Top Ten Videos of 2024

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine the kind of story you can tell with thousands of them in motion. With that philosophy in mind, a truly great music video can elevate a song to new heights, and sometimes even transcend beyond the song itself to become an iconic work of art in its own right. Whether echoing big budget cinema, or built from the ground up with nothing but ingenuity and elbow grease, there’s been no shortage of memorable visuals this year. So, before we delve into our favourite music of 2024, let’s take a moment to celebrate the best videos of the past twelve months. Continue reading

Top Ten Album Covers of 2024

Here’s wishing you all a belated Merry Christmas and a very warm welcome to this year’s Listmas celebrations! That’s right, it is time once again for us to look back at all the highest highs that the music world has brought us in the past twelve months. This latest edition of our end of year extravaganza begins as ever with a look at our favourite album artwork. It’s my favourite list to compile, and in an age of soulless AI abominations it feels more important that ever to celebrate the boundless creativity of hard working artists. Here are the covers that most caught our eyes, lingered in our minds, and ignited our imaginations in 2024. Continue reading

Top Tracks: Gabrielle Aplin – Go Be Free

Christmas is a time of togetherness. A time when we show our appreciation for those we love, a time to look back on all the twists and turns of the past year which led us here, and a chance to slow down, enjoy life in the moment, and simply be. That kind of celebration of connection is captured wonderfully in Gabrielle Aplin’s new track ‘Go Be Free’. Rekindling the bittersweet introspective folk of her English Rain era, this latest track ponders on the circles of life and our place in the natural world around us. “Starlings float upon the air we breathe” has to be one of the most affecting reflections I’ve ever heard on how we’re just one small piece of a far bigger picture. The whole track plays as a gorgeous musing on how the things we lose come back to us in the end, in some form or another. How we make peace with the leaves falling in autumn, as we have faith they’ll return in spring. ‘Go Be Free’ feels like Gabrielle at her absolute best; the most wonderful early Christmas present I could have asked for.

Top Tracks: Bleach Lab – Drown

You look so pretty when you cry, Makes them wanna break your heart to watch you die inside” – talk about opening lines that hit like a freight train. But as anyone who has had their heartstrings plucked by the band’s magnificent debut album can attest, London dream pop outfit Bleach Lab have an uncanny knack for that sort of thing. Taking the dark empty feeling gnawing at your insides, finding the right words to describe that sensation which walk the line between beautiful and devastating, and ultimately delivering them adorned in effervescent melodies bright enough to banish the gloom. The band’s superb new single ‘Drown’ sees them detail the daunting prospect of trying to break the cycle of a toxic relationship. Clinging on to the person that keeps on hurting you, convincing yourself that the heartache is worth the highs. Scared to take the plunge into a world without them, and deciding that the pain is better than feeling nothing at all. From its driving rhythm section and dreamy haze, to Jenna Kyle’s stunningly bittersweet vocals, ‘Drown’ is yet another triumph from one of the most emotive and assured new bands around.

Live Review: Luvcat, Deaf Institute Manchester, 11th Nov 2024

There’s a deeply tempting magic attached to the idea of fresh starts. When you move to a new place, strike up a conversation with a stranger, and it dawns on you that their entire perception of you hinges on what you say and do next. Everyone you meets knows a different version of you, and every first meeting is a blank state to create the ideal version of who you want to be. Belwood favourite Sophie Morgan took that idea and ran with it when crafting her new alter ego Luvcat. Her new project pairs the romantic allure of a smoky jazz club with the dark gothic storytelling of Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen – with a hearty dash of playfulness and theatricality thrown in for good measure. Luvcat’s beguiling mystique has clearly captured people’s imaginations, as the project’s popularity and influence has been racing like wildfire in just the past year. Fresh off the continent, having just supported The Last Dinner Party across Europe, I caught Luvcat on the first stop of her debut UK headline tour for a bewitching night of mystery and mischief. Continue reading