Writer brain dislikes sleep and loves coffee, even though writer body likes rest and is positive that caffeine is bad. What are you going to do, though? Get up, even though it’s dark, and put on your headphones and do the things that are you supposed to be doing. Make some art. Walk under starlight.

I write to music, but I never edit to music. I feel that music can help create a certain rhythm in writing, so it’s okay to have it playing on a first draft. But after that, the words need to have their own space, and you have to hear that space, so no music for me as I try to activate a story. As I try to edit it into something.

I adore music. Most of what I listen to doesn’t show up on the radio, and so I like to share it. So here’s a smattering of excellent songs released in 2024 that you won’t hear on the radio. If you do, let me know. Also, hooray! Good art should be out there, wouldn’t you think? YouTube links to the songs below.

3.5 – Oliver Keane

A chill song that makes me want to drink beer on a porch under the shade and slip into some admittedly-failed high school past version of myself when I had so many relationship problems that I couldn’t sort myself out. I was just so popular! Another me lived this song, and I can see that person out there, which is a wonderful trick. Nostalgia for something that never happened. A reach for a revisionist history. I can’t figure out the 3.5 reference. Maybe you can.

Summer Song – Remy Bond

Every summer does not warrant a ‘song of the summer’, but it’s nice when one shows up, so I’m anointing this as the song of summer 2024. It’s breezy and cheery and you can imagine blasting it at night as you rev the engine with the windows down, doesn’t matter the looks you’re getting from the sidewalk. The weird synth effects in this song take me back to a simpler time, somehow. It’s magic. The lyrics are captured by this one line: I need real love. Fucking in the backseat. Okay. Yes, I get it. That, by the way, is Remy Bond in the crazy video.

Chaperone – Mermaid Chunky

Wot. Wot is this? Is it a song? A drunken speech? The beginnings of a new religion, and we had better all get down and bow right now? Let me just say this: I’m predicting great things for this band, with their space age lyrics, and the insidious build up that occurs in this coconut cream pie to the face. Eat up. Smack that pony! Smack that booty! Smack that booty! Ride the horse! Thank you for coming to my party. I am so at this party. I’ll be the weird guy in the corner with a flagon of rye, hips grinding the drywall. I mean, just for those lyrics, you need to hear this near 8-minute song and take in its insane energy.

I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All – Father John Misty

Speaking of 8-minute songs, this one crosses that threshold. In an age of diminishing attention spans, you have to respect someone who will release a tune this long. As far as I’m concerned, this song was written in the 70’s and transported here to combat the terrible affliction of not knowing how to move your lower body when a banger demands that you… well, bang. It’s so funky that I don’t know what to say, and there’s a strange joy in the thing, even when putting out lyrics like these: Parachute into the Anthropocene. An amnesiac, a himbo Ken doll. I guess time does make fools of us all. See? Time travel. Don’t mess with science.

Kind of Man – London Grammar

This is the one band on this list I’ve been following for a long time. I include them here both because I love this song from their new album, but also to encourage you to check out their older music. Hannah Reid, the lead singer, has a voice that feels legendary to me, like a modern day Kate Bush. A tragically underrated, underrepresented band that I truly feel should be blasted on the radio, but never really is. Why is that? Why does beautiful art like this stagnate, while the headline culture propagates like a venereal disease? You’re the kind of man to fall in love with me. You’re the kind of man to take me not seriously. I love that.

Thank You for Sending Me an Angel – Blondshell

You have to have a banger here and there, otherwise you’ll never crack that egg, and the omelette will never get made. Know what I mean? You’ll perhaps recognize this song. It was first released forty-six years ago… by the Talking Heads. I don’t know about the lyrics. They’re not profound. They’re not even eclectic. But the song works, and this particular rendition has so much heart to it as it soars that it gives me the vibe that only the most epic songs ever can, like I’ve just gone on a hell of a trip and am considering circling the neighborhood a few times so that I don’t have to go home just yet.

Crush – Tourist

There’s only three words in this song, over and over, but if you need a banger here and there, surely you also need a bathroom dance song, as the shower is warming up and you’re utterly naked staring at yourself in the mirror. Suddenly, you start to move, and you keep going even when the water hits you and your brain just kind of goes out there. Forgive me for bringing nudity into this! We were born naked, you know. Music, like this heavenly tune, is a human invention rather than an inevitability, and for the creators who can make us move in this manner, we must be grateful.

Be well, everyone. If you need a writer playlist, you could do a lot worse than this delicious mix!