I already posted my 2024 in music but Apple Music now provides a summary of your music every month, and a quirk of the annual music reviews being sent out at the beginning of December is that they don’t actually cover December. So this is a good excuse for another self indulgent blog post. Will I be doing this for every monthly round up? I wouldn’t place any money on it.
Top Artists
I’ve said before that if I’m going to see a band live, I end up listening to them a lot before and after the gig. That’s why Slipknot are top this month. I saw them in London on 20th December and, despite it being the Friday before Christmas, not one of the nine band members wished the crowd a merry Christmas. Scroogeknot, more like.
In 2nd and 3rd place, we have Ladytron and Suicide Commando respectively. Two very different types of music! They’ve mainly made the top 5 because I listened to a couple of their classic albums. More on that below.
Magnavolt are in at 4th place because I always seem to be listening to them. Hence they were 2nd in my overall 2024 top artists. Go read that post.
And as for Extize, well they’re a strange one. A gothic electronic band from Germany, they make good gothic electronic music but they also have a quite a bit of humour in their songs, which is an interesting mix. They had some new songs out in December and that led to me listening to some older ones I like. My favourite is called ‘The Slut with 3 Tits’ if that gives you an idea of what to expect.
Top Songs
It should be no surprise to see a bunch of Slipknot songs in the top 5. Spit It Out is definitely my favourite Slipknot, and my favourite part of the song is the first verse, which has some very fast paced vocals. I can listen to that verse over and over again. The other two songs are also complete nu-metal bangers.
I assume Karussell by Nachtmahr, at number 2, has made the list because it is on my industrial gothic playlist and has come on when I have it on shuffle fairly regularly. I’ve only got into Nachtmahr recently. They are an Electronic Body Music (EBM) band which I’d probably describe as goth techno. It’ll make more sense if you just listen to them, and that song is a great start for you.
Finally, at number 4 is Fusion by Powernerd & Call Me Sleeper. I think we have another playlist on shuffle entry here, but this time it’s the synthwave playlist. This is a good song, on the heavier side of synthwave so you could call it darksynth or cyberpunk I guess. If these genres mean nothing to you, again I’d suggest giving it a listen.
Top Albums
Straight in at number 1 is Slipknot (1999) by Slipknot. As the album was 25 years old in 2024, Slipknot were touring and only playing tracks from 1999 (or a bit before, I guess). It was a good gig with plenty of nostalgia for a tired old metal fan in a seat at the O2. Because of all this, I was having a listen and reminiscing about the good old days, and that’s why this album is number 1 on the list.
At number 2, we have Velocifero (2008) by Ladytron. I first saw Ladytron before I’d heard of them when they were supporting Nine Inch Nails in the Brixton Academy in 2007. They had an electronic sound I hadn’t really come across before then and I liked it. I now know it’s called ‘shoe gaze’. Did you have that in today’s game of genre bingo? After seeing them live, I listened to their albums but this was all before streaming and automated notifications telling me when music is released, so I somehow missed Velocifero coming out only a year later. I was in the big Topshop on Oxford Street one day and a song came on that I really liked (I think they had an in store DJ back then at the front of the shop). I had Shazam on my phone so I used that and the song turned out to be Deep Blue by Ladytron. Then I bought the new album on CD, and I still listen to it (and their other early albums) fairly regularly. I don’t know if that is an interesting story or not but it also makes me feel old.
At number 3 we have something a bit more mainstream. I was on the train home one night and I really fancied listening to some Adam & The Ants. I found Stand & Deliver – The Very Best of Adam & The Ants (2006). I used to listen to something similar when I worked in a local library in the early 2000s and I copied the library’s CD onto minidisc. Another story that makes me sound old!
Bind, Torture, Kill (2006) by Suicide Commando is something I actually got into in the digital age. I think I found it via last.fm, if you remember that app/website. It used to track your iTunes and make charts and stuff way before Spotify, but you could also use it to make a radio station based on your music, also long before I had ever heard of Spotify. I used to play last.fm on my Xbox 360. So despite this anecdote being about streaming music, I’ve still described things that are nearly 20 years old. As we’ve had a bit of genre bingo today, Suicide Commando is an aggrotech act, which is an aggressive type of electro-industrial music, and one of my favourite genres. This was one of the first albums I’d heard like this and I like to go back to it.
Finally, at number 5, we have Shrine (2022) by Bleed From Within, an album from this decade! I hadn’t heard of Bleed From Within but they supported Slipknot and I thought they were great live so I’ve been listening to some of their stuff, much like like the Ladytron situation from 17 years ago. They play some solid heavy metal and I’m into it. They also have a new album coming out in April so I’m looking forward to that. I’m also very old and tired.
Matt Hart 