We’re continuing our 2024 year-end lists, and that is quite enough positivity thank you very much. Now it’s time to do what we do best – furiously disagree with each other and believe that our individual music tastes are superior to each other’s.
Charli XCX – Brat – When I first listened to Brat for the Picky Bastards Podcast Mercury Prize Special, I was convinced that my fellow editors were playing a practical joke on me. There could be no way they all liked this garbled mess so much. But then Tom (who, with respect to the rest of the team, I have always considered the most level-headed bastard) went to see her live. That’s a big commitment just to pull the wool over my eyes, but there’s still a part of me that hopes that’s what they’re doing.
Because when I hear Brat, I hear unbridled bullshit. Songs that don’t sound finished, sounds that don’t go together, lyrics that feel plucked from a 8 year-old’s first attempt to write a diary. I’ve liked previous work by Charli, too, so I’m not a hater. But this album is a mess.
I have to commend my colleagues, though. Not only have they made it look convincing that they like the album, but they’ve somehow convinced the world to join in with them. They somehow got the whole of social media to act like the memes and dances and all that shit were anything other than annoying.
It’s impressive. Unlike the album. Fran Slater
Fontaines D.C. – Romance – Prior to 2024, our roles on the editing team were clearly defined in some respects. When it came to Fontaines D.C., Fran, Matt and myself were fans, but Sam put the Dublin band in the category of ‘music made by shouty men’ that he despises.
Romance, their fourth album, seems to have inexplicably turned things on their head. Sam loved the album so much that he bought the vinyl and will be standing in Wythenshawe Park singing along to them next summer. Fran thought it had some strong moments but others which very much missed the mark. I’d go further still – I thought it was clearly their weakest album yet; a change in aesthetic over sound, with memorable moments few and far between.
Who’d have thought it? I will grant this album one concession – these songs sounded a lot better live than they do on record, but I really can’t see anything to truly love here. Who knows, at this rate Sam might be singing Radiohead’s praises by the end of 2025. Tom Burrows
Still House Plants – If I don’t make it, I love u – This was one of my favorite albums this year. Vocalist Jess Hickie-Kallenbach has such a unique voice and the album as a whole has a really interesting sound. Throughout the tempo accelerates and then chucks the brakes on, so you don’t quite know where it is going giving it an almost improvisational feel. I’m not the only one who felt this as Still House Plants got a ton of good reviews lauding the album. Sam called it “obnoxiously out of sync” and Fran felt like “it didn’t come together”. Matt Paul
Fabiana Palladino – Fabiana Palladino – I picked this as one of my albums of the year and it even made it on to the AOTY podcast shortlist. It was possibly slightly unfair for the album to be under the increased scrutiny of the PB editors in order to meet album of the year standards, but in the main they were fair about the album’s positives, while recognising that it didn’t meet that raised bar. Fran on the other hand used words like ‘insipid’, ‘uninteresting’ and compared it, unfavourably, to Justin Timberlake. James Spearing
Nilufer Yanya – My Method Actor – As I was probably the biggest fan of Nilufer’s second album on our editing team, I was fully ready to love this year’s LP with the same fervour. But I didn’t. Initial listens left me feeling a bit bored and, as I kept trying to find a way, the album has a whole continued to wash over me.
Then my fellow editors started talking about it. It was James and Tom’s favourite thing released in the month it came out. When we covered it on the podcast I spoke first, had my little moan, and then Matt and Sam praised it to the max.
When I went to see her on the previous album tour, I couldn’t get any of them to come with me. This tour, they all had a ticket. I think I was proven right by the fact that when we did see her, all the best songs were from LP1 and LP2. But they all still insist that My Method Actor isn’t just a massive disappointment. Silly bastards. Fran Slater
Kendrick Lamar – GNX – Commercially and on the socials, Kendrick had a great 2024. He emerged as the clear winner in his public feud with Drake and released the biggest song of the year in the process. But artistically I’m not so sure. Like many of his other fans, I listened to the diss songs many times, but I still found the whole thing quite infantile and unbecoming of the persona he has projected throughout his career. He ended the year with new album GNX, but for the first time I thought this album was just… fine. Mr Morale wasn’t great, but it at least had a well-considered, weighty concept. This just felt like well-produced, mid-range bops that exist to pad out his upcoming Super Bowl set. These are some disappointingly calculated moves that feel pretty shallow.
But I spoke to Sam the week after release, and he said that he thought the album is so good, it might be Kendrick’s best. For the aforementioned reasons, I felt this was crazy talk. I blame the afterglow of the Charli XCX show we were walking back from. Everything Kendrick does gets hyped to death online, but now my fellow Bastards are doing it! For shame. Tom Burrows
The Last Dinner Party – Prelude To Ecstasy – In our Mercury episode, we discussed The Last Dinner Party. I really loved this album. Prelude To Ecstasy is a hugely accomplished album, especially when you consider it is a debut release. The songs throughout contain complexity and playfulness, yet they manage to be simple and hooky. And though they wear their influences on their sleeve, it is far from a simple rehash preying on nostalgia. Well, James and Sam liked the album well enough, but still thought it was “overblown” and “lacked personality”. Fran went further and said he was “baffled by popularity” as it was just “loud Abba” with “nothing going for it”. Matt Paul
Beyonce – Cowboy Carter – “There wasn’t a single real human who liked that shite”, said Fran. I thought ‘Bodyguard’ was a good song and that the cover of ‘Jolene’ did well to bring new energy to a terminally covered song. Other than that the whole spectacle of the thing seemed incredibly self-indulgent. And it was way too long. Sam, as ever in a mood to defy Fran over the big pop albums, picked it as a monthly highlight saying it was genuinely great, and summed it all up in his thinkpiece on ‘Complex Critiques’: “the general Picky Bastard opinions ranging from “amazing album” to “I could only last 4 tracks before being annoyed”. James Spearing
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