The TIH Top 40 Songs Of The Year pt. 2
Title basically tells all.
Welcome to the second half of Today I Heard’s Top 40 songs of 2024. Part one with songs 40-21 can be found here. If you didn’t see that yet, I’d recommend taking a look. The introduction there explains some of the rationale behind how and why I chose these songs.
But, as always, the main thing is the music. Let’s dig in….
20. West Texas Cloud Appreciation Society- Palmer Anthony
Effortlessly captures the fleeting but powerful capabilities and appeal of imagination. Anthony realizes correctly that imagination mixed with recollection can pull anyone out of even the dreariest of cubicle existence and issues a proclamation for the imaginative to join along in escapist Texan skyscape appreciation.
19. Burning in the Stars- Rob Baird
Three hard hitting minutes present an ode to a tangible sense of loss. The physical journey described herein mixes together with the metaphysical into an intoxicatingly real and grounded reflective moment. Roots rock production at its finest goes a long way. Tom Petty would be proud.
18. God Does- The Red Clay Strays
The rootsy presentation cuts to the heart of the internal dialogue presented within. The rapturous energy and ideas presented at first seems not relevant for those with differing leanings, but the focus on the internalities brings a universality to the conversation. For the singer of RCS, something divine but just as importantly, something beyond is needed to be a stability giving motivator. The emergent confidence cuts across all that divides. Many mental health songs fail to do anything more than frame the issue. Shining a light forward is a bold step that is difficult to succeed. RCS pulls it off.
Editor note. This song’s inclusion is cheating slightly about my no album context rule. Aside from this song being a raw dissection of the internal motivating factors that pushes someone forward, it operates as an answer song to the vast majority of the entire album's questioning of masculine emotion processing. That adds additional heft to the song and makes it even more worthy of inclusion on this list.
17. Diamond and a Baby- Sarahbeth Taite
An upbeat 00s retro leaning anthem of stable domesticity. Equal parts “look how far I've come” and genuine gratitude. Taite's sweet voice easily translates little bits of domestic life and shares her appreciation for hitting the "a diamond and a baby" stage of life. One of the paradoxes of music is that the odd and bizarre are easier to describe and put into music form then the bland and everyday. To compellingly capture the essence of daily living is truly noteworthy.
16. Adeline- Shane Smith and The Saints
This ode to regret starts out huge and impossibly gets even bigger then further it goes. Somehow, Shane Smith manages to take the intimacy of roots music and melds it with the raw and powerful emotional impact of proper head banging hard rock. Truly a tour de force in presentation.
15. Hidin’ Behind This Microphone- Wade Bowen
A rare candid look into the mind of the man on stage. They tell you to do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. They don't tell you that if your job is what you love, you just might not enjoy it anymore. Bowen uses his voice like an expert conductor and wrings out every drop of revealing emotion.
14. Dirt Turns To Gold- Zach Top
Top's traditional croon serves as a tribute to the primal human connection to place. Brilliantly, the core of the song directed towards a romantic partner also serves as an educational moment for the audience to reflect on the majesty of a firm sense of place. For Top, it is where the dirt turns into gold. For others, the same may be true. But this equally holds if your place is where the dirt turned into asphalt or transformed into a foundation of a high-rise condo building. Regardless, that firm sense of place is the universal human core that this song elegantly wraps around
13. Built By Broken Hearts- Matt Stell
I imagine this song is a surprising choice. But hear me out. Something about the portrayal of the bitter, heart-wrenching illustration of a child living in the aftermath of a parental split is striking. It doesn't end there. Stell traces the progression from angry broken child to the adult realization that the broken can be mended only by creating a whole by melding with another broken heart. This idea is paired with synergetic arrangements. The tone of the rock guitar swaps between dark, aggressive, almost grungy axes when reflecting on the rocky childhood, and then switches to lighter, cleaner, and soaring guitar when the conceit of the song turns positive. It is a deeply thought out and impeccably executed tribute to resilience.
12. Skipping Stones- Calder Allan
Gravely vocals and spare guitars trace moments long forgotten only recalled by association. The use of metaphor to illustrate proves gripping. An oasis is sketched and by doing so clarity is gained.
11. trust issues- Carly Pearce
It is quite notable that for an artist so defined by her work surrounding divorce, a thick undercurrent of positivity still remains. This results in an optimistic, intimate, and delicate display of the transformative nature of love.
The Top Ten:
10. Jupiter’s Faerie- Johnny Blue Skies, Sturgill Simpson
There’s not much that can be said about this song that has not been said elsewhere. It is a dramatic reflection on the fragility of life and it operates as an immersive seven minute reminder to take nothing for granted. If you value something or someone, stay connected to it because you never know when it'll go away.
9. Last Leaf- Willie Nelson
There is something so unique about the current stage of Willie Nelson music. Frankly put, the nonagenarian perspective he provides is something that we rarely get because most people don’t live that long. "I'm the last leaf on the tree" hits much harder when you think about how essentially all his musical contemporaries have passed on. Every crack and waver in his voice amplifies the chilling feeling this song engenders.
8. Cigarettes- Laci Kaye Booth
Time may operate linearly, but the connection and parallels we draw often color and give clarity to our memories regardless of when they took place. Booth used smoky vocals and hazy atmospherics to jump between different periods of her life, drawing associations and lessons that further clarify her human journey. The associative mantra of I hate/ I hate cigarettes defines and demonstrates how even the smallest irrelevant portion of a memory can be the aspect the brain latches on to.
7. Take Me Out To The Ballgame- Luke Combs
It is very difficult to do justice to a child's worldview. Shaped by divorce, the equal parts despair and naivety make for a wholly sincere representation of the heartrending wish by an incapable-of-fully-understanding child for the good times to come back.
6. Cricket Song- Joe Stamm
In a world where every aspect of our environment is controlled, the chirping song of crickets still rudely interrupts and reminds us of the illusion of control to which we cling. Stamm presents an alternative approach of embracing the uncontrollable. The crickets can sing anytime and the interruption should be welcomed. Color is filled into the ritual and routine and appreciation springs forth. Also, the best use of a strategic pause of any song all year.
Editor note. There are two versions linked. Each have slightly different instrumental accompaniment. For the life of me, I cannot decide which one I like better . The first one is wholly acoustic. Both have a charm. Both iterations are worthy of this list. I’d probably listen to the EP version first.
5. No. 7 Road- The Castellows
The connections of blood and place are definable on the one hand, yet ephemeral on the other. Family "blood harmonies" rhapsodizing on the importance of a particular place doubles down on these intangible, but deeply real connections. Sometimes music is the only way to illustrate the indescribable. Sometimes the soft delicate textures of traditional country are the only way to bring solidity to the vaporous.
4. 215634- Elvie Shane
Speaking of the indescribable, another power music can have is to introduce someone the audience have never encountered and create a deeply empathetic connection. Elvie Shane takes his audience deep into the heart of the justice system, humanizing and putting a name to the number. The song throbs with empathy and emotion, revealing humanity in a place so often stripped of that exact ideal.
3. Never Really Know- Kameron Marlowe
Following along with the theme of music opening up characters and perspectives closed off to us, Kameron Marlowe stretches beyond the self and delivers an absolute thesis statement on not judging a book by its cover. Behind closed doors, insecurity and worse eats at people. Here, two archetypal characters stand in for that theme. You would never guess the depth of difficulties based simply on appearances. A willingness to move past the external and create deep and actual connections is necessary. Otherwise, as it tragically was presented here, it might be too late when the realization finally strikes.
Editor note. Yes, in a recent piece I savagely presented this entire album as representative of the modern tendency towards overly personalizing music, but to Marlowe’s credit, this song is a true standout. In fact, it is only because of just how exceptional this song was that I began to compare it to the other tracks on the album. In the course of evaluating why there was such a disparate emotional impact, I realized the sharp contrast in perspective between this and the rest of the project. The result was an admittedly wordy and scattered treatise that broke some new ground in my thought process regarding music evaluation.
2. Never Ready- Corey Kent
In life, we plan, but frequently things occur before the planned moment arrives. By embracing the unexpected, depth and color is added to life. Moving along through highlighted moments of life, Kent demonstrates this ideal practically. It adds up to a celebration of all that is chaotic and human and real as opposed to the planned, plastic, and artificial. It also reveals a deep truth. No matter how much you prepare, the real life experience is always going to be much more visceral and gripping than you could have ever imagined.
And finally…. The Today I Heard favorite song of the year…..
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1. Mr. Jerry's Ghost- Dan Smalley
This is a story song. It masterfully blends perspectives from disparate characters into a cohesive narrative that many films would struggle to be able to adequately convey. No other song this year managed to create a story as deep and compelling, as rich and remarkable as Dan Smalley‘s Mr. Jerry’s Ghost. The sense of foreboding foreshadowing both the events and the finale of the story pervades the song. What could easily be a straightforward story of mistaken identity and a trigger happy neighbor turns into the singularly most enthralling moment of music I have heard this entire year. Forget just how the intricate arrangements that synchronize to the story beats as if Hans Zimmer was the producer. Look at the humanity behind the characters, the real expressions of fear, uncertainty, dread, horror, and catharsis that Smalley easily presents to the listener. The bards of history were judged by their ability to take stories all had heard many a time, make it their own, and breathe new life and meaning into it. Smalley succeeds wildly. We are all the better for it.
Throughout the journey of Today I Heard, many different themes have been tracked. One of them has always been the focus on the storytelling at the heart of musical conveyance. To my ears, Mr. Jerry’s Ghost exemplifies all that Today I Heard values in music. It is warm, clear, and crisply delivered. The characters presented, in spite of the lack of space to delve in depth, come across full and real. Attention to detail is delicately managed. There’s an intimacy to the performance that’s inviting. The emotional impact is massive. Truly a worthy song of the year. Please give it a listen.
I promised some takeaways from the top 40 list. First of all, forty is a lot of songs. It spans a lot of sub-genres. Although broadly speaking, all of these would be acceptable on a big tent form of country playlist. It shouldn't be expected that every song on here would somehow click with every single listener. If that was the aim, this list would correlate with commercial success far more than it does. Even for myself, some songs on here get more frequent plays then others.
Instead, the reason why these songs make it on is because something about them speaks to me. As I have discussed many times on this blog, the purpose of musical criticism, or at least the kind that I attempt to engage in, is not to try and bring the most technical understanding to the table. If that was the job, I would fail at it. I have no training in music and honestly can't even pick out if a song is in minor or major.
I am, first and foremost, a vibes-based listener. That's the case with most fans. Especially nowadays, where most of our music consumption takes place in the background. Some significant portion of music consumption takes place in the car/bus/train for a commute, or while trying to get some work done in the house. When music is thumping through a club's loudspeakers, no one is sitting there thoughtfully parsing the lyrics. Music is rarely the primary focus. Because of this, the most powerful "vibe" is when a song yanks you away from what you were doing. It was powerful enough to transcend the pull of the environment they were being played in. It transported you beyond. It made you pause and say, "Wow, that was something! Oh gosh, I should probably get back to work now."
My goal as a music analyzer is to figure out why these songs have that effect on us. This list was composed by looking back throughout the year, seeing which songs have that transportative emotional effect for me, and then attempting to break down and share why that occurred. Conversely, if a song seems like it should have hit but doesn't, I also aim to figure out why. Yes, sometimes that will result in technical breakdowns of production choices or a granular reading of lyrics, but the essential element is always surrounding and defining how this song contributed to creating a moment or not.
That is why overly creative songs can occasionally be tough to digest. The complexity causes the emotion to leak out like a limp balloon. Sometimes lighter songs that aren't weighed down with lofty aspirations prove effective precisely because of their simplicity.
Most of the songs here did one of two things. The first model sticks closely to the limits of music as a genre. A song is only a few minutes long and comes primarily from only one person's perspective. It usually surrounds one idea or thing. What appears limiting can actually be used to define. The best songs lean into that limited and singular perspective and use that to crystallize a fleeting feeling or moment. It could be something as simple as the mature romance of Josh Turner's "I Just Wanna Kiss You" or the evocative description of the power of imagination in Palmer Anthony's "West Texas Cloud Appreciation Society". Music can take minor moments and via clarifying can encapsulate this single thing that in ordinary life would easily have passed you by. Life is a flowing river, but by music hitting the pause button and sharply defining that frozen moment, a connection can be created.
Other songs attempt to push beyond the boundaries of music's limits and say something more. Carly Pearce's "trust issues” tells us how a relationship can level up in a snap and essentially erase years of damaging baggage. To be sure the wrapping paper of the song is the moment of finding love, but inside the package is a masterful dissection of love as a nearly all-powerful emotional concept. The same with The Red Clay Strays pick. It's a treatise on mental health as much as it’s just a song talking about God.
My personal favorite expansion is when, similar to a great work of literature, multiple perspectives or times are juggled, compared, and contrasted. Some of the songs featuring higher up on this list excel at this, namely "Cigarettes" by Laci Kaye Booth, or Corey Kent's "Never Ready," where they trace the applicability of certain concepts throughout various stages of their lives. This is difficult because the different lines can get crossed easily. A too complex concept can stop a song on the launch pad. But when delicately balanced, the results can be stunning.
So all in all, the music here either does something very limited and firmly defines it, or it stretches beyond and creates connections with bigger topics in the inimitable way only music can.
After all, if you decided to write expansively about the emotional heft buried between the sheet metal of a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, it might come off as pretentiously overblown. But packaged into a three minute song wrapped around a reflection on the oft fraught familial relationships between men and how often they bond side-to-side over a thing in lieu of a face-to-face dynamic, it ends up being an exceptional act of musicianship. And believe it or not, that came from Tyler Hubbard. It really is a crazy world out there, isn't it?
Thank you for a wonderful year at Today I Heard.
Playlist link:
For those curious. Here is the 2023 list.
and the 2022 list because why not.
It is interesting to see how my taste evolved. I am also noticing similar themes that crop up year over year. Family and place immediately pop out. I’m sure there’s something to be said about that, but this has run on quite long enough.
Thank you for reading.
Please feel free to leave a comment or reach out via email to today I heard blog at gmail dot com.
-Joe