The New Cue #452 December 13: Songs of the Year Special pt 1, starring St. Vincent, Nicky Wire, Dorian Lynskey, James Skelly, Anna Doble, Divorce, John Mulvey, Hope Of The States...
"That’s my year in music. What’s yours?”
So, this is Christmas, and what have you done?
I’ll tell you what I’ve done: I’ve made a playlist of twenty-four of my favourite songs of 2024. You can have a listen to it below if you’d like. There’s some recency bias going on with it as several good songs that I loved very much earlier in the year have had to die to make room for new flames. Just really fickle. Also, at least two favourite songs of the year - the very top of the Kessler pops - were made by Cindy Lee and Euros Childs, neither of whom put their music on Spotify/Apple. I have hyperlinked to those (though Cindy has about five strong candidates on Diamond Jubilee).
We sent the same request out at the end of last year with our 23 4 23 series and received some brilliant playlists from clued-up friends of The New Cue. So, we decided to make this an annual thing. Below, there are a handful of playlists from several heads, all really varied. I’ve spent the morning writing first alongside Anna Doble’s spacey playlist and am now entering hour two of MOJO editor John Mulvey’s epic three-hour mix. Discovering loads of amazing music on both that I’ve never heard before, which is a humbling delight.
Because we’ve asked these people to do us this taxing (but hopefully enjoyable) service, and because we’re just a pair of really swell guys, we’re lowering the paywall this Friday and next, when we’ll have more playlists to sample, including Niall’s - minimal crossover guaranteed between us two, we know that without even discussing it these days. Despite this being a freebie edition, please do consider a paid subscription so we can continue to do this time-consuming if enriching work, while also occasionally turning the central heating on. You can do that here…
And please do share the joy and news of this edition.
See you on Monday, when we hope to have the elusive Jessica Pratt’s Life & Times answers back in time.
Ted and Niall
24-4-24 Playlist Special!
Nicky Wire, Manic Street Preachers
The Welsh heroes return with their barnstorming fifteenth record Critical Thinking at the end of January.
James Skelly, The Coral
The Coral’s main man is a reliable and frequent source of good music tips on social media, while also hopefully working hard on his band’s thirteenth album…
Dorian Lynskey, writer
Dorian is the author of Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World and co-host of the Origin Story podcast.
As he’s a writer and a generous sort, Dorian has also delivered this accompanying piece which nicely summarises these selections…
“Back when I worked for good old Q I had to try and sum up the year in music. But now I only have to think about my year in music. Still, I think it’s objectively true to say that the Top 20 hasn’t been this lively in many years, with the generation-spanning pantheon of Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Charli xcx. They need no introduction so I’ve thrown in Ariana Grande’s addictive, Vogue-ish yes, and? along with TSHA’s Girls, which should have been a massive hit but wasn’t. Because I like to maintain a healthy balance of bangers with ballads, I’ve been equally hooked on sad and lovely singer-songwriters like Phosphorescent and Cassandra Jenkins. First we dance, then we cry.
It's been an unusually good year for the older gentleman, with startlingly vital work from the likes of Jack White, Underworld, LL Cool J (with Q-Tip), the Cure and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, who once again delivered my show of the year. Most rock bands don’t like to dwell on ageing so I appreciated the Manics’ midlife anthem Decline & Fall, which is bracingly candid and self-contradictingly vibrant. Sade’s tender ode to her trans son also felt culturally necessary this year.
I’ve sequenced the playlist for listening pleasure, not order of preference, but if I had to play favourites, it would be two marvellously unexpected comeback singles from two of the sharpest tools in the box. Both pose tasty counterfactuals. What if Leonard Cohen had made an existentialist funk record with the best session musicians in 1970s LA (Father John Misty)? And what if rap-metal was strange and clever and didn’t sound like sports (Fontaines DC)? So that’s my year in music anyway. What’s yours?”
St. Vincent
The art-rock dynamo and alt-pop polymath released her excellent seventh record All Born Screaming earlier this year.
Anna Doble
Author of the excellent memoir Connection is a Song: Coming Up and Coming Out Through the Music of the ‘90s…
John Mulvey, editor of MOJO magazine
Old-school magazine don and deep-cut music head who reliably mines his own seam…
PJ Smith, aka ROY
Spoken word artist and author of the short story collection Algorithm Party; new collection due in 2025…(weekly Liverpool nightspot DJ too!)
Sam Herlihy, Hope Of The States
Post-rock indie crew from Chichester who reformed this year, and also released this epic new single.
Divorce
These atmospheric indie-rockers from Nottingham obviously operate on a well-balanced intra-band democracy - they each chose six tracks for their playlist. Should hold them in good stead for when their debut album comes out next year.
See you for another round of 24-4-24 playlists next Friday.