Will someone find out what the word is

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

#9 : Short N' Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter

The first time most adults heard of Sabrina Carpenter was in the fallout from Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 breakout hit Drivers License, which appeared to cast her fellow Disney star as the other woman. While Carpenter’s 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send toyed with perceptions that she was a “homewrecker … a slut”, her sixth record leaned all the way in, Carpenter adopting a bawdy bombshell persona that revelled in the idea of her as a threat. It was a monstrously successful concept, rebooting the classic blond pop princess with a lacerating tongue and a withering attitude to men straight out of the Lana Del Rey playbook – and most winningly, a savage sense of humour that rightly earned Carpenter comparisons to Dolly Parton. Rodrigo witheringly cast Carpenter as “another actress”, and on Short n’ Sweet, Carpenter convincingly played the role of Nashville warbler, disco revivalist, R&B temptress, each mode tied together by her sharp pen. Espresso positioned Carpenter as the girl of your caffeine-addled dreams; her versatility and nimbleness with a heel turn and a wink made very clear that she can also be the girl of your nightmares, if you want her to be. LS

This is the thirteenth album I've previously heard and the sixth I've written up - when I met it back in September, I declared it to be lightweight and of little interest, assuming it would swiftly disappear. My powers of foresight were obviously somewhat lacking (as usual) because it's not been out of the top three since and is #1 over Christmas. So it has to have a re-listen to see if I can hear what I missed the first time.

Nope - on second listen, I'm still no clearer. There are some humorous and cutting lyrics, although not as many as I remembered (and certainly not as many as The Guardian implies), but musically it's very lightweight. I was wondering if part of its success was a backlash to Taylor's constant "men are bastards" whining, but there's quite a lot of that here as well - without any of the musical variety that Taylor gives you. I remain mystified by its popularity.

#8 : Chromakopia - Tyler, The Creator

The sepia-tinged visuals for Tyler’s surprise eighth album made it look like a complete break from the globetrotting, pastel-hued luxe of 2021’s Call Me if You Get Lost. It turned out to share quite a bit of that album’s sound – the lush, swaggering G-funk and kaleidoscope of references – but stripped away at least some of its braggadocio to reveal the conflict beneath the fur hat: about commitment, parenthood, being doomed to repeat the sins of the father – and the shock reveal that maybe a figure he’d spent his whole life demonising wasn’t so bad after all. And if the sound was somewhat familiar, he made it newly disorienting, metal samples and lavish slow jams colliding into each other. Amid all the uncertainties, though, his supreme self-worth remained as magnetic and justified as ever, and whereas women were collateral in the Kendrick/Drake beef, here guests GloRilla, Sexyy Red and frequent interstitials from his own mother, Bonita Smith, spurred him to greatness. 

The fourteenth I've previously heard and seventh I've written up, this one isn't getting a revisit because I know my view of "musically interesting, but what am I supposed to do with?" is not going to change.

#7 : Romance - Fontaines D.C.

The Irish band’s ambition gets bigger with every release, and with this fourth album they were aiming at arenas. Perhaps there’s something a bit too difficult – too poetic, yet too chippy – about them to make them cross over to the good-times crowds you need at that level; Liam Gallagher certainly isn’t a fan. But if you don’t get it, it’s your loss: who else right now has a four-album run like this? Even a sad ballad preposterously called Horseness Is the Whatness, tucked away on the final third, has a chorus you can’t believe no one’s written before, while Favourite genuinely is an arena anthem – something that sounds better with every beer you drink, until you’re flinging an arm around a stranger’s shoulders. BBT

The fifteenth I've previously heard - they were unlucky not to get a write-up because they were #2 in Sabrina's debut week. My comment was "not bad at all" so I'm looking forward to a re-listen. 

Yeah - "not bad at all" is a fair enough comment. They get tagged with the dreaded "post-punk" label, but I think it's more "post-goth", with a hint of upbeatness in places - I also surprised myself by enjoying his voice. I can't say I'll be rushing back to it, but we've had far worse albums on the list and I imagine they're quite fun live. It's quite the album cover though, isn't it?

WIkipedia tells us this is their fourth album (and we've met three of them) and it's a "futuristic and dystopian vision". It has some amusingly random facts about some of the tracks - "Horseness Is The Whatness" gets its title from Ulysses, "Favourite" originally had twelve verses and "In the Modern World" is inspired by Lana Del Rey's "strain of disillusionment". Unsurprisingly, the critics were very keen on it and it also did very well commercially getting to #3 in France and Switzerland and #2 in Belgium and Ireland (only #97 in the US though) - I'm not sure releasing their album in the same week as Sabrina was the best idea. I also Googled why Liam Gallagher isn't a fan - the band had the AUDACITY to declare they "couldn't give a shit" about the Oasis reunion. Obviously, we can trust Liam to respond maturely with a well-crafted response - the master of words came back with “fuck them little spunkbubbles I’ve seen better dressed ROADIES".

"Customers also listened to" Wunderhorse, English Teacher, Blossoms and Catfish & The Bottlemen - not a selection I know a lot about, but I did like English Teacher's album this year.  And I quite liked this as well, without loving it.

Well, the most successful album is imho the least interesting of the lot here - both the others are not really my kind of thing but they've both got a lot going on both musically and lyrically. Fontaines D.C. were always going to take it, but Tyler is a much closer second than you might expect.

#12-10 - Hoorah for the grumpy old men
#6-5 - Two that don't quite hit the spot