What's your pick for the best year in music in the past 60 years?

I ask because I think about this question a lot, but also because I think this has been a really good year for music, and part of the reason why starting in November, I’m dedicating the rest of the year to highlighting songs from 2024.

When people measure the quality of a year in music, they usually refer to albums released as the unit of measurement. I will always think making an album is a superior statement and experience as opposed to a single or a handful of hits.

That said, the way we consumed music has changed so much, and we can’t argue that hasn’t impacted how we think about the modern music landscape.

For example, in 1969, The Meters released two albums, Led Zeppelin released released two albums, and Creedence Clearwater Revival released three. Just a few years after that, the idea of releasing multiple albums a year was unheard of, and by 1971 there’s far fewer instances of it, and by 1979 it was a downright anomaly.

Flash forward to our modern stream-fueld sensibilities and we fin there’s plenty of artists who release multiple albums though because the need for content and consistency is important. Even larger bands and artists are easy to be forgotten and ignored simply because of the sheer volume of music available. The National released two albums in 2023 (although they probably only should have released one). Big Thief released two albums in 2019, and a double album in 2022. Even Taylor Swift has released multiple albums in a single year (Folklore and Evermore in 2020), and even her gap between releases has grown shorter. Consider that Midnights and and The Tortured Poets Society came out only a year and a half apart while Swift was still dominating on a world tour of which she released a blockbuster concert movie and was re-releasing her versions of older cataloged records.

Meanwhile, indie artists are under pressure to release constantly probably because an album every couple of years does not pay the bills. Not that multiple albums a year does either, given the poor profits of streaming music, but to maintain an audience to bring to shows, buy merch, and purchase vinyl, an artist in 2024 has to constantly make sure they’re engaging, often with a lot of support beyond DIY efforts. That means a steady stream of new singles, covers, content.

In 2024, one of the best ways to have a hit is via Tik Tok trends after all. That kind of lightning can’t strike unless you’re constantly producing content.

Given that we consume music in streaming form now, the emphasis on the album has lessened, which is all the more reason why it’s so impressive that albums remain the key indicator of measurement for music superiority.

But this blog is called Infinite Mixtape, not Infinite Album, and one of my jobs of dissecting an album or a year in music is filling it with easy choices and deeper cuts. On an album by album basis, 2024 can’t really measure up with any of the years above. Consider the pedigree:

1969: Abbey Road, Let it Bleed, The Meters, The Stooges, In The Court of the Crimson King, Trout Mask Replica, Hot Buttered Soul, Dusty in Memphis, Kick out the Jams, Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.

1971: There’s a Riot Going On, Maggot Brain, Hunky Dory, At Fillmore East, What’s Going On, Master of Reality, Fragile, Led Zeppelin IV, Blue, Tapestry.

1979: London Calling, Unknown Pleasures, The Wall, Fear of Music, Entertainment!, Off the Wall, Rust Never Sleeps, Three Imaginary Boys, The Specials, Bad Girls.

1991: Loveless, Achtung Baby, Nevermind, The Low End Theory, Ten, Out of Time, Laughing Stock, De La Soul is Dead, Blue Lines, Spiderland.

1994: Dummy, Illmatic, Live Through This, Dookie, Mellow Gold, The Downward Spiral, Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, Ready to Die, Grace, Ill Communication.

These aren’t my favorite albums of these years, just a sampling of cultural touchstones that I also happen to enjoy (which is why Blood Sugar Sex Magik is nowhere to be seen in the 1991 list, and this will be the only time it is probably mentioned in this entire blog - sorry Pepper-heads). What I think is most striking about all of these years is the diversity. These years singal times when styles are coming apart at the seems, where new trends are emerging or dying. Disco, prog, and punk. R&B, proto-punk and funk. Trip-hop, hip-hop, shoegaze, gangsta rap, and whatever the hell early Beck is (I like to think of it as dirty kitchen sink). For a guy who legitimately loves every kind of genre of music and is too restless of a listener to center on one style to satisfy him, these years stand out because they are both specific moments in times - all of those albums really feel like summations of the years they were released within - and also eclectic as all get out.

On that note, 2024 feels an especially great year for whatever the hell is going on in the world. Some of the biggest songs are mixtures of country, hip hop, and R&B. There’s a simultaneous desire for instant gratification and more personal privacy, and we’re watching the death of the American empire play out in real time as brain-rotted tech mogul billionaires buy social media platforms so they can piss of their ex-girlfriends. The musical landscape feels like it’s filling up a giant well, overflowing, and ready to geiser. It also feels like we’re on the precipice of something new constantly, and that something new might be a return to to the old. Maybe we’ll circle back to 1969 and find albums getting pumped out like Fogarty fashioned assembly lines of California country rock style.

All I know is there’s a ton of great, eclectic things to listen to from this past year, and I can’t wait to share them with you starting on November 1st.