The Never Hungover Best of 2024

Music, Movies, Books (Book?), Moments

I used to be strongly opposed to lists—ranking things felt pointlessly controversial, blurbs flattened art, your standard complaints…—but lately I’ve been less of a grinch. It’s insane that everybody shares their lists at the start of December, the LUCY album doesn’t come out until this Friday, but sometimes it’s fun to do what everybody else is doing. In the spirit of lists, I figured I’d share some of my favorite things from the year: music (a lot of good stuff), movies (not as much), books (Jesus Christ), moments. Hopefully you find something that you enjoy, or my taste validates your taste, or you are given occasion to think fondly of something, or you simply bookmark and move on.

The Never Hungover Best Music of 2024

1. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

   Enough words have been written about this record, most have missed the point completely, but it’s not my job to set the record straight. The consensus best album for a reason—a completely hypnotizing, transportive masterpiece from probably the best guitar musician of a generation.

2. Syzy - The weight of the world

   Better Rustie music than the Rustie comeback this year, as sad as it is to say. No-holds-barred, cringey vape-trick dubstep, maximalist, joyous, totally ridiculous. I’ve lifted to this album at least twice a week for the past, what, seven months, and while I’m kind of fat at the moment and am nursing a hurt shoulder, I was jacked at some point, and this album is why.

3. LUCY - 100% PROD I.V.

   Takes a few tracks to click-click, but once it does it’s the most accessible and ear-wormy LUCY yet. “Celebrate you now like anniversary” immediately enters my anthemic pantheon. I can’t believe this is what teenagers get to listen to now.

4. Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Estrella Por Estrella

5. Chuquimamani Condori - Find Me (NTS Mix)

   The JCC record deserves all of the flowers it’s gotten—totally, subtly brilliant stuff—but his sibling’s NTS mix from earlier in the year has gone almost completely under-discussed. Find Me is the musical equivalent of all of those Chuquimamani-Condori instagram stories of desert horizons, cowboy hats, Glocks, stuffed animals…it’s the mix that made the whole “country revival” thing make sense to me before Beyoncé dropped that awful album and got Trump re-elected. The three-song sequence of The-Dream’s reference track for “1+1,” Parker McCollum’s breakup/addiction anthem “Handle On You,” and a country/Crampton flip of Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License” is the best musical moment of the year.

6. How To Dress Well - I Am Toward You

   “Crypt Sustain” is the best How To Dress Well song I’ve ever heard, but the record is full of subtle brilliances—Vini Reilly-esque sketches, heady soundscapes, real earworms. Unc still got it.

7. Thou - Umbilical

   Brutal, punishing, sick, best heard live, which hearing it live is sort of inescapable in New Orleans, which, sick.

8. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

   Totally beautiful, makes me feel smarter. Perhaps it actually makes me smarter. Will make you smarter.

9. Verraco - Breathe… Godspeed

10. Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police

    I didn’t want to like Mk.gee…matter of fact, I actively disliked him. Thought this music was vibe-bait, Jai Paul ripoffs, tidily packaged moodboards from a pretty young phenom. The name sucks, too — Google how it’s pronounced. But the guy won me over. He’s from New Jersey, his musical wrinkles have real heft to them, he often flirts with sincere brilliance. Even if the record gets sleepy near its end, the first three tracks here would have been the best EP of the year, “ROCKMAN” is miles ahead of the already very good stuff we have here, in short I’m happy I bought some stock.

11. POLO PERKS <3 <3 <3, AyooLii & FearDorian - A Dog’s Chance

    Never thought I would get emotional to raps over Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s “Over The Rainbow.”

12. SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING

    Messier than ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH, in the non-complimentary way, but still under-appreciated. It sucks that their van keeps getting stolen, this band deserves more than they get.

13. Bladee - Cold Visions

    It’s a testament to Bladee that he could make this album feel like my business, despite my being 29 years old.

14. Jane Remover - jane_remover_cheatcodez.zip (NTS Mix)

    Hard to pick one, had to pick one. Jane Remover’s monthly NTS mix is a consistent deliverer of my favorite moments, visions, flashes of the year. She also, see above, helped me realize the greatness of Mk.gee through her otherworldly flips of his music in mix after mix. New Jersey artists understand one another, it’s not really something I can boil down for you all.

15. LAZER DIM 700 - Injoy

16. DORIS - Ultimate Love Songs Collection

17. xaviersobased - with 2

    Better than the other one.

18. 454 - CASTS OF A DREAMER

19. Dummy - Free Energy

    Stereolab everywhere for those with eyes to see.

20. Loidis - One Day

21. Fabiana Palladino - Fabiana Palladino

    Just makes me so happy to see Fabiana put out a record like this. For as long as the Paul Institute has existed, Fabiana has been proof to me that the group/label/organizing principle could be more than just a retreat for the Paul brothers…timeless, lush, enchanting music for foggy ballrooms.

22. Klein - marked

23. Charli XCX - Brat

    Brat, brat, brat. Where to begin? Or, rather—what to do with you? Music is just music, right? You hear the song, and you like it or you don’t, and/or it challenges you or it doesn’t, or whatever the case may be, but you form an opinion based on the song itself. Right? You, a serious person, aren’t to judge a book by its cover. But, bear with me, why can’t we? Aren’t covers a completely legitimate way to judge a book, seeing as they are how they communicate with prospective readers? If taste in 2024 is predominantly a form of identity-construction for the taste-haver, isn’t it legitimate to shy away from taste-items that tell the wrong story about ourselves? Maybe we shouldn't—but we do. So it’s better to be honest about it. Here I am, being honest about it: I liked Brat a lot more when it was sold to me as an album about drugs and imperfection and parties. I liked it before it blew up—sue me. I don’t think I’m special for this; I read Pitchfork, I make less money than I think I should, I’m the exact target audience for this sort of music. Consequently, I like it a lot less now that I associate it with the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris, bespoke throw pillows, and the all-consuming cringe machine. Maybe that’s unfair, but life’s not fair.

24. d.silvestre - d.silvestre

25. Torus - Summer of Love

26. Alan Sparhawk - White Roses, My God

    Does for me what Kim Gordon’s rage album seems to do for others. No, I’ll take it further—I think it’s completely insane and heart-stoppingly beautiful that Alan Sparhawk processed his lifelong partner’s death with music that sounds like this. Insane, complimentary.

27. Floating Points - Cascade

28. Dani Kiyoko - The Kids Want Sutechi

29. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

    Basically the Brat dilemma, but for straight men. Meaning I feel even more authority to speak on this one. MJ Lenderman makes good music—people focus on the wrong songs, “Wristwatch” verges on the unlistenable, but there’s brilliance here—that people cannot act normally about. Why? I don’t have an answer, this isn’t a rhetorical question. Why can’t people act normally about MJ Lenderman? Why does he have to be a vehicle for people to test out their ideas about belonging, masculinity, friendship, and identity through limp memes on the internet? Do you think he likes this? I bet he doesn’t. Favorite song here: “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In.”

30. Still House Plants - If I don’t make it, I love u

31. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere

32. The Hellp - LL

    Feel bad that I like this, because they seem kind of annoying, and maybe their music is annoying, but if it is it’s the type of annoying I like—referential without being derivative, fun first.

33. Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch

34. Ka - The Thief Next to Jesus

    A great, great talent gone too soon.

35. Chanel Beads - Your Day Will Come

36. Christopher Owens - I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

    Women dies : Patrick Flegel releases 2024 masterpieces :: Girls dies : ______________________

37. DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ - Hex

38. Cash Cobain - PLAY CASH COBAIN

39. Helado Negro - PHASOR

40. prettifun - FunHouse

41. The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World

    Saw The Cure live—they started their North American tour in New Orleans, for no obvious reason—and was floored by the extent to which they still had it. So I wasn’t surprised that this album sounded so authentic, fresh, and felt…but still, it’s pretty crazy.

42. Caribou - Honey

43. BossMan Dlow - Mr Beat The Road

    I-formation, skilled bully, Zach Randolph raps. Have listened to this record before multiple jury trials.

44. Body Meat - Starchris

45. MIKE & Tony Seltzer - Pinball

46. 2hollis - boy

    Publicly liking this record will not age well. I know it—it just won’t. And, so, I’m sorry.

47. Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt

48. Erika de Casier - Still

49. Nicolas Jaar - Piedras 1 & 2

    I love Nicolas Jaar’s music, even if at times I find him indulgent—at the end of the day, he went to Brown—but this whole radio show is completely brilliant and unique.

50. evilgiane & Slimesito - EVILSLIME

The Never Hungover Best Movies of 2024

1. Megalopolis

   Most movies I saw in 2024 were silly but marketed as serious, to their detriment—Longlegs, The Substance, Trap, Civil War, Anora. Some—Furiosa, Conclave—were surprisingly good. Some of the best—The Beast, La Chimera, Rap World—might not even count as “2024 films;” we get things on a delay in New Orleans, it’s sort of the cost of doing business. Challengers was, well, its own thing. And then you have Megalopolis. Sometimes, especially on the internet, sharing opinions can be a tricky bit of business. It’s natural to want to zig where others zag, to make yourself stand out by going against the current, or to cloak your vulnerability behind a shield of irony. I want to make it clear that, when I talk about Megalopolis, I am not doing any of those things. I want to make it clear that I think Megalopolis might not be a “good” movie, but it is beyond the shadow of a doubt a great movie; I want to make it clear that I think it overflows with ambition and love and the sort of genuine mania that makes art so intoxicating; I want to make it clear that when I laughed I felt I laughed with the movie, and that when I was moved I was moved authentically.

The Never Hungover Best Books of 2024

The only book that I read in 2024 that 1) I liked without reservations and 2) was published in 2024 was Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte. If you read anything worthwhile, drop a line.

The Never Hungover Best Moments of 2024, unranked

• Joe Biden and Donald Trump Chinese Song TikTok Deep Fake

• Stephen A Smith calls Jason Whitlock a fat bastard, apologizes to pastor

• Damar Hamlin fake punt

• Nets fan crashes car on Twitter Spaces screaming about Spencer Dinwiddie

• Italian cop shuts down the tunnels

• Boeing assassinations, malfunctions

• [Not going to put this one in writing, DM me for a voice note or email me at ocksportello@gmail.com]

• Azealia Banks criticizes Lorde’s “hateful, ugly, misanthropic facial language”

• Porter brother escapades

• Those three straight articles from The Cut

• Donald Trump works shift at McDonalds

• Jason Tatum plays zero minutes in Olympic game

• Kanye nitrus

• Shaun King, Lil Jon separately convert to Islam

• Joe Biden pardons Hunter Biden

• Yongxi “Jacky” Cui gets lost in the Barclays Center

• Camilla Cabello releases “I LUV IT,” featuring Playboi Carti

• Brooklyn Nets trade Mikal Bridges