2025 This Fluid Thrill Music Awards

[Playlist at the bottom of this post if you can't wait to listen]

Best Song: Stephen Wilson Jr - 'I'm a Song - Live at the Print Shop'

This category is reserved for the best song released in the calendar year... But 2025's winner isn't clear cut. The song appears on the 2025 album, son of dad (deluxe), a reissue of a 2023 album with extra tracks, including this one. As the 'Live at the Print Shop' suggests, this is a live recording. It was actually a YouTube video, posted in October 2024. Here it is:

 

So many things to say about this song about songs... But firstly, kudos to the sound engineer at the Print Shop.

I didn't come across this song (and Stephen Wilson Jr) until December 2025, when 'I'm a Song' made Rick Beato's top 10 songs of 2025 (more YouTube!). I got chills listening to the first minute, and went straight to the full video, and listened to it about six times more that day, tearing up each time. 

My son was like, what is happening? 

It's so good, I said.

The song went straight onto our roadtrip playlist as we went to Christchurch and back for Christmas, Naseby and back for a camping entree, and Golden Bay and back for proper camping (complete with four straight days of rain at the end). That's a lot of k's, and a lot of spins for this track.

I also devoured son of dad, and there's some bangers on there, too. 'Cuckoo', 'Patches', 'American Gothic', 'Year to Be Young 1994', 'Holler from the Holler'. And then there's some slow, sad songs from the heart, like 'son of dad' and 'Grief is only Love.' Sometimes the grunge influence is to the fore (in 2025 SWJ also released a 4-song EP with covers of Nirvana, Temple of the Dog, Postal Service and Smashing Pumpkins!). Sometimes the Nashville country songwriting is a little too... obvious (think 'Fancy Like' by Walker Hayes and Ke$ha). Sometimes you wish he'd open his mouth a little wider when he sings. But all in all, I love this guy.

(Bonus points for his backstory, which you can research yourself. Late starters/late bloomers in the music business a definitely a softspot for me. And the fact he's married to Leigh Nash, the lead singer from Sixpence None The Richer, is one of those weird, I can't believe these historical timelines intersect things, like how Oxford University was established before the Aztec Empire emerged.)

Honourable mention - songs (that don't appear on any of the top albums below)

• Knockin' Heart - Hamilton Leithauser (no shame in second place)
• Irish Goodbye - Somebody's Child
• Dinosaur - Soft Launch (strong Local Natives vibes)
• Louie - Arcy Drive
• Black Dog / White Horse - Big Special
• Elephant - Jasmine.4.t
• Bovine Excision - Samia
• Bloodline - Truman Sinclair (manages to overcome the vibe it's a Neil Young cover)
• Marionette - Twisted Teens
• Wet Dog - Dead Gowns
• Under the Table - Balancing Act (actually from late 2024, but I'm hella late with this list; nobody's perfect)

Top 10 albums of 2025

Friendship - Caveman Wakes Up

Friendship have been releasing albums since 2017, but I first came across them in 2025. 'Free Association' was the song. It might still be my favourite of theirs. But then I'll listen to the opening bars of 'Tree of Heaven'... Or the part in 'Resident Evil' where he sings 'Some shithead in my living room / Playing Resident Evil'... 

There's a Bill Callahan quality to Dan Wriggins' voice, a Dave Berman/Silver Jews vibe to the lyrics. 

I mostly had band-written bios on Spotify, give me a Wikipedia page anyday, but Friendship's bio is pretty good at describing their music/this album:

...Okay in elevators, not great for dinner. On Caveman Wakes up, the band's historically capacious definition of country music grows wider still. Shambolic guitars are offset by flute pads, bleary poetry is set against a Motown rhythm section.... like if Talk Talk came from a dingy Philadelphia basement and was fronted by James Tate... steeped in reference and experimentation, delivered casually and as a dire warning, dedicated, above all, to music's creative soul.

Petey USA - The Yips

Another artist that's been around a while but was new-to-me in '25. This album might have made the top spot if it included 2023's 'I tried to draw a straight line', which includes the lyric: 'You see, how I've been kinda angry / since the Kings lost to the Lakers / In the Wester Conference finals / Ain't it funny when you find out everything is fake.'

Niche sporting interests aside, The Yips is brimming with great songs, like the title track/album opener, 'Model Train Town', and 'As Two People Drift Apart'. There's a definite LCD Soundsystem vibe to the instrumentation (as if LCD Soundsystem wasn't also derivative), but the arc of the compositions bend towards indie rock rather than EDM. There's an emotional rawness to the lyrics that James Murphy could never reach. This is dance music to listen to while lying face down on your bed.

Blondshell - If You Asked for A Picture

This was my contender for the album where my taste and my 13-year-old-daughter's taste would overlap (she loves Tate McRae, Adela, Katseye, the Pitch Perfect movies, K-dramas and Queer Eye). But I've not heard her play Blondshell of her own volition yet. This is not conducive evidience: I remember buying Jimi Hendrix's greatest hits on CD when I was about 13 and hiding it from my dad in case he thought I wanted more of his music recommendations.

I really rated Blondshell's debut, which made my top 10 in 2023. 'IYAFaP' is a step up in terms of songwriting and composition, but it still has the bedroom grunge undercurrent.

Lead single 'T&A' typifies this growth, opening with a wall of guitars, then pulling back to a Nirvana-esque subdued verse. 'Thumbtack' has a country-vibe. Lyrically, these songs aren't a world away from Olivia Rodrigo ('I don't wanna be your mom, but you're not strong enough' - 'Arms'), but they sit a lot better against this musical palette than a pop-forward one. And there are songs addressed to a parent, or a lover where the singer is the one doing the letting down. A song like 'Event of Fire', with its refrain 'What if I'm burnt out?' is ageless / timeless. Though maybe I'm glad it doesn't hit the same with my 13-year-old daughter.

Julien Baker and Torres - Send a Prayer My Way

I've had albums from both artists make my top ten before. But nothing from Torres had ever quite reached the heights of 2015's Sprinter. And Julien Baker's mental health issues have been well documented (I had tickets to her subsequently cancelled Wellington show in 2019) and wondered if this teaming up with other artists (see: Boygenius) was becoming a crutch.

So my expectations for this collab weren't through the roof. 

But boy howdy. 

It's very country. And very good.

'Sugar in the Tank' sounds like the Eagles x City of Color x Fleetwood Mac.

'Bottom of a bottle' is a top five Brandi Carlisle song.

'Tape Runs Out' is literally inspired by Songs: Ohia.

These are all compliments by the way.

And writing this, I've loaded the full album up in my queue. So good.

Ben Kweller - Cover the Mirrors

Late 2024/early 2025 I went on a Ben Kweller discography dive. And then news of a new album emerged - how it would be a tribute to Kweller's sixteen-year-old son, Dorian, who died in a car accident. I wasn't sure I could handle a full album of this (Kweller is less than 2 years older than me). But then I got obsessed with 'Dollar Store' (featuring Waxahatchee) when it came out in Feb and it didn't seem too on the nose. Three days before the full album, 'Oh Dorian' (featuring MJ Lenderman) came out and it wasn't maudlin. It was catchy. More country than anything Kweller had done before.

So too the full album manages to smuggle in sadness and loss while you're marvelling at the breadth of genres this one-time grunge wunderkind is incorporating. 

Viagra Boys - Viagr Aboys

Time for a change of pace. And tone.

The Swedish post-punkers sing about Chandler Bing, trying to get free sweaters from LL Bean and your mum's OnlyFans. 'I am a man that's made of meat / you're on the internet looking at feet.' This is just the first song.

As if an edgelord gained sentience / a sense of humour.

Butthole Surfers for the age of GenAI.

And then you reach 'Medicine for Horses', track 6, which drops the bpm way down. It's a bit Carseat Headrest, a bit Arcade Fire. 'Hey baby, can I borrow your car? / I wanna drive it into a wall and make us two-dimensional.'

Totally different. Totally great.

Florry - Sounds Like...

Okay, so the name of this album encourages the kind of comparisons I've already indulged in too much in this list, so I will not reference another artist when talking about Florry.

From the ragged chaos of opener, 'First it was a movie, then it was a book,' to the careful tunelessness of 'Hey Baby', the uniting thread of all these sounds is a love of 1970s country rock (not naming names). 

There's a Spotify playlist that sometimes pops up on my homepage called 'Indie Twang'. This, my friends, is Indie Twang bandisonified.

Geese - Getting Killed

This album was on A LOT of best of lists. Call me basic. Call me a follower. Call me fucking Ishamel, because at least I was on the bandwagon for 3D Country, which also made my Top 10 in 2023 (a theme seems to be emerging).

Back then, I said:

"3D Country" is basically a whole album designed to get my son to complain. From the discordant jangle and drunken vocals of album opener '2122' to the tuneless trumpets, broken glass and violins on closer 'St Elmo', there's a lot of provocation going on...

This album, more than any other in 2023, made me feel like there was still a place for noise and denim in somewhat-popular culture. 

Not everyone is a rock critic, or reads their best of lists or listens to those kind of podcasts, so whether Geese has ascended above somewhat-popular culture remains to be seen.

Getting Killed is a little less rock, a little more musical. But Cameron Winter's voice still noodles all around the scale. His lyrics are sometimes psychedelic, sometimes political, sometimes daft. It's easy to see the backlash building. But for now, lets enjoy this moment where a discordant art rock group rules the roost.

The Amazons - 21st Century Fiction

The last few slots on a list are always the hardest. Do you go for the album with a couple of standout tracks but the rest kind of never stuck? Or something that was solid from start to finish but its highs were never quite as high.

I'm opting for the former here.

My Blood' is such a good track. It's very big. Unshy about taking up space. Which isn't something most of my indie twangy list so far can really boast. There's definitely something about the UK that allows space for bands to be more straight-ahead. Think the 1975. Think Foals. 

21st Century Fiction adds to the canon of stadium rock while remaining underrated. 

Flycatcher - The Wrench

'Brother' came out as a single in 2024, and doesn't appear until the penultimate track on The Wrench, but it's very good. Definite Nirvana vibes - calm verses, 'Yeah, yeah' chorus, but a much cleaner guitar sound, a more straight-forward approach to lyrics. 'I wanna be like my brother / He learned to work with hands / He just dismantled the engine on my minivan.' 

The lack of cynicism is refreshing. 

There's no reversal in subsequent verses. His brother remains virtuous and worthy of emulation. The singer may be a dirtbag, but the fact he admires this virtuous, simple man, means maybe there's hope for him too.

The rest of the album is good. Highlights just now as I re-listened : 'Dissolve', 'Down', and album closer 'Super Bowl' ('You always hated Tiny Dancer / I can't agree with you on that').

Honourable mentions - Albums (* means they also had a song in contention for best of the year)

• Communions - Unreconciled
• NO CIGAR - Under the Surface
• Preoccupations - Ill at Ease
• Perfume Genius - Glory*
• Alan Sparkhawk & Trampled By Turtles - self-titled
• Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band - New Threats from the Soul
• Hayley Williams - Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party
• Snocaps - Snocaps
• Wednesday - Bleeds*
• Miya Follick - Mid July*

Albums from 2024 I missed at the time, but would have probably waltzed into that list

• Wunderhorse - Midas
• Wild Pink - Dulling the Horns

Older album & artist that I listened to for the first time in 2025 and liked the most

• Lowest of the Low - Shakespeare My Butt (1991)

Best song from 1981

• Amoeba - Adolescents

And if that's not enough, you can check out my lists from the past here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 albums and songs, 2020, 2019, 2018 albums and songs, 2017 albums and songs, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Peace.

2024 This Fluid Thrill Awards: Best Reading

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.

One hundred. 

This is the first time in tracking my reading here (see previous awards: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017... 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, & 2010) that I've cracked three figures. 

The previous high was 90 in 2021.

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.

For more, check out my March/April consumption diary.

She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall (2021)

Here's what I said about it in February:

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.

Wellness by Nathan Hill (2023)

Here's what I said about it in July:

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.

Cluster #2: fat Nathan Hill books. While The Nix got more buzz upon its release, and I liked it when I read it later in the year, I still rate Wellness higher.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld (2023)

Here's what I said about it in April:

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).

Here's what I said about it in my December consumption diary:

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.

Here's what I said about it in February:

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.

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray (2011)

Here's what I said about it in May:

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). 

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (2023)

Here's what I said about it in May:

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. 

Companion Piece by Ali Smith (2022)

Here's what I said about it in October:

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
• Non-white + translated > 40

Okay, buckle in.

2024 This Fluid Thrill Music Awards

The awards:

• top ten albums released in 2024 (with honourable mentions)
• top song released in 2024 (with honourable mention)
• best artists discovered in 2024 that have been around a long time

I've done this (or something similar) many times previously: 2023, 2022, 2021 albums and songs, 2020, 2019, 2018 albums and songs, 2017 albums and songs, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

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 a güiro. 

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...

This Fluid Thrill Awards: Best Music of 2023

I'm going to divulge my top ten albums of the year (those released on 2023) with some honorable mentions, plus hand out some additional bouquets to individual songs that took my fancy during the calendar year.

I've done this (or something similar) many times previously: 2021 albums and songs, 2020, 2019, 2018 albums and songs, 2017 albums and songs, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Here's a playlist to listen along while you peruse.

Best Albums of 2023

"Angel Numbers" by Hamish Hawk

Morrissey without the cringe factors. The Editors without the fake Joy Division crooning and with a sense of humour (so, um, nothing like The Editors, I guess).

I first noticed this album around March when doing my first trawl of Album of the Year sites and "Angel Numbers" was ranking highly (everyone who reviewed it, liked or loved it, but it wasn't that widely reviewed). Subsequently, it got some blowback (who is this guy? the algorithm is broke!), but actually, it worked for me! And Mr Hawk! Hurrah!

 

"Suburban Legend" by DURRY

Do Americans call a cigarette a durry? I don't think so. This durry, sorry, DURRY, is simply the last name of the brother-sister duo from Minnesota. The brother, Austin, used to be in the band Coyote Kid, which describes itself on its Spotify bio as a "Cinematic Indie band. We use our albums to tell the sci-fi fantasy adventures of the Coyote Kid. We use a unique mix of dark looming presence, cinematic scale production, high energy western rock'n roll, and a touch of the macabre to give an immersive listening experience."

Um, DURRY is nothing like that.

During the pandemic, Austin moved back home and started sharing some of his new musical ideas with his sister Taryn, 7 years his junior. And thus, DURRY was born. It's not cinematic or macabre or dark. It's world-wearing yet upbeat. So many catchy songs, so many funny lines.

Is it time for a revival of 90's arch pop-rock? Count me in.

 

"Turn the Car Around" by Gaz Coombs

I'm not sure how to phrase this, but let me try. This album, from the former frontman of Supergrass, sounds like what I'd hope a new Arctic Monkeys album would sound like. As in, I get the thread Alex Turner is pulling, and while it may not be as wordy and propulsive of their 2006 debut or anthemic as "AM", it's pretty cool, I guess.

Then comes Coombs, sounding like he's strung out after a trip to the Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, sitting on the floor strumming his guitar with a Thousand Island Dressing stare.

Coombs wrote "Turn the Car Around", his fourth solo album, while performing reunion shows with Supergrass, and that is such a vibe. Like, didn't we all feel as if, in the year of our Lord twenty-twenty-three, that we were doing something that we used to do, and everyone else seemed happy with it, but deep down there was... something else? Somewhere new to be heading.

This is the sound of that feeling, the stepping towards and the attainment of that new somewhere.

Such a special album.

"Strays" by Margo Price

I didn't have alt-country songstress Margo Price dropping an album that sounds like Monster Magnet on my Bingo card this year. And I freely admit this might be a niche impression. Some might think of The Doors when the album starts with a bass drone, tambourine rattlesnake and organ key jangle, but not me. And then the driving riff starts. I'm fully expecting the New Jersey growl of Dave Wyndorf to deliver the lines, "I got nothing to prove, I got nothing to sell / I'm not buying what you've got, I ain't ringing no bells / I got a myth in my pocket, got a bullet in my teeth / I've going straight in the fire, I'm gonna talk to the high priest."

I genuinely searched online to see if Wyndorf was a co-writer, collaborator or was at least name-checked by Price, but alas. The best I can find is that Price and her husband wrote this album while on a six-day magic mushroom bender. Which also makes a lot of sense.

As someone who has never taken a psychedelic substance but has listened to a lot of music created, in part, thanks to these drugs, this Margo Price album has convinced me I'd like my first trip. If psilocybin is able to teleport Price from "Midwest Farmer's Daughter" and "That's How Rumors Get Started" to 'Been to the Mountain' - that is, from perfectly good but not necessarily my cup of tea to "this is the Monty Python Holy Grail mug I ordered online and used religiously while writing my last novel, then lost, then found, then broke, then repaired and still use for special occasions" cup of tea.

This is not to diminish the agency of Price or her collaborators here. I really love the quieter, less psych elements on "Strays". It's all great. I'm a fan. But I love it when a song starts off in a kind of Daisy Jones and the Six, languid, Eaglesy vibe, then Mike Campbell plugs in the electric guitar and Price sings "Light me up, burn me up, boil from the inside / Deeper than the ocean, get me higher than the tide..." 

"The Land, The Water, The Sky" by Black Belt Eagle Scout

The twelve songs on this album roll over you like a heavy sea mist. Katherine Paul's noisy electric guitar and softly chanted lyrics are the backbone of everything. Some songs build out the sound over time, with more guitar tracks or epic solos, propulsive drums and clanging cymbals, creating something epic, like moving from a photograph to an entire landscape. Others, like 'Salmon Sinta', pare it right back, to the point the lyrics end up being just "ba-ba, ba-ba", like moving from a photograph to a memory, or the sense of a memory.

This is amazing music live, and also amazing music to write to. 

"The Window" by Ratboys

I hadn't heard of Ratboys until 2023, despite them releasing albums since 2015. At times they sound very much of this era. The country-fied twang of Waxahatchee or Big Thief, with the accompanying willingness to get a little loud, a little unpretty, a little loose. But Ratboys also sounds old. Like something that might have come from the same stable as The Breeders in the 90's. Maybe they sound like the Breeders covering the New Pornographers? 

This is all to say that they sound like many good and virtuous things, while still being new and their own thing. From the power pop of 'No Way' to the unerring groove of 8 minute and 34 second 'Black Earth, WI', this feels like a statement of intent. 

I look forward to what new sounds drift through the window.

"3D Country" by Geese

There are some songs I put on just to annoy my son. He's eight. His brain is at least a decade from fully forming. He never likes songs he hasn't heard before. He has to have heard it two or three times on the radio before he can open his heart to a song. And, as his diet is determined largely by the radio station playing in the car when one or other parent ferries him and his sister to sports or cultural activities, or to beaches or forest walks with the dog, he has modern pop sensibilities. He doesn't like boring intros, but even worse are confronting ones.

"3D Country" is basically a whole album designed to get my son to complain. From the discordant jangle and drunken vocals of album opener '2122' to the tuneless trumpets, broken glass and violins on closer 'St Elmo', there's a lot of provocation going on. Which is rock, I guess. But it wouldn't be worth a damn if there weren't songs beneath the posturing.

And there are.

This album, more than any other in 2023, made me feel like there was still a place for noise and denim in somewhat-popular culture. 

"Blondshell" by Blondshell

Is Nu-Grunge having a moment? This album sounds like it was recorded in Olympia, Washington, slumped back on an unmade bed, looking to the ceiling, strumming an okay guitar and singing to the light fitting. Big Cobain energy, with hints of Sabrina Teitelbaum's earlier poppier incarnation (BAUM).

"Somebody's Child" by Somebody's Child

We seem to have reached the self-titled album stretch of our list. Irish one-man-band Cian Godfrey's debut album sounds immense. It sounds like a massive hit. It should've been bigger. It'll have to make do with making this list.

"The Rise & The Fall" by The Rural Alberta Advantage

Oh Canada! How do you do it? The RAA have been releasing albums since 2009 ("Hometowns", it's vvvvvv good, check it out), but I only dove into them in 2023.

"The Rise & The Fall" is a great album, up there with their previous records, and perhaps buoyed by this back catalogue, claims my tenth spot for 2023.

Honorable mentions from 2023

• "Lucky for You" by Bully
  
• "Noise for No Reason" by Pyrex
• "Do Ya?" by meija
• "I am the River, the River is Me" by Jen Cloher
• "Emotional Contracts" by Deer Tick
• "The Rainbow Wheel of Death" by Dougie Poole
• "Haunted Mountain" by Buck Meek

Older albums I didn't hear until 2023 that would have cracked the top ten otherwise

• "Wunderhorse" by Cub (2022)
• "Everybody's Heart Is Broken Now" by Niki & the Dove (2016)

Other, but by no means lesser, awards

Artist I completely missed the first time around, but got way way into in 2023

Superdrag. They were amazing. 

Old song of the year

"Give me back my man" by The B-52s. I wrote about it in June. Still an earworm. Still on my roadtrip playlists.

Other contenders for this esteemed award:

• "Fucking Ada" by Ian Drury
• "Tush" by ZZ Top

And finally... Song of the Year

As in previous years, all albums in the top ten are ineligible to also have the top song (one gong is plenty, fellas!). And it has to have been released in 2023.

Normally, it's some one-off piece of indie pop brilliance full of nonsense syllables and not-quite-a-hit-but-still-a-wonder verve.

This year, I'm tempted to give it to Mitski's 'Buffalo Replaced', a short album track from a good-but-not-great album (incidentally, this song has the 2nd least plays of the 11 tracks on Spotify). It's kind of unpindownably good. But it doesn't really fit the mold.

Something more catchy, but probably too catchy, was Robbie Williams Xmas collab with Rod Stewart, 'Fairytales'. It's one thing to be formulaic, but to triumph within such constraints should be acknowledged. A wonderful car-ride singalong.

I really loved Car Seat Headrest's single-without-an-album (yet?) 'We looked like Giants' - very much my sort of indie rock - and Cory Hansen's 'Housefly' - very much my sort of alt-country - and 'Salt' by Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers and the Grogans - very much my sort of Aussie rock... but they didn't ever quite separate themselves from the pack.

So I'm giving this most illustrious mantle to "Blame Brett" by The Beaches. It's catchy. It's funny ("I'm done dating rockstars / From now on only actors / Tall boys in the Raptors" - look-out Scottie Barnes!).  It's kind of self-effacing, kind of a feminist anthem (depending on what wave you think we're up to now). And it's Canadian!

*chef's kiss*