Another Season - Frances Quinlan
I came across this song watching Jane Schoenbrun’s film, I SAW THE TV GLOW, released by A24 films. This is how they describe the movie: Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.

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React, Respond - Pearl Jam
The Seattle band’s 12th studio album was easily my favorite of the year, and this track has some of my favorite guitar work from Stone Gossard and Mike McCready. I appreciate the sentiment, too. Good advice. 

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Because, Of Course - Maren Morris
My friend Cait hipped me to Ms. Morris last year, and I’ve been keeping an eye on her output since. This song grabbed me right away and moves me to tears on a regular basis.

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Kids - New Kids On the Block 
I loved NKOTB when I was 10, and it seems I still do. “Joey Joe” McIntyre was/is my favorite, and I used to sing along to their songs like him and style my hair the same (as best I could). In the last four years, the middle-aged “Kids” have released three songs that have made it onto my year-end mixes, and every one of them is an absolute delight. The music video for “Kids” captures the joy and silliness of these five grown men poking fun at themselves and dancing their way through their 50s.


 

Salt Street Skinny (Acoustic) - The Bushmen
The title track of a six-song EP from my dad and uncle’s 1960s high school garage band. Even though the quartet formed nearly 60 years ago, this is their only studio recording. The song, written and sung by my dad Jim, is an ode to the group’s lead guitarist Larry Griffin, who passed away a few months after the record came out—but not before the band made the front page of The Daily Record.  Prior to that, I wrote up a short blog post about the release, which is available on both streaming and CD.


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Relatively Easy - Jason Isbell
This is one of the four tracks on this year’s compilation that did not come out in 2024. I heard it on regular rotation as my wife got ready for work in the morning, and it’s become perhaps my favorite Jason Isbell song.

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Watchman's Cry - Brian Ullman
A beautifully melancholic instrumental from my brother’s first release under his own name. For those familiar with previous years’ mixes, Brian’s one-man band moniker was Fascist Puppeteer. The middle track of his Come Forth EP features some gorgeous guitar melodies, playing, and tones somehow reminiscent of both David Gilmour and Tom Morello.



 

The Lost Cause (feat. Manchester Orchestra) - Tom Morello

And speaking of the Rage Against The Machine guitarist… This is another non-2024 song that I came across for the first time. My wife’s car has SiriusXM, and I remember snapping a photo of the display when this track hit me like a truck to look it up later. I’m so glad she was tuned into whatever channel that was when I hopped behind the wheel for that short drive into town. 

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White Lies, White Jesus And You - Katie Pruitt
Another song I heard around the house on my wife’s playlist. This one stopped me in my tracks while doing the dishes. It instantly became my favorite song of the year. I love the production, the vocals, the lyrics… It’s obviously a pretty volatile topic, so I’ll share Pruitt’s statement about this song:  “White Lies, White Jesus & You” is about the very clear distinction between the Jesus depicted in the Bible & the Jesus sold to us by American capitalism. One tells us to give to the less fortunate & the other hoards the wealth to keep for himself. One includes people of all races, sexualities, identities & backgrounds…. & the other places the blame on minorities, women & queer people to distract from their own broken moral compass. I know we live in divisive time but to me the choice is so simple & I refuse to live in world where the latter is the louder voice." 

 

The song is the second track on the 30 year-old singer/songwriter’s second LP, Mantras, which has a handful of songs I really dig. I ended up finding, listening to,  and loving the whole run of her six-part podcast about “faith, creativity, artistic expression, and identity.” 

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Somewhere In Between - Frank Turner
I’m a big fan of Turner’s England Keep My Bones album (2011), which has the incredible “I Still Believe,” but I haven’t connected with anything since—though I’d check in from time to time. I saw an announcement in 2023 about his then-forthcoming 10th studio album, Undefeated, and I hoped something on it would light me up like “I Still Believe” did all those years ago. When it came out in May, I listened eagerly and responded well to a few songs, but this one—to borrow a phrase from the new Bob Dylan biopic—“struck me to the ground” and had me crying in my car. Excellent music video, too.

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Still a Fire - MILCK
Connie Kimberly Lim, professionally known as Milck, leapt onto my radar with the anthemic single “We Won’t Go Back” (2022). I love her empowering and resilient lyrics and “Gentle Rebel” spirit.

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Treasury of Prayers - Joe Pug
A mainstay of my mix albums since I first heard him open for Josh Ritter at The Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, 2009. Still pound-for-pound one of the best working songwriters around, this track is from his album Sketch of a Promised Departure. 

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Changes - soccer mommy
I was wholly unaware of the Nashville singer/songwriter Sophia Regina Allison, who performs under the name soccer mommy, until very recently. I was visiting an old friend in South Dakota with a really nice turntable setup in his living room. We were drinking our morning coffee, and he was spinning her record Evergreen. “Who IS this?” I asked. Admittedly, I chuckled at her stage name, but I listened to the whole album twice on my drive back to Minnesota and am now a fan.

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End of Beginning - Djo
Another unusual name. Another irresistible song. Another favorite from my wife’s Amazon playlist. I believe she had me try and guess who was performing this track. Of course, I had no idea, and was shocked to learn it’s Steve Harrington—well, the actor who portrays that character on Stranger Things, Joe Keery. We listened to this song endlessly over the summer. One morning, I woke up having written a song in my dreams. I was super-excited, until I eventually realized the chords, strumming pattern, and melody were actually this song.

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**Smile [Live] (feat. Glen Hansard) - Pearl Jam 
I have attended very few concerts in the last few years, but I’ve gone to countless baseball games. So when Pearl Jam’s fan club announced tickets for a two-night stand at Chicago’s legendary Wrigley Field baseball stadium with fellow all-time favorite Glen Hansard opening, I was determined to be there. Thankfully, the Ten Club is very good to its members, and I scored seats along the third baseline. Pearl Jam is one of (if not my very) favorite band(s) of all time, and I’ve seen them a bunch. I even had the good fortune to see an Eddie Vedder/Glen Hansard solo show in Detroit. But given the band’s connection to Wrigley (see Danny Clinch’s outstanding Let’s Play Two concert film), this was a bucket-list occasion, and it came with it a bucket-list song I’d never seen them do live. It would have been thrill enough to see Jeff and Stone trade instruments to play this song from No Code, but Glen Hansard joining the guys and trading verses with Ed was next-level awesome for me. 


**This track is not streaming. The MP3 download version of my mix has some edited stage banter and the soundboard recording from the band’s official bootleg. My YouTube playlist incorporates an audience recording from the night.**

 

Dark Matter - Pearl Jam
As great as the band is live, I included the studio version of their latest album’s title track because I love the sound producer Andrew Watt captured. 

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Unprecedented Sh!t - Ani DiFranco
Another title track—this one from The Little Folk Singer’s 23rd studio album. Ani is one of my heroes, and this is the 12th of mix albums to feature her singular voice. And when I say “voice,” I include her lyrical perspective and iconic guitar playing, as well as her singing. The 54-year-old DiFranco stands only 5’2”, but she is a giant—a literal living legend.  Thanks to the 25th Annual Sound Unseen Film + Music Festival, I was able to see the Minnesota premiere of Dana Flor’s dynamite documentary 1-800-On-Her-Own, “An intimate glimpse into [Ani DiFranco’s] unique artistry and modern family life.” The film blew me away in it’s depiction of Ani’s vulnerability and strength. 

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Warsong - The Cure
The same friend who hipped me to soccer mommy asked me if I’d heard the new Cure album before I hit the road to come visit him. I had not. I didn’t realize there was one, and I had no idea it would be so vital, timeless, and timely. Songs of a Lost World is the 14th studio album from the English goth rockers—their first in 16 years—and it’s pretty great. 

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Holy War - Alicia Keys
I had a bad attitude about Alica Keys for years. Then, in 2020 her song “Underdog” stole my heart, and she became one of those artists I keep tabs on and treasure. After reading (or rather listening to her read) her memoir, MORE MYSELF, I went back and listened to her whole discography in chronological order. This song from her 2016 album, HERE, struck me right away and the beautiful lyric video I only found when assembling the YouTube playlist for this mix album creatively underlines the song’s words to live by.


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Americans - Janelle Monáe
I am not a casual music fan. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy music in a variety of modes—ranging from gravely serious to goofy and fun. You need look no further than this collection to hear all of those things. But when I listen to an album or look into an artist, I’m usually doing so in a deliberate, intentional way. Oftentimes, I’m hoping they can provide me with the song I’m needing in that moment. As election anxieties were swirling last fall, I wasn’t finding many songs from 2024 that I needed to hear, and unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling properly equipped and inspired to create my own. Thankfully, I came across this track from Janelle Monáe’s 2018 album, Dirty Computer. 

This is what I was after, and as a single song, it contains that whole spectrum of silly to serious, which you can watch play out in this incredible TV performance from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert some six years ago.


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AMEN - Beyoncé
Queen B, as she’s sometimes called, closes this compilation—as she does her 2024 album Cowboy Carter—with an American elegy delivered with grace, compassion, and resolve for a country still a long way off from embodying its professed ideals.

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