My Music Highlights of 2024: Musical Moments of the Year
Some of my musical gems from the year...
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If you’re a music fan, 2024 was packed with releases, live shows, and interviews throughout the year. Here are some of my music highlights.
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My Music Highlights of 2024
This year was a great time for new gear, but also for the music that is made with it. With a staggering amount of music and music-adjacent content available, we spend so much time trawling through it all, in the hope of finding something that truly resonates with us.
With this in mind, I’ve taken a look back at the music and other media released this year that really stood out and left a lasting impression on me. Here are some of those moments. Enjoy!
Music Highlights Of 2024: Justice – Neverender feat. Tame Impala
Without a doubt, one of the most compelling commercial music releases of the year was the new Justice album Hyperdrama. Since the French electro duo’s last full-length release was way back in 2018, there was a great deal of anticipation among fans. Although Gaspard Augé released his solo album Escapades in 2021, this more avant-garde offering wasn’t quite enough to keep a hungry Justice fan like me happy.
Hyperdrama took a completely new direction for the band, as the album featured a star-studded collection of collaborations with Tame Impala, Miguel, Thundercat, The Flints, Rimon, and Connan Mockasin. As far as their musical output goes, the mission objectives behind Justice have matured from merely melting dancefloors, so the pair deliver a more sophisticated product dripping in pop sensibility.
The album’s lead single, Neverender was created with Kevin Parker of Tame Impala (who also launched a synth company this year), with an intergalactic combination of disco beats and dreamy synths around his angelic vocals. Justice like to keep it simple in studio, primarily making use of the famous PPG Wave throughout the Hyperdrama album. However, they also harnessed Melodyne‘s resynthesis capabilities to create some of the futuristic synth textures you hear on Neverender.
Music Highlights Of 2024: Jinjé – Escape From Luna
The way we discover music has changed so much, but if you apply the same principles to your online musical meanderings as you did in your local record store, I find you can unearth some real delights. As a long-time electronic music fan and consumer, I’ve noticed the market become increasingly flooded with sub-par loop-filled fodder in countless sub-genres, without any substance.
In this landscape, “EDM” is easier to put together than ever before, with the help of artist-curated sample packs and plugin presets. This makes the victory of finding a new release like Jinjé’s Escape From Luna taste even sweeter, and it’s reassuring to know that even in the endless sea of electronic releases there are artists with uncompromisingly high standards.
Lee Malcolm aka Jinjé hails from Leeds, UK, where he began his journey with the experimental electronic band Vessels back in 2005. Always pushing the boundary lines between genres, Malcolm has created something that will hit just as hard for ’90s electronica heads as it does for more recent converts to the electronic music scene. For me, Escape From Luna was certainly the finest underground release of 2024, on Max Cooper‘s Mesh label.
Music Highlights Of 2024: The Marías – Tiny Desk Concert
NPR’s Tiny Desk has become such an institution in the post-pandemic global music scene, giving fans a chance to see their favourite artists perform in a scaled-down format that strips the music down to the core emotive elements. Over the years, Tiny Desk has grown so much, that it’s become a tour marketing platform used by predominantly major-label acts.
However, if you look back into the archives, you will find a wealth of artists and bands you haven’t heard before, doing versions of their songs in the unique Tiny Desk approach. Generally, this means smaller keyboard rigs and pedalboards, and only a few mics that often require plenty of post-production tricks to ensure that all the instruments are nicely in focus.
This year’s list of Tiny Desk performances had an incredible lineup, ranging from global superstars like Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa to cult legends like Devo. My pick of the lot was the LA indie-pop band The Marías, who performed tracks from their new album, Submarine, alongside some fan favourites from a few years back.
Music Highlights of 2024: Brendan O’Brien interviewed by Rick Beato
Interview podcasts are some of my favourite types of YouTube clips to watch and listen to because they add so much context to my appreciation of music over the years. Although I don’t necessarily watch all his content, Rick Beato is an excellent interviewer who plays the role of the excited but well-researched fan, asking informed questions about the creative process that many journalists may have missed in the search for a juicy story.
To date, Rick has interviewed some legendary musicians and songwriters on his channel, from Sting and George Benson to David Gilmour and Billy Corgan. However, the ones I find the most interesting by far are those with producers and mix engineers like Butch Vig, Rick Rubin, and Alan Parsons.
More often than not, producers and engineers are more low-key individuals than rock stars with origin stories that are less obvious. What’s more, there are plenty of moments to geek out on how the sounds on the most prized records in your collection were created.
My pick this year was the interview with engineer and producer, Brendan O’Brien. While you may not have heard of him, you will certainly be familiar with the albums he worked on, from bands such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Limp Bizkit, Rage Against The Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, The Offspring, and many more.
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