It’s been a rough year so no better time to visit the 31 Songs music video shelter for a wee bit of a break. Be sure and check out the original audio playlist which, while largely the same as the video playlist, lists our top songs for 2025.
Enjoy!
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Bananas. It’s the only word I have to describe this year. So many wonderful things against a background of undeniable horror. Music serves many purposes, but this year, it gave me respite from this deluge of cruelty and hate. It didn’t dull me into inactivity, but it provided a safe harbor from which I could recharge, regroup, and resist.
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Not world music so much as pop, punk, country, jazz, and offbeat rock from around the globe. Please see the original 31 Songs from 2024 for the full “best-of” list. This video playlist is as close as I could get to that!
Enjoy!
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Apologies! We made the list in 2024 but neglected to publish. The year saw some newcomers (Leathers, Genesis Owusu, Descartes A Kant) as well as long-time favorites (Oh Land, Kate Nash, X, St Vincent, Richard Thompson). The lead track, Personal Jesus, brings together the lyric genius of Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore, the phenomenal arrangement prowess of Trevor Horn, and the deep rumbling punk vocals of Iggy Pop – with a suprise guest appearance from the soon-to-be favorite Lambrini Girls. There’s a lot to listen to across all kinds of genres so click that play button!
Read MoreNikki Lane hits like a freight train. I wasn’t prepared for how damn good she is when I stumbled upon her via some random article I no longer recall. I was late to the show, finding her spectacular 2017 album, Highway Queen, somewhere in 2020. Since then, I dug into her prior two releases (Walk of Shame and All Or Nothin’) and found them to be excellent. Her capability as a musician, even though starting out at a high mark, grows with each year.
Her latest, 2022’s Denim & Diamonds, is Lane’s best album yet. She’s someone who has seen life in all its beauty and sorrow. Lane doesn’t shy away from stridently sharing her hard-lived experiences, yet she allows vulnerability to lurk beneath the surface. Her just-keep-trying ethos, combined with what seems to be a genuine no-fucks-given attitude, makes her a true punk – – even if the industry insists on categorizing her as “outlaw country.”
Her voice contains multitudes. Often, she’s got Wanda Jackson’s low growl that gives way to a Parton-esque twinkle. Then she shifts, evoking ethereal singers like Lana Del Rey, Julee Cruise, or the Dum Dum Girls. This effortless blend pushes Lane’s work beyond the boundaries of any one genre. She pulls from honky-tonk, rock ‘n’ roll, pop, and even a bit of goth gloom for fun. That’s not to say she isn’t a country singer, per se; it’s just that listeners might want to leave conventional expectations behind.
This Tight Five tries to touch on the different voices Lane brings to bear. If you like them, don’t wait; check out her entire catalog. And see her live; Lane performs with her heart and soul.
More reading? Check out Nikki Lane’s Rolling Stone interview.
We have more than a few favorite artists. Yet we often scramble to suggest essential songs to help our friends tune into our top picks. Well, problem solved. Introducing the Tight Fives.
A Tight Five playlist will be specific to one singer, band, or composer. The Tight Five will introduce the uninitiated listener to the awesomeness that inspires us, the fans, to love the art so profoundly. Tight Fives may not include the artist’s biggest hits – or even our personal favorites. Instead, the playlist will be a little snack that we can all use to share the love and inspire new fans to join in the experience.
Keep your eyes peeled for Tight Fives. I’ll try and drop one or two a month and see how it goes. Let me know what you think or if you have a Tight Five of your own, you’d like to share.
31 is an arbitrary number. Even the year “2023” is arbitrary, as we consider any album released from 1 Jan 2022 through 31 Oct 2023 eligible. And what constitutes an album? We don’t really know even though we sorta tried to write it down. There’s no real magic directly tied to any of it, really.
The discipline all this arbitrariness drives, however, can be magic. It gives a framework to help us think critically about what we’ve been listening to. These playlists become little sonic time capsules, evoking the delightful experiences of any given year. The 31s bond us to our friends and family, with whom we share the list every Christmas. Even the little USB drives we use to share music elicit delight.
Most years have more than 31 great singles, and the discipline that forges best-of playlists leaves many fine songs unheard. To remedy this, we started sharing our nearly-there lists in 2022. The songs on the Almost lists are often great but didn’t quite make the cut. Sometimes, the source album needed more strength as a whole. Other times, the artist might have a tremendous back catalog that the new release doesn’t live up to. Or, sometimes, one of us thought the album was 31-caliber while the other didn’t. For whatever reason, here’s our “b-sides” playlist for 2023.
Read MoreContinuing from our earlier year end lookback, we present 120 minutes of music videos pulled from our 31 Songs playlist.
Read MoreFor some it’s been a good year. Covid is on the wane, employment is down, the market is up, and we’ve been enjoying what will likely be a short interval of relative stability in the United States. For others this has been the worst year imaginable and, for that, we must share good fortunes and hope humanity can be restored. Soon. Really, really soon.
Musically it’s been a good year. We listened to over one hundred albums from artists new and old. In the “new” bucket we have artists like Nikki Lane and Ken Yates who would have surely been on prior lists had we discovered them sooner. In the “old” group we have perennial favorites like Metric, Robyn Hitchcock, and The Hives. And Iggy Pop. You always gotta have Iggy. He’s in the “timeless” category.
Read MoreSome years it’s tough to pick 31 songs and 2022 was definitely one of those years. Maybe it’s because musicians have just emerged from quarantine, maybe the industry is putting more money out there, or maybe we’re just paying more attention. Whatever the reason, these songs likely would have made the 31 list on weaker years so it seems only right to share our runners-up list.
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