Lists sell, it is established fact, one about which I have very mixed feelings. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t like to make them. Sometimes people pay me to—my favorite assignment of the year was just that. But if I’m doing it here, I want it to reflect my actual year in some way. That’s why I’m not collating the sets I’ve reviewed here into a master list like I did last year, or even offering a shorter list of ten like the year before. This just wasn’t that kind of year.
It could have been—if we lived in a different epoch, except we couldn’t and still have the basic thing I write about: the plethora of mixes that worked their way into my eardrums and yours, and the many more that didn’t. But I’m also talking about something bigger—the sense that mixes alone were not enough, that dance music is not exactly dead or dying but not always as involving as other things have proven to be, movies in particular. How many of the very good sets I reviewed here stood up to the election? Not very many, and it isn’t the mixes’ fault. But it is the reality.
I’m also leaving out two books I’m proud to have helped edit that were published this year: Phil Freeman’s In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor (buy here) and Tricia Romano’s National Book Critics Circle Award-nominated The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the ‘Village Voice,’ the Radical Newspaper That Changed America (buy here).
TOP TEN
1. Hundreds of Beavers (dir. Mike Cheslik)
I saw this twice, six months apart: first at Nate Patrin’s—it was his pick for movie night—and then at the Main Cinema in Minneapolis, with an audience. I applauded at the end both times. The first time it was demonstrative but real; you don’t need to do that in someone’s living room, but I was moved to anyway. Even as I recognized old sources—Chaplin and Keaton, Mario and Zelda, Muppets and digi-mation—I felt like I’d seen the future, and like I’d been initiated into a community, confirmed by the Main screening. It’s true: Sometimes nothing beats silly fun.
2. Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary (dir. Garret Price)
I won’t lie: I did enjoy seeing my name on the screen, very briefly, part of the Spin feature I wrote about the comedy series, which has my favorite self-written headline: “This Is Spinal Sap.” Perfectly measured—as Tom Erlewine points out, the only people who seem to be looking down on the stuff are the participants in a tribute-band night—this was not only made with love and care, it was made with real critical diligence. Hell, it’s nearly converted me to a freakin’ Loggins song. I was stunned to like this even more than the entry below.
3. The Greatest Night in Pop (dir. Bao Nguyen)
“The untold story of ‘We Are the World,’” says the poster; “Bullshit,” responds this historian of that era’s pop, who remembers just how many thousands of words, hours of sound, and GBs of images by others he processed that covered it during that era alone. None of which, the author’s own included, come near this documentary—one of those miracles of commerce that gathers an incredible amount of dramatic tension given how dreadful the record is. I have more to say in a larger forthcoming roundup, but having watched it in January with Nate, I can aver, again, that it’s even better the second time around.
4. DVS1, live in Minneapolis (November 30)
Someone complimented me for inadvertently helping them find their stuff with my flashlight. Such a good night. Reviewed here.
5. Matthew Collin, Dream Machines: Electronic Music in Britain from Doctor Who to Acid House (Omnibus Press); 1970s UK Electronic Psychedelia Mix (March 25); and Dream Machines Electronic/Punk Mixtape (July 11)
An elegant, almost invisible stylist who scores point after point without seeming to try, Collin’s newest is definitive, just like Altered State (1997) and Rave On (2018) before it—the story of of British synth experiments-unto-pop and then pop-unto-rave, rich with detail and seldom predictable even when you know the lore beforehand. The accompanying sets enhance the book but also stand alone: first mix reviewed here; second reviewed here. For other music books this year I liked just as much, see my four blurbs for Rolling Stone’s “Best Music Books of 2024.”
6. Edna Martinez, SYSTEM Mix 103 (Boiler Room; February 17) and Champeta: Diblo Dibala Special (NTS Radio, November 5)
A Berlin DJ from Colombia who explicitly and pointedly connects Caribbean, Latin American, and African music in techno and house clubs and festivals, Martinez is one of the best selectors working. The kaleidoscopic first set (reviewed here) was made for carnival season and could just as easily have been made for ayahuasca season. The second set (reviewed here) shook me out of my post-election stagger. (My own two-hour overview of Franco & OK Jazz the redoubtable Particle FM, out of San Diego, acts as a predecessor to the Dibala overview.)
7. Television and Tom Verlaine, mixed by Ty Burr: Marquee Moons 1974-2019 (November 22)
Reviewed here.
8. Cory Simpson, A Mile High and Rolling (July 16)
A Seattleite with sharp taste in techno classics lays out a testament. Reviewed here.
9. Hessle Audio on Rinse FM
I kept checking in on them this year, and they kept delivering.
10. Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Hamaguchi Ryūsuke)
Went to AMC Southdale with Nate for this one. My drowsiness actually worked in my favor here—the film was that much more overpowering, and it stays playing in my mind—the wilderness scenes, not the dialogue. That’s an achievement for a director who has made dialogue into the center of his art. The weekend-long run we caught was part of a larger Ryūsuke binge; we also watched Drive My Car (2021), the devastating Asako I & II (2018) and, especially, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021), in reverse order of viewing. The latter is one of the most unsettling films I’ve ever seen; I cannot stop replaying it in my head, the way you replay certain arguments or moments gone wrong. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy is a movie you want to recommend to the wrong people for the right reasons.