Best of 2024 | Albums | Songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists |
Jim Carroll no longer writes about music. You’ll find him on Spotify and Instagram. He edits RTÉ Brainstorm.
See Jim’s previous choices from 2023, 2022 and 2021.
Here are Jim’s 10 tracks of the year.
Joshua Idehen – Mum Does the Washing
Smart, funny, infectious and sharp as a tack, this is poetry in motion around a washing machine. You may know spoken word artist Idehen from prior engagements with Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming and a host of other forward-thinking outfits. Here, he dissects the lexicon of politics using the simple idea of his ma doing the washing. “Polling: there’s a 70% chance you will do your washing on Saturday night. Come Sunday morning, it was 100% done by your mum.”
Ezra Collective – God Gave Me Feet for Dancing
A feel-good jam for your feet and your soul with just-right vocals from Yasmin Lacey to add some sparkle. Further proof of Ezra Collective’s unerring ability to produce those alluring shimmies which can fill rooms and floors.
Fontaines DC – Here’s the Thing
In truth, most of the tunes on Romance could have made this list. Fontaines DC have been hugely prolific since they emerged from Dublin city, but the new album sees them soaring with the kind of confidence and character that only comes with putting in those fabled hard yards. A belter of a tune which succeeds in turning familiar tucks and traces into something completely new.
Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
A perfect pop banger, a song which still catches you unawares with its lush production complexity all these months on. Roan’s upward momentum is a sign of the super-acceleration of pop’s new school in terms of profile and popularity and this is a tune which underlines why all that fuss is happening.
Pigbaby – Baby foxes & me
This song kept coming to mind whenever I spied a pair of foxes at play in the middle of Marino in those gloaming hours over the summer. Pigbaby’s ode to these lads is melancholic, playful and nosalgic, the sound of someone working out those mad emotions which come in a rush at the strangest of times.
Jamie xx – Baddy On the Floor
I spent a lot of time in the car in 2024 clocking up the miles up and down the country so tunes which provided sparks were always welcome. From Jamie xx’s In Waves, this track was a gem, a collaboration with Honey Dijon which put you in mind of good times.
Kim Deal – Coast
One of the best music interviewees in the game got around to a debut album after decades with Pixies, The Breeders and The Amps. A sun-kissed cracker which never went off the boil no matter how often you returned to it.
Córas Trio – Jackie Fitzpatrick’s
The Belfast-based trio cover a lot of ground on their debut album, a lovely rub of the trad, the electronic and the experimental. This one goes deep, catching the band as they blaze away with gusto, pulling and pushing the tune by the scruff of the neck and allowing the frentic energy to set the pace.
Niamh Regan – Record
The last track on Niamh Regan’s second album Come As You Are is so much of a delight that you what the heck everyone was doing sticking it at the very end. A collaboration with Soak, it’s a star of a track, one where the gorgeous melody and lyrics about commitment to what you do come together quite magnificently.
Kim Gordon – Bye-Bye
The sound of Kim Gordon listing what she needs in her travel bag (“hoodie, toothpaste, brush, foundation”) set to an essential shower of abrasive noise and melody. From the album “The Collective”, it’s one to knock your block off, a fresh and powerful rattle of tension and toughness.
Best of 2024 | Albums | Songs | Irish albums | Irish songs | Best Of Podcasts | Guest lists |
