Spotify’s Wrapped really did a number on us this year. Instead of reminding us of all the stellar new artists we had discovered during the last twelve months, they just revealed how basic our every day tastes really were. Also a reminder of why we hate the platform, Wrapped definitely has a bias towards the most commerical artists out there. Loverboy’s Top 5 features Taylor, Ariana & Dua. How disappointingly obvious and yet somehow we were still surprised?! But something good has sprung from all this. Seeing this list actually made us incensed enough to compile, for the very first time, Loverboy’s Albums of the Year.
Our aim with this list is not to discuss further the most talked about albums of the year, albums that can be put on ’whenever’. No, this list is of the albums that we carefully selected to play with intent. The albums that made us excited to be alive in 2024 and reconsider our life choices. Maybe we should all move to Cornwall and celebrate the Winter Solstice…?!
So instead of Spotify rounding out our year with who we listened to most, here is our list of the albums that truly shook us…
#1 PRATA – Maquina.
Just typing those words releases a wild, feral energy. Something changed inside of us in 2020. Covid really fucked with our listening habits. Unless it was simply us turning 40 in the same year?! Regardless since then we have been on a quest to find the darkest, loudest, most raucously intense noise on the planet. Last year we discovered Model/Actriz and thought our journey was over. But with the release of PRATA we realised Maquina were what we had been looking for.
The Brazil/Portugal trio deliver frenzied guitar distortion, relentless, hypnotising bass and the most blood-curdling screams over the machine gun-like drums. Industrial, claustrophobic and sexy as hell. Conceived during the darkest moments of lockdown, when the band felt their loneliest, they produced this EBM banger…except with less of the E. Hallison told Loverboy in March, ‘We’re having so much fun doing this with just our instruments. So you could say we are more the BM in EBM for now. In a way it wasn’t a decision, it was what we had available to make music.’
We caught the band’s live experience last week and we cannot imagine a more perfect last show for the year. ‘Using our music as a catalyst to bring people together is something we’re passionate about. It’s amazing to see people of all ages and from various groups attending our concert, like goths, punks, old school rockers, new generations, young ravers, old ravers, and so on. Yesss, we also have our queer friends who know how to throw a good party.’
For many people it was the year of the BRAT but at Loverboy ours was like totally PRATA. And with any luck they’ll be back in our list next year. ‘We like to create, produce and release music quickly. I think if we could, we’d release one album every semester.’ Promises, promises.
#2 Girl With No Face – Allie X
2024 really was the year of Krautrock for us and we never saw it coming. ‘Oh, they tell me that I’m stubborn. Treffe meine wahl im zorn.’ Opening your third album in German?! Come on königin. Another album to thank lockdown for, 2020 saw X conceive, record and for the first time self-produce the project. As the paranoia of solitude began to set in, X slowly began to crack across these eleven songs as she bemoaned body dysphoria and lamented the lack of a magic eczema cream. And not only in the lyrics, but in the vocals too. She told Loverboy at the beginning of the year, ‘I’m squealing, screaming or wailing on every track.’
Girl with No Face runs like the most fun moodboard filled with references to the most alt icons of music with nods to Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Siouxsie Sioux and more. Almost a year later and we’re still clocking new clues. Last week it was a sample of a sample from Kate Bush’s ‘The Dreaming’. ‘I totally love Kate Bush. She used this incredibly rare and expensive, huge synth and I totally delved deep into that. Then vocally of course, I love her eccentricities.’
The album is full of pop excellence from the declaration of ‘You Slept On Me’ to the ode to her gays, ‘John & Jonathan.’ We have lost count of the nights we have stumbled home screaming ‘Black Eye.’ When it failed to appear in our Wrapped Top 10 was the moment we realised the rigga morris of it all.
#3 Perak – Thee Marloes
One popular choice for a lot of Best Of 2024 lists has understandably been Clairo’s Charm and it deserves all its flowers. With gorgeous vocals from Clairo, we totally fell for the production of one Leon Michaels. Michaels also happens to be the co-founder of Big Crown Records, the home of #3 on our list of Best of 2024.
We really have Bandcamp’s Album of the Day feature to thank for discovering this and immediately falling in love with it. Coming right out of Surabaya, Indonesia, Thee Marloes mix their own culture with that sweet sound of 60s Soul, Jazz and Pop. Right from that opener of a cascading piano you immediately know this album has been exquisitely made. Elsewhere in the mix there’s organ, trumpet and flute to be found, creating that hazy lounge bar feel. Natassya Sianturi’s vocals are seemingly so effortless and cool as she sings in English and her native Indonesian, she’s backed by some intricate backing vocal work. With the richness of the vocals and production, Thee Marloes absolutely feel like they are from the same universe as Inflo’s Sault.
#4 Deeper Well – Kacey Musgraves
They might appear to be genres apart but on closer inspection Kacey Musgraves’ sixth album is not so far from Perak. Both look to the past for inspiration, immediately give you that warm feeling of being in safe hands and have incredible vocal moments – can we talk about the ending of ‘Sway’?! After the creative misstep that was Star-Crossed, there is a nagging fear that this is her Charmbracelet, going back to her comfort zone after a stumble. But when the album sounds like this we are choosing to brush them aside.
In 2024 we’ve been reading up on the UK’s history of Prog Rock, heralded by the likes of the Canterbury Set and Fairport Convention. There’s definitely a trace of their psychedelia to be found in Deeper Well, from interpolating a Robert Burns’ Scottish folk song from the 1700s in ‘Heaven Is’ to the Wicker Man off-kilter vibes of opener ‘Cardinal’. On first listen Deeper Well looks to that 60s purity of love. It’s on further listening that more alternative elements begin to reveal themselves. Writing this we also discovered that Leon Michaels appears on a track from the Deluxe package. You better work, Leon Michaels.
#5 brat – Charli XCX
One of the many highlights of Primavera Sound 2024 was jumping into a taxi and vroom vroom-ing it over to Barceloneta for Charli XCX’s pop-up playback of brat. The timing was kind of insane because as we jumped out, Charli also pulled up in front of us with her squad. We semi-stalked her across the street to the crowd and the DJ booth. The sound system was questionable but there was no denying this album was going to be a breakthrough.
We’re still reeling at the irony of Crash being set up to be her big moment, but brat proved that sincerity always wins. For all of its punk spirit, pop hooks and electro-clash production, Charli really laid it on the line with this album. Singing about her body clock ticking away, doubting friendships due to her own insecurities or even just the fear of saying something stupid. Pretty heavy shit for a club album.
Then there were the remixes featuring appearances from Ariana, Robyn, Billie and our absolute song of the year, ‘Girl, so confusing’ featuring Lorde. Getting into the drama behind that one and then yes, how they worked it out on the remix was truly healing.
The brat tour looked so sleazy with strobe lights, industrial staging and Charli half-naked grinding on the cameras. Next summer we get to experience a SWEAT show, her joint headline tour with Troye Sivan at Primavera Sound 2025. A brat summer? We’re looking at twelve months minimum, baby…
#6 George Alley – George Alley
From a brat to a babe who only ‘wanted the choice to be bad’, Loverboy’s Features Editor making his album debut. As one might expect from a certified Professor in Punk, the sounds on his debut were diverse, from Post Punk to 80s Americana and even a moment of Ska. Two years in the making, the album was ‘about thinking about me in the past, present and the future,’ George told Loverboy.
Covering summer flings, jealous lovers and the nostalgia of youth, George looks back at his relationships and realises he was not always the innocent party. ‘I enjoyed portraying a character who is essentially jealous and looking to destroy the other romantic connection, adding a bratty twist to it. That’s a part of me!’
‘Wishlist’ is the one we chose for our Tracks of the Year playlist because we love a Brian Molko-style snarl delivering the line, ‘You made a mess, what do you want?’ There are not many songs released this year that we can say we have woken up singing. We also need to give ‘Ink’ its flowers though because from the opening vocal-distortion that we thought was a didgeridoo to George full on maniacally wailing his way through the second half, it is a trip. ‘It started out as a fifteen-minute song of percussive feedback with me singing Arabic scales using a processor called Arcana.’ George, along with producer Ian Romer, really took it to church on this one, albeit that of a Satanic cult.
#7 Dreamstate – Kelly Lee Owens
As we write this, we are experiencing turbulence high in the clouds somewhere above the Pyrenees, perched next to the escape door with only a small porthole to peer out of. We are refusing to acknowledge reality and have switched our seat to decline with Kelly Lee Owens’ fourth album elevating our spirits.
Dreamstate is full of ethereal trance pop lifting you to another (turbulence-free) plane, one that is equal parts soothing and energising. Bright, clean, airy, open, big, optimistic. KLO’s vocals have never sounded more celestial and let it be known that we love a pan pipe in the mix. Dreamstate takes us back to our days of (bedroom) raving to Robert Miles, with the beachy shimmer of Y2K Willim Orbit. If in 2020, she described her sound to Loverboy as ‘Welsh Witch Tech’ then with Dreamstate she has moved out of the darkness and transcended to the Good Witch of the Welsh country. A Primavera Sound 2025 essential.
#8 Howl – Daisy Rickman
Yesterday marked the darkest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. And if we had not been out watching the cast of Dragatha Christie’s merry tale of A Christmas Poisoning then for sure we would have spent it at home, worshipping the moon while playing Daisy Rickman’s second album, Howl.
It was through the wonderful Weird Walk that we discovered Rickman and found ourselves at her show in Bristol’s The Cube as part of The Song Has No Ending. A former Chinese theatre, with it’s abandoned props and shabby decor, it was the perfect setting for such a magical May Day celebration.
On Howl Rickman’s distinctive deep voice really brings the cermonial energy to the self-taught songwriter’s songs celebrating rich Cornish culture. It was the haunting ‘Bleujen an Howl’ that hypnotised us the most, with the multi-instrumentalist utilising banjo, drums, a clarinet and singing in Cornish dialect, double-tracking her vocals. The whole album is mysterious and meditative and we have spent many a night getting lost in it.
#9 Another Heaven – Curses
Giving us the ‘sexy spooky season’ he promised Loverboy in October, Curses was the sound of this year’s Halloween and indeed our descent into the darker days of winter. After curating a most excellent and extensive compilation of what is means to be Next Wave Acid Punx, the producer, singer, artist returned to the day…night job, with his third album Another Heaven.
Featuring gorgeous Gregorian-chant style vocals, dramatic Post-Punk, Another Heaven tells of Gothic romances, grief and ghosts and the album saw Curses co-produce the record with Italians Do It Better legend Johnny Jewel ‘to bring an extra sound and dark synth pop energy to [my] music.’ Our favourite moments were the use of a church bell, his take on the romantric ballads of 80s/90s Latin Freestyle and the b2b of ‘Elegant Death’ with ‘H2SG’.
#10 Challengers – Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, mixed by Boys Noize.
Despite being low-key obsessed with every Luca Guadgigno release since 2009’s I Am Love, we went into Challengers feeling extremely sceptical about a hetero love-triangle in the world of tennis. But the second those sweaty, sexy and very strained faces appeared onscreen we felt foolish for ever having doubted the director. Challengers was extremely fun and very hot. One major factor in all this was the major club vibes of the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A triumph in itself and complementing the film’s tension, it was actually the fully mixed Boys Noize edit that we spent the most time with. ‘Yeah x10′ was our standout, sounding like an extended interlude from Scissor Sisters’ Night Work, but the whole mix was a banger.
