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 2 of) our countdown of the 50 best local songs of 2024.
First, a quick recap of the ground rules: originals only, no covers, and we’re defining a “local” artist as anyone currently based in 97.9 The Hill’s coverage zone, which includes Orange, Durham, and northern Chatham counties – and I’m now including Saxapahaw this year, which turns out to be a relevant detail.
Click here to look back on the first half of our countdown, from 50 down to 26.
And now: here’s the top half of this year’s Live & Local Top 50.
25 (tie). Lennon KC, Sabotage
25 (tie). Tre-Dot, Blood Sweat N Tears
Lennon KC’s absorbing, guitar-drenched, introspective throwback doesn’t have much in common with Tre-Dot’s brash, assertive hip-hop style, except for one thing: these two great songs both technically got released in 2023, and I’m including them here only because I didn’t actually discover them until earlier this year. Shh, don’t tell anyone.
24. SkyBlew & DJ Reimei, No One Defeats Tha Sledge
SkyBlew is one of the Triangle’s best and most prolific rappers (sky-painters), and he’s at his best when working with Reimei – as they did again this year in the playful and poignant “Battle for the Universe.” Here, the boys run aground against a seemingly unbeatable galactic supervillain – but luckily, in both video games and spirituality, when you die, you can get right back up and go for it again.
23. Heavy Denim, Matt Might Leave
Technically these guys first emerged in 2023, with a fine EP called “Dairy Dishes,” but they kicked into super-high gear in 2024 with their followup “Cereal Dreams” – which, with just four tracks, was one of the best releases in the Triangle all year. “Matt Might Leave,” our favorite, is a rollicking and joyous rock song that pays an overdue tribute to the always-underappreciated bassist.
22. Emma Geiger, Reverse Bloom
Like its title, this lovely song moves in two directions: Geiger says she wrote it in the context of a close friendship that was coming to an end, but there’s a hopefulness within the sadness too. “Things can be lost, but you can find ways to find hope and brightness again,” she says, “and time is non-linear, so things can ‘bloom’ in either direction.”
21. Izzy Ryder, Lonely Virginia
We’re still waiting on Ryder’s debut album “Barefoot and Brooding,” but the advance singles alone are worth the price of admission. “Lonely Virginia,” her best so far, is catchy, sad, twangy, sardonic, proudly queer and proudly country all at once. You’ll be instantly reminded of Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, and there’s a reason: River Shook produced the album.
20. Porter Robinson, Knock Yourself Out
Feels a bit weird to classify an internationally-known EDM star as a local musician, but Porter Robinson does live in Chapel Hill, so there you go. Joyous and bright, like all his best work, “Knock Yourself Out” was the highlight of his fittingly titled album “SMILE!”, his first full-length album in three years.
19 (tie). The Camaraderie, Weight To Your Heart
19 (tie). Bats & Mice, Buried Just Beyond
Stellar, straight-down-the-line rock tracks from a pair of bands who made welcome comebacks in 2024. The Camaraderie’s EP “Permanent Things” was their first release in 13 years – and not to be outdone, Bats & Mice’s album “PS: Seriously” was their first release of any kind in 14 years (and their first full-length album in over two decades).
There was a time when rising stars would leave the Triangle to advance their careers in bigger cities – and sure, there’s still a bit of that now – but today, our region has become a star in itself, attracting great artists into its orbit. Rosali Middleman had been established in Philly for nearly a decade, but then she signed with Merge, moved to Durham, and dropped “Bite Down,” her best album yet. “On Tonight” is one of several standout tracks; see also “Rewind” and “Hey Heron.” (Actually, just go ahead and see the whole album.)
17. Skylar Gudasz, Fire Country
Any year with a new Skylar Gudasz album is a great year. (Actually, hang on – <checks notes> – 2016, 2020, and 2024?! Okay, you know what, maybe not so much.)
Timing aside, Skylar has been one of our favorites for almost a decade, and “Fire Country” captures everything that’s great about her in four minutes: personal, political, biting, haunting, soaring, rock-tinted and country-twinged, with just a little side-eye. (Bonus: Gudasz’s album “Country” was co-produced by another one of our favorites, Ari Picker of Dante High, who’s just about to make his own appearance on this list.)
Completely out of nowhere this year came Bill Moore, a UNC student who spent a couple years working with the Music Maker Relief Foundation – and then turned around and dropped “New Piedmont Style,” a collection of a dozen songs that sound just like 1920s-era blues standards. But nope, they’re all originals – recorded in one three-hour session at the Music Maker studio, with instant-classic melodies and wink-and-a-nod lyrics captured by Moore’s crystal-perfect 12-string guitar and unexpectedly deep bass-baritone voice. Blind Boy Fuller would be proud.
Moore’s not the only local artist working in old-time traditions. Honorable mention to Keenan McKenzie & the Riffers, whose November album “Lakewood Jump” pays homage to 1930s jazz – complete with some originals of their own, most notably “The Long Road Home To You.”
“This ain’t no gingerbread narrative.” Lots of great tracks on “Sophomore Slump,” the album 9th Wonder protege Markee Steele dropped in January – but I can’t bypass “I Just,” a harrowing two minutes about pushing through depression and hard times, with a cadence that recalls Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool,” one of the best American poems ever written.
14. Certain Seas, Fills The Hours
2024 was a good year for ex-Squirrel Nut Zippers. Tom Maxwell earned widespread acclaim with “A Really Strange and Wonderful Time,” his chronicle of the 90s-era Chapel Hill music scene – and the Katharine Whalen-fronted Certain Seas scored with “Oh Sage, Orange Egg,” their best album yet. Perfectly off-kilter, with a Space Oddity countdown for extra flavor, “Fills The Hours” showcases Whalen, Austin Riopel, and Danny Grewen all at the top of their game.
13. Dante High, Small Town Midnights
“Coca-Cola, Motorola…” Between the B-Sides, The Never, Lost in the Trees, and now Dante High, goth wannabe Ari Picker has been one of the Triangle’s defining artists of the 21st century, and he’s back again this year with this retro instant classic. Building off a riff shamelessly lifted from John Mellencamp, Picker weaves a tale of nostalgia, sadness, and memory (he swears the “T-Bird in the swimming pool” actually happened) that stands proudly alongside Mellencamp himself – or Bryan Adams or Bruce Springsteen, for that matter. Call it the new “Summer of ‘69” – or, if you want to stay local, the new “74-75.”
12. Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, Backsliders
There are lots of great alt-country artists around here, but no one quite like River Shook. “Backsliders” is the lead single, and the highlight, of the Disarmers’ latest album “Revelations,” with a punk sensibility and Shook’s signature twang wrapped around casually queer lyrics about two lovers who really, really ought to break up – if either of them can ever manage to stop being pulled in long enough to walk away.
11. Alycia Lang, Bad Luck Bad Habit
Alycia Lang kicked off 2024 by dropping this smooth-as-silk track in February – not just the lead single from her album “Speak the Word to Hear the Sound,” but also her first new music in five years. She does know how to make you wait: “Bad Luck Bad Habit” grabs you from the outset and then very slowly builds to a rolling chorus that doesn’t kick in until the song’s almost over.
10. The Dead Tongues, Dirt For A Dying Sun
Back in the area after a spell out west, Ryan Gustafson’s Dead Tongues dropped a pair of albums this summer, “I Am A Cloud” and “Body of Light.” The highlight of the former album is the quiet, Springsteeny opening track “Lightning,” but the pinnacle of the whole set is this six-minute slow-burner – which, like “Bad Luck Bad Habit,” builds patiently to a triumphantly sad chorus.
9. Rapsody, 3:AM (f. Erykah Badu)
Marlanna Evans’ best-yet album “Please Don’t Cry” landed two Grammy nominations, including one for this luxurious bittersweet memory of an old romance, with an assist from the legendary Erykah Badu; you don’t know it’s all past tense until the last-second turn in the final verse.
Okay, so you remember how Soundgarden did “Rusty Cage,” and then Johnny Cash covered it a few years later, and it was great and everybody loved it? What if you could combine Johnny Cash and Chris Cornell together, and there was, like, one guy who could sing like both of them simultaneously?
Sorry, my mind wandered there for a second. Anyway, enjoy “Ghost Towns.”
7. Reese McHenry, I Do What I Want
Reese McHenry was working on a full album when her cancer came back, so maybe there’s more to come – she had an incredible song called “Red Ribbon” that still hasn’t gotten a release – but if this triumphant, middle-finger-to-the-world masterpiece does end up being it, what a hell of a closing statement.
Rest in peace, you amazing, kick-ass queen.
6 (tie). Joshua Gunn, HFM
6 (tie). G Yamazawa, Free Bass
A pair of upbeat, high-energy (high-frequency?) tracks from two of the Triangle’s brightest hip-hop stars – who shined together on Yamazawa’s classic “North Cack” back in 2017. (G Yamazawa, by the way, is one of the two artists to make our top 10 in each of the last two years. The other is actually a duo; we’ll get to them in just a bit.)
“I buried my own heart…” Jesse Fox dropped four singles from his album-of-the-year contender “Faster Dreams,” but I’m going to bypass them all and go with this quiet, poignant deep cut that reveals Fox at his rawest and most vulnerable. (If you disagree, that’s fine: flip over to Andrew Stuckey’s top-97 countdown, which has an entirely different Fox track on top.)
4. Iron & Wine (with Fiona Apple), All In Good Time
There are two Grammy-nominated songs on this list: Rapsody’s “3:AM” and this spectacular back-and-forth between the world-weary Sam Beam and the even world-wearier Fiona Apple. It’s not always obvious what the lyrics mean, but it’s crystal clear what they convey: two old souls, sad but smiling, after traveling through hell and heaven and out and back again, sharing the wisdom, hard earned, that for better or worse, all things do eventually pass.
3. Viv & Riley, Time Is Everything
“You been down in Asheville, fooling ‘round dusk till dawn…” Viv & Riley moved to the area only a couple years ago, but they’ve become our favorites real fast. They also made our top 3 last year with “Is It All Over”; that one was written by Riley Calcagno, so it’s fitting that this year’s entry is a Vivian Leva joint, a beautiful, sad, bittersweet story of a love slipping away. (It’s actually a re-recording of a song Leva recorded solo six years ago – making this one of two songs in our top three that have been bouncing around for quite a long time.)
2 (tie). The Collection, Medication
2 (tie). Owen FitzGerald, Cooler
Got to say a few words about these, because here are two very, very different songs about struggling with mental illness: one harrowing and jarring, told from the perspective of someone who’s losing their battle; the other uplifting and affirming, told from the perspective of someone who’s maybe about to start winning theirs. Both of them will absolutely bust you apart.
First, there’s Owen FitzGerald’s devastating “Cooler,” an all-too-true story about his friend Kevin Stillman Cook – just released this year but first written nearly two decades ago, when Cook was still alive to hear it. The lyrics are haunting enough, with one little detail after another gradually revealing a man who’s afraid he’s slipping away. (Though FitzGerald won’t let him go without a fight: “My name is Kevin Stillman Cook!” he repeats, again and again like a mantra, to guarantee you’ll never ever forget it.) But what actually knocks “Cooler” out of the park isn’t the lyrics: it’s the music, which starts out quiet and melodious and gradually becomes more and more discordant, beginning with one sudden harsh note 80 seconds in and building into a wall of feedback that all but drowns out the lyrics – and forces you to feel it all yourself, the cacophony, the conflict, the noise in our speaker’s head. There’s only one other song I can think of that’s anything like it, and that’s “Heroin,” by the Velvet Underground. So, put it on that same level: “Cooler” is not an easy listen, but that’s how it is sometimes with art.
And then on the entirely other end of the spectrum, there’s “Medication,” the centerpiece of The Collection’s latest album “Little Deaths.” Based in Saxapahaw (told you it’d be relevant), The Collection have been tackling mental health issues in their music for years now, but “Medication” is on a whole new level. Bright and joyous, with a driving, fist-pumping beat, propelled by David Wimbish’s simple but powerful (and autobiographical) affirmation – “I deserve to be well!” – it’s enough to inspire you to face anything. Wimbish said he figured it was too personal to connect with anyone else, but then was blown away by the response: “Some days there were 50 messages in my inbox, of people saying that they had tried ending their lives and then they heard the song and it was the thing that kept them going,” he told us. “It’s been overwhelming, and I’ve just felt so grateful.”
There have been a lot of amazing local songs this year, but “Medication” might be the only one that’s actually saved lives. Not bad for a couple of steps in a day.
And finally…
1. Shirlette Ammons, Short (f. Mavis Swan Poole)
“Even though we keep coming up short – we keep coming up. We keep coming up.” In a year full of great hip-hop – four songs in our top 10 alone, including Rapsody’s Grammy nominee – spoken-word goddess Shirlette Ammons rose above ‘em all with “Spectacles,” her first full-length album in eight years. The album’s title is itself a perfect example of Shirlette’s way with words and wordplay: it refers to her childhood experience of being treated as a ‘spectacle’ with her identical twin, and to her present-day feeling of being a ‘spectacle’ as a queer Black woman in a society where all three of those categories are minoritized – and to her desire to be a ‘spectacle’ on the stage, as a public figure and a performing artist. The full album features a who’s-who of local superstars, like Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, The Veldt’s Daniel Chavis, G Yamazawa, Kane Smego, and co-producer Phil Cook. And “Short” is the masterpiece of the masterpiece, with lyrics that rise up to triumph through the fire of personal and collective trauma, delivered with Ammons’ signature rapid-fire urgency.
One last fun fact: I’ve only been doing these countdowns for a few years, but if we speculate back in history, Shirlette Ammons may also have been my no. 1 in 2011 for “Kissin and Cussin,” her collaboration with Justin Robinson and the Dynamite Brothers. That would make her one of just a very few artists to hit number one in multiple years: think Mandolin Orange/Watchhouse, Ben Folds Five, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Superchunk, or the Connells. She’s on that level, y’all.
What was your favorite local song of 2024? Comment and let us know! And listen to (almost) all the songs that made our top 50 on the Spotify playlist below.
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