Summer Soundtrack 2024: As Selected by Addy
In which I check in after summer regarding music from this year...
Had a good summer, guys?
When I set out to start this piece, I decided to reflect on last year’s similarly themed piece and came across the following quote:
Happy New Year!
I’ve been ignoring this Substack, even though I got a pretty decent response to my Ariana Grande piece and I apologize. I didn’t feel like I had anything worthwhile to put here that required more than a tweet on the topic.
It’s funny how some things don’t change. Initially, I intended to do a round-up on the flood of big-name releases we received this year. However, as some of you have likely already concluded, I’m not very good at setting out time to write for this Substack, and events throughout the year made it hard to determine when to stop tracking the influx of releases. It’s about to be September in a matter of days as I write this, and it only just feels like we’re getting to a point where no big banner releases are definitively on the horizon.
Instead, I decided to revive my Labor Day Summer Soundtrack idea and use that instead, because a lot of the big names have enough going on to keep them in the conversation and it’s always easier for me to tell you a general idea of what I’ve been listening to, without the stakes of best-of-the-year looming over my head. I’m also going to fold in my thoughts of all the major releases we got throughout the year. I never got around to properly compiling my album of the year list for 2023 like I promised, though I do have an actual ranking (which some have seen) and I’d like to get that out so I can do it (on time) for 2024. Just like last year, this isn’t a formal list of what I consider the best music of 2024 so far and I’m going to try to keep it in alphabetical order. If you see something missing, it either just didn’t connect with me or I haven’t heard it yet and I invite you to leave a comment about it on the comment, though I admit the latter is very unlikely. Apologies if this ends up being long, but I don’t post that often anyways!
Addison Rae - “Diet Pepsi“
Following a buzzy turn on the remix for Charli XCX’s “Von Dutch” (we’ll get to her), Addison has restarted her music career with a new deal at Columbia Records. The song itself isn’t anything too radical, considering her musical taste appears to be rather left-field, and more than enough people have ascribed the references to a classic soda and the hazy synths over a hip-hop drum beat as Lana Del Rey-isms. The final product falls into Selena Gomez’s "Good For You”/”Fetish” formula. It’s a more mature angle for Addison than her previous material and the Russ Meyer vibes of the goofy/sexy accompanying music video help to make it all seem like a cool package, even though the monochrome stylings and Addison waving around an American flag won’t dissuade those Lana comparisons.
Amber Mark - “Space & Time”
Amber Mark has been making excellent R&B for quite a while now. After releasing her last album in 2022 and a superstar link-up with Lolo Zouaï and Tkay Maidza (“Out of Luck”), she’s begun releasing a string of new singles, hopefully to conclude with an album. “Space & Time” begins as a lush ballad with Amber’s rich and raspy voice over nothing but piano then halfway through, the drums come in and the song transforms into a full-bodied soulful jam with a funky bassline. I would also recommend checking out Amber’s previous single, “Comin’ Around Again”, which functions as a straightforward slow jam.
Annie - “The Sky Is Blue”
Though this song is perhaps the most recent release on the list, I included it because I’m certain it will be stuck on rotation for me in the coming weeks ahead. Nowegian singer-songwriter Annie is known best by longtime pop devotees for her forward-thinking dance pop of the 2000s, though is far more overlooked than other Scandinavian pop contemporaries like Robyn. Annie returned in 2020 with a synthwave album called Dark Hearts, and a subsequent EP in 2021 called Neon Nights, which utilized her featherlight voice to great effect. “The Sky is Blue” is a completely change of pace, though producer Stefan Storm returns from those albums. Annie has pivoted to a euphoric and dreamy 2000s trance-influenced brand of dance-pop on her latest single, sending the summer out on a high.
Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine
Despite previously claiming she wouldn’t return to music until after the production of Wicked, the 2023 Writers Guild strike afforded Ariana the spare time to put together a new studio album. Eternal Sunshine is Ariana Grande’s first album to be fully produced with legendary pop producer and long-time collaborator Max Martin (I ranked Ariana’s previous collaborations with Max and his Wolf Cousins team here.) Eternal Sunshine doesn’t deviate from Ariana’s signature blend of pop and R&B, but Grande and her team veer closer to late 90s-early 00s R&B as part of the album’s sound. Earlier this year, there was some debate about lore on albums and Eternal Sunshine was unfairly grouped in that category. Grande addresses her divorce and the controversy surrounding her new relationship and the press, but is content to leave the details vague. This is the first album where Grande handles the lyrical content without her usual writing partners but Grande’s pen has sharpened considerably from previous efforts, with Grande playing around and addressing the mean-girl manstealer persona imposed on her by the public and the press. . In an effort to highlight that, Grande’s vocal performances are more restrained that previous albums, deploying the more showy aspects only when necessary. The result is a tidy thirteen-track album with enough substance so as not to feel inconsequential. My favorite song is “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” which takes obvious inspiration from Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” sonically, but lately I have been keeping “bye” on loop.
Baauer - “All My Ladies”
Baauer is best known for bursting onto the scene with “Harlem Shake”, which some of you may remember sparked off that shaking dance trend on YouTube and was one of the first big EDM-Trap hits to kick off the trend. Baauer shifts toward a 2000s Eurodance sound, falling in line with the nostalgia the EDM world is currently feeling regarding the 2000s. This sounds somewhat close to a Vengaboys song, although rather than having an actual vocal over the song, it’s built off of a Trina sample. I’m a bit of a club girlie, as you may know, so…
The Beaches - “Takes One to Know One”
“Takes One to Know One” is the first single from all-woman Canadian rock band The Beaches since they released their album Blame My Ex last year. That album had the buzzy “Blame Brett”, where the narrator blamed her commitment issues on her ongoing recovery from a break-up. The self-destructive trend continues here, depicting a relationship where both parties display callous disregard for each other. This doesn’t switch up much from the summery new-wave pop-rock blend they established on their album, but it’s infectious enough that I kept returning to it over the summer, especially since this kind of pop rock suits the season really well and the chorus is really fun to singalong to.
Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter
Beyoncé kicked off the second act in a trilogy she started with Renaissance with a splashy Superbowl Verizon ad in which she commanded they “drop the music”, prompting the release of “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages”, the former of which immediately proved inescapable. As the year progressed. it feels like the era has somewhat fizzled out for a plethora of reasons Twitter (X) and others have provided and will continue to do so throughout the year. Beyoncé prefaced the release of Cowboy Carter by stating it would be a Beyoncé album, not a country album. In contrast to Renaissance, Cowboy Carter is less content to fully commit to country and is strongest when Beyoncé marries her penchant for genre-bending to Americana concepts, such as on “Tyrant” or “II Hands II Heaven”. Beyoncé is intent on reclaiming her American roots, particularly those of the South, throughout the album and having that lede allows for a stronger lyrical focus, second only to Lemonade in that regard. Some of Beyoncé’s best vocal performances crop up on songs like “Daughter” and while Cowboy Carter is ambitious and well thought out, I feel the runtime whenever I play the album through and it can feel a bit overindulgent. I particularly don’t think the covers (“Jolene”, “Blackbiird”) accomplish anything that the other songs on the album don’t, but I will note spotlighting upcoming Black country female talent is a great sentiment. Though Beyoncé doesn’t continue the habit of constantly surpassing herself for me on this album, I feel that Cowboy Carter is an accomplished album that adds a new dimension to her repertoire. Maybe trimming the tracklist or having another component to engage with (maybe visual, maybe something else) would allow the ideas to come to fruition. The music is masterful, but I slightly dislike hearing its wheels turning in the background because it disrupts my personal listening experience.
Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft
Discussing music is rarely a subjective experience and my point of bias these days is generally anything regarding Billie Eilish. She has yet to put out anything I don’t thoroughly enjoy, and her latest album Hit Me Hard and Soft is no exception. Billie made the decision not to release any singles ahead of the album’s release as she felt it was best consumed as a full project (although that did not stop her from torturously previewing snippets of the same three songs for weeks on end). Listening to the album, it’s immediately apparent that Billie and Finneas conceptualized this as a project that is constantly in conversation with itself. A melodic element such as the string motif on “Skinny” morphs into the bridge of “The Greatest” and returns to close the album on “Blue”, and there are lyrical callbacks such as “Blue” echoing the howl of “Over now” from “L’Amour De Ma Vie”. It’s great to see a pop star of Billie’s stature embracing her queerness on a song like “Lunch”. Billie and Finneas build on their genre exploration over their last few projects, lifting the jazz and rock elements of Happier Than Ever, bringing back the abrasive electronic elements of When We All Fall Asleep, and managing to make it all sing without anything sounding out of place. Though this album is only ten tracks long, it unfurls itself over 45 minutes as a concise yet immersive experience that gives the artistic ideas the space to breathe without lingering. I think this is Billie’s best album to date and I love that despite the album’s interwoven nature, I can still enjoy any of the album’s songs out of context.
Blusher - “Accelerator”
Blusher is an Australian all-woman trio that has steadily released singles over the past few months, specializing in dance-pop and synthpop. Of all their singles, “Accelerator” definitely got the most plays from me this summer. It’s a high-octane banger about that almost self-destructive rush you get when there’s someone you like. There’s an edge to their production that’s missing in most pop music nowadays and feels more intended for the club, but there’s still that pop aspect that allows the songs to remain catchy.
Chappell Roan - “Good Luck, Babe!” (+ The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess)
After performing her standalone single “Good Luck, Babe!” at Coachella and buoyed by some buzz after her NPR Tiny Desk performance, Chappell Roan experienced a meteoric rise to fame this summer. Her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was released at the tail end of last year’s summer, but has rocketed up the charts over the last few months as a result of her increased popularity. I failed to cover her in last year’s edition because even though I was following her, most of her singles came out before the summer and the album didn’t land until after I’d already published the article. Rest assured, Midwest Princess has not come off of my rotation since it was released. What I like about “Good Luck, Babe!” is that it heads off in a baroque direction that none of the songs on Midwest Princess did and it allows Chappell to showcase her vocals in a more dynamic way than the ballads on that album did. Obviously, it’s wild but awesome to have a bonafide hit addressing a queer concept like denying your queerness to pursue a fruitless heterosexual lifestyle. Chappell is one of the rare pop stars willing to abandon the conventional path in favor of what services the art, while still maintaining the essence of making catchy and easily digestible songs. She could prove to be a exciting voice in the genre going forward, if the insane parasocial expectations of being a pop star doesn’t drive her out of her choice of career beforehand. It would also be nice if you guys could blow up “Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl”, please and thank you.
Charli xcx - Brat
Charli xcx unexpectedly emerged as one of the biggest winners among the year’s constant stream of big music releases. Brat is having a watershed pop culture moment that no one could have predicted. Before Brat, Charli was a name known best by music nerds and the constantly online, and largely remained in this space for nearly a decade. Her burst of popularity means instead of contending with Charli giving easily ignorable yet profoundly annoying soundbites to promote her album, the culture at large is currently obsessed with defining who gets to be “brat”, the neon-slime-green of the cover is omnipresent and every writer desperate to be seen as culture-defining is attempting to offer literary and overly sophisticated takes on the concept. Brat finds Charli ditching the sellout radio-ready dance-pop of Crash, which made commercial inroads for her, in favor of exploring the more underground and club-oriented elements of dance music. Brat is different for Charli overall, in that she is perhaps at her most vulnerable lyrically, championing her messy nature and tackling topics about womanhood that we don’t typically get on a pop record (pregnancy considerations, insecurities about her career). She and her team sand down the more experimental urges she indulged on earlier albums so that the songs can feel fresh and dynamic without scaring off less conventional listeners. Charli and the culture are finally meeting each other halfway. The album is a great playthrough and I’d peg it as her second-best album (I’m partial to How I’m Feeling Now), if only because I don’t agree Charli’s candor excuses the limpness of the ballads, but it’s hard to deny the thrills of the Brazilian funk biting “Everything is Romantic” or the cocaine-fueled rush of “365”. The cultural conversation around Brat has become quickly agitating and I fear for the person Charli xcx will become if she achieves an Album of the Year nomination at the Grammys.
I’m also extending special shoutouts to the “Girl, So Confusing” remix with Lorde because it was interesting and definitely fresh to see two female artists openly and honestly clear the tension between them in such a brazen manner. I also really love the “Guess” remix with Billie Eilish, because Billie gets to address her sexuality in a playful way and I love the way their vocals bounce off of each other towards the end of the song.
Coco Jones - “Here We Go (Uh Oh)”
In spite of winning the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance for her song “ICU”, I wasn’t sold on Coco Jones as an artist. However, when she released this single, I did a complete 180. “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” pushes Coco into the neo-soul vicinity of Jazmine Sullivan, which would typically be a tall order but Coco manages to hold her own. Lyrically, Coco bemoans the cycle she finds herself trapped in with her on-and-off lover, who seemingly re-enters her life only to disrupt her attempts to move on. Built around a sample of Lenny Williams’s “Cause I Love You”, the production is lush and much improved from Coco’s past records.
Confidence Man - “I Can’t Lose You”
Australian electropop group Confidence Man returned two years after releasing their previous album Tilt, which saw them embracing 90s Eurodance as a major influence. “I Can’t Lose You” finds the group immersing themselves even further into the genre, dialing up the energy even more. The group developed a reputation for their wild performance style following their last appearance at Glastonbury, and that seems to have set the stage for their subsequent direction. This is the type of clubby banger destined to make its way onto gym playlists worldwide, but its propulsive beat and Janet Planet’s euphoric high-pitched vocal makes for a rousing listen.
Dagny - Elle
On last year’s summer soundtrack, Dagny had begun releasing singles for this project. Dagny is a Norwegian synthpop singer-songwriter, perhaps best known for allowing Katy Perry to reinvent her song “Love Me Like That” as “Never Really Over”. The best way I can describe her is the Norwegian counterpart to Carly Rae Jepsen, although she doesn’t stray away from straight up synthpop the way Carly often does. Elle finds Dagny adding in some pop-rock and synthwave to her arsenal, which allows her to freshen up her sound without deviating much from her niche. The project only ended up being eight songs and she released four of them as singles, so there wasn’t much new material to dive into, but this was a great collection of songs to throw into my rotation of summer songs. My favorite of the new songs is probably “Hate Being Alone”, which has this big sing-along chorus but there’s a tremolo effect on her vocals at the end of each chorus and the beat stutters as it churns along, which was a fun change of pace.
Doechii - “Alter Ego” (with JT)
Following the success of Doechii’s “What It Is” last year, it seemed Doechii was being caught in the difficult position of chasing down pop success while wanting to fulfill her potential as a rapper. Though she recently put out a mixtape which delivers on that rap potential, Doechii released “Alter Ego” with JT earlier in the year, which doesn’t appear on that mixtape but sees Doechii pivoting to hip house. She garnered some comparisons to Azealia Banks (which naturally, Azealia did not appreciate) but I agree they were also unwarranted. Doechii’s approach to a house beat is a bit more aggressive and grungier than Azealia’s approach, and the chorus is delivered in an ear-grabbing playground chant sort of way. JT’s inclusion adds a different vibe that still feels appropriate, with this kind of laidback and disaffected persona.
Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism
No one criticized Dua Lipa more than I did in the lead-up to Radical Optimism. I was already waffling when she released “Dance the Night”, calling her out for spending more time on beaches than the studio, and judging her lack of sonic evolution. As the campaign progressed, my sentiments seemed to be echoed by others on Twitter (X) and TikTik. Going into Radical Optimism, I wasn’t fully sold on the singles that were released in the lead up (I love “Training Season”, like “Illusion” and remain nonplussed over “Houdini” as a comeback single). However, when I listened to the album, it wasn’t nearly as underwhelming as I expected it to be from those singles. Dua definitely goes from making these showstopper dance-pop bangers to a more relaxed ambiance that seeks to curate a beachy and psychedelic vibe. Unlike most of the other popstars this year, Dua doesn’t offer any more insight into anything regarding her personality or her personal life aside from very general thoughts about her relationships. This is not an album built to seize the moment and thus, Dua has been dismissed from cultural conversation nowadays, but I would say the album is still worth a listen. “Happy For You” is a career highlight, and along with “Maria”, feels reminiscent of Madonna’s work with William Orbit. True to form, Dua has returned to globetrotting in the aftermath of Radical Optimism, so don’t fret for her too much. Perhaps the real takeaway from this album campaign is no weapon formed against Dua’s zen can prosper.
Flowerovlove - “Breaking News”
19 year old British singer Flowerovlove recently gained some traction on TikTok with her single “Boys”, but I prefer her follow up single “Breaking News” much more. From start to finish, this song is crammed full of hooks, and Flowerovlove’s light and youthful voice captures this wide-eyed and delirious approach to romance really well. The song itself has this funky little groove and a breezy melody, but still has that quirky essence at its core. It’s cool to see more upcoming Black artists making music that isn’t R&B, even though I adore R&B and hate when artists who make R&B disavow the genre.
Fontaines D.C. - “Starburster” + “Favourite”
Fontaines D.C. recently released their new album, Romance, which pivots to a more commercial take on their usual gothic rock. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to calling it their “sellout moment”, because there’s a lot of integrity to the material and they still display this willingness to take their sound to weird places. Rather, their material here is more accessible and sounds better suited for upgraded venues, such as an arena. As this album is so fresh, it hasn’t had much time to take its place as part of my summer rotation but two of the singles definitely got a piece of the action. The first is “Starburster”, which sees the band borrowing from rap rock for a raucous banger you would be thrilled to hear at a neighborhood pub. The other is “Favourite”, which is much sweeter in tone and presents a sound more indebted to jangle pop, and less experimental in structure than “Starburster” but hits that sweet spot of nostalgia without sounding overly reliant on the past.
Griff - Vertigo
British singer-songwriter Griff has been one of my favorite artists to watch for a while now. She recently opened for one of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour dates in London and has frequently been championed by Swift (though you wouldn’t know it from some of her fans). Griff has these soaring vocals, knows her way around a keyboard and has an immense amount of talent; she writes and produces a lot of her own material. She began rolling out her debut album Vertigo as a trilogy of EPs, with the last EP being the final album itself. Vertigo gives you a great snapshot of everything Griff is capable of, without sounding too scattershot. Much of the album still feels steeped in this melancholy surrounding a relationship that fell apart. She adapts it to heights such as on “Anything”, where she proclaims she would gone so far as to jump off a bridge to prove her love for a partner, and the thunderous production turns into a rather cinematic moment. She also nails the intimate moments such as “So Fast”, a folksy song where she is mostly accompanied by just acoustic guitar and she hesitatingly prods her partner to stay with her a bit longer but stops short of turning into a demand. I got a lot of mileage out of this album throughout the summer and currently my favorite song is probably “Tears For Fun”.
Halsey - “Lonely is The Muse”
Halsey has been rolling out singles for their upcoming album, which started with the deeply affective “The End” but formally begun with “Lucky”. The latter is built around the Britney Spears song of the same name and lifts its chorus, but I felt it didn’t do the original song justice. The concept behind Halsey’s upcoming album finds her genre-hopping across decades to explore the alternate versions of Halsey, had they debuted at different times. “Lonely is the Muse” presents Halsey in the post-grunge and shoegaze filled world of the 90s, which also falls in line with their previous work on If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power which treaded similar ground sonically. Halsey’s poetic touch to her lyricism is present as they describe the cycle of depersonalization they experience when another artist enters their life and fashions them as their muse. Halsey’s rage percolates through the song until their screams can be heard during the final chorus, bringing that frustration to the surface. It’s easily one of the best songs of the year.
Jade - “Angel of My Dreams”
“Angel of My Dreams” begins with Jade in theatrical ballad mode over a sample of Sandie Shaw’s winning Eurovision entry “Puppet on a String”, perhaps chosen due to Shaw being forced to perform the song despite her distaste for it. The song descends in a rave breakdown as Jade excoriates the music industry and alludes to issues with Simon Cowell and his company Syco Music, contrasting her desire to perform with the exploitation she has faced as a result of her career. The accompanying video makes a spectacle of the way artists, especially female artists, are swapped out in favor of another, being taken advantage of to enrich label executives. The songwriting hearkens to the 2000s when Xenomania and British pop producers were performing bizarre experiments on the structure and sound of pop music. Jade may be the final Little Mix member to debut as a soloist, but it’s undeniable they’ve saved the best for last. It will probably seem a bit extreme to call this another song of the year since this is right under Halsey alphabetically, but I haven’t stopped playing this song for a day since it came out.
Jamie XX & Robyn - “Life”
That moment when two divas come together to maximize their talents. Jamie XX already has an established background in crafting weird funky house bops, and Robyn is a Swedish pop legend who may not be well-known in the mainstream but has an odd trajectory that has proven highly influential. On “Life”, Jamie XX cooks up a summery and horn-filled house beat and allows Robyn to deliver a mostly repetitive but vivid interpretation of making a sweaty and blissful night with a partner feel like forever. Robyn does an approximation of ballroom delivery that doesn’t sound completely inauthentic, which is something she has developed over the years and works really well with the production here.
Jessie Ware & Romy - “Lift You Up”
Jessie Ware decided to team up with Romy on this standalone track that takes its cues directly from 90s diva house. This is a clubbier direction for Jessie than her most recent records, and leans closer to what Romy was doing on Mid Air. The mood here is uplifting and Jessie’s soaring vocals are crucial for embodying the song’s catharsis, though Romy’s inclusion allows for the very fun trade-off “They say, listen Romy! They say, listen Jessie!”.
Jorja Smith - “High”
Jorja Smith is back following the release of Falling or Flying last year with standalone single, “High”. As soon as I heard this, I knew it was going on heavy rotation for the summer. It follows the same blend of afrobeats and dance music Jorja has become well known for. Even though this is a self-empowerment song, it doesn’t come across as preachy in its lyricism. Instead, this song functions as a great accompaniment for a sweaty night out or a lie down by the poolside.
Kesha - “Joyride”
Kesha is finally free from her contract with Dr. Luke, following a long streak of court battles with Dr. Luke, whose crimes against her have been well-documented. For the most part, Kesha’s stuff while she was stuck under the Luke contract following her disassociation with Luke has mostly seen her exploring different aspects of her artistry, such as country or more singer-songwriter aspects. She had an EXCELLENT experimental record called Gag Order, which came out last year, but “Joyride” sounds like the old Kesha is back (the one with the dollar sign). This is the most fun Kesha has sounded in a while and the song itself is pretty bonkers, featuring accordion despite being a mostly house song. Zhone produced this and he’s responsible for some other material on this list as well (Mette, Maude Latour, and Rose Gray) as well as Troye Sivan’s Grammy nommed “Rush” from last year.
Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk
Magdalena Bay had one of the best debut albums of the 2020s (so far) with Mercurial World, so before we even heard a song, I was confident their follow-up would prove to be just as superb. As soon as they dropped the lead single “Death & Romance”, I was locked in. It’s a lush spacey track that unfurls over five minutes but never loses your attention the whole way through, and it immediately emerged as a personal song of the year contender. Follow-up singles “Image” and “Tunnel Vision” kept the momentum going, especially the latter with its progressive rock outro. Imaginal Disk sees Magdalena Bay moving away from the catchy synthpop that made their previous album so irresistible, and opting to develop this dreamy psychedelic sound that still keeps that appeal intact. I don’t want to commit too much about this album to text just yet, because it is still very fresh and there are so many interesting elements woven into this album’s fabric that are still revealing themselves to me (the closer having callbacks to the opener, a countdown that pays off later on in the album). However, I had to include it because all of the singles for this album really underscored my summer and so did my anticipation for the record, and the album fully exceeded my expectations.
Maren Morris - “Push Me Over”
Maren Morris released her first EP Intermission since announcing her plans to leave country music due to the prejudice she’s witnessed in Nashville. I wasn’t a big fan of the EP, although I would still be open to an album from Maren whenever it came around. However, Maren enlisted Naomi McPherson of MUNA for a song called “Push Me Over”, which also features writing credits from other MUNA members Katie Gavin and Josette Maskin. It’s a groovy pop song that was far and away the best thing on the EP.
Margaret Berger - “Libra Girl”
Unless you’ve followed Eurovision for at least a decade or you’re familiar with Norwegian pop music, Margaret Berger will be a name you’ve never read before. Margaret made an unsuccessful bid to represent Norway at Eurovision earlier this year, after sporadically releasing singles for the past decade. Since then, she released a few loosies, one of which is “Libra Girl”. It’s the kind of Scandipop synthpop banger you would typically expect from an artist like Robyn, where Margaret details her inability to commit and blames it on being a Libra. It goes off.
Maude Latour - Sugar Water
Maude Latour is a self-proclaimed disciple of Lorde, and that influence is undeniable in her debut album Sugar Water. However, Maude doesn’t come across as eager to issue statements on the culture as Lorde was, so instead her album aims to capture her experiences of romance and draw upon her adolescence as frames of reference. Maude studied philosophy and that comes across in some of the more esoteric lyricism on the album, such as “Whirlpool” where Maude fully tilts into psychedelia, referencing drugs as she submits herself to the whims of the world. “Comedown” is an anthemic synthpop banger where Maude memorializes a deceased lover from her teenage years, but doesn’t strike too much of a mournful tone, instead fondly remembering their time together. Most of the appeal of Sugar Water comes from Maude’s ability to write a great chorus and that is best exhibited in the lead single “Cursed Romantics”, which does this balancing act between Marina’s work (during her ‘& the Diamonds’ years) and the rave-friendly synths of peak Crystal Castles. There are a few songs where Maude’s neo-hippie leanings threaten to derail the experience and it’s obvious Maude is a student of the 2010s female Tumblr greats (Lorde-Lana-Marina), but this album’s abundance of hooks and its bubbly electronic palette made it a great summer listen.
Megan Moroney - Am I Okay?
Megan Moroney first caught my eye with her debut album Lucky, which came about after her song “Tennessee Orange” got traction due to her wearing a Tennessee t-shirt, which may or may not have belonged to Morgan Wallen. That aside, Megan is good at building these relatable but detailed narratives that country music favors, and she knows how to make them catchy. Her newest album does a better job at building upon the melancholy in some of her songs and allows her to develop more character in her songwriting. There’s an appearance from Liz Rose (Taylor Swift’s former cowriting partner) on here and Megan has a unique sense of humor that shines in her lyricism. She has a natural twang to her voice that also injects a lot of personality in her music and gives it that country flavor.
Mette - “Muscle” + “Bet”
Mette has been steadily releasing a string of singles lately that are built for the dancefloor, following the release of her EP METTENARRATIVE in 2023. Mette first broke onto the scene as a dancer and was featured in the video for N.E.R.D & Rihanna’s “Lemon”, and recently opened for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in London. Mette’s newest singles were produced by Zhone, who worked with Troye Sivan for “Rush” and I think you hear that in “Bet”. “Muscle” has more of a disco touch to it and features the line “Don’t act demure” which feels rather timely, though the song came out before the recent TikTok trend. Both of these songs were great club bops to bump through the summer, and I hope an album manifests.
Miley Cyrus - “Psycho Killer”
In honor of A23’s rerelease of the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, A24 commissioned a tribute album called Everyone’s Getting Involved, with a slew of various artists getting involved such as Paramore, Girl in Red, Lorde and The National. One of those artists was Miley Cyrus, who’d previous expressed affection for Talking Heads by lip-syncing and faithfully mimicking David Byrne’s performance of “Once In a Lifetime” for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. For the tribute album, Miley was assigned the task of covering “Psycho Killer” (the bass of which was famously sampled for fellow Disney alum Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar”). Miley opted not to do a faithful rendition, which annoyed a lot of people, but she mentioned in W Magazine she wanted the record to sound like “Kylie Minogue meets aggressive, industrial-dance dream pop”. The result lands somewhere in the vicinity of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” so for me, it’s a job very well done.
Normani - Dopamine
It’s honestly exhausting to talk about Normani’s music career nowadays. After many stops and starts, it appeared it was at a standstill until earlier this year, when Normani returned with a website announcing an album was coming, with a title. However, if anyone thought that meant Normani’s music career was finally going to hit the ground running, they were mistaken. Over the next few months, Normani released two singles without any real acknowledgment, provided no visuals, and seemed intent on dropping whatever music she had and returning to whatever she did away from public eyes. Given the “here, damn” nature of the album rollout, I genuinely went into this album with little expectations. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that Dopamine is actually one of the year’s best albums. Normani’s obvious inspiration here is Brandy, and the result is an album that largely commits to a similarly seductive and silky R&B sound, complete with the same technique of stacking vocals for maximum effect. Brandy herself has uncredited background vocals on “Insomnia”, and other names like James Blake, Gunna, and Cardi B are present, but this is a fantastic debut album that presents a fully realized artist. It’s a shame that the artist is nowhere to be found to celebrate this record.
Olivia O’Brien - “Out of My League (But I Want You So Bad)”
Olivia O’Brien released her first EP Love & Limerence, since going independent from Island Records, but it was one of her subsequent standalone singles that stuck with me for the summer. “Out of My League (But I Want You Bad)” is this dreamy and cutesy synthpop song about wanting someone even though you know you deserve better. There’s nothing super inventive about it but the hazy synths remind me of sitting in an ice cream parlor on a muggy summer day.
Olivia Rodrigo - “So American”
I adore Olivia Rodrigo. I love that she’s become the de facto rock star for the younger generation. Guts was on my album of the year list for 2023 (that you haven’t seen) and after months of leaving four bonus tracks to rot on vinyl, she released a deluxe version, along with a new track called “So American”, clearly devoted to her newfound love with British actor Louis Partridge. It’s nice to hear the romantically beleaguered Rodrigo in full lovey-dovey mode and Rodrigo fittingly steers her sound into Britpop. Rodrigo missed a trick not making this the deluxe version’s single instead of “Obsessed”, which is also a pretty great song. I couldn’t stop playing this one.
Omar Apollo - “Drifting”
I constantly waffle on Omar Apollo, mostly because I really preferred his earlier work on Apolonio. Going into his new album, I wasn’t sure what to expect because his last album Evergreen was a bit all over the map for me and he was promising that the new album was going to be rather sad and artsy. I have come to really enjoy God Said No, his latest, in the months since it was released. However, I would say “Drifting” is the song that piqued my interest and stayed in my rotation throughout the summer. It’s built around an old favorite of mine by Ivy called “Edge of the Ocean”. Omar’s song doesn’t do anything too crazy to the sample and you can still hear Ivy’s lead singer Dominique Durand croon the chorus throughout “Drifting”, but Omar’s take is more upbeat and conveys a sense of aimlessness that feels more desolate than the original’s urge to reset their life.
Pinkpantheress - “Turn It Up”
I didn’t get a chance to give Pinkpantheress her flowers last year since her fantastic debut album Heaven Knows came later in the year. Since then, Pinkpantheress has gone on tour with Olivia Rodrigo and made some controversial comments about songcraft, but she has offered some new music since then as well. She turned up on Kaytranada’s Timeless on “Snap My Finger”, which was pretty good but I prefer her standalone loosie. It doesn’t deviate too much from the Pinkpantheress formula - it samples “Dreaming of You” by the deceased Tejano legend Selena and pairs it with skittering drum beats, but she still manages to pull off that balance of sounding miles into the future while hitting that sweet spot of nostalgia.
Rachel Chinouriri - What a Devastating Turn of Events
I was eagerly anticipating Rachel Chinouriri’s debut album, especially after her Better Off Without EP and her 2022 single “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Trying)”. I suspected from the moment she unleashed “The Hills”, a shoegaze-Britpop indie rock banger about realizing she belonged in London after a frustrating stay in Los Angeles, that the album wouldn’t disappoint, and I was delighted to be proven right. What a Devastating Turn of Events allows Rachel to flex a bit of range, while staying true to her vision for an album primarily steeped in 2000s British indie and alternative influences. Rachel’s writing on this album can vary from being humorous about past relationships that didn’t work out (“Dumb B**** Juice”) to tackling the tragic tale of a cousin who became pregnant out of wedlock and turned to suicide as her only means of escaping the situation. It’s to her credit that she can zig-zag between these different themes and treat them with the appropriate tone, without throwing listeners into emotional whiplash. Rachel also has this earthy tone to her vocals, which often help ground the songs and can deliver a wicked bite on a song like “Never Need Me”, where she decides to move on from a relationship where her partner isn’t willing to give up self-destructive behaviors but wishes them the best. This was another great debut album that manages to give you a great idea of everything in the artist’s arsenal, without feeling like it was too all over the place and you can tell it was a labor of love.
Ravyn Lenae - Bird’s Eye
Ravyn Lenae had one of the best R&B albums of the decade under her belt in 2022 when she released Hypnos. She has another with Bird’s Eye. Ravyn proved herself a student of Brandy on her last album, but this time around she’s more exploratory when it comes to genre: there’s a straight up reggae song on here and lead single “Love Me Not” flirts with rock more than anything she released before ever has. She still allows for the sleek and smooth delivery from past records to show up on “Love Is Blind”, and in contrast to Hypnos, Bird’s Eye only clocks in around 35 minutes with 11 songs. It’s very digestible, no moment is left wasted and Ravyn evolves her sound with abandoning the elements that made her so special in the first place. She is one of the best artists working today, no R&B qualifier needed.
Remi Wolf - Big Ideas
It’s hard to summarize Remi Wolf’s second album Big Ideas, because the strongest aspect of this album is that the songs are just so well-written and produced, and chock full of earworms. For the most part, Big Ideas keeps to a funky blend of pop and rock, in a similar vein to her previous album Juno. However, Remi isn’t afraid to take some bold risks that pay off, such as mixing pop punk with reggae on “Wave”. The attention to detail is a highlight because you end up with charming moments such as the revving synth that mimics a bull getting ready to charge on “Toro”. From the jump, you’re confronted with a lot of personality and boisterous production choices, so it’s nice when the album simmers down on “When I Thought of You” or languishes through soul as on “Motorcycle”. Since I’m generally a sucker for synthpop, my favorite song is naturally “Soup”.
Sabrina Carpenter - Short n’ Sweet
Sabrina Carpenter was one of the biggest winners of the summer, following the consecutive smashes of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”, the former of which was inescapable. After inching her way up the charts, Sabrina has finally arrived as the pop girl she’s been striving to be all along. Short n’ Sweet doesn’t aim to follow the most obvious path of replicating “Espresso” 10-12 times. Instead, Sabrina presents a smorgasbord of musical options, such as country, pop-rock, and R&B, never really sticking to one sound. Sabrina’s bawdy sense of humor is omnipresent across the record, but I don’t think this album gives me a good grasp of what constitutes a Sabrina Carpenter record. She’s good at adapting to different sounds and while I’m not against experimentation, I still hear other people’s fingerprints over every song (I love “Juno” but I hear early Katy Perry - in a good way, I like “Good Graces” but I hear Ariana Grande). Jack Antonoff’s production on some of these songs doesn’t help either, since my biggest gripe with “Please Please Please” was that some of the synth work sounds distinctly Midnights. There’s enough here for me to stay on the Sabrina Carpenter train since it shows no signs of slowing down, but I don’t know if all the genre-hopping at such a pivotal moment in her career works for me. In short, “Taste” will probably be one of my favorite songs to go top 5 this year but also, “Slim Pickins” is one of the worst songs I’ve heard all year.
Sarah Kinsley - “Last Time We Never Meet Again”
Although I enjoyed Sarah Kinsley’s EP last year, this one was a slow burn for me. It’s not that I didn’t think the song was excellent from the jump, but more that I kept returning to it more often as the summer progressed. Sarah has always had these instincts that remind me of Kate Bush, and their voices can sound remarkably similar at times. Sarah’s songwriting sounds more like a poetic declaration to an ex that she is moving on from their past relationship, rather than a direct conversation to the person themselves. Even though this is still synthpop, Sarah tends to go for a more baroque style, which you can hear in the strings. Her album Escaper recently came out and is a really good debut album, I would recommend giving it a spin as well.
Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology
I wasn’t particularly fond of Midnights, like many others, and I didn’t have a lot of hope for The Tortured Poets Department when it was announced either. I don’t fall into the camp of people who thought Midnights was wholly bad, but it lowered my par for what a solid (solid. not great. not good. not bad. just solid - think like a 3-star album) Taylor Swift album sounds like. TTPD is more or less Taylor unfettered, the result of a pop star who has carte blanche to entertain her whims and decides to indulge in pouring her troubles into song, though she doesn’t seem interested in evolving her sound further. Instead, The Tortured Poets Department adds a few new tricks to the Swift-Antonoff 80s-inspired-chillwave formula, such as “Guilty As Sin” which takes Swift into pop rock territory, or “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart”, which attempts to retrofit the Antonoff synthpop formula for an actual dancefloor. Upon releasing the album, Swift revealed the album was a double album, expanding the tracklist to 31 and offering more contributions from other semi-frequent collaborator Aaron Dessner (who has about 4-5 on the original tracklist). The songs on the deluxe edition dip into the folksier sound Swift developed on Folklore and Evermore, but mostly everyone can tell (and certainly have been caught up on the lore) that Swift is largely writing about her relationship with Matthew Healy and the fallout from that breakup, largely ignoring the previous breakup with actor Joe Alwyn everyone thought the album would focus on. None of this matters much. Swift is more resentful of her status as the world’s biggest pop star than ever before and the material doesn’t go out of its way to appease fans. There isn’t enough going on for me to defend the extreme feelings devotees and detractors have regarding the album. For a 31-track album, I think Taylor manages to keep the filler to a minimum, but this was never going to be her best work. At its best and worst, The Tortured Poets Department does what the typical Taylor Swift album has done since Lover. No more, but not much less.
Tinashe - Quantum Baby
Tinashe landed a viral hit with “Nasty”, and it’s been everywhere despite not reaching that high up on the Billboard Hot 100 yet. Quantum Baby is a continuation of Tinashe’s previous project, BB/ANG3L, and continues in the same minimalistic ambient approach to R&B established on that project. There are only about two moments where Tinashe seems fully aware of what could function as a hit (the aforementioned “Nasty” and “No Broke Boys”), but otherwise, she is largely digging deeper into bending her sound and exploring what she can morph her sound into next. I’m thrilled that the sounds of Tinashe’s mixtape days are resurfacing in her sound. Tinashe is one of those artists I never worry about because she’s consistently releasing great material. Her work is endlessly fascinating and always sounds ahead of the curve.
Tommy Richman - “Million Dollar Baby”
Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” took Tiktok by storm, with its synth take on funk music and Tommy’s striking falsetto. Richman took issue with being called a “Tiktok artist” following the song’s massive popularity on the app, and to be fair, “Million Dollar Baby” doesn’t strike me as a fluke. Tommy has put out two singles since, which have yet to achieve the same success, but I’ll be tuned into the recently announced album all the same.
Tove Lo & SG Lewis - Heat
Tove Lo and SG Lewis already established a working relationship on Dirt Femme and after a guest turn with Nelly Furtado on “Love Bites” (which is solid), they released a collaborative EP with four straight bops, taking direct influence from 90s-00s dance music. They released music videos for each song and it’s so clear Tove and SG have a real love for the LGBT community and club culture (and the unbreakable bond between the two). “Busy Girl” got the most play from me because to me, that song was just straight-up p***y music but I think the best song is probably “Desire”. I wouldn’t mind getting a full album from these two because their chemistry is undeniable.
Tyla - Tyla
Tyla experienced a surge in popularity following the TikTok success of “Water” in 2023, but didn’t rush out an album on the heels of that hit, with her debut album being released in March of this year. Since its release, I haven’t been able to stop going back to Tyla’s debut album. Tyla is committed to the amapiano and log drum that made “Water” such a distinctive hit, but even on moments such as “Breathe Me” or “Butterflies” where she breaks away from the formula, her vocal delivery is consistently light and nimble. Though there are a handful of guests on the album, Tyla always remains the star of the show, thanks to the album’s cohesion and her sheer presence. There have been a slew of artists who broke through this year and some have received more attention for obvious reasons, but Tyla released an album that doesn’t sound like anything else on the market and assures listeners that she has a firm grasp on her artistic identity.
As always, thank you for dedicating your time to reading my thoughts on music. Hopefully, you’ll see me again with the list of my favorite albums of 2023 and if not, enjoy your Eusexua fall!