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16 things I loved in 2024 |
The Troll Forest in Stadsskogen: I was lucky to spend several months in Uppsala, Sweden while my husband was on a Fulbright fellowship and found many places to love, from Stockholm’s chic bustle to the Viking mounds of Uppland and nights beneath the dome of the Northern Lights. My favorite spot to recharge is a small patch of unadulterated greenery within our college town’s city forest. Untouched since 1970, the Trollskogen offers rare serenity and a glimpse of the world beyond human intervention that, I think, we all desperately need right now.
ABBA Voyage: Following the Swedish path to London, we sprang for tickets to this spectacle featuring holograms of the country’s beloved ambassadors Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid. We came for the uncanny valley weirdness — what I didn’t expect was the soul-nourishing wholesomeness of an intergenerational crowd of ABBA fans from all over Europe, dressed in sparkles and boas and gathered to sing “Dancing Queen” at the top of their lungs.
Great conversations: I love talking with the musicians I most admire about the way they find inspiration and sustenance. This year I felt luckier than ever to spend quality time with so many at the peak of their creative powers: on stage with Alynda Segarra at the Folk Alliance International conference; Katie Crutchfield at Americana Fest; two longtime heroes — Kristen Hersh and Laurie Anderson — at Big Ears, Brittany Howard and Jason Isbell for Alabama Humanities and the Indigo Girls as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. An honorable mention, because it wasn’t on stage: a searching and open Nick Cave, whom I interviewed early one morning this summer while he prepared to release his great new album Wild God. Each exchange reminded me of the guts, wits and perseverance artists must maintain to give us all they do — and of our debt to them for all the pleasure and perception they offer.
KCRW’s Lost Notes: Groupies: More than thirty years after Pamela Des Barres published her redefining book on life as a rock and roll consort, I’m With the Band, the stories of the women who supported and often shaped music scenes from the inside remain relatively obscured. This deep dive from exec producer Jessica Hopper and host/co-writer Dylan Tupper Rupert foregrounds the actual voices of women like Miss Pamela, Lori Maddux, Pleasant Gehman and Theresa Kereakes, who ruled the Sunset Strip from the arena rock era through punk. This is a tricky subject to navigate (are groupies feminists? Discuss) and this series does so with passion and smarts.
My Tortured Poets Department deep dive: I didn’t put Taylor Swift’s most willfully personal album on my year-end list, but I must say that spending intense time with it was a hugely rewarding critical experience. The master craftsman dug deep and took chances with this self-exposé, which I deeply appreciate in its original form — though I did eventually wade through the weeds of the “double album,” too. I’m telling you, go back in. Find your favorite under-discussed tracks. It’s not that often, now, that a one-percenter star offers such intimacies.
Kyshona record release party for Legacy: It’s an honor to witness artists fully reach their potential. I’ve known Kyshona Armstrong for a decade through her work in Nashville music education, and watched the evolution of this passion project — a deep evocation of her South Carolina family’s roots and branches — from Kickstarter to birth. Kyshona brought everything that makes her such a powerful storyteller to the 3rd & Lindsley stage: her “heavenly choir” of chosen sisters, family members, a killer band and her own spirit-stirring alto. A true testament to the power of song.
“If I Saw You Now”: I first saw my beloved Cali folk trio the Rainbow Girls perform Erin Chapin’s raw, exquisite exposition on the lingering scars of abuse while sitting on the floor in a hotel room at the Folk Alliance conference in February. I was stunned at its courage in speaking to an abuser long absent, yet still present; saying these things out loud can feel so perilous. The version on the Girls’s new album Haunting, out in October, foregrounds Chapin’s vocal, at first timorous and then insistent, as the strength she gains from speaking fills up the space of her loneliness.
Yoko Ono Music of the Mind at the Tate London: This all-encompassing museum retrospective (now traveling in Europe) not only honors art’s greatest rocker in all of her complexity, from her early work in the Tokyo avant-garde through her long partnership with John Lennon to the present-day Wish Tree project (coming to New York’s Amory in February). It invites the visitor to experience the work as she offered, interactively. Climb into a cloth bag like the ones she and Lennon would climb into, defying their fame. Play chess on an all-white chessboard. Put on headphones and hear Ono’s voice whispering to you. Add a wish to the tree. Experiencing this exhibit fully serves Ono’s mission: that we notice each other, and ourselves, engaging with each other, and stay grounded in that connectivity.
Omar Apollo’s videos: A tall drink of horchata blessed with physical grace and supreme style sense, Apollo released consistently gorgeous visuals for his God Said No project. Standouts: the live clips he recorded with a white-clad band reclining on a giant sheet-covered conversation pit; the video for “Spite,” featuring wild motorcycle choreography by Mexico city police officers; the desert choreography of “Drifting,” directed by Madrids, and, most recently, the aching eroticism of the clip for “Te Maldigo,” his song for Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, in which he also appears.
Linda May Han Oh quartet at Fasching: This Stockholm jazz club, partly funded by members, is a long, narrow room with the stage on one side; the setup makes it easy for both the monied set at its tables and the students at the side bar to feel like part of the action. And Oh’s quartet, whirling around her dynamic bass playing and singing, brings the action like no other. This was the most joyful music I saw all year.
Silvana Estrada at Americana Fest: Like most club-based festivals, Americana Fest is feast or famine — the crowds pack into the buzzy shows while equally deserving artists play to half-empty rooms. At a fest only starting to build up its Latin roster (finally!), Estrada played solo to maybe 75 people — but this extraordinary Mexican singer and cuatro player’s celestial voice and warm personality converted every one. The cries for her to do not one but two encores may not have matched the volume of the screams at Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, but the passion was there.
The Leeds Arcades: In our delivery-dominated age, it’s so easy to forget about the architecture of shopping, but the gorgeous glass and metal structures that still house boutiques and boîtes in this Northern English town brought me back to my department-store loving youth, and even farther into dreams of the late 19th century and the material culture that the great writer Walter Benjamin once called “evidence of a collective dream.”
My Criterion conversion: I loved Anora, came around to Megalopolis, and am rooting for Blitz to get some Oscar noms. But my best film viewing in a busy year happened at home, where I fully devoted myself to the wonders of this glorious streaming service. Filling in gaps (My first Rohmer! Agnes Varda’s Chloe From 5 to 7! Miller’s Crossing!) and discovering classics that were new to me (African greats like Black Girl and Cairo Station, Japanese horror winners The Audition and Cure), I escaped the drudgery of predictable prestige TV. I developed new crushes (OMG Romain Duris in The Beat That My Heart Skipped, not to mention the Moroccan rock gods of the documentary Trances) and remembered that film shorts can be an ideal after-dinner treat. Feeling burnt out by algorithms? Get the Criterion Channel. It will wake up your eyes and ears.
Queer country can’t be stopped: Even as I type that phrase, I need to say this: Keep your definitions open. Albums from Nashville-based or circling artists like Chris Housman, Fancy Hagood, Willi Carlisle, Denitia, Katie Pruitt, Julie Williams, Joy Oladokun and Medium Build, alongside the embrace of the genre from indie rockers like Katie Gavin and the new duo of Julien Baker and Torres, offer a whole world beyond (and, I pray, one day truly intersecting with) Music Row. P.S.: I’m excited to hear the new full-length from Hank Jr.’s son Sam Williams coming next year.
The Drive-By Truckers at the Ryman: I heard some folks complaining about “album playback” shows this year, but my favorite band of rock lifers proved beyond a doubt that such performances can go beyond nostalgia. Performing its 2001 opus Southern Rock Opera, Alabama’s (and Georgia’s, I know) finest interspersed songs from throughout its nearly 30-year history into that album’s narrative about “the dichotomy of the Southern thing,” making it come alive in new ways. By the time they got to their cover of Wet Willie’s “Keep On Smilin’,” the South had been won again in the name of all the freaks, protestors and rabble-rousers who love this band.
The Chicken Katsu sandwich at Kisser: It helped them almost win a James Beard award, folks. Not all Nashville chicken has to be hot! |
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