I’m behind my normal schedule, but my annual December shift in music has begun. More holiday music and reviewing my favorite songs of the year than listening to new tunes. Which means this is a last-minute collection, rushed a bit as I have to get a kid to an early appointment before school.
“Ceiling Fan” – Swapmeet
While not taking over the mainstream, I think 2024 will partially be remembered as the year this third (fourth? fifth?) wave of Shoegaze-influenced music played a huge role in what was popular in the alt-rock world. This Adelaide band’s lead singer’s name is Venus, which seems super appropriate.
“It’s PRINCIPLE!” – Mondo Cozmo
We’ve had plenty of songs that have weird capitalizations in their titles. This might be the first that has a mixture of them? When you listen to it, though, the stylization of the title makes total sense.
“Salt In Wound” – Soccer Mommy
Another trend this year has been the return of the mid-Nineties sound; the second-wave grunge era stuff that was a little more poppy than the first wave. Soccer Mommy made an entire album filled with great songs that fit exactly into that slot.
“Laid” – James
One of the music newsletters I subscribe to had a discussion of the band James this week. Perfect excuse to re-visit their only big hit in the US.
“Somebody To Shove” – Soul Asylum
And this week’s The Alternative Number Ones was this 1992 classic.
“Loverboy” – Billy Ocean
A really good week of new songs in the Top 40. I’ve already written about one of them in RFTS. Another I would love to write about when I hear the right countdown. So I’ll go with this, one of Ocean’s two number twos (to go with three number ones). It was kept out of the top spot by the #1 song of 1985. This is my favorite of his songs, and it sat at #40 in just its second week in the Hot 100. Wild video!