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14 Dec 2024

RNZ's Music 101 on the best music of the year

8:52 pm on 14 December 2024

Vinyl records with cf a collection of albums background

RNZ's Music 101 asked contributors for their takes on the best music of the year, from New Zealand and everywhere else, too. Photo: 123rf

This week we asked Music 101 friends and contributors for their best album of 2024, played our favourite tracks of the year - and took your suggestions as well.

Colin Hogg

This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions.

Veteran music critic Colin Hogg said 2024 had been a "really strong year actually, locally and internationally" so it was "quite hard to choose" a favourite.

But for the show he picked a US-born, South Island-bred folk artist.

Holly Arrowsmith - Blue Dreams

Purchase: Bandcamp

"It's just gorgeous. She's got a great voice anyway, but just her songs, it's a very direct, sort of an emotional kind of record," Hogg told Music 101.

"I think the band she's used (for the album) is most of Tiny Ruins and it sort of sounds a little bit like that, but she's got her own voice. It sounds like one of those breakup records or something - something's going on… it's just gorgeous and it's quite landscapey. It gives me a sense of place without being too specific.

"I know she's from New Mexico, but… there's a line about the frozen washing on the line that sort of made me think about Central Otago, you know? … She's really got it and she's quite fearless. The songs are quite vulnerable.

"The lyrics, you know, it's easy to mention Joni Mitchell, but there's a sort of sense of Neil Young in there too and not in any direct way - just in the directness of the lyrics, I think, you know, very observational.

"It's a very - it's quite a sad sort of record, but it's absolutely gorgeous."

Kiran Dass

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Book reviewer and music critic Kiran Dass told Music 101 it was a difficult year to pin down in one record. But her favourite was an archival release by an American college indie band.

Galaxie 500 - Uncollected Noise New York '88-'90

Purchase: Bandcamp

The record, released in September, was an archival collection recorded between 1988 and 1990 in New York, where they were based.

Guitarist Dean Wareham was born in New Zealand.

"They were a real music-lover's band, and they were a band of music lovers, record lovers... they created their very own singular sound that was their own. I think Wareham, his guitar, is just so great - and perhaps a product of his influences. But also there's a distinctive subliminal New Zealand sound in there too, which I think gives them a real point of difference."

Her pick from the record was 'Maracas Song'.

"It's just this really beautiful, affecting song with this amazing hooky chorus."

Nick Bollinger

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Music critic Nick Bollinger said he has spent much of 2024 filling gaps in his music knowledge - but still managed to fit in some new albums.

"I went right back to near the beginning of the year when an album came out and then sort of got a bit swept aside in the rush of other things, by a duo called The Lemon Twigs, which people may have heard but may not have heard."

The Lemon Twigs - A Dream Is All We Know

Purchase: Bandcamp

"They were basically left alone from a very early age in a basement full of their father's musical equipment and they're very sort of precocious, you know?" Bollinger said.

"They taught themselves to play every instrument, they write these songs that seem to reference the entire history of pop music.

"He must have left his record collection with them as well I think, because they've absorbed a lot of '60s and '70s pop sounds."

Bollinger said it reminded him of his own childhood "fixed to the radio... waiting to hear the new Who or Small Faces single, or Kinks single".

"It sounds like something of that era almost, but it's also very much happening now."

Sam Robinson

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RNZ resident "pop music" expert Sam Robinson said there were some massive releases this year from artists such as Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Billie Eilish, as well as huge crossover hits from Charli XCX with her album Brat and Chappell Roan, whose 2023 release became a big success.

"I just think she is the moment, quite frankly," he said of Roan.

Of Brat, Robinson said, "This is the album that's really made her a household name, a name that my mum would know, you know what I mean?

"I'm just happy that she's around and we get her for Laneway next year."

But Robinson said his best album of the year was American duo Magdalena Bay's Imaginal Disk.

It's "this dreampop kind of return to indie pop 2012," he said.

"I feel like their songs could be used, like on an Apple commercial, but in a high-end way, when Apple was high end.

"A lot of this album sounds like music I'd heard before but at the exact same time it is so fresh and so new and I could point to these references, but ultimately it's a song that does feel new and fresh and pleasing to me and my ears."

His choice 'Killing Time' is "a great little song, it's dreamy, it's a nice little Saturday afternoon jam."

Magdalena Bay - Killing Time

Purchase: BandCamp

Tony Stamp

Dunedin's Hannah Everingham's new album Siempre Tiene Flores is a singer-songwriter feast with heavy Latin influences.

The Sampler host Tony Stamp said it was "absolutely" one of his favourite local albums of the year.

Her song 'Maria' has "got a very Spanish vibe and that awesome sing-along moment at the end."

Hannah Everingham - Maria

Purchase: Bandcamp

Stamp said other great local releases included Christoph El Truento's Dubs From The Neighbourhood, Byllie-jean's EP Filter, the self-titled "Māori indie rock" EP by Greatsouth and Tessa de Lyon's solo debut Tessa's Album.

Internationally, some of Stamp's biggest favourites include the Challengers movie soundtrack album by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, which was "quite sexually charged music" with a techno pulse.

But his top was Scottish duo Arab Strap's lengthily titled I'm totally fine with it / don't give a f- anymore.

"It's all about social media - not something you'd expect 50-year-olds to make a record about. ...

"But I found it so poignant and I think they really got to the nub [of] what is problematic about social media and the way it's maybe dividing people as much as it's drawing them together.

"I really did just love this music. Sometimes it's very heavy, sometimes it's very sad, it just always felt impassioned, I suppose."

But wait, what did you think?

Here are some of the texts received during today's Music 101 show - in listeners' own words:

Karen oleary here, favourite album of the year is self titled album Revulva!!!

Favourite album this year Inside In Inside Out, The Kooks, cheers Lenka

Fav album... Fat Freddy's Drop - SLO MO... Aprile

Kim Gordon "Collective" my favorite album of 2024!!

Mark Knopfler One Deep River Fred

My pick for best album of 2024 would be David Gilmour's 'Luck and Strange'. Brilliant. Andrew

My fave album of 2024 is from Adrianne Lenker, aptly named Bright Future... Thanks for all the great musical company this year! From Brent in Oamaru :)

Kia Ora Charlotte, My favourite album of the year is Mel Parsons. Currently cleaning the house like a crazy woman possessed fuelled by coffee and of course my favourite Music 101. Kath Glenorchy

My 13 year old daughter wanted to let you know Sabrina Carpenter's Short n Sweet is her best new album for 2024! My husband would LOVE the prize pack. Merry Christmas. Kelly

Tēnā koe, I love Jon Toogood's Last of the Lonely Gods. Mere Kirihimete! Ngā mihi nui, Janine

Hi Charlotte My favourite album of the year is one you'll be familiar with - Hirl by Marlin's Dreaming. Their song Hello My Dear was also highly rated by Anika Mia on your show Paul Auckland

Neilson sings Nelson by Tami Neilson (from Nic in Wellington)

'Bright Future' by Adrianne Lenker. John F

My fave album of 2024 is Kāwai by Aja. So good - Angie

Stephen in Whangaparāoa. My top album of the year is "Three" by Four Tet.

Ezra Collective - Dance No one is Watching

Waxahatchee new album is my fave, closely followed by M J Lenderman..

Fat Freddys Drop - Slow Mo

The Winter Light from Amiria Grennell has been getting lots of AirPlay in our whare in Auckland. Oh Romeo is a fave. Tony