2024 wrapped: Sanjoy Narayan’s list of top 5 moments in the world of music

With so much music out there, it’s hard to tackle compilations and rankings in the old way. So here’s a list of the year’s most resounding events.

More music is released every day now, than was released during an entire calendar year in the 1980s. That’s how easy it has become to record, produce and release albums.

The massive deluge, though, means it is nearly impossible to comprehensively track what is being released. Music is becoming increasingly genre-fluid, which confuses things further.

All this has made conventional year-end compilations and rankings too tricky to do in the old way. So I’m listing not artists or genres, but five notable events in the world of music this year. Here they are, in no particular order.

* Nostalgic album of the year

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) were one of rock music’s first supergroups, formed in 1968. The members — David Crosby (The Byrds), Stephen Stills and Neil Young (Buffalo Springfield), and Graham Nash (The Hollies) — came from prominent bands of the time. Like many supergroups, CSNY were short-lived. Yet, their distinctive sound, featuring intricate vocal harmonies and a folk-rock fusion, defined an era.

This year, a new mix of the band’s landmark 1969 concert at the Fillmore East was released. The 17-song collection includes some of their most memorable songs (Wooden Ships, Sea of Madness, Guinnevere, Helplessly Hoping) and is a treasure for both oldies looking to traipse down the rabbit hole of memory and newbies looking to experience an epochal band.

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* Metamorphosis of the year

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Although The Smile made their debut as a band a couple of years ago, they released two studio albums this year: Wall of Eyes and Cutouts. Both cement the metamorphosis of the storied band Radiohead. This is because The Smile consists of Radiohead vocalist and songwriter Thom Yorke and lead guitarist and keyboardist Jonny Greenwood (with the Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner making up the trio).

Smile’s music is in keeping with the experimental style of Radiohead, but bears the influences of post-punk, progressive rock, jazz, Afrobeat and neo-electronic music.

Their name hints at the mood they seek to create. The music of Radiohead, now nearly 40 years old, was known for its melancholic aura. The Smile, in contrast, is simply happy.

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* Bill Nighy’s Iggy Pop moment

Iggy Pop and Bill Nighy.

They’re both septuagenarians, but there is little else in common between the seasoned punk-rocker and certifiable wild child Iggy Popand the gentlemanly veteran British actor Bill Nighy. Yet, when Nighy subs for Iggy and hosts the latter’s Sunday evening show on BBC 6 (as he does when the rockstar is away on leave), it can be a delight. On December 15, on a two-hour show still available online, Nighy let us into his eclectic taste in music, playing everything from Prince and Aretha Franklin to Amy Winehouse and A Tribe Called Quest. An added bonus was his commentary, full of dry wit, delivered in an oh-so-suave voice.

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* New alchemists of British jazz

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Few genres have witnessed quite as much fluidity as British jazz. As lines have blurred between jazz and other disciplines, two exponents have stood out: London’s Ezra Collective, a quintet formed in 2012 and led by the drummer Femi Koleoso; and Nala Sinephro, a Belgian-Caribbean composer also based in London.

Ezra Collective blurs the lines between jazz, hip-hop, soul and Afrobeat. Their 2024 album, Dance, No One’s Watching, is a 19-song punchy, groovy feast for the ears… and the feet. Just try listening to God Gave Me Feet for Dancing (featuring vocals by Yazmin Lacey) and see if you can keep still.

At the other end of the spectrum is Sinephro, who plays synthesisers, keyboards and a 47-string pedal harp, and blends ambient jazz with classical music. On Endlessness, her new album, she creates a huge vat of meditative and introspective music perfect for a prolonged and tranquil immersion.

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* Delicious sleaze of the year

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No year should end without some down-home rough and ragged rock music. For that, there is Warmduscher. Lead singer Clams Baker Jr is American but everyone else in the band is British. Ten years after they were formed, their new album, Too Cold to Hold, starts with a monologue by the author Irvine Welsh (remember Trainspotting?), who describes in a Scottish brogue an experience of smoking DMT (“I took a long hit on the pipe.... and felt my body dissolve into digital dots”). What follows are 11 messy songs that exude raw funk, dirty punk, and delightfully sleazy tales of modern life.

These then are my top picks from 2024. Dip in and enjoy!

(To write in with feedback, email sanjoy.narayan@gmail.com)