Top 20 Records of 2024

Welcome to the year-end edition of the Paradise Found Records blog. It was another great year for music and for Paradise Found. Our Boulder and Petaluma locations continue to thrive, with more in-store performances and album signings than ever before. We couldn’t do it without you, our loyal customers. We love seeing your smiling faces and it makes our day to share music–new and old–with you!

There are good years for new music and there are great years for new music, and 2024 definitely fit the latter category. It seemed like high-quality new albums were released every week. Sometimes the release method itself was part of the story: Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee was originally only available via download or as a two hour uninterrupted YouTube stream, while Jack White dropped his latest album without warning by giving it away at his Nashville and Detroit Third Man Records retail stores. Elsewhere, Chappell Roan, whose debut came out in September 2023, experienced the most meteoric rise by any act in recent memory. Over just a few months, Roan went from relatively unknown to headliner status playing late afternoon festival stages to packed crowds that didn’t always stick around to see whomever was top billed. At Coachella in April she performed in a tent for a few thousand fans; by Lollapalooza in July the difference in crowd size and enthusiasm had grown exponentially. Between her pure pop and over-the-top, drag-influenced presentation that referenced the eighties and disco with equal aplomb, Roan’s overnight success ten years after her first YouTube video was the story of the year. No album flew off the shelves here faster this year.

Coming up with just twenty favorite releases of the year was a challenge. My favorite album, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past is Still Alive, reveals new depths with each listening and tells a story that is both topical and timeless. But any one of several others on my list could’ve been number one. Here are my top ten in alpha order, followed by the next five and my five favorite archival releases. Everything on this list available in our stores or online.

Brittany Howard – What Now

Howard’s sophomore solo album since her days leading Alabama Shakes embraced the bass, moving beyond the rock that permeates her prior work to create what sounds like a great unearthed Prince album. She made room for gospel touches on opener “Earth Sign” and “Red Flags” but largely focused on funk, eschewing her notable guitar skills as she expanded her palette and paid tribute to the Paisley Park sound. (Favorite track: “Every Color in Blue”)

Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee

This two-hour-long double album by Cindy Lee (aka Patrick Flegel from the band Women) leans into a production quality that embraces a Pet Sounds-era aesthetic. Only available currently via Bandcamp, Geocities and YouTube, Diamond Jubilee will finally get a vinyl release in February. Its blend of distant vocals, extended instrumental breaks, and dreamy psychedelic pop brings to mind a lo-fi Beach House.  (Favorite track: “Glitz”)

Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past is Still Alive

Alynda Segarra’s latest effort is the culmination of an underappreciated career that draws on time spent hopping trains and busking on street corners with a keen eye for the challenges faced by the impoverished and disenfranchised. Segarra retains enough hope to draw a line from a dying species to a new love (“Buffalo”) before concluding that they feel like the band on the deck of the sinking Titanic, watching “the world burn with a tear in my eye.” (Favorite track: “Buffalo”)

MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks

Asheville-based MJ Lenderman had quite the year. His band, Wednesday, played to increasingly larger crowds and growing critical acclaim. His guitar work and vocals added much to Waxahatchee’s newest album, and his fourth solo studio effort is his best yet. Starting quietly with the plaintive folk of the title track and culminating with the Neil Young-inspired shredding and feedback-drenched metal machine music of “Bark at the Moon,” Manning Fireworks is a beguiling slice of Americana. (Favorite track: “Wristwatch”)

Father John Misty – Mahashmashana

Josh Tillman’s fifth album (the title means “great cremation ground”) is a return to form after the slight drop-off of his last two LPs. The themes of societal decline, aging gracefully and navigating Los Angeles traffic–literal and political–remain from his best work, but musically he ventures into harder rock (“She Cleans Up”) and funk (“I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”) for the first time. At his best as on the majestic opening title track, Misty writes songs to help listeners navigate their own end of days. (Favorite track: “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”) 

St. Vincent – All Born Screaming

St. Vincent’s last album, 2021’s Daddy’s Home, was an R&B seventies tribute made in response to her father’s release from prison that conjured Stevie Wonder and Pink Floyd. Here she returns to her comfort zone with angrier, edgier lyrics and an emphasis on beats and synthesizers. She also uses strings for “Violent Times,” which sounds like a soundtrack for some imaginary, yet-to-be-made movie about the decline of Western civilization. (Favorite track: “Sweetest Fruit”)

Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us

The departure of Rostam Batmanglij after 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City left co-leader Ezra Koenig searching for his own style; follow-up Father of the Bride was a transitional effort aided by the Haim sisters and an expanded group of musicians. Koenig regains his confidence and ventures in exciting new directions on Only God Was Above Us. The existential angsty lyrics set against cheery, polyrhythmic melodies are still there, but this is the sound of a new, more dissonant and intricate Vampire Weekend. If new parenthood has taught Koenig anything, it’s to let it go, which he preaches for eight minutes on the album’s ultimate and best track. (Favorite track: “Hope”)

Waxahatchee – Tiger’s Blood

Katie Crutchfield’s stellar 2020 St. Cloud grappled with her newfound sobriety but added a melodicism that helped break her to a wider audience, a success delayed by the pandemic’s shuttering of venues. Her follow-up is equally melodic and more mature, a logical next step toward festival headlining slots. Her unique Americana recalls a less Southern-fried  Lucinda Williams, but with a richness all her own. (Favorite track: “Right Back to It”)

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – Woodland

Gillian Welch is the opposite of prolific; Woodland is her first record of original material in thirteen years and only her sixth since her 1996 debut. It’s also her first album to be co-billed with partner/guitarist David Rawlings and continues her streak of excellence. This is timeless music, simple folk that is evocative and sounds like it could’ve been created before the invention of electricity and amplification. Welch and Rawlings make music that sounds highly manicured while still steeped in Appalachian roots, seemingly designed to be sung around a campfire. (Favorite track: “What We Had”)

Jack White – No Name

Jack White’s six solo studio albums have all continued the blues passion and whimsical folk that brought him fame with The White Stripes. His latest and best solo effort yet is a sonic blast of garage rock that forsakes all subtlety and softness in favor of volume and high energy. White followed its release with an extensive tour of small venues announced shortly before each show, reinforcing the album’s impromptu-style release and ethos of “turn it up and play it loud so the neighbors complain.” (Favorite track: “What’s the Rumpus?”)

Next five: Nick Cave — Wild God; Kim Deal — Nobody Loves You More; Jessica Pratt — Here in the Pitch; Wilco — Hot Sun Cool Shroud; Tucker Zimmerman — Dance of Love

Top Five Archival Releases

Bowie–Rock’n’Roll Star!

This 5CD box provided an inside look at the creation of Bowie’s best  album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Starting with a San Francisco hotel room recording of what would become “Moonage Daydream” and continuing through a brief stint with The Arnold Corns alongside demos, BBC and live recordings, this is a fascinating, in-depth look at the workshopping and development of what would become one of the most beloved rock albums of all time. (Favorite track: “Star (aka Stars)”)

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young–Live at Fillmore East, 1969

This September 1969 concert, recorded a month after their famed second live performance at Woodstock, finds one of the original supergroups honing their live act and integrating newest member Neil Young. The strength of the songs has not faded with time, and those harmonies! Come for the first album of acoustic songs, including a nearly nine-minute “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Stay for the raging sixteen-minute “Down by the River” with Young and Stephen Stills trying to outduel each other on extended guitar solos. (Favorite track: “Down By The River”)

Joni Mitchell – Archives Volume 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980)

The fourth installment of Joni Mitchell’s archives series finds her running from the fame of her biggest selling album, Court and Spark, in the direction of jazz and longer, more freeform compositions. The bridge was 1976’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which saw her feet planted in both worlds. Aided by bass wizard Jaco Pastorius, the follow-up Hejira was excellent if uncommercial. This box features demos, live shows, alternate takes and a few selections from Mitchell’s brief stint on Bob Dylan’s famous 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue Tour. (Favorite track: “Harry’s House”)

Talking Heads–Talking Heads ‘77

More than any other band, Talking Heads bridged the gap between punk and New Wave. Their debut married David Byrne’s nerd energy with the pounding rhythm of bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz years before the sophisticated funk of Remain of Light. The deluxe box re-release features the quartet’s last ever CBGB’s performance plus an entire disc of revelatory demos and B-sides. (Favorite track: “Love>Buildings on Fire”)

Neil Young–Archives Vol. 3 1976-1987

Neil Young’s Archives Series has each featured a deep dive–including greatest hits and entire unreleased albums–but the latest installment, covering 1976-1987, is his most expansive edition yet, with 17 CDs and 5 Blu-Rays. The period saw Neil move from career peaks (Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps) to deep valleys (Everybody’s Rockin’) with fascinating diversions like Trans in between. The highlights of this collection include Young demoing American Stars’n’Bars material in Linda Ronstadt’s Malibu kitchen, a Nashville session with Nicolette Larson, and the acoustic shows at San Francisco’s tiny Boarding House that birthed Rust Never Sleeps. (Favorite Track: “Sail Away”)