Tis the season for year-end best-of lists, and The Record Exchange is pleased to bring you our 2024 Staff Picks!
Today’s 2024 Top 10 is from John O.
Scroll down for some words from John, and visit our staff picks display across from the main counter or the staff picks page in our online shop to preview and purchase titles!
MIRANDA LAMBERT
Postcards From Texas
EMILY NENNI
Drive and Cry
INDIA RAMEY
Baptized by the Blaze
SIERRA FERRELL
Trail of Flowers
VARIOUS ARTISTS
We Came to Eat: A Northwest Femme-Led Rock Comp
GENEVA JACUZZI
Triple Fire
THE SURFRAJETTES
Easy as Pie
FLOATING WITCH’S HEAD
You Look Like a Rainbow
MANNEQUIN PUSSY
I Got Heaven
MARY TIMONY
Untame the Tiger
I’m not a list guy, really. I don’t rank things like that. As a matter of fact, if I could figure out how to list my Top 10 in a random order every time it was viewed, it would more accurately reflect how I feel about music. It flexes, waxes and wanes. I follow things where they lead. I indulge myself in my formative music. I’m surprised sometimes by how some music has aged – well and/or poorly – and how much stuff is timeless. It’s a wonderful thing, and endlessly rewarding.
My Top 10 is taken from a list of 25 titles I could remember off the top of my head. I then made list prototypes. I wanted to reflect how much music I listened to that was made and performed by female artists. Elizabeth Cook’s program on satellite, “Apron Strings,” and Sunny Sweeney’s “Sunny Side of Life,” have informed my choices. I have been a fan of Ms. Cook from the moment I heard her first Warners record back in 2002. And many of my favorites this year I heard on “April Strings” first. India Ramey! She’s a great live performer, and I love what she writes her songs about. Emily Nenni gets better with every record. A closely-allied band, whom I first saw backing Ms. Nenni at Treefort a few years ago, is Teddy and the Rough Riders. Down Home is their new album, and it is great. Kaitlin Butts is really biting and funny; her LP Roadrunner should be in my Top 10. Let’s pretend it’s there.
I found out late that Kasey Chambers has a new album out, not available on vinyl in the US yet. So I will be tracking it down soon. She also has an autobiography, ”Just Don’t Be a Dickhead,” which we stock in our book section.
The Devil Makes Three have an album coming out in 2025, and it will be great to have them back. Their 2009 album Do Wrong Right got so much in-store play when it came out that a moratorium on hearing it was handed down by the head office. The Sleaford Mods and Negativland. Bob Wills and Eilen Jewell. Loretta. Dolly. I could seriously keep it going all night.
I remain optimistic about 2025. Music is great, will always be great, no matter how dark it gets outside. We have our community, and we are not alone. And, we at the RX are happy to be here, slinging wax and talking tracks. Thank you for coming along.
The (incomplete) MASTER LIST!
Miranda Lambert
Emily Nenni
Floating Witch’s Head
Teddy and the Roughriders
India Ramey
Lainey Wilson
Geneva Jacuzzi
Mary Timony
Mannequin Pussy
Sierra Ferrell
Chastity Belt
Maggie Rogers
Megan Moroney
We Came to Eat: A Northwest Femme-Led Rock Comp
Dasha
Bed Maker
Kacey Musgraves
The Surfrajettes
Silverada
The Deslondes
Cassandra Lewis
Melissa Carper
Kacey Chambers
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Shelby Lynne
Joe Ely
Steve Earle
Nikka Costa
Sleaford Mods
Jenny Don’t and the Spurs
Willi Carlisle
Willie Watson
Jaime Wyatt
Morgan Wade
Margo Cilker
JP Harris
Maggie Antone
(to be continued, forever)