Sourhouse Tunes of the Year 2024
A word from the editor:
We can do so much better than rap drama. Seriously. It’s easy to look back at the feuds between Biggie and Tupac or Nas and Jay-Z from our privileged internet age positions. But to actually live through the biggest one in recent history left me hollow. Even more so when both Kendrick and Drake both dragged so many women, sometimes by name, into the trenches for the sake of one-upmanship. I feel uncomfortable that one of them won, and that I have an opinion on it. Don’t forget that they’re both owned by Universal Music Group through one means or another.
It’s a timely reminder that music, for all of its joy, is an endless battleground. But conscription is not mandatory. Whilst Hip Hop split itself in 2024, Pop casually decided to have its most significant year in a hot minute. It’s certainly not innocent of its own fruitless scuff ups. But all of that is dwarfed by what a true buffet it’s served. Big releases from stalwarts and massive breakthroughs for new talent; iconic tours from Taylor, Madonna, Charli, Troye and Girls Aloud; huge festival headliner sets from Lana, Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish. There really hasn’t been a month without something that hasn’t been pasted all over social media the day after.
Add to that two new iconic film soundtracks to boot – Saltburn and Challengers dictated a huge amount of my listening this year. Plus, the necessary counterweights of the not-so-good to unite us all, chief among which has been whatever the hell Jojo Siwa is on. We should never expect queer icons to be born smoothly, I guess. Farewell to Quincy Jones too, who quite literally invented music as we know it today. Legends of his stature don’t come cheap.
Don’t worry alt rockers either, there’s a lot more than just pop on this year’s list. It pertains to a greater point: anyone stuck in the old ways of artists taking chunks out of each other, writing off the ‘state of music’ or claiming that “they don’t make ‘real music’ anymore” look increasingly Victorian compared to the urgent sensibilities of the day. Everyone else it seems, meanwhile, has given up being totally terrified of the state of the world, and now want to make sure however long these days last, they’re spent well. Innovation and excitement across the board. What a shame some of us don’t fancy getting involved. Like I said, conscription is not mandatory.
The 30 songs that make up this year’s list portray the eclectic and fervent year it was in all its facets, featuring firm favourites of this blog and plenty of first time appearances. Qualification is any new song that was released as a single, music video or had radio air time between 1st December 2023 and 30th November 2024. Anything marked as ‘Personal favourite’ has received the highest accolade I can give music. Without further ado, let us count down the Sourhouse Tunes of the Year 2024.
-Munro Page, writer of Sourhouse Music
Positions #30-#21
#30 21 SAVAGE – REDRUM
Trap has become a bit stale as of late, hasn’t it? The big, culture-defining releases of years gone by either aren’t making it over here in the UK, or the genre has got too voluminous for its own good. On those grounds, ‘Redrum’ is hardly the heralding of a new age, but its simplicity does numbers. As soon as that beat kicks in – not to suggest its cinematic intro is unworthy of comment – any concerns about the state of the scene are flung out of the window. London On Da Track laces the beat with so much momentum that the whole cut is constantly in forward, fluid motion. 21 need only glide over the top to guarantee head bopping brilliance, and luckily he gives us a chorus that is destined to be quoted for years to come.
#29 YUUF – SILKY SPRING
I’ve often found it tricky to place acoustic psychedelic cuts on these lists, but I’m happy for ‘Silky Spring’ to be breaking new ground in this regard. All summer, I kept coming back to that riff, deployed across almost every moment and even riffed upon further as the track grows. Yuuf imbuing the song with pure sunshine-through-the-trees komorebi warmth, made evocative by their guitar tunings and wavy nature. There’s an effortlessness about their work that prevents anything here from ever becoming pretentious, instead making this song a small dose of joy that peppered many a day this year.
#28 CHASTITY BELT – I-90 BRIDGE
Containing the moments of consequenceless joy shared with someone who can never be anything more in your life is a fine, laboured art. It rarely lasts long without stinging eventually, and perhaps that’s why Chastity Belt’s lead single from Live Laugh Love is a foreboding number from the start. If the moral of the story is not to hold on to such memories, then the band at least assure you that you’re not wrong for wanting to enjoy them. The band’s signature style of gloriously relaxed guitars unfurls ‘I-90 Bridge’ with their usual care and craft, but such airiness doesn’t prevent the track from being potent. We’ve all been there, and boy do they capture what it feels like.
#27 KAYTRANADA, PINKPANTHERESS – SNAP MY FINGER
Oosh. That’s a phenomenal billing of talent right there. Kaytranada, a master of crisp, uber cool RnB tinged beats. PinkPantheress, who’s voice refuses not to click with every project she touches. It’d be hard pressed for this to miss. Perhaps it’s too much of just a kitsch little collab to be something more significant, but that ensures ‘Snap My Fingers’ is unrestricted by any greater expectations other than two complimentary artists working together. Kaytranada’s beat struts with ease, urban and compelling courtesy of those synth flourishes and firmly toe-tapping thanks to the groove of those drums. Pink lays her vocals off-beat, only adding to the breezy coolness that pervades what is on a paper a sharp, digitised cut. What a talent she possesses to be able to bring her personality to everything she does; it won’t be surprising, reading the annals of this blog, that I feel this track continues to confirm her as one of the best in the game right now.
#26 CLAIRO – SEXY TO SOMEONE
Warm weather will have you daydreaming of intimacy, and the fuzzy panflutes of ‘Sexy To Someone’ are just the vehicle. Clairo’s delicate imagery of pretending you’re in a movie scene whilst weighed down by your own insecurity strikes the nail on the head, coddled by the frustration it causes. Soft Rock instrumentation conjures images of linen clothes and white bed sheets, in urgent need of someone to share them with and yet equally out of reach. No ‘#relatable!’ bullshit here, her lyrics will resonate with anyone who’s dared to romanticise their life. An intimate anthem for the queers with self esteem issues.
#25 CECILE BELIEVE – PONYTAIL
Breathless, enigmatic, lost in the trance of the moment; Cecile Believe has made a blockbuster addition to the modern canon of SOPHIE-esque love songs. File this one under “Tracks to tell them how they make you feel”, or under “Ones to wake the neighbours with”. Big, reverberating production means that you aren’t playing this loud enough if it isn’t making your speakers rumble, and it deserves to be listened to as such to hit properly. ‘Ponytail’ delivers imagery of rooms filled with dry ice, night-time drives down misty roads, euphoria in slow motion, hand touches that send electricity through your fingers, embraces that you’re still thinking about days after. Romance’s most visual moments, romanticised to their fuller extent, expressed with the same scale of adrenaline your body dumps into your bloodstream in the moment.
#24 CONFIDENCE MAN, DJ BORING – FOREVER 2 (CRUSH MIX)
It’s three for three on Confidence Man songs appearing on this list. Call me biased all you like; until they stop releasing gargantuan bangers, I don’t see how I can’t include them. Even then, ‘Forever 2’ is a standout amongst all of the material they’ve given us this year. Soaring on insurmountable energy, notched up every time that pre-chorus comes to wring the tension even tighter. A cosmic, defiant statement of feeling, underpinned by a starkness in the reality of how deep emotions go. Far from fearing them, the final minute plunges off the edge and grabs you as it jumps. There is no exit – the only way is through. Confidence Man are outstanding when they lean on their comedic talents, but when they get serious on the dancefloor, they’re nothing short of sheer perfection.
#23 PIGBABY – BABY FOXES & ME.
Constructed with much the same stream-of-consciousness unpredictability, the instrumentation of ‘Baby Foxes & Me’ jags about the place in tremendous little ways. The mild confusion of the start snaps all of a sudden and finds a line of reasoning. Throughout, without noticing, melodies break form in slight ways, never leaving anything quite certain, and yet making it all the more accurate. Pigbaby articulates an arresting take on depression and making peace with your past that imitates reality like a mirror. The trains of thoughts make sense in your head, but vocalising it proves the protagonist is just as tangled up in their thoughts as such thoughts behave. Illuminated by gorgeous imagery and phenomenal sonic textures, Pigbaby represents the unique flavour of feelings associated with places you’ve tried to leave, and the weight it can drag your mind with. A sprig of energy in the wanting to see your friends. The drag of nothing ever changing.
#22 JOSHUA IDEHEN – MUM DOES THE WASHING
Some might see the conceit of Joshura Idehen’s poem-turned-song as too contrived in our era of a million intersectional opinions. But, when everything is split by dualities, its textbook-esque political science examination of a mother doing the washing speaks more to the state of how we function than the vast majority of socially aware songs of recent. Idehen positions himself as the narrator, absolving a need to confirm which particular side he stands on and instead leaving it firmly down to his reading of the 25 theories and ideologies he notes. All the big ones get an inclusion, but perhaps more notably, many of them are starring members of today’s regular political discussion. Does it say it all that I can visualise tweets from TERFs denouncing the song because of its stanza on transgender people, even though I would be concerned if they didn’t agree with its reading of feminism? When social media encourages everyone to be louder than the next person, Idehen forces you to stare at your own reflection.
#21 SAM FENDER – PEOPLE WATCHING
A friend of mine’s reaction to Fender’s first single from his upcoming third album was that he wished he would switch it up a bit. Fair enough, but I’m telling you now, he’s never truly going to leave his Heartland Rock home, and I don’t want him to. ‘People Watching’ doesn’t reinvent the wheel on the style he’s made a name with, but it does prove that no one else deserves to be channeling Springsteen other than him. Always the storyteller, Fender’s observation of the rat race and daily grind through the loss of “someone who was like a surrogate mother” to him glows with something of the human spirit against the desolation that the state of this country has wrought on countless lives. There is no justice but that which we sing with. Better, however, is that War On Drugs sense of motion that has been successfully transferred in working with Adam Granduciel. If only they’d release more music so that I could talk more about how much I loved them.
