playlist: 2024 in tracks

[liptinted]

i guess i'm compiling these lists yearly now.

the yearly data wrap-ups on spotify and last.fm are obviously fun and i loveeeee last.fm's report because the graphs are so pretty <3 but this year was all about #stabilising myself and trying to find better ground to stand on. in order: found a job full-time, thank god. fell into lots of good and bad routines, as one does when they are employed again. actually made new friends this year online, friends who have made the year a lot more comforting and funnier in spite of gaining other less personal connections through them aka mutual acquaintances who have also brought me unnecessary stress. lmfao. guys, why is f*blr so big in that there are sides of the tumblr fandom i have never ever bothered looking at, yet why does it feel so fucking small at times. depends on who you know really but as my friend says, it feels vaguely incestuous, the way some of your mutuals and mutuals-in-laws are just inevitably one big web. it never felt like this during my time on kpop twt because twitter allows you to lock your account and live in peace.

anyway, a lot of my most listened to tracks didn't really hold a lot of memorable and / or emotional attachment rather than it due to me being inexplicably obsessed with a song to put on repeat while i'm doing really tedious tasks at work on a thursday afternoon. so once again, i'm picking a handful of songs not entirely due to recorded play stats (although three of these tracks are from my top 10 on spotify and last.fm).

1. 退屈しのぎ (Taikutsu Shinogi) - Kinoku Teikoku

the title translates to "killing time". i listened to this a lot during the start of this year when i was aimlessly taking walks to the supermarket and still jobhunting. i love how appropriately long this song is at 8 mins for me to do that. it's just a really good shoegaze song that made the 5-6pm neighbourhood feel better.

2. Jon Batiste Interlude - Lana Del Rey

wow this girl always gotta have some lana on her playlist or something huh 🙄 i think i'm honestly still smitten enough with some of the tracks from her last full album that many of them ended up being sleeper hits to me, especially this one. she is insane for these interludes btw... when she sings in the background "with your honey" and jon batiste starts speaking again and she just laughs so shrill and high just as the music blooms into full height. i just like a haunting track that can transport you into the scene it wants to put you in, unabashedly. soundtrack-esque if i must say. i barely watched any movies this year lol. i also listened to this a lot while i was writing a fic that i posted in april for the vibes so.

3. My Love Mine All Mine - Mitski

i have nothing to say. i was that person who never really truly Listened to mitski (besides a few tracks off laurel hell) until i kept putting this one on repeat. it's just a good song that i listened to a lot when i wanted to be emo at 11pm.

4. Naked in Manhattan - Chappell Roan

if chappell roan is NOT on a lot of people's music list of anything for 2024 then i'd be surprised. it was between good luck babe and this, but this holds more poignancy and is therefore a winner to me... she too, referenced miss lana:

When I sing that Lana song, it makes you cry

5. Shadow - Seventeen

ok i didn't expect to get back into watching svt content for a short period around may, but here we are. watched some gose content i missed out on with my sister through our dinners and i caught up on their music releases and this was easily my fave from sector 17's repackage. my enthusiasm for this group has definitely changed but i say this all the time because it's true: they'll always hold a special place in my heart.

6. Bug Like an Angel - Mitski

2024 was literally my year of mitski. idk why a song about implied alcoholism kind of rewired my neurons a bit. i can't explain it. it's just a good album with a thread for a certain type of loneliness. i also really really like the choir chorus in the background LOL. it is so strangely sobering and humbling.

Hey, what's the matter? Lookin' like your sticker
Is stuck on a floor somewhere
Did you go and make promises you can't keep?
Well, when ya break them, they break you right back

7. seasons - wave to earth

i sent this song to a friend because it reminded me of her, of the sort of assured warm blanket feeling i get sometimes when she would tell me she was thinking of me. i think it kind of always will remind me of her. i hope it does.

8. I Wouldn't Ask You - Clairo

losing my mind at this clairo song. at first i was listening to it because i have this 2477 f1 wip, which is still in progress and didn't end up finishing last year (but i really want to this year). and then i put this wip aside and worked on my ficmix for wonhui, which truly fit the vibes and kind of dynamic that i was writing for wonhui as well anyway. it's been 7 years and this pairing still makes me feel some type of way huh... i could copy and paste all of the lyrics because this whole song is what i felt when reading naladot's 'the mountains unfurl', and listened to this in a haze trying to carry that feeling with me while i was writing ficmix. i wouldn't ask you baby, i wouldn't ask you baby, to be the one i love~

Wonder why I wake up livin' in a made-up
Dream of you and I, together there
Baby, wake the fuck up, time for you to grow up
Don't you know that life is rarely ever fair?

We could be so strong
We'll be alright, we'll be alright

9. Roslyn - Bon Iver, St. Vincent.

at some point i heard this song playing in a restaurant when i met miss c surabhi while she was in kl. cofi had indirectly orchestrated our meeting each other even though i had not spoken to c ever before that, nor was even mutuals with her, but she was around in the city and country for a work training and we had brunch together. it was so nice, and this song was playing in the restaurant at some point and c is the type of person who unconsciously starts singing along to a song in the background or perk up mid-conversation to pause and listen veryyyy hard when she's trying to commit a song she likes to memory, like roslyn. i told her it was from twilight's new moon and she lost her mind. it's a VERY GOOD song though. the soundtrack goes so hard.

10. we can't be friends (wait for your love) - Ariana Grande

very late listen of the year because i TRULY truly forgot ariana grande existed this entire year until i watched the wicked movie. earworm of a song, never mind her deeply questionable rep... i was (and still am) mildly obsessed.

Not what you made me
It's something like a daydream
But I feel so seen in the night

hemingways, i haven't consumed a lot of media this year and i think this feels glaringly obvious looking at my letterboxd and other lists. i'm hoping to read more in 2025 though, and i'm off to a good start and have finished 3 books in january (carried over from late 2024 when i started reading them), but it's good bc that means i can build on the habit of reading more than a page almost daily. what will next year in music bring?