To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2024. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
Of course there were a lot of news stories that defined the year, but there was also a lot of great art and culture – including here in our community, which is blessed with an abundance of great artists, including musicians. Each December, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck counts down the top 50 local songs of the year – and this year, there was a lot to choose from.
Back in 2021, we started an annual tradition of counting down the year’s best local songs, our way of celebrating the Triangle’s incredible music scene. For the first two years, we limited ourselves to a top 25 – but that’s not nearly enough to encapsulate the wide variety of great music in our community.
And so:
Here’s (part 1 of) our countdown of the 50 best local songs of 2024.
First, some ground rules. We define a “local” artist as anyone currently based in 97.9 The Hill’s coverage zone, which includes Orange, Durham, and northern Chatham counties – and Saxapahaw too. This means no artists or bands from Wake County, though quite a few of our favorite songs this year came out of Raleigh. (See the sidebar below for numerous examples.)
The James Taylor rule also applies: even if you’re a Chapel Hill native, for purposes of this list, your music only counts as “local” if you’re currently in the area. (For the second year in a row, though, I have to shout out Durham’s Vybhav Jagannath, aka VJDAMUSICMAN: he’s in New York for grad school, but “Limerence” was one of our favorites this year. Also worth a mention: “Johnny Cash’s Ashes” by Names Change, a band that recently relocated from Pittsboro to Georgia.)
Also, we’re only considering originals for this list, no covers – though there were lots of great covers in 2024. Among our favorites: Jake Xerxes Fussell’s “Leaving Here, Don’t Know Where I’m Goin’,” Superchunk’s “As In A Blender,” Sylvan Esso’s “The Cosmos” – and probably our favorite, awaymsg’s “Lost Cause,” which actually had a high place in the countdown until Aubrey Williams clued me in to the fact that Beck had done it first. Who knew?
And just one more rule: since we’re pairing this list with a radio show, I can’t include anything that’s too obscene to play on the air without editing the life out of it. (That said, if you appreciate hip-hop at all, go check out Kev-O’s 2024 album “The Blue Light Special,” especially “Like Me.”)
Even with all those self-imposed limits, there was still way too much amazing music this year to cover it all in a single list. Among our favorites not included here: instrumental masterpieces from River Otters, Larry & Joe, and Sunsp.t; hypnotic indie from Analog Mountains, Mad Crush, and Brendan Macie; upbeat rock from Stray Owls, The Hourglass Kids, Megayacht, The Matildas, and The Mad Starlings; and…look, if I kept going, we’d never even get to the actual countdown.
So without any further ado: let’s begin this year’s Live & Local Top 50.
50. No One Mind, Watching the World
These new-wave masters only released one song this year, but it was a worthy addition to an already-stellar collection.
One of the best new bands of the year, “Pieces” is the opening track from the Twits’ self-titled debut EP. Always a good sign when you’re this strong right out of the gate.
48 (tie). Michael Daughtry, Finding Out
48 (tie). Riggings, The Birds Knew First
It’s my list and I can do whatever I want, so I’m cheating with a bunch of ties. Here are two very different songs – upbeat lounge funk from Daughtry, introspective naturalistic indie from Riggings – with contrasting takes on the same experience: discovering something about yourself that you’d never known before (even if others did).
The Yardarm took a line from this track for the title of their first-ever full-length album, “On A Tipping Sea.” (Glad I finally get to recognize these guys: they’ve been favorites of ours for years – I’m still trying to make “Too Many Bands” the official theme song of the Carrboro Music Festival – but “Tipping Sea” was their first new music since before I started doing these countdowns.)
New music this year from an artist whose place in the Triangle music scene goes back to the 90s: Collapsis alum Gillespie shined with a live album recorded at Hillsborough’s Eno House, led by this poignant and triumphant number.
One of my favorite new artists from last year, Lonnie Rott kept going this year with five new singles, led by this warm blanket of a track that’s perfect for a fireplace on a cold, dark night.
Like The Twits, Nathan Hockett shot out of the gate with this driving single, the lead track off his debut album “Lovely Lie.”
43 (tie). Casimir, Large Parties
43 (tie). Curtis Eller’s American Circus, Another Nice Mess
A pair of tracks inspired by early-twentieth-century American icons. “Large Parties” is the highlight of three (!!) Great Gatsby-themed albums Casimir released simultaneously this summer, while the Laurel and Hardy tribute “Another Nice Mess” is the title track of the first full-length album in ten years from Curtis Eller, the Triangle’s answer to Randy Newman.
This upbeat night-out track puts Charlés back on the countdown for the second straight year. (If you’re wondering, there are 10 artists who made our countdown two years in a row, including the aforementioned No One Mind, Riggings, and Lonnie Rott – plus a pair of artists who’ve actually made our top 10 in back-to-back years.)
If Curtis Eller is the Triangle’s Randy Newman, Dissimilar South is our Fleetwood Mac: a phenomenal band that survived a rough breakup between two of their core members – and then fed on that energy to produce their best music ever. They’re back this year with this gorgeous Maddie Fisher-penned track, which channels that icky-but-alluring feeling of being attracted to someone Even Though You Freaking Know Better.
40. Elijah Rosario, Test The Limits (f. BEATSBYMARC and Joel Venom)
Perfect for a late-night drive, this is the highlight from a pair of EPs Elijah Rosario released this summer. (Should I be docking points for rhyming “test her luck” with “Tesla” – or adding points?)
39. Hank, Pattie & the Current, The Field
The standout track from “Paper Lanterns,” the fifth album in eight years from one of the Triangle’s best bluegrass outfits.
Quietly one of the centerpiece artists around the Sleepy Cat label, the Dylan-esque Lou Hazel has been rising for a few years now: his collab with Magic Al made our top 10 last year, and this year saw him release a pair of great singles on his own. (“Bulldog” is the other: your call which of the two is best.)
Most of Rachel Kiel’s releases this year were remixes of her old stuff – fun new collaborations with artists like Magic Al, Stuart McLamb, and Dante High – but she also dropped this great track in the fall, her first new single in four years. (Bit of a fakeout: it’s got nothing to do with Halloween, despite the word “scare” in the title and the fact that she released it on October 25.)
36 (tie). James Davy, Burned One Down With God
36 (tie). Hope Newman Kemp, Let It Rise
Because I’m a little stinker, I’m putting these two songs together: Kemp’s stomp-and-clap gospel spiritual “Let It Rise” is the most sincerely religious song on our countdown, while Davy’s joint-in-cheek “Burned One Down” is the most sincerely blasphemous.
(Psalm 33, if you’re wondering, reads: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.”)
35. John Howie Jr and the Rosewood Bluff, (There’s A) Ghost In My Room
“Ghost In My Room” was the Rosewood Bluff’s first new single in years – a welcome return for one of our favorite local-music icons, though of course John Howie Jr. never actually went away. (Like “Good Scare,” this song came out right before Halloween, clearly has a Halloween-inspired title, and has hardly anything to do with Halloween at all. What’s up with that?)
34. It Had To Be Snakes, For The End Of The Year
Another one of our favorite new discoveries of 2023, IHTBS came back this year with a stellar single that starts like Johnny Cash, builds to a soaring guitar-drenched rock chorus, and comes right back again, all in under three minutes.
In a fantastic year for Triangle-area hip-hop (stay tuned for our top 10), Pittsboro’s Jabu Graybeal stood out with this playfully bisexual track, one of several highlights off his summer album “Backroads.”
32. Don Dixon, One Leg Down The Hill
Chapel Hill music’s founding father, still going strong. You can trace the entire history of our present-day local music scene back to the moment when Don Dixon co-founded Arrogance in a UNC dorm room in the late 1960s – and here he is, still kicking more than half a century later, with “One Leg” the standout of a nine-track album inspired by local author John Bare’s novel “My Biscuit Baby.”
31. Lizzy Campbell, Giving In (f. Ethan Chase)
“Three weeks clean, the sun is out – so why do I still feel like I’m just running out?” Campbell’s powerful song about the pull of addiction is the best yet from an artist who’s been rapidly on the rise for the last two years.
30 (tie). The Old Ceremony, Valerie Solanas
30 (tie). The Old Ceremony, North American Grain
At 97.9 The Hill, we’re agreed that these are the two standout tracks from “Earthbound,” the Old Ceremony’s first album in nine years. But we’re not sure about the order: some of my colleagues like the smoother “North American Grain,” but I prefer the more abrasive “Valerie Solanas,” about Andy Warhol’s would-be assassin. (A fitting subject for Old Ceremony frontman Django Haskins, whose portfolio also includes songs about infamous urban planner Robert Moses and Charles Lindbergh’s other baby.) Both songs are great; you can pick your own favorite.
Haskins, by the way, is one of two artists to make our top-local-songs-of-the-year countdown in each of the last three years. (The other? Riggings.)
29. Babe Haven, Blind Yourself
“HOLD! ME! CLO! SER!” Women have been leading the Triangle’s rock scene for years, and Babe Haven carried the mantle in 2024 with “Nuisance,” their finest album yet. “Blind Yourself” is my favorite track, one of the year’s best pure rock songs.
With Love’s EP “Deer in the Headlights” came out just five days into the new year – a good way to start 2024, especially with this track that starts slow and quiet and gradually builds to a fuzzy, soaring climax.
27. Radio Haw, Something Sweet
Radio Haw – a DIY project of Pittsboro’s Matt Gray – had one of the best debuts of 2024, emerging fully formed in the spring with their first album “Counsel of Serpents,” full of catchy hooks and mysterious lyrics. Quiet and hypnotic, “Something Sweet” is my favorite of several standout tracks.
Well, folks did say the one upside of Trump’s election is that it’s bound to produce some good punk music, right?
Durham’s Zealotrous got in just under the wire this year, dropping their album “Quid Pro Status Quo” in early December. The anti-cop “Donut Shop” has been in their repertoire for a few years: frontman ZERO wrote it in 2020 and the band released a passable version of it back in 2021 – but the polished re-recording on the new album is freaking spectacular. Loud, abrasive, catchy, violently anti-authoritarian, and over in 90 seconds: this is as good as anything Jello Biafra ever did, and it’s about as close to the Platonic form of punk music as you’re ever going to get.
(Only thing is: if a song is this textbook-perfect – if it follows all the rules this well – is it even punk anymore?)
Want to keep the countdown going? Click here for numbers 25 to 1.
While our countdown focuses on Orange, Durham, and Chatham artists, this was also an amazing year for music in Raleigh. Longtime stalwarts American Aquarium, Matt Southern, and Jack the Radio each put out their best individual tracks yet; Chatham County Line roared back in January with another triumphant album, “Hiyo”; Little Brother alum Phonte dropped great stuff, both solo and with the Foreign Exchange; and Waking April blew me away with “Rules,” not just a catchy club hit but also a feminist anthem for the ages…
…and those are just the folks we already knew. 2024 also introduced us to Carpenter/Cohen and Fancy Gap, a pair of new duos comprised of longtime local stars; Fancy Gap in particular was a bright light, with a Grammy-worthy debut album. And this was also the year I discovered Chamomile Wheatley’s Marble Berry Seeds, whose quiet and crazy “Nightfly in the Alien Sunrise” was one of our favorites: with Wheatley’s otherworldly voice, lyrics that make zero sense, and a clarinet solo recorded by someone who’d literally just learned the instrument, it’s a song that absolutely should not work but absolutely does. (Not a fluke, either: M.B.S. came back a few months later with the bouncy, playful “Scum Whatever,” with a totally different vibe from “Nightfly” but just as much appeal.)
Here are 15 of our favorite Raleigh songs from 2024:
American Aquarium, Crier
Azul, Disco Never Died
Carpenter/Cohen, Made Up Man
Chatham County Line, BSR (or Way Down Yonder)
Christina Munsey, Cold September (or Take Them All)
The Daydream District, Puppet Shadows (or Moonstone Girl)
Fancy Gap, Little Heart Racer (or How To Dance, or Strawberry Moon, or 40,000 Mi…actually, y’all, just listen to this entire album.)
The Foreign Exchange, The Grey
Jack the Radio, Tell Everyone Around
Jeremy Gilchrist, Karman Line
Marble Berry Seeds, Nightfly in the Alien Sunrise (or Scum Whatever)
Matt Southern, Vampire
Phonte, Run For Your Life
Pretty Crimes, New Years
Waking April, Rules
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