By Allston Pudding Staff

We all picked our favorite non-local music from the past year. Albums, songs, gigs, and then everyone makes up a category of their own.

Ben Bonadies

Album the Year: Mannequin Pussy, I Got Heaven

Mannequin Pussy have made a name for themselves as a real-deal, take-no-shit punk band. On their latest, the John Congleton-produced banger I Got Heaven, the Pussy posse got harder by embracing softness. Their dynamic range leads them to rich territory on dreamy numbers “I Don’t Know You” and “Split Me Open” but that’s not to say there’s not some Very Heavy Shit going on here, as the back half contains some of the gnarliest, thrashiest stuff in the MP ouvre. Their approach is best seen in microcosm on “Loud Bark” which starts as a twinkly sway and erupts into fiery screed. Every song here is a new branch on the same tree, a brilliant continuation and revamp of MP’s sound and sensibility.

Song of the Year: The Lemon Twigs, “My Golden Years”

I get chills at at least three distinct moments during this song. Hell, I can give myself chills just thinking about it. The Lemon Twigs’ retro-shtick had yet to pierce my hide—on the scale of classic rock reverence, theirs was edging a little too close to the Greta Van Fleet end of things for my liking—but the sheer force of charm that is “My Golden Years” was an armor piercing round aimed directly at my power-pop heart. Yes, they’re still wearing flared jeans in their videos, but they found a way to use their influences as a great painter uses color: take the bridge as The Beach Boys, dress up as The Who right before the last chorus, and make the whole thing sound like Big Star. From the confectionary descending line that opens the tune to the layered harmonies that send it off on a cloud, I was powerless against the clockwork-perfect guitar pop the Twigs cooked up here.

Live Show of the Year: Waxahatchee @ Orpheum

The “You Don’t Understand What This Means to Me” Award in Niche Excellence

At his vastly oversold show at the Vic Theater in Chicago, Michael Angelakos ended his set by saying “We’re Passion Pit from Boston,” elicting the most aggressive and lonely cheers from myself and Allston Pudding editor Dillon Riley as the lone Bostonians in the room. After years of being “Brooklyn’s Passion Pit” it took the seminal indie pop band a trip to the Paris on the Prarie to finally claim their ancestral heritage. You Don’t Understand What This Means to Me.

Cam Cavagnaro

Album of the Year: MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks

We all knew somebody was going to say it.

No one is really sure what happened with MJ Lenderman’s fourth album, but clearly he did something right. Manning Fireworks proved to be a smash success, so much so that it brought MJ Lenderman and the Wind the opportunity to perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Recorded in Lenderman’s hometown of Asheville, NC, the record technically clocks in around 38 minutes, but those familiar with the record know the closing track “Bark at the Moon” can skew the runtime. Album flow and ambiance were carefully considered, taking notes from their previous live release to capture the essence of a seamless live performance.

Lenderman’s lyrics are the absolute strongest aspect of Manning Fireworks, but there truly isn’t much lacking from this record. The wordplay is hard to miss, but there are some that stand out; references to Lightning McQueen, Guitar Hero, Men In Black and the fictitious “Himbo Dome” all pull the listener back in, asking “did I really just hear that?” The silliness of Lenderman’s lyrics are interwoven with the emotion and passion of a natural songwriter, mixed in with the beautiful ensemble of lap steel guitar, keyboards and chunky guitar tones. Even if it’s not usually your speed, check out Manning Fireworks because it may just surprise you.

Song of the Year: Magdalena Bay, “Killing Time”

Magdalena Bay describes their music as “synth pop straight from the simulation,” and I feel like I don’t need to say anything more beyond that.

“Killing Time” is the second track of their sophomore outfit Imaginal Disk, and one of their more “normal” sounding songs from an outside perspective – that is until they pull the bait and switch. What starts off almost like a sincere homage to the band Tennis takes listeners for a ride as the subtle intricacies start taking on new shapes and forms. Around the halfway point, quietly jarring noises start to bleed in and out of the track, briefly pulling your attention away from the rest of the music before letting go and grabbing you again. The beautiful vocals about trying to fall asleep start to turn into a nightmare, which is so consistent and alluring throughout the whole record.

Live Show of the Year: Militarie Gun @ The Sinclair

Best Brother/Sister Releases: Cheem, Fast Fashion and Faster Fashion

New England “nu pop” pioneers take it up a notch…and then another notch. Their dual-releases Fast Fashion and Faster Fashion are the perfect complements to each other, feeding off different energy from the same beast.

Samantha Davidson

Album of the Year: The Marías, Submarine

The first seconds of the explosive opening track “Ride” submerge the listener in lush soundscapes and an immersive audio experience. A perfect blend of dreamy and hard-hitting tracks merge sharp percussion with lead singer María Zardoya’s sultry and soft voice. The eerie “If Only” pulls the listener in like a siren song. One can imagine that the striped production, breathy vocals, and trumpet solo make it best to listen to at locations that pop up when searching for a “nighttime lake” on Pinterest.

Standout tracks “Vicious Sensitive Robot” and “Blur” display The Marías extraordinary talent for building tension up until an addictive instrumental breakdown during the bridge. Zardoya was born in Puerto Rico, and infuses her heritage into two Spanish tracks on the album: the mesmerizing “Lejos de Ti” and the swinging “Ay No Puedo.” The ultimate track, “Sienna,” completes the journey through the sea with themes of longing and what-could-of-been, with Zardoya whispering the lyrics “see her face in the forest, then it disappears” directly in your ear before all sound abruptly stops for the final time.

The Marías’ creative direction greatly enhanced the memorable first impression of Submarine. The band executed photoshoots and video content underwater, sometimes sporting full attire and headphones. They implemented innovative vinyl packaging, such as a plastic sleeve filled with water, to make the front of the jacket look more realistic. Elements like physical media and visuals complete the vision for Submarine and cement it as one of the top album releases of 2024.

Song of the Year: Glass Animals, “Wonderful Nothing”

No one’s pen is as strongly matched to their production prowess as Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley. Standout track “Wonderful Nothing” from the band’s fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much, displays that ability well. Though I do not know who is on the receiving end of this so-called diss track, it is clear who won.

Imagine someone writing, “I’d say, ‘Burn in Hell,’ but they’d hate you too” about you. A spacious intro beams the listener into outer space, and the bass drop catapults them into orbit. The mesmerizing instrumental, coupled with Bayley’s addictive pronunciation of words like “delight” and “sucker punch,” create a heavy-hitting track that can’t help but end up on repeat. Viperous bars like “I’m a fly inside of your facial goop, I’m a little hair sat inside your soup” create deliciously disgusting visuals that articulate his despisal.

Live Show of the Year: Twenty One Pilots @ TD Garden

Best Song That Went Viral in 2024 But Was Released 2 Years Ago: Djo, “End of Beginning”

Harry Gustafson

Album of the Year: The Cure, Songs of a Lost World

How can anyone ever prefer Morrissey over Robert Smith? One allowed loneliness to morph him into a sad, hateful wretch while the other sat with loneliness and tried to understand it, always approaching it with hope, love, understanding. That’s the beautiful secret hidden in so much of the Cure’s music, a secret that defies the “sad music” label that gets thrown too easily at the band. Robert Smith has always reached out from a place of loneliness with a warm hand instead of walling himself up in resentment. On their first album in 16 years, the Cure didn’t look to change the formula that has worked for them time and again. Smith and co. certainly sound beleaguered from the years, but they play that fatigue in their favor. There’s that loneliness, of course, but there is also immense gratitude and acceptance.

After the album came out, Smith implied that he’s probably going to retire after the band finishes touring Lost World. And he’s earned that. There is so much vulnerability surrounding aging, admitting that it’s difficult to constantly stand on the edge of something so permanent. “And the birds falling out of our skies / And the words falling out of our minds /And here is to love, to all the love / Falling out of our lives,” he sings on opener “Alone.” The beautiful and hopeful “Nothing Is Forever” finds him begging for the comfort of companionship. “Endsong,” which closes the album, may very well be the final Cure song. On the outro, as the curtain closes on the career of one of the greatest bands we have ever known, Smith sings, “Left along with nothing at the end of every song.” Oh Robert, I can’t tell if you’re lying, or simply just a fool. You have gave us everything, with every song. Thank you.

Song of the Year: Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”

It kind of had to be, right? We all had front row tickets for the public shaming of a grown man with questionable values (who is also kind of corny and annoying, to any person with an actual brain), and it was PHENOMENAL. The songs bang pretty hard, too. My personal favorite was “Euphoria,” but “Not Like Us” had the catchiness and club appeal to earn its spot at the top. Wherever you were, if this song was playing, you had people singing along to a line accusing a massively successful pop star of being a pedophile. If that’s not how you win a beef…

Live Show of the Year: PJ Harvey @ MGM Music Hall of Fenway

Oasis of the Year: Oasis.

Andrew McNally

Album of the Year: Kim Gordon, The Collective

I desperately want to know the lore of this album. The core of this album is a set of beats that Justin Raisen made with the intention of giving them to Playboy Carti. Instead, they ended up in the hands of the 71 year-old noise legend and Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon, who subsequently wrote lyrics centered around a Jennifer Egan novel. It’s hip-hop, sure, but it’s also alternative and dub and really pretty industrial. It’s Gordon shredding over trap beats. It’s rare to hear something totally new in this age, but nothing like this has ever been put to tape before. It’s noise-trap. It’s diabolical music. It’s fun but simultaneously feels like something you’re not supposed to be hearing. Gordon is still one of the coolest people around.

Song of the Year: Warpaint, “Common Blue”

There’s a specific type of song that makes me feel like I’m on an airplane. This song is crafted in such a way that I always feel like I’m floating in the atmosphere, even when it’s on the car radio. Warpaint are always queens of breezy, light harmonies, but the real beauty lies in the production. Elements work against each other, not with. One synth line plays in the back of your ears when a vocal line suddenly plays at the front. And all of the pieces are calming – especially that synth line that plays before the chorus. It’s only a couple notes, but it’s like melodic Xanax – with headphones on, it’s something that soothes my brain immediately. This is a song to cure a headache, to disappear from the world, to listen to on liftoff, or just any other time you need a quick break.

Live Show of the Year: Melt Banana @ The Sinclair

Best Unused Halloween Costume Idea: MJ Slenderman

I feel this one is self-explanatory.

Dan Moffat

Album of the Year: Father John Misty, Mahashmashana

Mahashmashana from November of this year was unexpected. Not because of the album’s tardiness (a ton of big name artists have had album drops post-election news cycle) but because there’s less bloviated symphonic moments than his previous post-Fear Fun records. When the violins are present, it’s exciting — think “A Day In The Life” as opposed to “The Long and Winding Road.” Mahashmashana finds Seattle musician Father John Misty back in his rock bag. Hallelujah.

Song of the Year: Cola, “Keys Down If You Stay”

I don’t make the rules. When Cola release a new album, one of their songs is gonna be my favorite of the year. “Keys Down If You Stay” has a hypnotic groove and punchy chorus that has the same effect on me as a key in a cup of cola.

Live Show of the Year: Omni @ The Rockwell

Best Podcast Episode about Dinosaur Jr.: Bandsplain (Yasi Salek and Kevin Drew)

When I was a teenager I fell in love with the book Our Band Could Be Your Life, which inspired me to be in a band. Hearing OBCBYL‘s material through the conversation of Yasi Salek and Broken Social Scene frontman Kevin Drew had me dying. Hearing Drew sardonically react with “geez louise” to Salek’s passionate retelling of the history of the Massachusetts rock dinos is podcast gold.

Dillon Riley

Album of the Year: Body Meat, Starchris

Have you ever heard something for the first time and just known that it will forever change the way you think about music? The first Body Meat song I heard was 2019’s “Nairobi Flex” and it stopped me dead in my fucking tracks. Footwork, R&B, trap, the tricky offbeats of Uganda’s Nyege Nyege Tapes, the mutant dembow of Lisbon’s Principe Discos…all refracted and spit out in a way that felt, yes, chaotic, but also strangely natural. That this music was coming from a guy in a Philly basement messing around on a supposedly cracked version of Ableton on an even more cracked laptop screen made it that much more special. Body Meat has leveled up at least two fold since then in scope and vision and production then (his latest Starchris either coincided with a video game he coded from scratch or vice versa, in any case there’s thematic tie-ins between the two), but that spirit of brazen yet thoughtful rendered music omnivorousness remains a key component of the Body Meat project. To count the galaxy-brain moments here would be a fool’s errand, but when the marimbas kick in on “Crystallize” and the whole song suddenly shifts into a straight ahead pop 4/4 beat I still can’t help but say some dumb shit like “hellyeah” or “fuck yeah” or “let’s fucking go” out loud like a jerk. And I’ve listened to this thing at least a hundred times. Never before has someone sounded so cool talking about “selling like 12 of your swords” like they’re on a D&D quest.

Song of the Year: Six Sex, “U&ME”

We are living in a post-Challengers (2024) world, and that world finally has its very own bisexual boyfriend anthem. Six Sex is an influential figure in Buenos Aires’ Perreo Rave scene (think raunchy pop rhymes meets system rattling dembow meets techno-inspired day glo sheen), and she-along with producers Dauner and Luca Eck-also make for great ambassadors. The undeniable “U&ME” and its instant classic mod-inspired music video feels like a proper introduction to the Argentine star’s flirty and propulsive sonic world. Six Sex flips between English and Spanish here, making a meal of hooks like “my boyfriend is GAY” and “my ass is TOO BIG” over stuttering rave stab kicks and air raid synths like she’s playing the role of every Beastie Boy at once. They’ve never had to navigate geometry quite like this, though.

Live Show of the Year: Drop Nineteens @ Paradise

Best Surprise of the Year: blue smiley, “pond”

While Philly shoegazers blue smiley’s run was cut tragically short by the passing of band principal Brian Nowell in late 2017, their alchemical blend of heaving post-hardcore vigor, queasy synths, and other gritty experimental textures remains a key influence in indie rock et al. A crucial reissue campaign from Topshelf Records brought the group’s two sole albums back to print last year, along with a helping of demos and live cuts that pointed towards a now mythic follow-up to 2017’s beloved return LP that will sadly never come to pass. Those bonus sketches were a nice salve, but they lacked the singular, teeth-grinding tension of the group’s full band attack. Imagine my surprise then when “pond”, a purported return outtake, popped up on the timeline with little advance warning. A hard-charging, train-going-off-the-rails style stomper complete with an absolutely insane hyperspeed bongo run (?), the short number (even by their standards) is further proof of blue smiley’s otherworldly gift at flipping guitar music into something more.

Hannah Sender

Album of the Year: BIllie Eilish, Hit Me Hard And Soft

Song of the Year: The Last Dinner Party, “Nothing Matters”

Live Show of the Year: Sabrina Carpenter, Short ‘N’ Sweet Tour @ TD Garden

Top 5 Songs That Made Me Want to Crash My Car

“Good Luck, Babe” by Chappell Roan, “Alley Rose” by Conan Gray, Girl, “So Confusing (feat. Lorde)” by Charli xcx, “I’m Confident that I’m Insecure” by Lawrence, “Wildflower” by Billie Eilish (I did, in fact, crash my car to this song).

Tanvi Shah

Album of the Year: Gracie Abrams, The Secret of Us

The Secret of Us album made Gracie Abrams my #2 artist (according to Spotify Wrapped). Her lyrics, vocals, the music, and the quieter parts of her songs were everything. My top songs on this album are “Free Now,” “us.,” “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” “Risk, and “Let It Happen.” I may or may not have gone to NYC for 3 hours to see her play this album live and it was worth the 13 hour bus ride.

Song of the Year: Griff, “Tears For Fun”

Griff’s “Tears For Fun” reminds me of the duality of emotions. Sometimes things don’t go our way and we sit in those emotions and wonder if we’ll “always be collecting our tears for fun.” Her vocals and lyrics make me think about these things and I love the song!

Live Show of the Year: Steve Rondo @ BMH

Best Element of a Concert: For Wyn & the White Light’s debut album release show, there was a scream room (technically scream hallway) where you would go in and scream in a reverb-y room to release any negative energy to make room to grow and heal!

Abby Stanicek

Album of the Year: Mk.gee, Two Star & The Dream Police

I don’t think there’s been a week that I haven’t listened to Two Star & The Dream Police since Mk.gee released the LP in February. It’s become very clear I’m not the only one obsessed with the album, as listeners have supported the album so wholeheartedly that he ended up on SNL this fall. His unfathomable guitar skills and experimental approach to music on the LP has left guitarists dumbfounded and his loyal listeners in awe. I was lucky enough to see him play the album at The Sinclair and it was a show that will always remain to be one of my favorites.

Song of the Year: Clairo, “Juna”

In a drought of fun and whimsy, Claire Cotrill (Clairo) made it her mission to bring back the joy we all needed with “Juna.” The song alone makes me want to go dancing and buy a new dress, and it had the same effect on many TikTok users throughout the summer. The track is a perfect soundtrack to the beautiful moments in life, the experience of love and the confident feeling that Cottrill aims to feel on “Sexy to Someone.” On October 30, her Boston audience was lucky enough to hear the song twice as Cottrill twirled around in her Wednesday Addams costume.

Live Show of the Year: Mk.gee @ The Sinclair and Clairo @ Roadrunner

Best Song to Frolic to: Olivia Rodrigo, “girl I’ve always been”

After my first listen of Olivia Rodrigo’s “girl i’ve always been,” I was tempted to find the nearest polka dot dress and open field for frolicking. The track is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s more playful work and is one of Rodrigos’s most relatable releases yet. The unapologetic nature of the song allowed for girls everywhere to be comfortable in their own skin despite what others may think of them.

Christine Varriale

Album of the Year: Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood

It’s no secret how much I love Waxahatchee. Katie Crutchfield has been writing some of my favorite albums since American Weekend dropped in 2012, setting the indie rock scene ablaze with her lo-fi and emotional tunes. We’ve watched her songwriting and production grow over the years hitting a high with 2020’s Saint Cloud, unfortunately releasing just shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the world. During the pandemic shutdown, it felt like Waxahatchee was finally getting the praise from mainstream media that they have always deserved, and they came out of COVID-19 more popular than ever. Tigers Blood is an obvious follow up to Saint Cloud, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Where Saint Cloud was mostly about finding love and sobriety, Tigers Blood is a love letter to Crutchfield from herself. It’s introspective and beautiful, and I had it on repeat all year long. I’m so happy to see Crutchfield finally get the Grammy stamp of approval with a nomination for Tigers Blood.

Song of the Year: Waxahatchee ft. MJ Lenderman, “Right Back To It”

Oops I chose Waxahatchee again. But honestly, no song hit me as hard as “Right Back to It” this year. It makes me want to get married, so this can be my first dance song. I hate the idea of marriage. That’s how much this song has changed my worldview. Katie Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman both have very unique voices, and their voices together sound magical. Slow dance with your loved one to this by a lake to get the full “Right Back to It” experience, or at least I think that’s what people should do. I haven’t tried it myself (yet).

Live Show of the Year: MUNA @ Newport Folk Festival

Horniest Song of the Year: Sabrina Carpenter, “Bed Chem”

“Come right on me / I mean camaraderie / Said you’re not in my time zone / but you wanna be / Where art thou? / Why not uponeth me? / See it in my mind / Let’s fulfill the prophecy.” Shakespeare could never.

Greg Wong

Album of the Year: The Last Dinner Party, Prelude to Ecstasy

Song of the Year: Blondshell ft. Bully, “Docket”

Live Show of the Year: PVRIS @ House of Blues