This is what you came here for!

Mix 47: Annual year-end ketchup with recommendations from friends far and wide. Hippo inclusive.

Gotta get down

Happy new year! Of course there has not been enough time to find 2025 music just yet (you will need to wait seven whole days for that), so I will use this first post of the year to share my catch-up mix from other people’s playlists. A lot of it comes from tracks mentioned in the Bluesky Top24of24 challenge, which I wrote about and linked to last week.

It’s still the holiday season for a few more days, though, so enough yapping up top, let’s see what I found.

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Previous 2024 mixes

MIX 47: THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME HERE FOR!

1. Rebecca Black: Trust!

A stunner from Rebecca Black, via Katherine St. Asaph in The Singles Jukebox’s Amnesty Week. I know that Black has been leveling up since 2011 (and in fact did a passable Hilary Duff deep cut before the end of her debut year), seemingly grinding it out on pop’s C-minus-list, pop domination as a grueling online multiplayer game. So consider this her new limit break (sorry, haven’t played video games in over 20 years, do characters still have those?), channeling Gwen and Gaga and Britney and Kesha like she’s been fighting monsters in the wilderness thanklessly for a decade until it finally pays off — which she has, and it has.

2. Cosmorat: Backseat Baby [2023]

A 2023 single on a 2024 EP, courtesy idca, from a London pop weirdo who has made the best Sleigh Bells chorus since…Sleigh Bells. Huh, do people not copy Sleigh Bells? They should!

3. EMELINE: 99 Boys

A pick from Ava Foxfort that provides a missing link between c. 2018 Spotifycore (trop-house + lazy interpolations) and A-pop, with an undeniable, if undeniably cheap, quickie rewrite of “99 Luftballoons” to opine on dime-a-dozen douchebags.

4. Maria Becerra: Iman (Two of Us)

One of two from Jay, another win for Argentine alt-pop, this one with an artificially sweetened A-pop flavor. (For those keeping score, this means the “A” now stands for: America, Anglophone, Albania, Amy Allen, Addams [“this thing is bad, and that’s why it’s good!”], asterisk, ascendant, alteration, and artificial.)

5. Lauren Mayberry: Something in the Air

This solo effort from CHVRCHES’ Lauren Mayberry posed a mystery to Hannah Jocelyn, who couldn’t figure out which earworm it was referencing. Speculation ensued about its connection to 90s alt and Britpop, and whether or not it is baggy—a topic I’ve given much thought since it became a meme in which a song’s baggy-ness is denoted by the maracas emoji, which I annoyingly can’t process on my laptop. (This would be three maracas out of five easy).

I figured out, seemingly milliseconds before Hannah did, that the song it’s really pulling from is not baggy and not from the ‘90s but is in fact (pause for dramatic effect) “No Air” by Jordin Sparks.

6. CLIPZ f. Chy Cartier: New

This might be my favorite find of the #Top24of24 tournament, from Blueskyer Billy Bell, who shares this breakneck dnb pop from Clipz that is a perfect showcase for rapper Chy Cartier.

7. Cannelle, 3mouth: Lucky

I credit Ryo Miyauchi mostly with Japanese (and occasionally other Asian countries) pop music recommendations from This Side of Japan, including an upcoming song on this very mix, but in this case it’s no-budget rap sass by two artists who, judging from past experience with high-charm and low-production-value rap could remain nobodies forever or could be the hugest stars in the world by 2026.

8. f5ve: Underground

A major J-pop highlight that Jel and at least one Singles Jukebox reader clued me in to at year-end time, an interesting combination of woozy and commanding, the warped edges seeming to comment on the unstoppable song in the center like a funky frame that draws attention to its painting. It’s usually hard to tell whether hyperpop has any meaningful impact on J-pop, which has had its own flavor of “hyper” for many decades now, but this one does seem to bend a bit toward it.

9. Sasuke Haraguchi: Medicine

The second Ryo rec and the second appearance of what I guess by default is my favorite Vocaloid artist this year (the first was “UTAUbot”). This goes even harder, indeed hard enough to overcome my policy not to use repeat artists on my catch-up recap.

10. MC Yallah, Debmaster: Nzimba Zinyota

Tom Ewing very kindly roped me into this flattering lay-up opportunity on Bluesky the other day:

But I am only human (i.e., I’m finding things haphazardly as a rule), so I was happy to discover several great songs from his own list from artists I should’ve paying more consistent attention to. He does a better job than I do of actually following the careers of artists I love for a year and then promptly ignore in favor of some shiny new ball of foil — hence this incredible MC Yallah & Debmaster 8-bit banger, as well as a great song from veteran UK reggae artist MC Spyda with producer Selecta J-Man that just missed this mix. Tom’s also always good for keeping tabs on any delightfully dumb memes I’ve somehow missed (see hippo-pop-tamus below).

11. Erik Hegdal, Josefin Runsteen, Per “Texas” Johansson, Anja Lauvdal, Ole Marten Vågan, Hans Hulbækmo, Thea Grant: Vibrato Chess

Of course the one time I don’t carefully comb through a Brad Luen playlist is the time I miss out on a song, and maybe album, that I really should have given more time to this year. Luen Sez:

“Vibrato Chess” is a goof on “Wuthering Heights”—down to Vågan’s electric bass and Anja Lauvdal’s synth taking turns parodying the guitar solo—though with Cathy optimistic, having made a happy posthumous marriage to Casper the Friendly Ghost or someone, hoping one day Heathcliff too will be boneless. What’s truly supernatural is that both featured vocalists are fine.

12. Karat K: Moo Deng Reggaeton

Moo Deng Reggaeton. I don’t feel any further words are necessary here.

13. Alizzz, Maria Arnal: Despertar

14. Delaporte: Súbete la Radio

Two Spanish firecrackers from People’s Pop/League of Pop regular Dan Bright Amaya, the first bright-eyed indie with MGMT electrosquiggles and the second a straight-ahead club thump with a different variety of electrosquiggles.

15. Nathy Peluso f. Lua de Santana: Menina

This is the original version of an Argentine pop song nominated by Steve Mannion for its Mura Masa remix. I would love to say that the reason I picked this one is not because I put the wrong version on the playlist until mere seconds ago when I looked it up and realized my mistake — so I will! I like the original better.

16. Cyril Cyril, Syndicat du futur: La meteo

The Bongo Joe label is almost as consistent for discovery as longtime pop pal Jeff Worrell, who nominated this one, always proves to be. Bongo Joe’s Spotify lists are one of my playlist pull sources, but this swaggering kid chorus stomper fell through the cracks. (Cyril Cyril did feature once in 2023.)

17. Florence Adooni: Otoma da Naba

Music challenges are a nice way to meet new folks and find new music — this is from “Mr. Cubicle” on Blueksy, who nominated this one along with an impressive number of songs I selected for the Golden Beatology playlist of novel pop discoveries during the Top24of24 challenge. This is Ghanaian pop from a member of popular highlife group Alogte Oho's Sounds of Joy, with impressively cosmopolitan ambitions.

18. TELEx TELEXs: ใช่หรอวะ (WTF) [2023]

Another song from a 2024 album originally released in late 2023, lush 80s-indebted Thai pop via Jay.

19. Simmy: Moya Wami

A recent release from South African pop star Simmy, via Singles Jukebox writer Dorian Sinclair (who also nominated the highest-reviewed TSJ song of the year, RYUTist’s “Kimi no Mune ni Gunshot” for Amnesty Week). Uses a sample so bold I won’t spoil it for you — maybe my #2 interpolation gasp of the year after DJ Kawest’s “Konpa Paradise 2.” Or at least a tie with Camila Cabello’s Gucci Mane quote.

20. Nicola Cruz: Perma

Yet more golden beat gold from Dan Bright Amaya, smooth but annoyingly hard to describe instrumental dance music from an Ecuadorean DJ and producer.

21. Batu: Zeal

A techno highlight from the Top24of24 challenge but I can’t sort out who originally nominated it. Appreciated other people’s ability to keep on top of various dance and electronic scenes — might as well take this opportunity to plug Michaelangelo Matos’s newsletter Beat Connection, too. I have listened to maybe a fraction of one percent of the music he’s posted, but I do plan on buying a book (Dream Machines by Matthew Collin) based on his recommendations here.

22. DijahSB: Uh Huh

Another one where I can’t find the original source or adequately blurb the sound — the sort of hip-house that leans hard on the house without sacrificing the hip.

23. Sully: XT

Aidan Byrne on Bluesky confirms something that I believe to be true but don’t listen to enough dance music to prove: “There’s so much formulaic D&B stuff knocking about that when you hear something as good as this it’s genuinely startling.” Why it is I can hear the non-formulaic stuff without having any reliable way to describe what exactly I’m hearing remains a beguiling personal mystery that I doubt will be solved any time soon.

24. Elijah Minnelli: Ha’penny Dub

And finally, ending things with a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin dub nomination from Lonepilgrim, who heard this song the day before posting it. There were a few entries like this throughout the challenge, which I always appreciated — a lot of us critical types take December off for new music, but new music keeps chugging along.

And speaking of which, I’ll see you next week with the first new mix of 2025! Here’s hoping my slop-sorting muscles haven’t atrophied in the interim.

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That’s it! Until next time, keep discovering new things, even if they’re not actually new (no Columbus).

—Dave Moore (the other one)

Title from Rebecca Black’s “Trust!”