With freckles as sparkling as yours, who could dare to un-sparkle your dots?

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

#44 : In Waves - Jamie XX

One third of the xx turned in an expertly produced dancefloor LP, finely chopping up samples and guest artists and emulsifying them into darkly throbbing Jon Hopkins-y techno, emotional trance or sparkling disco-house. The latter style provides the best track, Baddy on the Floor, made with Honey Dijon – have trumpets ever sounded more euphoric?

This is the first one I've previously heard because I checked it out as a new entry in the chart back in September - my comment then was "has some nice sounds on it, but doesn't hang together as an album", so let's see if a second listen improves matters.

No, I think that's pretty accurate - it feels a bit more like a sample of "things Jamie XX can do that you can't" rather than something that works as an album for me. It's all perfectly listenable though and there are some lovely sounds in places (I particularly liked "All You Children") but it's all a bit scattergun. It's quite a freaky album cover though.

Wikipedia has more text on the album than I was expecting, but there's remarkably little content there. The critics were much nicer about the album than I was and it did very well commercially - #5 here (easily the most successful album we've seen so far), generally top 20 across Europe (including #2 in Belgium) and the dizzy heights of #146 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Caribou, Barry Can't Swim, Floating Points and Bicep & Hammer - I can certainly see the link to Caribou. This kinda thing always hits or misses with me without me really being able to explain why - unfortunately this particularly example was a miss.

#43 : 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto With Bison Horn Grips - Xiu Xiu

In the goth stakes this year, Xiu Xiu’s 17th studio album made the Cure sound like Sabrina Carpenter. It’s a collection of haughty ambient balladry, skronking noise-pop and – in the underground hit Common Loon – ultra-distorted glam rock. Throughout, Jamie Stewart’s voice remains on superb, theatrical form: audibly trembling, even cowering at times; at others he strides around like a moustache-twiddling villain in a musical.

Wow - what a title! I somehow doubt we're going to see a more unwieldy name in this list - and from the description above, it doesn't sound like the music is going to be any more accessible either (I guessed that "skronking" probably wasn't a good thing, but had to Google to learn it means "raw and dissonant").

However, I'd actually say it's not all that raw and dissonant - but it is extremely odd. It's kinda pretentious 80s indie-goth - the sort of stuff 4AD used to churn out (and still do, amongst other strange stuff!). I'm not sure I'd have it on my year-end list, but it was certainly wasn't hateful - it's an interesting over-the-top listen, if probably not to too many people's tastes.

Wikipedia disagrees with The Guardian and says it's their fourteenth album and they've had some cracking titles since their '02 debut Knife Play including Dear God, I Hate Myself, Angel Guts:Red Classroom, Oh No and (intriguingly, but also scarily) Xiu Xiu Play The Music Of Twin Peaks. The title to this album relates to a knife owned by Jamie Stewart, which was a "clichéd symbol of 'tough guy' aesthetics - but as an instrument of violence, they're pretty useless" and it tied in to one of the drivers for the album which was (quite obviously) "interesting uselessness" (I suspect Jamie might be quite an interesting character). The critics loved it (of course) but there was no danger of it troubling the charts.

"Customers also listened to" Chat Pile (really?), Ashenspire, Spelling and Drab Majesty - I doubt I will be searching out any of these groups, I'm afraid. And I won't be searching out any of Xiu Xiu's other stuff, but this certainly wasn't dull.

#42 : You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To - Knocked Loose

The Kentucky metalcore quintet burst into rock’s big leagues this year with a 100mph battering ram, earning a Grammy nomination and a Slipknot arena tour off the back of this magnificent LP. The guitar tone has every drop of potential loveliness scoured away, leaving rough smears of noise, while the stop-start rhythms have a profound, almost hidden funk to them – learning how to duck and weave with these haymaker blows, listen after listen, is just one of this album’s great pleasures.

Oh good - more noise merchants. Who wouldn't want to listen to something with "every drop of potential loveliness scoured away, leaving rough smears of noise", eh? Expectations are not high...

OMG - why do The Guardian HATE me? It takes quite a lot for me to give up on an album but this was just too much for me, I'm afraid - the only pleasure I got from it was imagining how the lovely Mrs Reed would react to it. Just no.

Wikipedia has way more than I was expecting on the album - but all it really tells us is that it's their third album and the critics were falling over themselves to spout bollocks about it eg "so potent that it has its own gravitational pull". It's been remarkably successful commercially though - #43 here, #17 in Germany and #23 in the US (the most successful album we've seen over there so far).

"Customers also listened to" thrown, Kublai Khan TX, Slaughter To Prevail and Alpha Wolf - all of which I can assure you I won't be searching out. It's safe to say I REALLY did't like this and, after Chat Pile's offering I'm going to be very nervous if I see another album with a cross on the cover.

I think Xiu Xiu just take the round with their skronking noise-pop - Jamie XX had the nicest noises but it just didn't work for me. And Knocked Loose was just awful.

#47-45 - A somewhat eclectic mix
#41-39 - Three decent albums