Streaming Consciously: 24 Best Albums Of 2024
It’s that time of year again…as the Chipmunks used to sing.
Time for Streaming Consciously to deliver its annual best album list at year’s end.
That sound you hear is not chipmunks chirping but Nipper the Doggie hollering.
“WHERE THE RUFF YOU BEEN?!?!”.
It’s a fair question, so his bark has bite.
This is shockingly our first of these post-2020.
For a myriad of reasons: a global pandemic, the prolonged wage strike by Streaming Consciously staff that Something In The Wudder CEO balked at. We could go on. But why do that?
Before beginning we weren’t sure we’d find 24 new albums we listened to in 2024, let alone enjoyed enough to recommend to yoūse. But upon further review, this turned out to be a good year. Best of this decade so far. As the cartoon header suggests, we had to work harder on this, but it’s a labor of love regardless.
So without further ado, in descending order for maximum ratcheting up of suspense, let’s get down to music business…
#24
The Black Crowes
Happiness Bastards
Chris Robinson is one of the greatest lead vocalists in rock history. The Black Crowes as a band sorta began shitting shit the bed on what they coulda been around Amorica. But it is good to see Chris and little brother Rich getting after it again. Their sibling rivalry is much more relatable, non-performative and forgive me for saying it but ‘American’, than the British tabloid version across the pond between Noel and Liam Gallagher. The Robinsons and whoever else is in this band nowadays provide their first fresh material released in fifteen years. A tour to follow. Maybe they’ll even get along.
This album is called Happiness Bastards. If you like new songs that sound enough like old Black Crowes records? This will provide the former, for yoūse, the latter.
#23
Vince Staples
Dark Times
Confession: I like listening to Vince Staples interviews more than his albums. That is not meant to say he doesn’t make quality music, nor possess loads of talent. I feel the same way about Frank Zappa whose considered a genius by many music theorists’ estimation.
Dark Times is a continuation of this exploration. An album whose intentions I appreciate but may not listen to front to back again. Salute my man from LBC regardless. You are, in your way, a legend. Just speaking as frankly as you do, fam.
#22
MC Lyte
1 Of 1
Feast your eyes on this. I was in the bag for this legend’s album the moment I saw the cover photo. It takes me back to lots of things: the way Lyte exploded onto the rap scene as a teen in the eighties, her feature with my girl Sinead before she had signed an album deal, or childhood in the Northeast when our big night out with the fam and the only Mexican cuisine we could eat meant going to Chi-Chi’s.
Someone put this cover on a tee shirt for me. I promise to rock it steadily. I saw Lyte live most recently at the inaugural BET Experience hosted by The Roots and Friends at Club Nokia LA in 2013. Her vocal clarity, presence, authenticity, along with age-defying appearance struck me the moment she hit stage. Told my boy Concrete, a rap micro-generation behind me, “Yo, I’ll meet you by the back bar in a bit, I gotta get close for this”. Did my tiptoe-two-step-slide up around the left hand pole side. When you’re alone, not pushing anybody, rhythmically head-nodding, while knowing the words and smiling? Most folks have no issue letting you slide by them. Got up to a perfect spot to chill. Nothing but a beam behind me to lean on from an elevated floor position, while watching my favorite Philly band backing up a legend for one of her best songs, “Poor Georgie”.
Smiling ear to ear with wuddery eyes. Undetectable due to concert lighting. Turned to a total stranger who looked to have a few years on me. One of those moments when you notice someone else sharing in some happiness. Leaned in presumptively, offering a pound and said, “I forgot how much I love this girl!”. He laughed, dapped back, then shout-laughed, “you can’t do that, don’t ever do that”. My response? “Never again!”.
Consider that promise kept. My word remains solid as a rock and my enduring love for this legend is a safe bet. Dig into this at a meal’s end like fried ice cream.
#21
Kali Uchis
Orquídeas
Speaking of artists we love, Kali Uchis. Granted not for nearly as long since this Columbian-American singer-songwriter didn’t appear on our radar until 2018.
You saw her appear in our run-down both for her debut, Isolation, as well as her instant-classic Tyler The Creator collaboration, “After The Storm” featuring Bootsy Collins. Her album last year, Red Moon In Venus, would have made 2023’s short list if we did one.
Unlike Nouveau Space-Age R&B for us weirdo gueros, this year’s entry, Orquídeas, is in a language, Spanish, that we only somewhat understand.
Orquideas are orchids. I was able to figure that out from context clues. But what words can we give you here that wouldn’t sound better out of her mouth on her episode of Hot Words Versus?
Nada. Comido, Parcero(a)s!
#20
Tems
Born In The Wild
I’d guess a majority of Americans don’t know much about Nigeria. Even basics like the nation is the world’s fifth biggest by population, Nollywood has become the second-biggest film industry globally, plus there is a massive music business at home with influences and artists that stretch in all points abroad.
“..but life is for learning” sang Joni. Never been to Lagos but have it circled as a crown-jewel music city not on this continent. But the Nigerian music played most around here remains 70’s compilations like Lagos Jump or an album by Fela Kuti. In part because it hits so different than music we were raised. That’s even acknowledging you can play connect the dots between some of that era’s Afro-Beat with James Brown or even moreso Bob Marley contemporaneously.
But enough history. Let’s toast Tems, a 29-year-old Nigerian singer/songwriter/producer with a future that keeps looking brighter recently since the world returned from its prolongued sleep at the top of this decade.
Maybe that’s because some of her most effective records here are the kind that sound at home on a playlist of groovy midtempo Zoomer takes on nineties R&B, similar to Brit (Ella Mae “Boo’d Up”) and/or American artists (SZA “Snooze”) recent hits. In fact, both deservedly won R&B Record of the Year within the past few years. So it’s fitting the song which earned Tems’ her own nomination in the R&B category is “Burning”. It’s a beautiful song. Taking a quick peek of the list of prior winners in this category…it’s a pretty stellar list at least by the Grammy’s relatively wack standards in history.
So even tho we grew up exclaiming the famous line by Flav…
We hope she wins and continues to represent.
Lagos is a city of rich musical tradition.
There is no date too late to jump in.
#19
Kruanghbin
A La Sala
I got put onto this Houston three-piece by my man Jason Keenan, co-host of Da Bombcast. Dug them before learning to pronounced their name. For the record, it’s pronounced “KRUNG-BIN”. It’s a Thai word for aeroplane. When this power trio who met as teens in a Houston church get cooking? It’s levitation, mayne.
What style of music would you call this? It’s probably futile to attempt but I’ll give it a shot: Soul-Psychedelized-Thai-Guitar-Lines moving at the pace of dub while trudging thru groovy bass sludge. You’ll recognize the distinctive style from that point on, because you’ve never heard any band sound quite like them.
Dig deeper and realize no matter what they play, the sound is always filtered thru their prism. You can consider that an asset or a hindrance depending how you look at things. Or based on how much you enjoy Kraunghbin. Caught them live with my only and favorite brother-in-law with which to kick out the jams, while visiting fam up in Portland ME two summers ago. They did not disappoint. Their version of what The Roots once called “Hip-Hop 101”, an idea hi-jacked by The Fugees while they were touring together, sounds blissful. Because although this band is cool, it’s also nice for a crowd neophytes, taking in an instrumental band, to hear some songs with words they recognize, even if no one onstage is speaking them into a mic.
This new album sounds pretty much like every other one they have. Put it on to zone out, rock out, listening with full concentration or providing a soundtrack for entertaining, music for finishing tasks, or just trying to relax.
Beyond that, check to see when they’re next playing where you’re at. If you’re not a satisfied customer, feel free to contact our Something In The Wudder staff for a potential refund claim with cash back.
You won’t get any money. But in good faith, we’ll reply in timelier fashion than if you were trying to cancel a recurring subscription to Nugs.net. And if by some minor miracle you work for them while reading this, please believe, we keep receipts. Take this as a diss. And a light opening salvo in the doxing process.
#18
IDLES
TANGK
Drunk Thorogood Voice
”Loook Maaan…”
Sometimes you just wanna hear some rock and roll that makes you feel like punching people in the face. Mind you, that doesn’t mean actually doing so. We retired from that let’s-take-it-out-back rumble ring many moons ago.
Still tho…this band’s energy is visceral. Their album Joy As An Act of Resistance was on the list the last time we did this. A few albums down the road, IDLES and I remain ready to go. Especially combined with our aligned sense of tough love and righteous indignation. Sometimes you need a soundtrack for shadowboxing to before we start the healing.
TANGK tries to do both things. A bit more bells + production whistles, nuance, even some (gulp) maturity. But you can’t stop their sound from cutting like a machete.
#17
Iron & Wine
Light Verse
Don’t get us wrong, we think Iron & Wine is better than fine.
But Fiona Apple is one of our favorite artists of this lifetime.
She provided us with the ultimate pandemic soundtrack a few years back.
This page, like the world at large, was in a bit of a foggy holding pattern at the time. So let’s take this opportunity to Fetch The Bolt Cutters and right here belatedly salute the legendary Ms. Fiona Apple McAffe-Maggart for that.
“All In Good Time”, one of 2024’s best singles, is a collab between Apple and Sam Beam aka Iron & Wine. Beam may have penned the words for this cut, implementing the classic male/female call-and-response duet format, but clearly did so with Fiona in mind. She repays him by nearly murdering him on his own shit, to use Nas parlance. The end result is a gift.
“Islands In The Stream” Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton. “On My Own” Michael McDonald & Patti LaBelle. “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks. “Nobody” Keith Sweat & Athena Cage. Add this to the list.
We may address the rest of Light Verse all in good time. But for this countdown’s purposes, let’s keep things moving down the line.
#16
Beth Gibbons
Lives Outgrown
Will trailblazing 90’s UK rock-ish band Portishead, fronted by singer/songwriter Beth Gibbons, ever release another album? Who can say. After dropping two in a retroactively fruitful three-year period then, it was a surprise to get the Third, way back in 2008. So in the meantime, the in-between time, getting Gibbons first solo album feels like icing on this cake.
Does this album sound like Portishead? Well, yes and no. Anything Gibbons sings kinda does by default. But Portishead on Third didn’t sound much like they did on the classic debut Dummy. This album is closer to that one not only chronologically but in spirit. A legend who actively avoids stardom more than ever. Lives Outgrown is not even listed as a rock or trip-hop or alt-insert-Spin-Magazine-coined-movement-here. Instead it’s described as “chamber-pop”. Okay. Whatever you say. It’s hard to tell if the title is about Gibbins at 60 giving music a try solo, mortality, manic depression, or a subtle message to the band she used to know.
Whatever the case this is a legend’s fourth full-fledged studio album bite at the apple. Take your time. Beth is on once-a-decade average. Just be grateful this exists for you to give it a go.
#15
Kamasi Washington
Fearless Movement
Since Kamasi Washington blew in (seewutididthere) with the West Coast Get Down during the LA Jazz/Funk/Soul Renaissance in the aughts, he’s been bridging the gap between modern jazz (whatever you think that is) and the black-music/pop-culture-zeitgeist.
Guys like Washington, Ronald Bruner Jr. on drums, lil big bro Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner on bass and multi-instrumentalist/producer Terrace Martin, who introduced them to childhood friend Kendrick Lamar in the early 2010s. LA has been winning musically ever since. And those were just the local cats. Even the best among transplants, from pianist and bandleader Robert Glasper to the late Mac Miller, go West then stay to build with the best.
The good news here: this is much shorter than the TRIPLE ALBUM called The Epic in 2015. That album was a critical darling. So was James Joyce’s Ulysses. But as an English major who read it in college, plus listened to The Epic in real-time when it arrived the same year as Kendrick’s To Pimp A Butterfly. I give some of these critics falling in line a side-eye. That goes for both selections. Fearless Movement is Y2K maxi-CD album length, 80 minutes in change. Still too long but trending in the right direction. There’s a “Computer Love” cover that hits different than the drive-thru scene in Menace II Society. There’s even a few actual words spoken on this. The Funky Grandpop George Clinton swings down to bless this cosmic slop. Former OutKast rapper, turned sometime actor, now flute-playing traveler, Andre 3000 breezes in. Come thru. The air is inviting.
#14
Kim Deal
Nobody Loves You More
Kim Deal was and still is the cool rock chick ideal. First as bassist, occasional lead singer, background vocalist with The Pixies. Then alongside twin sister Kelley in The Breeders since 1990. Briefly as leader of The Amps in 1995 in a work-around from her sister’s then-debilitating drug addiction. The Breeders resumed once that improved. The Pixies reunited, defunct alt-rock influence turned festival circuit headliners for a new millennium. Until Frank Black again displayed behavior that earned him a spot on the “Ego Trippin’: Five Bandleaders That Mistakenly Believed They Were Bigger Than The Band” list.
That article got me blocked by the Pixies on Twitter. Which is my favorite righteous block since Cavs’ owner Dan Gilbert. I’m ride or die for my favorite Ohio girls and guys: my grandfather I never got to meet, my cousin Mary Ellen, LeGOAT James, Simon Biles, Halle Berry, #ThatSite Fam/Bird Gang Brethren Dr. Claw, best bassist of all-time William Earl “Bootsy” Collins, best third baseman ever Michael Jack Schmidt, the dearly recently departed Teri Garr, Aunt Marge.
If you rock with Kim Deal, you have to love hearing her first official solo. There are lots of different treats in here. Genre-Flips. Horn Sections. String Arrangements. Beats That Pump. Power Chords. Fuzzbox Guitars. Kim’s Inimitable Voice Over Her Bass That Thumps. Authentically Angelic Sisterly Harmonies. Cool Rock Chick Poetry. Lilting Melodies. And that’s just by track 3.
Rock & Roll as our cultural lingua franca is dead. But this ‘debut’, along with another you’ll see further down this page, shows us two Legendary Cool Rock Chick Singer/Bassist/Guitarist Veterans Named Kim (hint) outside living their best life.
#13
Metro and Future
We Don’t Trust You
Unlike that Kim Deal section blessing you with a bunch of personal flair and historical context, I won’t hold you when it comes to this one. The shit slaps. Plus contains the Molotov cocktail that began one of the craziest battles in the history of rap, in the form of #1 hit “Like That”. So let’s just leave it at that. This album is entitled We Don’t Trust You. Aimed at you know who (Rhymes With Fake). An album so successful it launched an arena tour + spawned an immediate sequel. That title? We Still Don’t Trust You. In case any Cornball Canadian Crooner was pondering being cool? NOPE! Sit your ass down. Or be you and sue. “Like That”is now the battle-rap equivalent of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That sparked the First World War a century ago. This came close. Mission Accomplished, Future & Young Metro.
#12
Sault
Acts Of Faith
While far more prolific than Portishead ever was at outset, this turn of the 2020’s UK musical collective, in a Soul II Soul in witness protection sense, is even more difficult to pin down. We’ve only recently begun to figure out basic things. Like who is actually in this expanded R&B/Blues/Disco/Hip-Hop/Rock/What-Else ‘band’ at any given time. Like how did Chicago blog-rap era rapper/singer Kid Sister end up out in London after seeming to disappear for ten years. My favorite UK MC Little Simz is her own thing but SAUT via Inflo laced her last album. What’s this we hear about upcoming work withAndre 3000? Have you caught up to all the mind-bending travels and prolific artistry of their first few years? Because I haven’t yet. Did you get to see what they looked like live for the first time in 2023? Do you have a fellow music-obsessed hometown DAWG living out West named Timmy Rodgers prostylitizing via text on their behalf since the onset? ‘No’ to all, or most, I’d guess.
In addition to Kid Sis, SAULT includes multi-instrumentalist/producer Inflo, reggae singer-songwriter Chronixx representing the group’s social consciousness and jazzy chanteuse Cleo Sol. Those seem to be the main four but there seems to be a revolving door. How else to explain a band releasing 11 albums in their first four years of existence? Go down this rabbit-hole. Land wherever you land. SAULT will add a less definable spice to the pallet of most music fans. I can’t call Acts Of Faith as an ideal entry point for newbies. This album isn’t available on Spotify. It’s an album of songs on one track like Prince’s Lovesexy in ’88 if you pick up as a downloadable WAV file. I hear more gospel influences. It incorporates elements of what they did live…even tho you wouldn’t know unless you were there. In London. That one time. Or was it the other? Add more SAULT to your diet. An act of faith you can justify.
#11
Kim Gordon
The Collective
This is a solo album from a founding member of noise-rock legends Sonic Youth. That band ended in 2011 when Kim Gordon divorced her bandmate/husband Thurston Moore after discovering his dalliance(s). We weren’t sure what would happen when Kim left NYC, where Sonic had founded a scene, for her native Los Angeles. If 1991 was “the year punk broke”, 2024 was the year Kim wrote. Adding another chapter in her legacy and a new lease on life at 70. Her first hit on this solo breakthrough, “BYE BYE”, is now literally a bigger ‘hit’ than anything made across forty years of time while in Sonic.
This is not what you would think a Kim Gordon solo album would be. Fuzzy feedback-walls of guitar aren’t gone but are side-barred. This is far more a hip-hop album than it is rock. These beats by Gordon and her 30-years-younger producer Justin Raisen are ones aspiring emcees might shank someone to rap on. They seem like they coulda been on Def Jux when Cannibal Ox first dropped. But with Kim’s exquisite taste, sense of rhythm even while speak-singing, refusing to play (or look) “her age”.
The Collective is a shape-shifting statement of renewed purpose. I probably shouldn’t be shocked at the incorporation of hip-hop. I bought my first Sonic Youth album, Goo, on cassette at Shore Mall when I was 13, simply because of the cover and sticker advertising a single featuring Chuck D. Two years later Kim had become a musical godmother of sorts to my guy Kurt C. Now she’s a legend to TikTok kids way past the age of AARP. This album starts at the hardest-hitting shopping list in the history of mankind. The accompanying video stars her daughter, Coco Gordon Moore.
If this clip doesn’t sell you? Then just do what the title says. Me? I love this shit.
#10
LL Cool J
The F.O.R.C.E.
Speaking of new releases from beloved acts that haven’t put out work in a decade…for your consideration: LL Cool J. A man with the longest-running career in the history of rap music. Also actor…host…inspirational speaker…icon...home-invasion-preventer…one-time-video-cat-burgler-who-blessed-your-boy-with-a-viral-video-reply-on-Twitter.
Et Cetera.
In a year featuring a historic rap battle, it’s befitting that a battle-rap legend who literally created The GOAT acronym would make a return. His co-pilot for his first one producer album since Marly Marl on the 90’s? A Tribe Called Quest’s Q-Tip.
Nothing on this album sounds like anything either one has given us before. Whether you dig all, some, or even none of The Force? You gotta tip your hat, like a shark’s fin, to two Queens legends, both enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for still finding a way to keep the main thing the main thing when it came time to create this musical offering. Living Legend Cool James. Salute to you.
And the press run for this? Has been as incredible as Denzel Washington’s promotion for a movie I call Gladiator Too: Computer Generated Hullaballoo.
Don’t get it twisted tho…the best thing in that movie is seeing Denzel having fun while still throwing high heat at everyone. That autobio Esquire feature could be his next movie. Passion can still get it done. The folks mentioned here this year show that to be true. I’m grateful for getting to grow while watching each still love what they do. On The FORCE, that shines thru.
#9
Westside Gunn
Still Praying
If you’re a rap fan of a certain demographic and/or aesthetic still unfamiliar at this point with Griselda…I don’t know what to tell ya. This Buffalo NY collective has been winning in snowy conditions for longer than Josh Allen. If you don’t like beats that sound dusty as the tracks you might imagine were lost in that disastrous 1995 flood in RZA’s basement? Or don’t appreciate how Gunn, alongside ATL mixtape legend from Philadelphia DJ Drama, intersperses wrestling audio like Wu did kung-fu? Giving you OG crime rhymes alongside a veritable gritty committee? Then this just isn’t for you, honey. Keep it rolling and scrolling. For yours truly? This strikes a rarely tapped raw-rap nerve, that rises above 90’s NY rap reverence or nostalgia, for something more elemental. Gunn is not my favorite MC in Griselda. That belt belongs to Benny The Butcher. But with all the elements at play in creating Still Praying? The Drama tape album with a cover adorned by the late Sid Vicious (not that one)? Might be my favoritest from this clique. A special gun-spray shout-out to my man in upstate New York, snowed in with the fam, Ryan Yerico, for bringing this to my attention with time to spare.
#9
Ab Soul
Soul Burger
Black Hippy was/is a four-man LA rap group who helped launch label TDE. Ab-Soul is one of its four founding members. At a point in the early 2010’s, he was viewed as being close to or even better than fellow member Kendrick Lamar. Not to me but well beyond Schoolboy Q then, the least-experienced rapper in the crew. When the oldest, Jay-Rock, saw his deal pre-TDE fizzle, Soul Brother #2 seemed poised to help KDOT kick in the door.
Shit happens. Life gets messy, personally and professionally. What never happened was a group album from Black Hippy. The happenings surrounding Ab’s career by 2020 was almost as dissapointing. That sounds disrespectful, but it’s not intended as such. Ab will be the first to tell you he was doing too much or too little then. Massive potential can sometimes become a heavy burden for a deep-thinking sensitive artist as an almost famous young man.
After a six-year-gap, Ab came out firing around Christmas of 2022 with a frseh album and vowed desire to “Do Better”. The 2022 NPR Tiny Desk displays it. He’s been walking that path since with some stellar performances. Just before Thanksgiving 2024 he blessed us with Soul Burger. It’s his most fully realized, best body of work yet. One of rap’s best this year period, with some of his strongest competition for that title provided by two Black Hippy brethren. It was great to see all four onstage at KDot’s Pop-Out Show streaming live worldwide on Juneteenth. But for Soul on his own, it’s better to experience this album, which gets better weekly. Ab may or may not have missed his window to be a superstar, or whatever the case mighta been, but that’s beside the point. Coming thru storms, still standing, improving his craft 15 years in? Those are all big wins.
In case you’d like a taste of how good these kids were 16 years ago as teens, before most of the world knew anything about them, just press play one of our favorite early YouTube visions:
#8
Doechii
Alligator Bites Never Heal
And just like that…Tampa rap enters the chat. What else to do in swampy-ass Florida around Labor Day but sweat profusely? Might as well drop some heat in your debut for TDE. Technically the incredibly titled Alligator Bites Never Heel is a mixtape. Yeah, okay. Whatever you say. This jawn is seven minutes longer than Illmatic, two minutes longer than Thriller. Doechii’s ascending star is a major reason why despite the departure of flagship artist Kendrick Lamar, without music from SZA, TDE still had a banner year in 2024. As we move along, that becomes more apparent if it already hasn’t. But beyond TDE, let’s talk Doechii (pronounced ‘dough-chee’).
An old soul who just turned 26. The music displayed here is a seamless collection of references to her influences. The lineage can be incredibly specific at times. You hear her flip a Tupac rhyme. You hear a hint of the “Deep Cover” bass line. She provides some of the highest levels of performative visual polish for a new artist since late 20th century Missy. She gives you a full song built on a foundation of Busta’s “Woo-Hah”. Her vocal registers flip and switch like costume changes. The Philly-born Gen X-er in me can hear Bahamadia when she raps in her lower monotonal register. There’s a lot to hear for an experienced ear when listening to this Gen-Zooming talented sister. But even if you didn’t notice? You can’t miss her still-emerging greatness. Best new rap act to surface post-pandemic. Yeah, I said it. Maybe best East-Coast hip-hop artist going alongside Tierra Whack. Philly and Tampa…let’s at least try to agree on that. Before the Bucs visit Philly in January for the big payback.
#7
St Vincent
All Born Screaming
You never know what you’re gonna get from Annie Clark aka St Vincent. I still don’t even fully get why she calls herself that. But you can’t quibble over monikers while being a four decade fan of rap. Each St Vincent album seems to both follow a trail of bread-crumbs on her journey, while twisting into a completely different direction. Those kind of prolifically restless artists, like Bjork, or PJ Harvey, whom I finally saw live for the first time in ‘24 as a fan since ‘93, are folks to follow for heads like me. I’ll hear them out. Whatever they’re doing might not be the favorite version I’ve heard yet but their willingness to try will always maintain my interest. We’ve discussed St Vincent a few times at Streaming Consciously. The last time back in 2018. That was six to nine lives ago for our heroine. She made several albums and tour runs since then. Sung plus played Kurt Cobain’s parts on “Lithium” with Chris Noveselic and Dave Grohl on Nirvana’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction performance.
Produced the last OG Sleater-Kinney album. Rocked with a #ThatSite friend of mine on Saturday Night Live. Wrote a screenplay, scored and onscreen starred in her first feature film The Nowhere Inn co-starring Dakota Johnson. Created a number-one record, “Cruel Summer,” for Taylor Swift. Shoot, All Born Screaming dropped in Spring. 21 days ago she released Todos Nacen Gritando. That’s a new Spanish-language version of this album. It’s Annie Clark’s way to "offer a little thanks to Spanish-language fans who have met me in my native tongue for seven records".
Annie, are you okay? Or Annie are you just restlessly, fruitfully, effing great?
Despite shape-shifting, All Born Screaming might be her most streamlined yet at a tight 41 minutes. The production sounds monstrous on nice headphones or good speakers. It seems more rock-centric than recent records. But it’s also got drum chops, synth patches, plus bass that slaps. As we reach the end of 2024, “Hell Is Near”, the opener, feels like an appropriate assessment of our collective air. She starts ethereal there. But before the minute mark, we are settling into a funky little groove gone dark. Big chunks of the beautiful bile coughed up here, which Clark calls “post-plague pop”, feels like St Vincent fed thru Trent Reznor from back when NIN still had a spark. Dave Grohl is on this album to circle back to that Hall of Fame show mark.
Is this her best album? Time will tell. Maybe not. But damn it feels good to be out in the wild, along this winding trail, marked by the artistic larks of Annie Clark.
#6
Schoolboy Q
Blue Lips
More “Black Hippy Shit”©Schoolboy Q. This dude is a favorite around here. He has clearly created the deepest catalog among his TDE rap peers not named Kendrick Lamar. Early on it was tough to imagine he’d make it this far.
Blue Lips is the best-reviewed album of Q’s career. And listening thru yet again while writing this, we get it. Critics love long passages of drumless mood. Lots of beat switches. Hooks eschewed. Stuff that sounds like Marcberg (the album, not the MC) even tho it comes from an LA MC who before puberty was Hoover crip. This is the Q album for people who want him to sound like Freddie Gibbs, or make full albums solely produced by Alchemist or Madlib. All due respect, I get it.
If that’s you, this is your shit. I guarantee many of my #ThatSite fam love this more than anything he ever did. It is a strong album. Better than his last. But for me, decidedly behind the two or three that came behind that. My favorite Q puts a battery in my back. Raw energy. Beats that make you wanna crash. I really leaned into this album when it dropped this Spring. It had felt like forever since we some new Schoolboy to pump. COVID struck not long after the last relatively disappointing one. But if we’re keeping it a buck, since summer, not much has stuck. “Ohio”, ironically with Gibbs, is my favorite track. But there’s no indelible banger single. That’s something Q was always better at than Ab or Jay Rock. Sometimes KDOT. There isn’t left turn slow jam like “Studio” or blown light bam like “Break The Bank”. It’s all in the pocket of what this album is. Then for spice midway thru you’ll get to another beat switch. The devil on my shoulder is telling me by 2025, I’d be out front of Tam’s ordering a Soul Burger over Blue Lips. There’s a hint of sonic tofu in this.
#5
Tierra Whack
World Wide Whack
It’s been a long time since we heard from Philly phenom rapper/singer/mercurial-maybe-genius Tierra Whack. She attained her 15 minutes of Streaming Consciously fame in 2018. Whack World was #1 on our list with a bullet. 15 songs, each one minute a piece, all with videos connecting them as if Whack was walking thru each like studio lot movie sets.
We’d never seen or heard anything quite like it. Wildly creative. Then radio silence since COVID. At last, Whack is back. 15 new tracks, eschewing the minute motif, this time stretching out for 36 minutes and change. It’s almost (gulp) conventional album length. Extra time well spent. Whack, along with the whole world, been going thru things. Her debut feels like light years ago. Since then, the whole world been wack, without the ‘h’, for the longest. High time to reset.
Whether singing bluely about “MOOD SWINGS” or wanting to be taken to “THE MOOVIES”. About joining the “27 CLUB” or gifting us a “SHOWER SONG” to perform while among the tiles under a shower nozzle as you rub-a-dub. Whack is back. Everybody should be happy about that, including Philly Phanatic.
#4
NxWorries
Why Lawd?
Anderson Paak was artist of the year in our inaugural Streaming Consciously year-end wrap, a year before Spotify started Wrapped. Google it if you wanna quibble. But that’s what we remember. Ever since we heard “Animals” in Summer 2015 on Dr Dre’s Compton, while still working in the hub city spawning its title, we became charter members of Andy’s Packs. Paak has birthed a few of them: as a solo act, SilkSonic with Bruno, leading or supporting his bandmates in The Free Nationals, on the drum kit backing Dre & Snoop at the 2022 LA Super Bowl.
NxWorries is a duo comprised of Anderson Paak and LA-via-NJ producer Knxwledge, signed to LA’s favorite indie-boutique label, Stone’s Throw. Their 2016 debut album, Yes Lawd!, was high on our list. They’ve teased a follow-up since. But it took till Summer 2024 to get it. That’s three national elections ago…er, forget I mentioned this. Let’s just say this album sounds rich. Not referring to AP’s bank-account, now elevated in exponential amounts. Talking musical and lyrical depth. It dropped in an LA summer but feels more like a Jersey Fall. The thematic thread is reflected in the simple flip of their debut title. Why Lawd? It’s ruminative. They are no longer twentysomethings with two-turntables-and-a-mic groove theory plus live from a basement energy. These are two cats in their mid-to-late-thirties, looking back, and/or feeling the after-effects, of being young men who said YES! Everything comes with a price. Maturity molds belief. Time remains a thief.
#3
Tyler The Creator
CHROMAKOPIA
Tyler’s evolution into all-encompassing album artist has been incredible to watch.
Even as an early adopter of the blog-and-Tumblr-era, ADHD, bratty-kid energy of Odd Future, Streaming Consciously heard their clock ticking by the mid-teens.
So did T. Leading to us celebrating ‘Flower Boy’ in 2017 as his first great album. That piece remains one of our most-clicked in site history. Feel free to investigate for further context rather than revisit it in this space.
The bottom line is Tyler has not missed since that date.
Every other year since he introduces us to a brand new, uniquely constructed universe. Countless forms of creative expression coalescing: audio, video, alter-egos, designed clothes, live shows, personalized memes, interactive listening parties. All fed thru the laser-focused prism of a supremely talented producer/rapper/designer/director/musician/comedian.
Tyler Okunma: The Ultimate Rap Renaissance Man For This Millennium.
Where does CHROMAKOPIA rank among previous triumphs? It’s too early to call for a Tyler album that dropped in late Fall. All we know is that it belongs in the convo. Check back with us after the tour hits Philly the weekend of July 4th.
It’s amazing that the Zamrock-sampling superstar maladjustment document “NOID” landed on the Billboard U.S. Pop Top 10. But we don’t really know how charts are calculated anymore. Nor where America-as-a-collective hears almost any hit while outside, with only a few omnipresent exceptions, “Not Like Us” being the biggest example in 2024.
Tyler as his alias Wolf Haley directs his St. Chroma persona in a clip that features actress/comedian Ayo Edebiri, a shared win for Americans of Nigerian heritage.
Our hope is “STICKY” or “JUDGE JUDY” gets the single/video treatment next. Either sounds like the most accessible ‘hit’ T’s made since “EARFQUAKE”.
#2
Beyoncé
Cowboy Carter
Beyoncé just put out one of her best albums ever in Renaissance, arguably the best album of 2022, while we were still shaking off brain fog. That was Beyoncé digging into the black/gay dance music she learned thru her late Uncle Johnny as a kid. With immense talent, impeccable taste and a knack for finding ways to trace lineage of American musical forms, it came off real rather than forced.
That was followed up by a stadium tour. Then a feature film concert movie theatrically released, directed by Beyonce documenting it. I dipped into an AMC one Friday night I was home doing nothing for a midnight show a month or so after its release. I’ve never seen a crowd dress up and get up dancing at a multiplex like they were actually at the concert. It was hilarious, amazing, memorable.
Flash-forward to 2024. B has been a fixture in The Wudder since 2016’s edition, with Lemonade finishing at #6. That’s too low in the opinion of many, now or then. Perhaps. But despite all the accompanying visual iconography and the long cultural tail of that undeniable classic? It’s not seeing the self-titled from 2013 or Renaissance for me. You know what else I now put above it?
Cowboy Carter. “Yippy Kay Yay, Motherfucka”.This is an album burdened on arrival by legend fatigue. Hindered by politicization of the highest-profile black artist performing country. Meanwhile Black Americans are at the root of that music’s creation as they are jazz, rock, rap, R&B, techno…well, really any popular form since this country begins. Name any genre younger than America as a country to disagree so we can talk about out why you’re wrong. And if you think this girl from Houston is somehow less country than say the one pop star currently working of a higher profile and lighter shade who comes from PA. Well, we can figure out what you mean by ‘country’.
But the truth about this album right here is simple. This is a Beyoncé album. At times in a chicken-fried-steak-battered context. Some legends in the field (Dolly, Willie) cameo alongside names that needed reviving (Linda Martell) or acts you didn’t know before but now do (Shaboozey). And there’s that duet with Miley. Good God Almighty. I love when stars can create sparks that somehow manage to be even better than the sum of its individual parts. There are no real weak spots on a long album. But the most predictable spots that some point to in order to give it credit, the revised “Jolene”, the Beatles “Blackbird” cover, are the least essential pieces here.
The rest is aces. Stripping things down from an electro sound to acoustic guitars, organs, tight little grooves that sound simple but are performed by some of the greatest musicians working today. It all gives Queen Bey chance to flex muscles in a different way. Her latest homage to the past represents our most all-encompassing American musical history lesson to hit the charts this season.
Beyonce has not produced a single video for an album that dropped in Spring. After a concert movie of the world tour supporting the last one A “musical film and visual album” for Lemonade. A game changing surprise drop for BEYONCÉ with a video for every song already shot.
We won’t publicly speculate on the reasoning.
Beyoncé usually knows what she’s doing.
The one thing we can say is this:
That Christmas concert live from Houston during halftime of the Ravens/Texans game is gonna be lit! The NFL is really saying “to the left, to the left” while taking everyone at the NBA table’s lunch money every single day, even now Jesus’ BDay.
Netflx, you best be more ready to handle traffic far better than you were for that Tyson/Paul exhibition mess in Dallas.
Otherwise expect a blizzard of buffering.
#1
Kendrick Lamar
GNX
From “Like That” in March, thru his upcoming Super Bowl halftime show February, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth’s 2024 is already one of the greatest seasons in the history of hip-hop as a musical sport. Also one of the best years any musical artist ever had 12-14 years into his musical prime. Think Bob Dylan circa Blood On The Tracks. David Bowie at Let’s Dance. Stevie Wonder on Hotter Than July.
With that in mind, whether GNX bangs is nearly beside the point. But for the record, of course it does. It’s Kendrick. He has yet to drop a dud dating back to Section.80. I’m not gonna pretend this album is Good Kid or DAMN.
Damn it feels good as a victory lap for a righteously indignant bitch-slap. Lean, mean, taut in a fashion sprawling, beautifully messy offerings like To Pimp A Butterfly and Mr Morale were not.
The ways KDOT drew up a line of demarcation on greatness and authenticity, dragging Aubrey Graham to his ignominious end, leaving his Corny Canadian carcass to rot, could earn mortal men three hots and a cot.
But this is Kung-Fu Kenny. Don’t let the quietly thoughtful demeanor or diminutive form fool you. Greatest Artist Any Genre To Debut This Millennium. Objectively One Of The Best To Ever Do This. Certified Boogieman. Speak his name and we promise that you’ll see Candyman. Bing-Bop-Boom-Boom-Boom-Bop-Bam. The type of shit he on, pop doofs like Drake wouldn’t understand.
2024 belonged to one man.
Streaming Consciously would like to thank all yoũse who rode with us all the way down to the bottom, holding on to your scroll like a DAWG witta bone.
Signing off from Camden County….
