Shit you should drink coffee to #2 - The Best Music of 2024
Drink good coffee- do cool things
Merry Krimbom you animals.
Hope you had a fantastic day doing whatever you and your family love to get up to.
After the hecticness of Chrisbo Day, Boxing Day is like a big exhale. You can finally relax and your holiday can now actually get underway.
What a better way to relax than sit in your favourite spot with a great coffee and some music tickling the eardrums.
There's so many ‘top [insert number here] music of 2024 lists out there. But one person's top is another person's bottom - and some people's bottoms smell.
So instead of a top list, here is The Magic Roast’s ‘musical things we enjoyed in 2024 and you should give it a hoon with a nice up of coffee’ list.
Music and coffee go hand in hand. In fact, science says the music you listen to while drinking coffee can influence the taste.
You might wonder: How can something you hear affect how you taste? The answer lies in the concept of crossmodal perception - a phenomenon where different senses interact and influence one another. This concept is often discussed in the context of food and drink, and recent research shows that sound can impact how we perceive flavours.
Over your holiday break, get into some great coffee and give these choons a hoon. I reckon they’re neato.
The Floor - DJ Coda - 7pm-9pm Thursday nights - Radio Active
Wellington’s RadioActive continues to remind me of home and no show does that more than The Floor, with DJ Coda.
Each and every Thursday evening, DJ Coda, a stalwart of New Zealand’s Techno scene, fires up the record player and busts through dance choons old and new.
I played football with DJ Coda back when I thought good music had to have guitars. I look back on that time as a missed opportunity to expand my musical pallet. I’m getting re-educated, one show at a time.
Check out The Floor on RadioActive.FM - it’s appointment listening.
You can even fire up the RSS feed into YouTube Music and have each show delivered fresh on to your portable device. Brilliant.
Idles - TANGK
Post-punk balls-to-the-wall good time band. Sweaty. Danceable. Attitude. Fun.
TANGK is a wicked album which feels a bit like the ocean at times - moments of floating with the tide interspersed with massive crashes of high energy violence.
Highlights for me are the tracks Dancer, POP POP POP and Grace.
Yes, that is and AI Chris Martin.
Childish Gambino - Brando Stone and the New World
As a soundtrack, this isn't meant to be a coherent album of songs, rather a collection of the pieces of the film that add to the storytelling. But it's very listenable as a whole and it is very much a great album to chuck on and listen to from start to finish.
Can't wait for the movie.
Highlights: Lithonia and Can You Feel Me.
Also new to me but re-released in 2024 was the album Atavista and I love the tine Little Foot Big Foot.
Make War - A Paradoxical Theory of Change
A Fat Wreck Chords punk band from Venezuela and Flordia, Make War brings energy , songwriting, danceability and fun you expect from any Fat Wreck band.
Make War takes the best parts of Lagwagon, Dropkick Murphies, and Flatliners to create a heck of a super fun album that will make you want to turn it to 11.
My favourite tracks are the opener Magic Worlds and Tell Me.
Fazerdaze - Soft Power
I’ve slept on New Zealand’s own Fazerdaze for way too long, but that has been well and truly rectified.
I’m not a massive pop-guy, but fucking loved this album. Super catchy pop choons just waiting for a long drive or a summer BBQ.
Highlights are Soft Power and So Easy.
Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us
For hip hop fans you can’t reflect on 2024 and not talk about how Kendrick hurt Drake's feelings so bad that he literally went to HR.
Not Like Us is an artful and incredibly sophisticated end to the Drake beef. Kendrick is not only a skilled rapper but plays 4D chess through music. Triple entendres, word play, Easter eggs, burns so deep Drake has used all of North America’s aloe vera lotion - this song has it all.
And at the Super Bowl next year the world is going to be screaming “Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A Minor” at the top of their lungs. Drake will be hiding in New Zealand (actually) playing a show on that very day, to who knows who cos at this stage Drake basically doesn't exist. Can’t get further away from the Super Bowl than the bottom of the world.
And just because Kendrick might be the greatest living rapper, after he finished up with Drake, he dropped an album, GNX, that has gone off the hook.
The Copyrights - New Ghosts EP
Finally, to round out some of the great music I’ve been jamming in 2024, The Copyrights New Ghosts EP.
A four track EP dropped in October and it has been on the high-rotation since.
They’ve been around for the best part of 20 years, but they’ve continued to harness their punk roots while maturing their sound - they’re getting old, but so is everyone else and The Copyrights have the skills to make sure you don’t feel as old as you are.
Stand out is ‘In There Somewhere’.
Music media
Music media in New Zealand is dying. You can hardly find a music or arts journalist at a mainstream media outlet for love nor money.
Luckily for fans of music, arts and culture, there are some embers still burning in the dumpster fire of today’s media.
You should check them out, subscribe, share and support.
Until next week
I’ll be back for one final post in 2024, before a bit of rest and then kicking into a mad 2025.
Have a safe and magic break.