As the year-end lists roll in, Belfast writer and musician Ben Behzadafshar cuts through the noise with a sharp, refreshingly unsentimental look at 2024 in music (see: the ‘Song Intro That Sounds Most Like In the End by Linkin Park’ Award, claimed by Fontaines D.C.)
The 17th-century French composer Jean Baptiste Lully once got so swept up in one of his own compositions that he smashed a conducting staff used for keeping time through his foot. The foot became gangrenous, but he refused to have it taken off. Why? The man loved to dance. He died shortly after. Louis XIV is recorded as having said of the incident, “We get it Jean, you’re really into music.”
In January 2024 I had a stark realisation: I was in a musical rut. I was listening to the same old albums, and it had been a long time since I’d really connected with any new artists. Year-end lists were becoming increasingly esoteric to me. I was out of the loop. I pictured my music-obsessed 18-year old self; he was giving me the finger and mouthing “You old bastard.” Something had to be done. And so, I decided to utilise my one great asset in the fight against pop-culture irrelevance – my job as a manual labourer. Doing a physical job that requires almost zero thought leaves a lot of space for curated distraction. I bought a pair of Bluetooth ear defenders, I subscribed to a bunch of online music mags and I got to it. Every week I would download a rake of albums, and listen to them start to finish, usually about four or five times each, until I had a favourite track. That track would then go into a playlist, which is included below for your perusal. It’s extensive. Think of it as going to a food market and trying all the samples; you may find something you really love, or you may overindulge and leave feeling both ill, yet somehow unsatisfied. If I didn’t like the album I still stuck with it, though if I really hated it I sometimes didn’t. I was feeling good; I like a project, and in the masculine tradition, I am prepared to let a project ruin something that used to be just for pleasure. As time went on, I began to fret about the increasing amount of downloaded albums I had to get through. I took the dog on walks he didn’t want to go on to bank another hour. I woke up in the night questioning my taste. Was I driving myself mad, or was that just my tinnitus getting worse? Was I still enjoying this? And if not, could I use this experience to derive something positive, maybe even create something? So here we are with the inaugural 2024 Lully Awards. I just have to figure out a way to tie up this analogy, hang on… I have driven the spike of hundreds of listening hours through the foot of my mental health, and I now present you with the gangrenous lump of my unsolicited opinions. Jesus. That’s not really the image I was hoping to end up with when I started writing this, but here we are. Anyway. Some of these awards are for albums, some for individual songs. Some are just what was happening when I was listening to them. There will be exclusions and oversights. You might enjoy this more if you bear in mind that I’m not a music critic, I’m just a guy who cuts grass for a living.
And so to kick off, the most coveted award of them all. Yes it’s the…
Sad in the Shower Award
Winner: ‘Marigolds’ by WHY?
Runner up: I Don’t Love You by Charlotte Day Wilson
Disqualified: Real House by Adrienne Lenker (Too sad)
Sexiest Song Award
Winner: ‘Miss Flower’ by Emilíana Torrini
Runner up: ‘Machiavelli’s Room’ by Hamish Hawk
The ‘Strutting About the Place’ Award
Winner: ‘Sugarfish’ by O
Runner up: ‘Mood Swings’ by Little Simz
Best Song Intro Award
Winner: ‘American Standard’ by Uniform
(also Winner of Best misheard lyric: “It hangs on my arms!” heard by my friend Ricki as: “There are eggs on my arms!”
Worst Lyric Award
Winner: “Split like a thunderstruck tree trunk.”
‘How I Learned to Love the Bomb’ by Glass Animals
Runner up: “She rises in advance of her panties, I can confirm that God actually exists.”
‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Disqualified: In the song Set The House On Fire, Peter Perrett finishes an already dreadful stanza by rhyming “sky” and “fly” – a crime so egregious that I can barely bring myself to acknowledge it.
The ‘Song Intro That Sounds Most Like the Intro to In The End by Linkin Park’ Award
Winner: ‘Starburster’ by Fontaines D.C.
(Also winners of Worst Aesthetic Award, obviously)
The Vibes [Definition Not Found] Award
Winner: ‘Very Much My Promise To You’ by Moon Diagrams
Runners up: ‘Peace at Home’ by Gnod
‘Mahal’ by Glass Beams
The ‘Song That Made Me Realise That Spelling Out Words As Part Of The Lyrics Is Actually Really Daft, Like How Have We Been Letting People Get Away With This For So Long?’ Award
Winner: ‘Electra’ by Public Service Broadcasting
The ‘Intolerable Example of an Intolerable Genre’ Award
Winner: ‘Where’s My Utopia’ by Yard Act
The ‘Is This Really Brilliant, Or Is It Literally Destroying Me?’ Award
Winner: ‘If I don’t make it, i love u’. by Still House Plants
The ‘Song Most Likely To Make You Get Out Your Phone And Just Finally Send That Text, The One That Says “I’m Sorry, I Don’t Want To Fight Any More, You Know I Love You, I Do” Award’
Winner: ‘Everybody’ by Ezra Collective
Top Trend of 2024
Winner: A tedious spoken word track in an indie album
Runners up: More flute than you’d usually expect
Releases by composite members of bands you listened to as a youth (Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore, Beth Gibbons & Beak>, Pixies & Kim Deal)
So that’s that. Like my therapist used to say, “The best catharsis is to pass your pain onto someone else.” (He’s in prison now.) I hope you’ve enjoyed this. I don’t think I’ll do it again. But I am going to keep listening to new music, albeit with less militance than this year. Don’t forget to support artists and your local record shops by buying the stuff you love (shout out Jason at First Press who recommended a bunch to me this year). Lastly, congrats to all the artists who managed to get records out in 2024, ahead of Richard Dawson and FKA Twigs dominating in 2025.
Fuck it, here’s my best of the year:
Bolis Pupul – Letter To Yu
2-8. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
Dehd – Poetry
Mabe Fratti – Sentir Que No Sabes
Hamish Hawk – A Firmer Hand
Adrienne Lenker – Bright Future
Uniform – American Standard
Meril Wublsin – Faire Ça
