I get ahead of myself - bracing for a bombshell

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's 50 best albums of 2024.

#18 : Tigers Blood - Waxahatchee

After Katie Crutchfield leaned into her country roots on 2020’s Saint Cloud, Tigers Blood deepened her grasp on the genre, sounding as classic as Gillian Welch and David Rawlings one minute (Right Back to It, featuring the year’s breakout indie star MJ Lenderman), and delving into unpretentious southern rock the next (friend breakup anthem Bored). The comfort and ease in her songwriting set solid foundations for her voracious mind to wander, plotting the ever-changing distance between herself and others with tenderness and cryptic confidence – “There’s a lock on the door that costs more than my car, babe,” she warns on The Wolves – not to mention a voice that penetrates like a beam of light. Her second classic album in a row, Tigers Blood suggests an great catalogue forming before our eyes.

My second visit with Waxahatchee and I loved her previous album so I'd already checked this one out making it my tenth previously heard album on the list - I mentioned it in passing in a post as "a belter". This is definitely worth a re-listen though.

Yeah, it's right up my street - I appreciate others may not appreciate her voice but for me the songs are just simple things of US country-folk beauty. "Right Back To It" is the stand-out track for me with her voice working so well with MJ Lenderman's - I also really like "Lone Star Lake", "The Wolves" and the title track, but it all delivers nicely for me. The Guardian's suggestion of a closeness to Gillian Welch is a good one - if you like that sort of thing then check this out.

Wikipedia tells us this is her sixth album - and that's about it! The critics were very nice about it on both sides of the Atlantic and she was nominated for the Best Americana Album Grammy award. Commercially, somewhat surprisingly, it did better here (#38) than it did in the US (#146) - it also did OK in New Zealand (#35).

"Customers also listen to" MJ Lenderman, Hooray For The Riff Raff (great name!), Adrienne Lenker and Rosali - I checked out MJ's latest and it's a similar sound, but not as enjoyable for me. Mostly because I found this album to be extremely enjoyable indeed!

#17 : Fabiana Palladino - Fabiana Palladino

Fabiana Palladino cuts a surprisingly understated figure given the stature of her debut album, which she wrote and produced – and which revamps some of the most dramatic sounds of 80s pop. The spirits of Prince, Janet Jackson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis echo through these songs, with their luxuriant, off-kilter arrangements, skin-prickling vocals and febrile, bone-dry funk. Yet it transcends pastiche, both on the quality of the songwriting and often-minimal arrangements that speak to rather less straitened times than the opulent era of Palladino’s influences. Next up, catch her collaborating on Lorde’s fourth album.

I've never heard of her but The Guardian's description above intrigues me, so I'm quite looking forward to it.

Oh yes, it really is very Prince/Janet Jackson-ish harking back to the glory days of 80s pop - but I think she's got a much nicer voice than either of them. I'm intrigued as to why The Guardian felt the need to say it "transcends pastiche" - it's just a good example of that sort of thing, which we don't hear very much of these days, so it's nice to hear someone doing it well. As with quite a few albums on this list, it's not something I'd choose to play but it's an enjoyable listen and very well put-together. It's quite the album cover for an 80s inspired album as well!

Wikipedia tells us this is her debut album - she's worked for quite a few years as a session musician for people like Jessie Ware, SBTRKT and Sampha and has spent that time well honing her craft. Unsurprisingly, playing bass on several tracks is her dad, Pino Palladino, who's appeared on a load of albums over the years (we last saw him on Beyonce's Cowboy Carter) - Giancarla, Rocco and Maz Palladino are also involved, so it's a real family affair. The critics were very nice about the album, with it making quite a few year-end lists but it only managed a single week on the UK chart (#33) - it really feels like it deserved more than that.

"Customers also listened to" Jai Paul, Lucy Rose, Feu! Chatterton and Baby Smith - I've at least heard of Jai, but it's not a group I know a lot about. But I'd never heard of Fabiana before listening to this and it's an impressive debut offering.

#16 : Two Star & The Dream Police - MK.gee

Whenever you think the electric guitar must have lost its potential to express something genuinely new after so many decades, someone like Mk.gee comes along. The young American parlays conservatoire-level technique into the most casual of playing, with a tone that’s half Delta blues, half Every Breath You Take. It would be simply the stuff of online guitar-nerd forums were it not for his astounding songs. They’re like transmissions from a phantom late-night AM radio station in the 1980s, beaming out peppy pop for giggly sleepovers (DNM, Candy) and yearning ballads for wistful truck drivers (Dream Police, I Want).

"Peppy pop for giggly sleepovers" or "yearning ballads for wistful truck drivers" you say? I'm sold! I'm intrigued as to how he uses the electric guitar in a new way though...

Well - this is, errr, interesting. But mostly in how uninteresting it is. I can believe the guitar playing is impressive and I can also believe that I don't even understand how impressive it is - I suspect a lot of the noises I'm hearing have been made on a guitar, but I just don't recognise them as such. But, the songs are not "astounding", they are, in fact, "perfectly fine" - there's a definite Police feel to a lot of them, but none of them stood out for me in the slightest. I imagine he might be very impressive live, but I'm afraid I just don't understand the fuss about this.

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting (128 milliPeppers) which tells me this is another debut album and it's in the bedroom pop genre (I swear they make half of these up). There is remarkably little content though - it's amazing how little some of these entries say. The critics were pretty nice about it, with Pitchfork declaring "nothing in contemporary music sounds quite like it, yet it seems to have always been with us, hovering just outside the realm of possibility" - which is, quite frankly, utter bollocks. It also did well in year-end charts with Clash, Dazed and The New York Times declaring it their #1 album of the year, so obviously it must have done OK commercially, right? Nope - it didn't do anything anywhere. Hmmm...

"Customers also listened to" Dijon (who co-produced this album), Matt Champion, Hana Vu and MJ Lenderman - ah yes, that lot. I didn't hate this, but I really don't see what all the fuss was about - it's fine, but I'm not sure it's any more than that. 

Well, MK was never going to win this - the ladies have put him to shame. Whereas Fabiana has produced a really very impressive album indeed, but she was never going to win it either - Waxahatchee for the win all the way!

#21-18 - Four fine albums
#15-13 - Quite the variety of genres and quality