Top Lyrics of 2024: Phosphorescent
The year’s end always brings a flurry of lists rounding up and ranking 2024’s musical output. Amid the countless breakdowns—of songs and albums and artists—I...
At the World’s End with Hurray for the Riff Raff and Adrianne Lenker
I cannot shake this mounting sense of finality. Things are bleak on several fronts—geopolitically, environmentally, technologically—and alongside those tremors come study after study showing the...
Agnes Obel’s “Familiar” and Fred again..’s “ten”
Right around the time in the northern hemisphere when the afternoons darkened far too early—shortly before the days began growing longer in the light—I found...
Rilo Kiley’s “Silver Lining”
The more I come to understand confidence, the more I see it stemming from a lovely internal stillness. If lakes existed somewhere in the core...
Colter Wall’s Cover of “Evangelina”
For me, it’s the way it starts. No, I don’t mean the sentimental sashay of an intro, with acoustic guitar and harmonica refracting like heat...
Andy Shauf’s “Halloween Store”
Some songs explode on stage. In the lead-up to seeing Andy Shauf perform at Toronto’s historic Massey Hall, I’d been spending time with his discography, including...
The Durutti Column’s “Otis”
“Otis” begins, as some of the best songs do, unexpectedly. A guitar string reverberates ever so briefly, first plucked and then bent, echoing forth a...
Bill Callahan’s “Riding for the Feeling”
I’ve done a lot of leaving as an adult. The poetic call it nomadic, the nihilistic call it lost, and I’ve been known to call...
Julie Byrne’s “Melting Grid”
When I first moved back to New York in the early, wintry days of 2018, I was nearly a year into working nights for Pitchfork....
Nilüfer Yanya’s Steely Mask
I’ve been retreating since the start of the new year. Part of it comes down to logistics (I’m moving to another country in just a...