conceit, than pop or heavy metal.
But it works.
The album opens with the sound of barroom chatter. "Aaron West" starts singing along with an acoustic guitar and the chatter continues as West ramps up the volume of his vocals, until the two-minute-thirty mark where its as if the E-Street band has burst on stage and it's like sunrise in a My Morning Jacket song or a profession of undying love in a Dolly Parton song... Like: spine-tingling. Like: levitational. Like: "How did this make me feel this?"
In the narrative of the song (and the wider fiction of the Roaring Twenties), West is suddenly joined on stage by his estranged bandmates ('The burst of applause, a sudden eruption / Catherine nods in my direction, I turn my head / and outta nothing there's the band").
Though this is the third Aaron West album, I got chills starting just with this song.
I missed you motherfuckers bad
Over again and over again and over again
I missed you motherfuckers bad
Dude, you had me at "sudden eruption".
Rebuild Report by Hockey Dad
Okay, these guys sound Australian and are Australian (despite band name giving Canadian vibes).
Exhibit A: 'Wreck & Ruin' (can't believe this hasn't been released as a single)
If they sound happier and more naïve than Good Looks, that's understandable. Far from wishing van fires or traffic accidents on these lads from Wollongong, I hope they stay upbeat and pop-inflected for ever.
*Update: 17 January 2025
Originally I only had nine top albums because there was a natural break between the above and the next tier. But maybe I also subconsciously knew I was forgetting about this next album, which I listened to many times but for some reason hadn't filed away in my Best Albums of the year playlist, and thus didn't include in my ratings spreadsheet and omitted from the original post...
Lustre by The Buoys
Not the first all-female Australian band to make my top ten, and won't be the last. The band name works no matter if you pronounce it correctly (a homophone with 'boys' = ironic) or Americanly (boo-eys - which to American ears should still bring to mind buoyancy).
The lyrics are sardonic and largely relationship focussed, the sound is often peppy, not a million miles away from the Beths. The formula works best when they colour outside the lines a little, like the grimier sound (thrumming baseline and distorted chorus chant) in 'Check Mate', the alternating wordy and simple parts of 'Holding On', or the airier, band-in-an-empty-amphitheatre sound of 'Ahead of Myself'.
Honourable Mentions: Albums
Best of the rest from 2024
Pedro The Lion - Santa Cruz
Hamish Hawk - A Firmer Hand
ILDES - Tangk
Friko - Where we've been, where we go from here
Everything Everything - Mountainhead
Quivers - Oyster Cuts
Best from 2023 I flubbed on (and all three would deserve a top ten spot if not for chronology)
Margaret Glaspy - Echo The Diamond
Arborist - An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes
Gord Downie - Lustre Parfait (not sure I can ever live the shame down of missing this when it came out) - and while I'm at it, I also missed and liked Paul Langlois Band's Guess What.
Okay, now it's time for...
Best song of 2024
'Lagunita' by Lizzie No
This song starts like a runaway delivery truck. The lead guitar peel reminds me of Rob Baker from the Tragically Hip. The verse takes things down a notch to match No's careful, lightly country-fried vocals, then accelerates again for the chorus. The song proceeds as great songs do, familiar yet fresh, loud yet crystalline. The third verse acts as a bridge, and features what I think is agüiro.
It's just perfectly put together.
You just want to listen to it again as soon as it finishes. So you do, and find the güiro is there in the first verse as well. New layers keep emerging.
The lyrics gain weight each time.
"The angel I wrestled in darkness / he's pulling his socks on / withholding my blessing".
"Tell me you care for me, tell me a secret that you've half forgotten / Thieving and dying in the arms of love."
"And I’ve learned to love the sinner and the sin / See the brush in the painting, taste the calf in the gelatin."
Sometimes you don't need nonsense syllables to make a gem.
(NB: While this song was released as a single in late 2023, it appears on an album released in 2024, which is where I discovered it, so it totally counts based on my own made-up criteria).
A close second:
Drunk by Maggie Rogers
Similar to 'Lagunita', but even louder & more breakneck.
Best "new" old artist:
Radney Foster
Follow me down the rabbit hole (as I remember it). I listened to Toad the Wet Sprocket do a cover of REM's 'Driver 8', which I then couldn't find online, but discovered its a heavily covered song and listened to lots of other covers, which got me listening to Hootie and the Blowfish's covers record Scattered, Smothered and Covered (2000), which opens with 'Fine Line' which became my newest earworm, so then I looked up who did the original, and it was Radney Foster from his 1992 album Del Rio, TX 1959.
Whew.
Foster's original clears the Hootie cover (which feels rushed and breathless). But it may not be the best song on Del Rio... that's probably 'Nobody Wins' (which has 69x more plays on Spotify). Both are superbly crafted country rock songs.
The way the fine line between right and wrong in the first line of the chorus of 'Fine Line' moves from metaphor to geography in the next ("He's been crossing over that border way too long" - earlier we learn our married trucker has another woman "down in Georgia").
Or the profusion of rhymes in the pre-chorus (used/truce) and chorus (lose/bruised/fuse).
Foster is great at building engines to make human beings sing.
Digging deeper into his discography gets a little weird, with the nostalgia for a bygone America implied in his debut album's title doubled down on with songs like 'Texas in 1880' when he was part of the duo Foster and Lloyd (unfortunately, it's another banger).
Honourable mention: Richard Buckner
I think Buckner's track 'Loaded at the Wrong Door -Acoustic' from the Deluxe Reissue of his 2002 album, Impasse, must've made it onto an automated Spotify playlist somehow. Weird that it would be this bonus track, which has fewer listens than the album track, but it's a) better and b) still my favourite Buckner song after going back through all his stuff.
It's oddly structured, oblique. His singing is not objectively good. But it does have feeling. It worms its way into your head and your soul. I mumble-hum this song A LOT in the shower. (I can also recommend 'The Ocean Cliff Clearing' from 1998's Since).
Is it possible for an artist to be 100% vibe?
These days he performs concerts in people's living rooms, which is kind of perfect for how to consume his music: so close and personal it's both awkward and euphoric.
Now to see how much it'll cost to get him to Dunedin...
