Indiecast - The 2024 Indiecasties

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

It's the most wonderful time of the year! We're giving out our annual Indiecasties awards for 2024. Steven and Ian start with a brief conversation about the modern state of Spin magazine (0:00) and some big-picture thoughts on 2024, and then get about the business of giving out their trophies for the best and worst things of this year (9:40). Categories include: Most Valuable Annoying Music Story (15:59), Feel-Good Story Of The Year (23:27), Most 2024 Album Of 2024 (28:57), Most Memory-Holed Album (37:28), Best Musician Catastrophe (47:28), The Hyped Album That Was Actually Really Good (54:15), The Most Egregiously Overrated Album On Year-End Lists (59:57), and the year's MVP (1:06:50).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 219 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we hand out our annual Indycaste's Awards for 2024. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, his artist of the year for the second year in a row is Killer Mike. Ian Cohen, Ian, Ian, how are you? Yeah, we had to do a whole lot of like internal.

editing in our minds before we recorded this episode about how much we're going to talk about like spin just being the single most avant-garde out there publication. But I'm thinking, you know, with Killer Mike, like when you listen to the old Outcast albums or like all the organized noise ones, they have like the big Rube intro where you get the spoken word talking about like these like deep spiritual matters and maybe Killer Mice going to do that. But like instead of Big Rube, we're going to get like Bill Maher talking about like the death of woke or whatever. I know you know those two are good like there's such a there's such a clear cut career path for guys I used to think we're like really truth tellers back in the day like because the

don't get like those early killer Mike albums are fucking awesome um and it I will never ever listen to again kind of knowing where things went but yeah killer Mike uh he's I the the word on the street is strong that he will be sweeping the Indycasties this year we'll see what happens I mean, we should fill people in here because they may not even be aware that Spin magazine still exists, but they do. And I don't know, we were talking about how amazing this magazine is in 2024. And I say that sincerely. I'm glad that they're around. I'm glad Bob Gucciini Jr. is back.

He survived the get in the ring controversy from 30 plus years ago. He's back in the saddle at Spin. and he's just letting his Gen X freak flag fly. He named Killer Mike spins artists of the year for 2024, even though the Killer Mike record came out in 2023. Well, I think he made like a kind of like a band version of it. I think he made like a, sort of like a Black Pumas type move

where you make like the deluxe live version of the album and just keeps getting nominated for Grand. Emmys every single year. Okay. Well, that is a reason to call someone the artist of the year. If you repackage your album in an effective way, I think you've got to give the nod for the year. Work smarter, not harder. Spin also named the Billy Joel song that came out this year, one of the five best songs of the year.

Love it. Love that pick. I'm trying to remember what that song was called. I don't. Turn on the lights. I think it's called Turn on the Lights, something like that. I mean, of all critics, I should know. this. I feel a little derelict in my duty. They just ran an interview with Bill Maher conducted

by Bob Cuccione Jr., where they talk about problems on the left and how the left is too woke. It's a very surprising interview. I'm glad that Bill Maher finally has a forum to talk about that. But I am glad that spin A still exists because it was a remnant of my formative years as a music fan. And also, as you said, and You called it the most avant-garde publication out there. You're being a little snarky with that, but there is something entertaining to me about a magazine that is, yeah, so out of touch. Way out of touch with what's going on right now.

But also different from what you're seeing, from everybody else. And I got to say that the out-of-touchness, I can forgive. just to have something that's a little bit different and kind of bonkers. So I keep spin going. I mean, how long has Spin been a zombie? I feel like Steve, like Steve Candell was the editor around like 2010. I feel like that was the last era where it wasn't in this sort of like weird state. I mean, they've had good people work there since that it's not the fault of the staff.

It's just that the ownership has been very strange at spin for like 15 years or so. To say the least, I mean, I made a joke, not really a joke. It was a truth that, you know, it was a functional publication so recently that I did a model actuary's interview for them just last year because the name still mattered. And that's why, you know, the editor there, that editor was good, Daniel. Yeah. Yeah, shout to Daniel Kahn. Yeah. But it's, I mean, I think the name still matters to a certain type of person.

And you're just going to keep on doing that until like Bob Guccione the third, I guess, decides to give it up or whatever and just get, go straight into TikTok. Is there another Guccioni? That's a great question. Is there like a, like a Kendall Roy of Guccionis? But isn't that Bob Guccione Jr? I mean, I'm just facing this. off of what Axel Rose taught me and getting the ring.

Yeah, which we don't need to repeat what Axel says about it. It's a little insulting in retrograde, but also very funny, as many things related to the usual illusion albums are. But yeah, yeah, you're right. Guccione Jr.

would be, he's sort of like a Kendall Roy. He's like a hybrid of all the Roy kids. Yeah. And then... Maybe not shit. Maybe not shit. Maybe not Shiv. But yeah, definitely like some Logan,

maybe a little bit of a cousin Greg in there as well. Right. But yeah, Guccione Jr. He is like just the Uber Gen X guy. And he just has that sensibility so much. Because he reviewed the Killer Mike album last year. That was infamous. Did that get an Indycasti, his review?

We talked to, it was so bizarre. I think we mentioned it, but it was like, like the premise of it was like, yeah, I haven't paid attention to rap in like 20 years. Also, this is like the single best, most important and most influential rap album of the past 20 years. It was, like, you have to love just the unapolitan, well, you don't have to love it. There's obviously a lot of things wrong with this worldview, but it's just such a strange thing to behold. Also, like, their year-end list is like, there's like six or seven inclusions on it. It's like not even a top 10. It like, there's like six things and it just like stops as if it's like, you know,

us recording indie cast and like all of a sudden our Zoom cuts out. Well, Guccione Jr., he's been listening to the Killer Mike album and then they put out the reissue of the Killer Mike album. So then you have to listen to that. Yeah. And then Billy Joel put out a song. And then how much time do you have left over after that? Seriously.

after you've absorbed those things. I love it. I genuinely love that spinners around and doing bonkers things like this. We need it. Because look, do we need another website or publication to say that like Brat is the best album of the year? No, we don't.

We've got that covered. But do we have anyone stumping for the Killer Mike album from 2023 and 2024? Yeah, Newsrefit Ali Khan. Yeah, for all the Pearl Jam heads out there. That guy was getting some run in the spin year end list as well. Something too. Like they called Ban Camp their thing of the year?

I don't know what that means. Sure. Yeah, sure, man. Their thing, is it like the thing? Like the movie The Thing? Are they calling Ban Camp an alien creature that takes the form of human life and kills everything in its path? Is that what they're saying Ban Camp is? I'm thinking there's a possibility that they just,

that Bob Gutione, Jr. just discovered. band camp this year and is killer mike on band camp killer mike he's i'm going to look this up i want to see if killer mike is on ban camp because maybe that's where yeah uh he is on band camp you can get you can get uh michael the critically acclaimed by spin album from twenty twenty three also like once i think he won the grammy or something yeah so maybe we're out of touch maybe guccioni junior he he he was like hey wait a second I can buy the killer mic album. I don't have to just stream it. I can buy it from this thing, this thing called Band Camp.

Throw that on the year-end list. This is pretty cool. I can make comments. I can like it. Yeah, I think it would be really awesome if Bob Gutione Jr. bought the CD of Michael from Band Camp site. I think, but that's the way we square the circle or whatever that phrase is. Yeah, it would be amazing.

Yeah. I'm just imagining Bob Gutione Jr. you're doing blow off of the killer Mike CD in his spin office. Yeah. That'd be an amazing thing. All right, enough of spin talk. Let's talk about the Indycasties for 2024. This is my favorite time of the year.

This is the last Indycast episode of the year, by the way. So it's a bittersweet occasion. But, you know, I just love the pageantry, Ian, of the Indycastes, the glamour, the celebrities, the glitz, the awards that get handed out. is music's biggest night. Or I guess we're recording this in the morning. So music's biggest morning, the Grammys can have the night, I guess. But yeah, you know, 2024, just big picture here before we get into the awards.

I was thinking about this this morning, about how 2024 in a way, and not just musically, but culturally, feels like the beginning of the 2020s to me. I think, you know, when we talk about like when decades end and when they begin, it's not just what's on the calendar. You know, it's not like the 2020s begin on January 1, 2020. You have some lingering effects from the previous decade. You know, in the 60s, for instance, the Beatles coming to America. People say that that's the beginning of the 60s. Or maybe it's JFK getting assassinated.

The 90s, you know, would be the release of Nevermind. I've heard people say that. or the 2000s, like 9-11 is the beginning of the 2000s. 2024 felt like the beginning of the 2020s to me in a lot of ways. And you can point to the election as being a very obvious starting point, which is kind of strange because obviously Trump was the president in the back half of the 2010s and he was the dominant figure and culture at that time. But something about this election, it feels different.

you know, I think some of the resistance culture that really came about in the Trump term of the late 2000s, 2010s carried over into the 2020s. Of course, we had COVID, which was a thing that put a lot of things kind of in deep freeze, but also started a lot of the resentments that really came into play with this election. But I don't know, it feels like looking ahead to next year and the years beyond that. Like we're not going to have the hashtag resistance culture that we had for the first of Trump administration. A lot of people have talked about how, you know, there's this sort of recalibration maybe of how people feel. I've said this. I feel like we're going to start seeing a lot of culture that is maybe reminiscent of what we saw 20 years ago,

where people are like pushing buttons and seeing how like insult comic type culture. You know, not just in humor, but in music. Yeah, all over the place. But yeah, you can see that in music too. I feel like obviously we had big stars, but they were emerging stars this year that feel like they're really poised to take over. I know, it's a very fascinating year. I thought it was a great year for music, but it also feels like a pretty pivotal one as well. I mean, yeah, COVID, that was pretty hot back.

in 2020. But yeah, I do think that there is this like cultural recalibration or just something that feels a little bit broken off from the previous couple of years. That was not true in 2022 and 23. You know, because yeah, we might look back at the end of the decade and perhaps the things that started to happen in 2021 or what have you are now taking, you know, shape in the same way that like, we couldn't tell in 2011 that like Tyler the creator and like Frank Ocean would be the definitive artists of that or and the weekend would be the definitive artist of that decade. But I think just from a just an everyday perspective, 24 felt so much different than previous years. You know, we're going to talk about, you know, the changing of the guard with like pop music. I mean, this is about as

that like you would see like big publications saying, yeah, maybe Taylor and Beyonce are a little bit washed. And, you know, people could not stop talking about, like the pop girlies, as it were. And, you know, that's their words, not mine. But so I feel okay using it. And also, yeah, just with 2016, like, we've talked about this a lot with the election. People felt like, oh, we just didn't know it was coming. We were caught off guard. We can run it back in 2020 and 2024. Now, mind you, I saw a lot of articles saying that, like, Kamala Harris is by far the most popular candidate for 2028, so at the moment. So we can't definitively, because that was another kind of through line of the year.

Like nothing ever really dies. The things that we thought were gone are still hanging out. But yeah, I think that this year, just for me, as a music writer as a music fan, there were certain times where I felt like behind the curve in 2022 and 2023. But this year, it just felt like a completely different. ballgame. Like a new generation had emerged within the past four years and they're running things and I have no clue what's going on. I have no grounds even which to try to engage with certain forms of pop culture. And so it's in some ways exciting because hopefully like the, with the

Democratic Party, you realize the old way of doing things is no longer sustainable. And it frees you from like these past ideas, but on the other, it's like, I'm 44 years old. I don't know how many more pivots I've gotten me. Well, on that note, it's the Indycasties. I feel like we should have some like award show music right here. I should. Ian Grant, our editor can pipe some in right now as I'm talking. But yeah, we've got a bunch of categories about a lot of awards, so we should get down to it here before we run out of time. Our first category, this is always one of the biggest categories of the indie cast these, just like at the Oscars, they usually announce like best supporting actor, best supporting actors at the beginning. You want to hook people in. Our category

is most valuable, annoying music story. And this is a category that we reserve for topics that were big among people in the media, things that we saw people talking about a lot that were, that was very irritating to us. But, you know, we need annoying discourse. to have a show. So while we're annoyed, we also appreciate the annoying discourse. We find it valuable. And these are the nominees

for the most valuable, annoying music story. And I'll read these nominees. I guess we'll just go back and forth with the different categories. Ian, if that's okay with you. Worst for me. The nominees are,

Kamala is Brat. That's a good one. Wow. Remember that? That already feels like it was a long time ago. I remember when that happened. I was in Duluth, Minnesota. on vacation with my family, looking at my phone instead of at the beautiful shoreline of Lake Superior.

Not the last time I've been distracted by my phone while on vacation with my family. Next nominee, the no-by-line Taylor Swift album review from Paste. That was a good one. Complaining about people sharing Spotify Rapped. That's annual nominee. We could do that one every year. Because you don't want to promote Spotify. It's a little known streaming platform,

and you sharing your Spotify wrapped is lining Daniel X pockets. Did you know that, Ian? Yeah, have we ever talked about whether Daniel Eck is like Phil X, brother, or whatever, like a long loss? Look for the on with me on the cover. Not brother.

There might be some distant relationship, but what country is he from again? Sweden. Maybe there, maybe act is like Jones in Sweden. Complaining about year-end lists running in early December. Another annual tradition. Yeah, I actually wrote a column about this. Someone asked me this and I wrote an asking music critic column that is up on Uprocks today

where I ranted at length about this very tiresome annual complaint. Also understandable too. I understand why people make that complaint, but I make a case for why people run their list a little bit early. Indies Lees won't die. Anything regarding AI and people getting mad, I guess, about AI stuff?

Because that was your nominee. Yeah, just anything like regard, like this is a catch-all territory because like, of recently like there was this band that I've talked about on this podcast before called Hot Mulligan and like they use chat GBT as like an obvious joke.

and it got so misunderstood or taken in bad faith by like the indie DIY emo community which has no problem taking things completely out of context and bad faith and they quit Twitter because of it or just like the mannequin pussy you know video

or just like anything like people don't really it's a tool like people have jobs with it and just like that it's sort of almost like the Spotify wrapped conversation where it's like you're just helping the algorithms. Like you're creating this like post-human environment.

It's like you can't be that fucking stupid, man. Oh, but you can, Ian. Yes, you can. That's why, or else we wouldn't have this category. And finally, the last nominee, I'm leaving Twitter for Blue Sky. Yes, the very sort of announcing that I'm going to a different social media platform. That was a big thing this year. So those are the nominees.

Ian, who are you giving your IndyCasty to in this category? So, I mean, it's a question of like whether it's just the accumulation of several years with Spotify wrapped and complaining about like year-end lists running. There's like a common thread amongst all these where it's like, no, I'm engaging with music the right way, which is, you know, it could be people posting on Instagram about how not being on Spotify wrapped or whatever or anything with AI.

It's like you cannot resist technology completely. It's just like how you use it. But as far as like the most valuable annoying music story, you know, this is like a last minute decision and I'm going with I'm leaving Twitter for Blue Sky. And I'll tell you why. Yeah, I'll tell you

why because we talked about numerous times over the past month or so about how resistance hash hashtag culture is dead, dying completely ineffective. It just does not have the skill set to handle the world in which we live. And I'm leaving Twitter for Blue Sky. Now, if you did it, cool, like, you know, no judgment there. But I think that is just like a remnant of 2017 thinking where it's like, oh, the solution

to our problem is just like a slightly more genial social media website. Look, I made a post about it. I went to Blue Sky and I just like it to me felt like, and I've said this before, like those quarantine concerts, you know, where like you would see a band perform in a completely empty room. Maybe it's popping now, but it's just like too nice and like honestly, I just like to start some shit. Like I think to survive in 2024 and beyond, you're going to have to be a fighter. you're going to have to start some shit. And so I'm picking this one just because it had both the kind of smugness to it, but like just completely ineffectual.

So I feel most annoyed by it right now. So that's why it is. If it was like a month ago, Kamala was Brad, absolutely. But this is just what I'm feeling today. So I'm on blue sky. I'm double posting right now, which I feel very stupid doing. But I'm on Twitter and I'm on Blue Sky doing the same. posts at both places. Just because for me, social media, it's a way to self-promote. That's really all

it's about, at least in terms of me posting things, in terms of me like looking at it, it's to be informed and to see what's going on. And I'm still using Twitter way more than Blue Sky at this point for that. But, you know, maybe that'll change. I don't really care. Whatever will make people look at my stuff the best is the social platform for me. I'm going with Kamala's brat. I think that this is the the Oppenheimer of this category. Clearly the number one. Nothing's even close. I think a lot of the discourse around a brat this year was very valuable in an annoying sense to me.

I just found the discourse to be super irritating. I mean, there was that whole thing about that woman doing the Apple dance. I don't know if you saw that. There was like a viral video of this woman doing the Apple dance. And then like another woman came into the video and it like ruined her moment or something. That was very annoying. There's a lot of annoying things about it. And when I say annoying, I mean that with love because we need that, as I said before.

So Kamala's Brat, the trophy is yours as far as I'm concerned in that category. Let's go to our next category. Ian, you want to read our nominees for this one? Yeah, I'm glad we got like feel good story the year coming next because I just like feel so just demoralized remembering all those stories from this year. Like, I completely forgot about the no byline Taylor Swift review, which is, I guess, like, I don't know, a real signal of just how much Taylor Swift may have low-key fell off in 2024. All right, so our field. Well, she did just announce that her tour made $2 billion in the last, you know, two years.

So we can't call her totally washed yet. Yeah, that's inflation. That's Bidenomics. That's the opioid era. We'll see. We'll see. But her tour did just end. It feels like the end of an era, if you will, with that tour.

But we'll see. we should get going here. What are our nominees that feel a good story of the year? All right, so we got Cindy Lee, like a very obvious nominee. We got knocked loose in general, but specifically getting angry parents calling into Jimmy Kim alive.

Yes, big live performance on that show. The Cure actually made a great album. Yes. Yes. The coronation of MJ Lenderman. Yes. Oasis finally coming back to tour. Yes. Man, this is the speaker. my language in this category. Bob Dylan tweeting.

Again, this may be the Barbie to the Oppenheimer of the previous category. Pops changing of the guard. And last but certainly not least, Steve, winning a fantasy album draft. Yes. Yes. I should pick that

one for my indie castie in this category. But, I mean, there's so many here. I mean, I did a lot of these nominees, so it's definitely in my wheelhouse. I mean, obviously love him, Jane Lenderman, Oasis, comeback, the Bob Dylan tweets. Each one was an event, at least in my corner of social media. But I'm going to go with Cindy Lee, and not just because I wrote a headline on a column saying

that this was the feel-good indie story of the year. But I do think that there was something about Cindy Lee and the album, Diamond Jubilee. Obviously that album has done very well in Year Endless. People love that album. just the idea that an album like that could come out of nowhere or at least seemingly out of nowhere and do as well as it did. I think for a lot of people, along with the music being great,

it was just a reminder that at a time when the internet feels smaller than ever because of social media just having a stranglehold and how people interface with the internet, it felt like a throwback to 15, 20 years ago, where it just felt like things were a lot more wide open and you could have these sort of left field success stories. And I know that there was like a little bit of a, you know, sort of a touch of gray, if you will,

to this story when Cindy Lee canceled their tour in the middle of it. Actually, I think right after they played Milwaukee, right before the Chicago Day, I think is when the tour got canceled. And I think this was you. I mean, you saw the Cindy Lee show in San Diego and there's a quote. I think he said something from the stage that, like, I feel like a caged animal.

A caged fucking animal. So there may have been some misgivings about the rush of media attention. But again, from the outside, I'm just saying from the outside, I think for a lot of people, this was a feel-good story. So that gets my indie cast team. Yeah, I think I got to go with them as well. Because, like, I would think that, like, pops changing the guard would have been it because, like, God knows how tired we are of, like, just talking about, like, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Beyonce,

say Taylor Swift, but this also ushered in a perhaps more annoying way to talk about pop music. So, you know, be careful what you wish for. The Cure did make a great album, but I got to go with Cindy Lee because, yeah, if we're in a weird way, it signaled a shift towards a more weird and fractured way of talking about music in 24. I think it just kind of showed that people sort of do miss 2005 or just the idea that like music publications can exist to do something other than to you know, do the politics, sports kind of horse race sort of talk. I mean, it does that too. But, you know, and a lot of year endless and writing about this album does make the point that it was a time for music writers

or people who like follow music writing to feel like they mattered again. And I, you can't, I mean, people want that, but the fact that this record was this good and this, and it stuck around the whole year. Like this is not like a clap your hand say yes sort of deal where, you know, it was still more niche. I mean, this is still pretty niche overall. all. But I mean, this was like finishing number one in quite a few year end lists. So it really went the distance. And yeah. Yeah. It just shows the possibilities that like, hey, if you lean in to the more

esoteric stuff, if you like can, you know, follow, like, it just shows what's possible. Even if it is in some ways like a triumph of the old way of doing things. But I'm an old guy. So I feel good about it. Yeah, absolutely. Let's go to our next category. most 2024 album of 24 the nominees are and this is going to be a consistent nominee throughout the indie castes as you would expect

Charlie XX, Brat Xavier So Based It's obviously an Ian nomination Yeah I got to have a Xavier so based Echo Astral That record, you nominated that one Maybe you can explain that if you give that Gracie Adams.

Gracie Abrams. Right. Yeah, rhymes with J.C. A.J. Abrams's daughter. Yeah. Kind of like the apotheosis of maybe the old guard of pop. You know, we're talking about pop's changing of the guard. It feels like Gracie Abrams was made in a lab to just replicate every significant pop trend of like the late 2010's early 2020s.

The Black Keys. You nominated this one. Yes. I guess you mean it in a negative way? Because I don't really understand. Because they're, I mean, they're also nominated in our next category. And I think that they're a stronger candidate in that category. I guess because of the crypto connection and they canceled their tour.

And I guess that's like the dark side of the music business. Is that the argument for that record? Yeah, I saw a great article in the fact they're about a hawk to a crypto coin, like failing as being just the, this like Coleman nation of like get the bag culture and black keys to me like beyond the hey let's like book a tour that we have absolutely no business doing to perhaps get the advance or also let's do like a crypto uh show to like displace charade brown which is one of the very few like left-leaning uh you know senators in the country it's just like everything's it's just bag culture it's just people everything they're doing in a weird way is like like i know we've talked about like how selling out is

is like this very Gen X concept, but it's like, yeah, we're all sort of fucked. You might as well just like get the bag and like no one is even being any, like no one is just being, everyone's being just completely transparent about it. Well, I think the black keys are evidence that you actually can sell out so hard that it does actually offend people. Yeah, so that's why it's 2020. There is a line that you can still cross with that. So maybe that's reassuring in some twisted way.

And then finally, McGee is the last nominee, that record, which I like a lot. I mentioned that on my year-end list. And someone who sounds like a lot of indie rock that is popular in indie circles, but like doesn't really break through. That record actually broke through. The dude was on SNL, big streaming numbers. Normie's like that album. Like people I work with are,

I've you heard about this guy? I actually heard it coined NPC music, which is sort of like co-worker music, where it's just like all these bands that get like billions. Glass animals is a vet. So many people I've talked to at work fucking still love glass animals. McGee, though, I think is actually good. Oh, no, he's actually good. Yeah, don't know.

I like that record quite a bit. But anyway, those are our nominees. What is your winner for most 2024 album of 2024? So Echo Astral I put in there because they're kind of the most 2024 is the new 2017 record. I think that was a big theme for a while, at least leading up to the election. like J.L. Holstman, like, you know, great journalist has a really good article in Rolling Stone out about like the possibilities of like trans health care being completely destroyed. But this is a person I heard on like multiple political podcasts.

And it just struck me as like it reminded me of like a lot of the albums that people said were going to come out in 2017 where it's like, yeah, Trump's going to be great for punk rock. And I think a lot of the conversation around it took that tone. So that's why I nominated it. But if we're looking at, I really want to say Xavier's so based because like this is the most indicative of like how I feel so completely out of sorts with pop culture like that and net send or what net spend. I'm going to go with Gracie Abrams because I have this belief that the definitive album of any year might not be the number one. It's going to be like the number 35 album of the year where it's not like everyone can remember what Brat's going to be like. But if you were in there, if you were like paying attention to pop culture.

you remember like the stuff that was at the B level and Gracie Abrams just reminds me a lot of like the bad pop culture I'm trying to ignore like how with a lot of pop stars TV shows movies they're like the fourth wall is completely destroyed and so many of these shows are like like talking to the people who are in the audience like taking like Twitter and like integrating it into the show I think S&L is also a great example. of it where it's just like, fuck, man. Like these people, I don't know if these people are creative so much as like just bringing in everything that is happening and just representing it to people who are a couple steps behind. That's Gracie Abrams to me. It's just a reminder of every way that pop culture has felt like the call is coming in from inside the house.

So I like that pick. I think that is a very strong candidate. It's interesting because you're talking about. this most 2024 album of 2024 as a negative. And which I think you could totally interpret it that way, using that album as a microcosm of like everything that was annoying about culture and is maybe coming to an end or is maybe about to be retrograde. That album does feel like that.

I'm going to go like in a like less negative direction and just think of it in terms of if you were going to make a movie in 20 years that's set in 2024, what music would you play? so people instantly know what year you're in. And I think the answer is clearly Brat, Charlie X, EX. I think that is such a defining record of this year. And that's obviously a great compliment to that record because it's an album that people really cared about.

It really was a zeitgeisty album. And it feels really, you know, sort of attached to, I think, what this year signifies in the minds of many people. I will say, and again, I'll credit you because you floated this out there in a tweet. And it didn't really come to pass because this wasn't a think piece topic. But there is something about how this album feels post-election

that makes it feel like a little bit dated. And maybe it's the Kamala is so brat thing. But it does feel a little like this is how people lived before Trump got reelected. And is this album going to feel different? in the years ahead. It might not, but I don't know. There is something I think

sort of like frozen in amber about this album to me because of how things turned out at the end of the year. I mean, I'm thinking back to like what happened with like Chance the Rapper's coloring book because that to me was perhaps the last 2016 album.

I think this one will be absolutely, it will absolutely stand the test of time. But yeah, I do think it's true. I do wonder though, like our younger generation's going to think of this as the album that like 35 year old women dance to in their homes you know and like look I say that with no disrespect because look we all have our sort stereotypical musical listening habits I mean you could make jokes about someone like me listening to m.J. Lenderman you know that's my version of that stereotypical joke but I just wonder like if

you're 16 and you listen to this album are you just thinking about millennials who are aging out of their club hopping days but they're just. they're sort of doing like one last stand with this record. You know, and is this going to be sort of like an eat, pray love of music for a certain generation when younger people look at it? I'm not saying that's going to happen,

but I think there's a strong possibility that could happen. And look, that's fine. There's nothing, you know, like, look, I'm a 47-year-old man. I'm going to go see Wilco this weekend. It's going to be amazing. I'm super psyched, and I don't care if you're going to generationally profile me

for that reason. Love what you love. And, you know, take the lumps where they come. That's how I look at it. So, anyway, let's get to our next category. And this is one of my favorite categories every year of the Indycasties. Memory Hold album. Our Memory Hold album of 2024.

And I actually wrote a think piece in the middle of the year, declaring 2024 the year of the Memory Hold album. Which I might have to jump in the gun a little bit with that. But I think. it holds. I'm standing by that. It felt like there were more memory hold albums this year than ever. And again, I think when we talk about memory hold albums, we have to take into consideration. To me, what a memory hold album is, is an album from an artist who is big enough to automatically generate attention under normal circumstances. But for whatever reason, the record that they put out at this particular time just seemed to come and go very quickly and people forgot about it.

And you can argue that that happens to a lot of albums these days. But I don't know. I actually felt like in 2024, along with this being a memory hold type year, there actually were like a fair number of records that had legs and that people continued to talk about. And I mean, God, we keep talking about Brat in this episode. But, I mean, there's other examples. I'm sure we'll get to them later on in this ceremony.

But let's do the nominees for Memory Hold albums. album, Indie Castie. Eminem. Yes. That record. That Houdini song, I think, was kind of big for a little while. Yeah, I vaguely recall people saying, like, this is Eminem's biggest hit in, like, God knows how long. That song is terrible, by the way. That is an awful song. Yeah, it's like if Killer Mike was Bill Maher. Right. Next nominee, the Black Keys again. They're a multi- nominee at the Indycasties. I nominated them in this category. Their album was called Ohio Players, by the way.

I know no one remembers that. I put them here because they weren't even nominated for a Grammy. Yes, yeah, no, I think they were. So were they? I can't, no, no, I think what happened is, okay, I'm going to get this wrong. I think they were nominated for a Grammy.

Like, I'm trying to remember the joke I made, it was either about Beckney, not being not. nominated for a Grammy or the Black Keys. And I think that got nominated for a credit on a Black Keys song. Don't quote me on that. Hold on. I'm going to look at it.

I'm looking at the Grammy's website. I don't think they were. I remember noting that at the time that it was crazy to me that they weren't nominated for a rock album Grammy or a rock song. Hold on. Hold on. If the 67th annual Grammy Awards is the new one, then they are nominated for Best Rock Performance for Beautiful People, Stay High. Oh, shoot. Okay, well, anyway, darn it.

I thought they weren't nominated. Well, anyway, they still belong in this game. They're nominated with Pearl Jam, Green Day, idols, St. Vincent, and the Beatles. Wow. I like most of those artists as washed as some of them are. Dua Lepa is nominated here. Green Day nominated. Did you just say, I already forgot the nominees you just read.

That's how memory. Green Day was absolutely one of them. Like Green Day is like our, Green Day is like our complaining about Spotify wrapped of Memory Hold albums. Like they, like, yeah, Schrodinger's album, like maybe it was released, maybe it wasn't. It always feels like they're in the process of like releasing or touring a memory hold album. Yeah, I feel like I got really drunk around the time of American Idiot, and I've just blacked out the rest of their career.

Like the last 20 years, I've just been on a bender. I don't remember anything Green Day has done since American Idiot. Casey Musgraves, her record, I believe was called Deeper Well. Kings of Leon, can we please have fun? I remember that album. I remember that album too. you put Japan droids here, which makes me a little sad to say that. And then Bright Eyes, which you pointed out was not even reviewed by Pitchfork.

Yeah. Which seemed shocking to me. Yeah, that's like kind of the Black Keys not being nominated for a Grammy's, even though they did. But yeah, I mean, Japan Droids and Bright Eyes I kind of had to put on there for like the indie version of it. And both of those were like kind of intentionally memory hold. like we don't have to relitigate the whole japan droid story because i go over it pretty thoroughly in the massive piece i did for stereo gum like they just wanted to put this out they're not torn it uh brian's moving on so um but with bright eyes uh it's kind of a similar thing except

unintentionally because uh connor oberts was acting extremely uh in troublesome ways and like they canceled the tour and like it was like two days before the album came out so that one came and like it's just completely came and went. So, you know, it's obviously not, they're not A-List anymore, but like, I just remember, even compared to the 2020 album, down in the weeds where the world, down in the weeds where the world was, I mean, this one just kind of came and went in a way that almost feels like intentional. That 2020 one was, was well received and it was covered.

Every, everyone did a Conorover's profile, myself included. So that was a big media puts for that one. Well, okay, so who's your Indycaste, award winner? in this category. All right. So gosh, you know, I don't want to give it to Japan droids because, like, I think that it wasn't framed as, like, a big celebration rock comeback. But I think that the winner's got to be Kings of Leon.

Like, it's like the first memory hold album I will say is complimentary. Because everything about this album from the album cover to the album. title is just almost like it was vying to get our nod for most memory hold album. It's it, it's, it's, can we please have fun? I love the fact that it was like, hey, this is actually a return to form Kings of Leon album. It gave us so much for so little. We got so much mileage out of this.

And the fact that like we're talking about and no one else is leads me to believe that this is just like extremely targeted marketing. Yeah, I like that reasoning. It was definitely, if it was most valuable memory hold album, I would probably pick the Kings of Leon album just because for us, I feel like I got so much enjoyment out of this record that I instantly forgot about. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page, and there were five singles released from this album. One is recently as November 1st.

What? M Television. See, but like they can. put anything on the Wikipedia page and we'd have no way to know if it was sure or not because you just instantly forget anything that you want to learn about this record. I'm going to go with an album that I think had the best chance to not be forgotten and yet totally was. So I think that speaks to a greater achievement in memory-holing. And that's the Dua Lipa album, which if you recall, it's called

Radical Optimism, which I'm sure she thought when she called it radical optimism that I'm plugging into the zeitgeist here. I'm putting the word radical in here. I'm putting it with another word. That's something that people are doing all the time now. But similar to what we were saying before

about Pop's Changing of the Guard, it feels like this record got crushed under the wheels of that. You know, like this album came out around the time that I feel like Chapo Rhone was really starting to take off. And it was like, oh, here's someone doing something kind of similar to Dua. It's like dance music that has a bit of like a retro feel to it.

But this other person is more subversive. They have more of a fresh vibe to them. And they're really ascending. And then you have Dua who I got some affection for Duelipa. She seems like a nice person. I've liked some of her singles. I don't know. There's something about this record.

It just felt like, oh, this is maybe left over from like 2022. Like, if it came out a couple years ago, it would be fine. But in this moment, it's not going to really work. And it just got forgotten. And in a way that maybe that's good because, you know, you have Katie Perry, her album this year. Oh, God, yeah. Which was not memory. That one was so, like, despised that it's, like, memorable.

That's what I mean. Like, it's better sometimes to be memory-hold because then, on your next record, you can reinvent yourself and people don't remember what you did last time. You don't have anything to live down, whereas Katie Perry put out this record that people hated so much that it got remembered for the wrong reasons. So do a leap up. I mean, no offense. I do like you generally.

Again, you seem like a nice person. But yeah, radical optimism. That was not going to work in 2024. Yeah, I think the metric that I judge it by is that at the 24-hour fitness I go to, you hear so many songs from her 2020 album and I have not heard a single one from radical optimism. I think we can put it in with like the

Lord Solar Power sort of era. Yeah. Oh yeah Lord. Oh Lord. Let's get to our next category. This is another good one. Do you want to read these Nomenesian? Yeah. So this is the best musician catastrophe.

Controversy, whatever you want to call it. We're going to go with catastrophe. Meltdown. meltdown May throughout the year. So we're going to go with, of course, this is the first time we've mentioned this story, which is easily one of the biggest ones of 2024, Kendrick versus Drake, in more of an indie casty,

more of an indie casting mode. We got Jane's Addictions on stage fight. Maddie Healy versus Zelia Banks, a late entry into the category. Yeah, tweet war. Yeah, tweet war. Maybe like one of the last great tweet wars that we're going to have.

Yeah. That might have been like World War III of tweet wars. Yeah, this one was like a long time coming. To me, it was like the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson. That's a better analogy. Yes. Yeah. So we got, speaking of Azelia Banks and Maddie Healy,

their spiritual godmother Grimes and her terrible Coachella set. Dave Grohl's out of wedlock baby. I think it's pretty, we're kind of tip in our hand here. And also the Black Keys. canceling their tour, firing their manager. The failed... Third nomination for the Black Keys. They're cleaning up at the Indycasties.

Yeah, it's the new Grammys. So which one are you going to go with? This is a hard one. Yeah. May I laughed about the Outta Wedlock Baby from Dave Grohl. Actually, I mean, I defended him a little bit on the pod when that happened because in a weird way, I thought it was a stand-up thing to acknowledge it publicly. I feel like in past generations, the rock star.

who has an affair and then a baby is born outside of his marriage. It just would have been buried. We wouldn't have known about it. Now, was his hand pushed in some way, probably? But, you know, still, I don't know. I don't want to be too judgy about someone's personal life. So I'm going to leave the baby out of it. And I'm going to go with the Jane's Addiction fight on stage.

If you don't remember, there was a Jane's Addiction concert in Boston, I think it was. and like Perry Ferrell and Dave Navarro like got into like this on stage brouhaha and there's like an audio tape that the sound guy released where you can hear

Perry like just going off on Dave Navarro and I forget like what the issue was like was Dave Navarro playing too loud? It was playing too loud and like Perry Farrell was like too drunk to perform also the fact that you're talking about it being like like a soundboard recording. Is this on like Nugs?

No, no, but the sound guy, I think it was the sound guy, did this long interview for a podcast, which is an amazing podcast, by the way. And he was totally on Dave Navarro's side, this sound guy. It sounds like Perry Farrell was a little out of control, like surprisingly.

And people were just hating him. I think what happened is that, like, he was pushing Dave Navarro, and then Eric Avery, the bass player, came up and put Perry Farrell in a headlock and started punching him in the stomach. Hell yeah. And then they canceled the tour after that.

So a bit of a dark horse. That might be the Gen Xer and me going with Jane's addiction over some of these buzzier artists. Obviously Kendrick versus Drake is the biggest music story of the year along with the Charlie XXX record. And clearly a catastrophe your fee for Drake, not for Kendrick Lamar.

Kendra Clamar, just a huge triumph for him. But I don't know, I'm going to go with the dark horse here, and I'm going to go with Jane's Addiction. How about you? Yeah, I'm hesitant to say Jane's Addiction only because like that is the only possible outcome for them touring with the original

members. I spent a lot of time doing research for my Sunday review of nothing shocking, and it's like Jane's, Perry Farrell sounds like the single worst person to work with. You know, Grasman. terrible Coachella. That was like funny. And

Maddie Healy versus Ely Max, I'm like I'll be honest with you. I have not followed that in the slightest. And so I'm going to go with the black keys because in the same way that their album, this is sort of like the makeup call for losing on most 2024 album.

Everything about this is just so hilariously like covering their ass and like there was the tweet I think one of the guys you know, the guy. The one of the one who was like beefing with Jack White or the one that Jack White was beefing with. That's Dan Auerbach. Yeah.

He was like, more to come. Watch this space. And just explaining like what happened on the tour. And like that never happened. So that's like the funniest part for me. And then like they fire their manager like as if they're like one of those college football teams who's like the, you know, the coaches like got one more year left. And so they fire the offensive coordinator and like just bring in like some rehash guy like

Bobby Petrino. So everything about this is just so public. And so it's like all these like dark machinations of the music industry about like, you know, how you'll hear about like Beyonce like performing like for $5 million for like a Saudi prince. All this stuff like coming to the surface just because they spent so many years chasing the bag that they don't even realize that like what normal people think and look like. Gift that keeps on giving. I'm going to go if the black, he's got to win something. This is it. I have some advice for the Black Keys.

If you're listening, I know you are, at least one of you. This is my advice. Make a country record. Oh, yeah. Get Zach Brown on there. Get Post Malone on there. Because you're already in Nashville. At least I know Dan Arbach is in Nashville.

Just do the pivot to country and make a record that isn't even that different from what you normally do. Just make a Black Keys record but have Post Malone on it. Yeah. Go for Ohio players to Tennessee gentlemen. That's what we're doing. Exactly. Exactly. You will revitalize your career because I think that audience, you know, get Chris Stapleton, have him do a guest shot.

Zach Bryan. Yeah. Yeah, that is your audience. I think, you know, don't try to, like the indie audience or like the mainstream rock audience even. That's over. Pivot to country or like country adjacent like rock or Americana. I think you'd be golden. And I mean that sincerely.

I think if they did that, career reboot. I think it would really work for them. So that's my free advice to the Black Keys, Patrick Carney, if you're listening, Dan, whoever their new manager is. I think that'll work. Next category, Phoebe Bridges Award. This is the award that we give to the hyped album that you kind of want to hate because it's so hyped. But it actually turns out to be great. And Phoebe Bridgers, of course,

it's the Phoebe Bridgers Memorial Award, even though she hasn't passed on. She's still alive, thank goodness. But, you know, she's, you know, we want to honor her and how, you know, when Punisher came out, people were like, oh, people writing about this all the time,

I'm sick of it. Then you hear it, oh, it's actually a really great record. So the nominees are M.J. Lenderman. Finally, he makes an appearance here. Charlie X, X, X, X, Brat. Manikin Pussy, Jessica Pratt, and Fontaine's DC. These are all really good nominees in this category.

Who do you pick for your IndyCasty here? All right. So last week, this may have gotten into the episode, but when I asked you, like, who is the number two right now in the list aggregate for most appearances or best appearances on year end list, like number one was obviously Brat. At that time, number two was Fontaine's DC. Now, this is a band that, yeah, this is a band that, like, we know, we've seen on your end list.

And, like, there's a certain kind of guy. It's like they're, functionally, they were, like, kind of a cooler idols, you know, like, they appeal to a lot of old school ideas about, like, what rock should be and what rock should look like. And this one just kind of took a leap in ways that was a little bit surprising. I looked at their, like, oh, they're dressing like 90s rock stars. Like, I was very skeptical of it in a way I wasn't for these other four. but like this album's actually really good. I like this album a lot. So that's why I'm going to go with that award.

So I'm going to frame this in a way that might make, that might have you give it a second or third chance. What this album reminds me of, not sonically, but functionally, is my morning jackets Z, in that this was a band that for three albums, like had a kind of throwback sound or a throwback style.

And then on the fourth album, they get into making this kind of cleaner, more digital, not necessarily pop, but more stylized sound. And it's not like, oh, this is an album that should be on your end list because it completely re-events like what pop music or rock music's capable of. But it just takes a lot of things I already like and puts them into a really clean package. And so I think that's what this album does for them. It was produced by James Ford, who's like kind of the John Lecky of this metaphor.

And yeah, I'm going to say Fontaine's DC because it was the biggest difference between my initial thought about what this album does and what it actually came out to be. Because all these other albums are great. Don't get me wrong. But it was just like I'm pretty sure they're as good as people say they are. Yeah, I never quite got there with Fontaine's DC, although I did listen to this record and I did like it more than I was expecting to like it. So that's definitely a really good pick. I'm going to go in a slightly different direction and go with an artist that I've liked for a long time.

But I feel like I was underrating in my mind until I made my Year Endless and I was revisiting all these records. And that's Jessica Pratt here in the pitch. And I reviewed this album when it came out, I've written about her in the past. I've always enjoyed her work. I was a little surprised to see

how well this album consistently did on Year Endless. because there's something about this record where, as good as it is, it's also like a pretty unassuming record. And it exists in a zone where there are other artists who do what she does, and they don't get anywhere near the acclaim that Jessica Pratt receives. And I was thinking about that in my mind when I was making my year-end list, and I was like, where am I going to put everything? And I originally had Pratt on my list, but a little bit lower down.

you know, and maybe not even going to make like the official list, maybe it's going to be like one of my runners up or something like that. And then I was listening to the record, along with everything else, and it just gradually got bumped up and bumped up and bumped up until, sure enough, it ended up in my top 10, you know, as well as everybody else's. So it's not like I was ever annoyed by this album. I think part of me sort of wondered, is it really as good. as people say.

Like it's a nice record. I like it. I saw her live. I enjoyed it. But then I'd listen to it a bunch and I was like, yeah, it really is that good. It really is one of the best albums of the year. So, yeah, I'm giving her the Indycasti. Yeah, I agree with that as well.

I think one of the things that really helped it out is that it kind of does a lot of the same conceptual things as Cindy Lee, but it does so in like 28 minutes rather than two hours. Well, that was the thing on my list. In my mind, those are like on a double bill. but if you want a light meal, and I mean that in a nice way, like a refreshing, just the tastiest salad you've ever had

as opposed to like a five-course meal, then you're going to want the Jessica Pratt record, maybe put some salmon in there, some perfectly, you know, spiced salmon and some, you know, cranberry. I don't know, that's a good salad. People want the food cast. I'm not making a good salad here,

but imagine, Imagine your favorite salad, the best salad you've ever had, and that's what that record is to me. Let's get to our next category, the penultimate category. Do you want to read this one? I think I read the last one. Yeah, so this is our egregiously overrated on year end list. One of my personal favorites. Oh, yeah.

So we got Sabrina Carpenter, Magdalena Bay, Mount Erie. I know that's your, Beyonce, still houseplants, and a catch-all category I'm made for Tyler the creator and Kendrick Lamar, aka the new old head dad rap. So throwing it back to you. Sabrina Carpenter, I think, is easily the winner here for me. Um, you know, espresso, it's a, it's a fun song. It's nice. I think the praise for it at the time and at the end of the year was mystifying to me. People acting like this was the new guard of pop or that it was be inventing something that, you know, in a really fresh way. And I'm just like, isn't there a song like this every year that catches on this sort of like 80

sounding beach jam that sounds like can be played in a roller rink? Like, really? Like, this is the new thing. Like, there's going to be someone who makes that song or a variation on it in 2025 and in 26 and every year after that. And the album, you know, again, is fine. But I just feel like I saw it. on so many year-end lists and placing up high,

I just feel like there's a little bit of a default now with a lot of critics or a lot of publications where you have to put a pop album like this in the top 10 in the same way that like 20 years ago, people felt like, you know, if there's a Springsteen record out or there's like some sort of like serious rock band, if Radiohead has an album out,

you have to put it in the top 10. Like we kind of have that now with these frothy, pop albums? Oh, I thought you're going to say the smile. Well, yeah, although that fell off a little this year, I think. The smile, actually, I think that their first record that they put out this year was good.

The second one, I think, was not as good. And then there's some dicey things with how people feel about their stance on the Middle East and we're not going to walk down that road. But anyway, yeah, Sabrina Carpenter for me, easily the winner in this category.

How about you? Yeah, I mean, you, Sabrina Carpenter, it's reflective of how when you make a year endless, it's not always necessarily your favorite albums from the year. You got to, like, present things in a way where it tells you, like, what it was like in 2024. And, you know, I think you drafted Sabrina Carpenter in your fantasy draft, so you, you know how this game is played. Mount Erie, definitely not. Like, I love that album. Magdalena Bay was, I'm like, eh, maybe. I mean, still houseplants I put in there. Like, I don't really, like, I don't like that album, but I appreciate it in that it, to throwback sort of like Cindy Lee to an era where indie people would actively stump for records that would annoy the fuck out of you.

I like that album. I like that album. I like that more than you do for sure. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to get there eventually with them in the same way I eventually got there with like a lot of stuff that annoyed the shit out of me in the early. I don't like dislike Mount Earing necessarily, but I do feel like. Is that one of the top 10 records of the year? I feel like I've seen that over and over again.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not there with that. But again, I've talked about this before. I've got the microphones blind spot. And so, and a lot of other people my age just revere that band and revere what he does. So that's like my own thing, I guess. I'm not hearing it for myself. Yeah.

I mean, like Magdalena Bay, I don't think that album is as good as people say it is. I think it's maybe a bit overrated. but for me, the biggest discrepancy between the way people talk about an album and how it performed on the year ends got to be Cowboy Carter. As I think this one's vaulted, if not to, like, number two. It's in the top four, I guess, in terms of like performances on year end list. And I think maybe that's just like a remnant of publications who, I don't know, just are so used to fawning over her. But like, I feel like there's just like this rift where it's like, do people really actually like this? or is it just like a reflex?

Because that didn't happen with Taylor Swift. I mean, she made year-end list, but like, I don't know. I feel like with this album, it's like I just think it's kind of post-quality in terms of how it's performing. And, you know, Kendrick, recency bias, I can explain that. Tyler the creator, whatever. It's like putting the national on a year-end list for certain rap people. I don't really begrudge that, but I don't think they're, I think they're definitely like mid- discography releases, but for a certain type of person, it's like, yeah, that's a, that I'm going to do

that. Yeah, to me, Cowboy Carter would have been the second choice for this. I think Sabrina Carpenter, Beyonce, those are the two that most stand out for being overrated. In Cowboy Carter, I don't know, there's something about that record where I feel like in the general public, it faded pretty quickly. But music writers have that rubber stamp with Beyonce albums. where everything she does,

it just is automatically a top 10 record. I wonder if this is going to be the last time that that happens. It didn't make Pitfork's top 50. So that's an interesting. See, that's one reason why I maybe didn't give it this award, because I feel like as the list came out, you could feel Cowboy Carter fade a little bit. I feel like the first bunch of lists I saw,

she was on there. And then by the end, it's like, oh, where's Cowboy Carter? and people just realized, oh, wait a second, we don't have to put this album on our top 10 or even on our list at all. I mean, it's going to win the album of the year Grammy. I would put a lot of money on that. Yes. Because she's never won that award, and frankly, she's overdue to win the award at this point. She's the most nominated artist in Grammy history.

It's also the worst album that she's made in the last decade plus. So that would naturally be the album that the Grammy's honor. But yeah, I don't know. Again, we don't know what's going to happen in the future, but if this is a pivotal year where you're seeing a changing of the guard, I feel like this emerging generation of music writers, are they going to automatically revere Beyonce as much as the generation that venerated her in the last 10 years?

Are they going to do that with Taylor Swift? I don't know. Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. But history suggests that when younger people come in, they look at the artists that were really praised when they were growing up and they tend to go in the opposite direction.

So we'll see what happens with that. We've reached the end here of the Indycastes. We got our final award. This is the Indycasti MVP. And I guess it's a combination of valuable to us as a show and valuable to us as musicians, people that made music that we really cared about this year. The nominees are M.J. Lenderman, Cindy Lee,

Kendrick Lamar McGee kind of a dark horse candidate and I wrote this in at the end Ian the rapper who quite honestly I feel like we missed the boat on talking about him

we could have talked about him a whole lot more than we did I'm a little disappointed actually looking back why didn't we get more mileage out of Ian the rapper because we got you you're the co-host

Ian Grant is the person who edits the show. We're two-thirds Ian on the show. The Ian representation is high, but we didn't talk much about Ian. Maybe that's something we can do next year. Yeah, you can tell I'm Wash as a music writer because the most obvious thing would be to me for me to pull out the old giving the two or like 3.5 out of the arsenal for this. But yeah, I just did not have it in me. So who's your MVP?

All right. So, gosh, is NJ. Lenderman going to go empty-handed? Because I don't think that's the answer. I think it's got to be Cindy Lee because, you know, like for the reasons we mentioned before, it is maybe the last time I'll be able to write a large article about the state of things. I'm still really proud of that piece I wrote for Stereo Gum in large part because it's been quoted so much for including. that I feel like a cage fucking animal quote. Yeah, I think that this is, I don't want to say that it's going to be indicative of a new way

or the new old way of doing things. But, you know, it's a great record. It's very distinct in a way that doesn't necessarily feel 2024. It was a big album of 20. It's like in 2024, but not of 2020. I think it's going to sound just as good four years from now, 10 years from now. And whenever it feels like there's no, there's like, we are just like in an inexorable march of decline for music writing, something like this will just remind us like, hey, it's actually worth like going just onto the radar. Because like this album like took a couple weeks to get really, really praise.

So it's for me a great record, but also just something that is a feel good. I still think it's a feel good story. So you asked if MJ Lenderman is going home empty-handed? Of course he isn't. He's my MVP of the year. It's not even close. He made my favorite album of the year. He was one of my favorite artists to write about.

I wrote a review that was very long and did very well. Anytime I talked about M.J. Lenderman on social media, people loved it. People just love this record so much. Love quoting from this record. Got so much enjoyment out of it. I love talking about him on the show. Yeah, it's not even close for me. He is the MVP.

And, you know, he's the MJVP, really. You know, that's what he is in 2024. Love Cindy Lee. Love that record. But, yeah, I don't know. I think MJ Lenderman, you know, he's not part of pop music, obviously, but he is part of this changing of the guard where he feels like a legitimate indie star

of breakout stuff. of this decade, I do think that he has a chance to be one of the defining artists of whatever's going to be happening indie music for the last few years in the same way that the Boy Genius crew was in the early part of the decade going back to the late 2010s. And that probably means that we're going to have a lot of sort of slackerish, funny singer-songwriters who write music that kind of sounds like Jason Molina. and I'm totally in favor of that. Give me the great versions of that.

I will shovel it into my ears and face with so much joy. I mean, maybe there's going to be a new Wednesday record in 2025, and I'm sure that will be great. So we've got that going on. I wonder if he's still in that band. I don't know. But Carly Hartzman, another great songwriter in that orbit. Excited to hear what he's going to do next.

So yeah, my obvious MVP for 2024, M.J. Lenderman. I think that's it. That's it. That's it for the Indycasties. Yeah, this is super size, man. We're getting the play-off music, like the play us off music. Well, you know, it's like the Oscars. It always goes late.

And so do the Indicassies. This is our last episode of 2024. So I just want to thank you all for listening to the show this year. Ian, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Hosting the show with you. Shout out again to Ian Grant, the guy who puts these episodes together. Brian Brinkman did it before him this year.

before he left Team Indycast. So yeah, we'll be back in the new year, right after New Year's Day. We'll do our next fantasy album draft, and see if I can win two in a row. I don't know. Don't want to get khaki. We'll see what happens. But until then, yeah, we'll be back to do more reviews, news, and hashing out trends in 2025. We'll see you then.

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