listening to Your Favorite Songs 2024, part 7

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six.

"dayz gone" - CLIFFDIVER
from drewg
"a longtime friend is a superfan of these guys and i finally got into them because i was in a different town for a trip where cliffdiver were playing a show that night. i'm not normally a spontaneous person but i made it out to an unplanned social event and loved seeing them and have proceeded to spin their latest record non stop since. it's like grown up teenage music which i guess is Just Music!"

An impromptu excursion to see a band that a friend likes, turning into a genuine personal music obsession? That is some real I Enjoy Music shit. So I will use this song writeup as a reminder to go and do this whenever you can, as much as possible. The discourse in 2024 was very much "concert tickets are getting way too expensive" and that is definitely true if you're trying to get blinded by Sabrina Carpenter's sequins or enveloped in Billie Eilish's unbelievably enormous shorts, but there's also soooo much good music happening at smaller venues with local and touring bands that is way more accessible than the arena and stadium shows. For example, CLIFFDIVER, who hail from Tulsa Oklahoma, are playing on December 27th at Cain's Ballroom and GA tickets are $15...which is a lot less than the $700 that Gracie Abrams is apparently commanding for nosebleed seats. Get thee to the show!!

"dayz gone" is simply some immaculate pop punk about losing your grip while engaging in the touring band lifestyle. It's righteously catchy, and I was blown away by the dexterity of Briana Wright's vocals, which manage to be both as clean and crisp as a bed made with freshly laundered sheets, and also so fierce and raw you can hear the tension in them nearly snap as she sings about breaking her phone and losing her keys and packing her whole life into a Volkswagen. How does she do it?? I just know these folks crush it live.

"Hell of a Ride" - Nourished by Time
from Cosmo

This was my first time ever listening to Nourished by Time! I had seen the name pop up last year when he (that would be Baltimore artist Marcus Brown) released his debut album Erotic Probiotic 2, but despite the incredible artist name and album title, I never got around to sampling the wares. "Hell of a Ride" is future-nostalgic R&B that has the surprising familiarity of tuning into an old song on the radio after driving miles without a signal. The combination of Brown's ardent vocals over the crushed '80s piano feels like a fictitious Girl Talk mashup where Bone Thugs-n-Harmony gets slowed down and placed over a blurry rendition of a Hall & Oates b-side. An end credits song for this weird interim time where we are all flying in slow motion out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"Thru 2 You" - Hilken Mancini Band
from Matt Kriete

Hilken Mancini Band spells "through to you" the same way I would on this blog!

There's a certain '90s style of guitar chord progression that feels profoundly comforting, like no matter what 7th chord twists or minor chord turns you encounter, you'll eventually land right where you need to be. REM are masters of this type of soothing miniature journey, and I also hear those tendencies on the hella jangly "Thru 2 You." The song really starts cooking about halfway through its 2:38 runtime, hitting an indie rock triple that might as well be a walk-off home run: winsome guitar solo, brash bridge, KEY CHANGE. Sorry if I spoiled the key change for you, but if you were on the fence about listening to this song, maybe the key change will change your mind.

"Femenine" - Empress Of
from Gabriel M.
"It's a fun Spanish song for the boyfriends of women who know what they want."

I have two big New Year's resolutions for 2025 (other than chill with the homies, and turn I Enjoy Music into the most popular music blog in the world—both are ongoing projects that can't be pegged to one specific year): get jacked and learn Spanish. Growing up a short drive from the Canadian border meant I thought French was a better academic choice, and though it did help me communicate with Québecois customers of the diner where I waitressed, I have reached the limits of its usefulness, especially here in L.A. So next year I will start lifting weights and learn to hablar espanol. You heard it here first.

Naturally, I had to translate the lyrics to the chorus of this tidy house-leaning bop, and I was not disappointed. Empress Of's Lorely Rodriguez wants...a feminine man! A Latin man! Who dances for her, cooks for her, and takes her to the movies! This is beautiful. We should all be more decisive and vocal about our desires, especially for girly guys. Remember when Charlotte dates a feminine man in Sex and the City...Stephan?? He's a pastry chef, a snappy dresser, a good kisser, and he has an amazing apartment. Charlotte dumps him when he is too scared of a mouse, but maybe "Femenine" would have changed her mind.

"I Like It" - Bassvictim
from Aoife Josie Clements (aka Ravine Angel: music person, writer, CASTRATION MOVIE coconspirator, TRANS PANIC cohost)
"the high point of my year was getting off an 16 hour shoot day, getting into a car full of drunk girls and us all SCREAMING when the drop on this hit."

The second appearance of Bassvictim on this end of year favorites list, and I'm thrilled. "I Like It" is a hedonistic party-starter, all trap drums and breathless vocals and a synth that sounds like someone prepping their engine for a drag race. Charli XCX isn't the only girl in swinging London who knows how to vroom vroom—Maria Manow speeds through the city so fast that everything turns into shapes and colors, though she's sound enough of mind to deliver a perfectly deadpan explanation of British traffic patterns: "West side, best side / You know how we drive / ‘Cause in London Town / The left side’s the right side." If I play this song too loud, I can feel, in a prognostic way, the muscles of my neck strain as if from a headbanging injury. Listen at your own risk.

Thanks for reading I Enjoy Music! If you like it, tell a friend.

Thanks to all the song recommenders <3 See you...tomorrow...