MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks
Odds: 8-to-1
Pros: Feels like the leading “indie rock” AOTY candidate. The people who like him tend to love him. And those that love him view him as a generational talent in the process of creating an all-time body of work. Weirdly, given his unassuming nature, he also has a cult of personality that feels like the flipside of Charli XCX — in both instances, however, fans like the idea of hanging out with the artist as much as listening to their music. Never underestimate the power of parasocial charisma on allegedly high-minded music critics. It’s a potent intoxicant!
Cons: He’s way less famous than the artists I’ve already mentioned, which sadly must be counted as a negative. Also, there is a significant number of writers who will always be skeptical of the “White Male Guitar-Playing Critics Darling” archetype, partly as a delayed reaction (and “correction”) to the aforementioned praise once lavished on the Springsteens and Radioheads of the world. Lenderman is the first artist in a while who fits that description, and it is definitely a double-edged sword.
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department
Odds: 10-to-1
Pros: She is the most brilliant songwriter of our time. Her run of albums is virtually unparalleled in music history. Anything she does is automatically era defining. Taylor Swift is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life. Am I saying this while blind-folded and tied to a chair in a pitch-black basement at an undisclosed location? Of course not! Just please don’t hurt me!
Cons: If I were not tied to this chair, and I was doing an impersonation of a meanie music critic, I would say this: By Taylor Swift standards, The Tortured Poets Department was not terribly well reviewed. Nor did it deserve to be: It is a long, monotonous, and frankly boring record. Plus, her relentless self-promotion and ruthless grade-grubbing on the album charts finally registered as craven to at least some segments of the music press, which otherwise has rubber-stamped much of her work lately.
Nevertheless: She still has plenty of fans in the critical community, so you can’t ever count her out. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to water-boarded.
Cindy Lee, Diamond Jubilee
Odds: 15-to-1
Pros: Hands down the year’s most appealing indie-rock underdog story. A double album composed of 32 spooky and expertly written retro pop songs is posted to an obscure Geocities site by a mysterious composer and guitarist who performs in drag, and within weeks it becomes one of the best reviewed releases of 2024. The music is alluring and magnetic, but the circumstances inevitably make cynical media people feel warmly nostalgic about a less corporate era of the internet. (I am talking about myself but not only myself.)
Cons: Diamond Jubilee came out in late March, and not long after Cindy Lee canceled a nationwide tour midway through. Aside from a beguiling collaboration with Panda Bear, it’s been radio silence ever since. That silence makes Diamond Jubilee feel distinctly like an early 2024 phenomenon, which might as well be a whole different year. Even those who love this record might have trouble remembering it in light of more recent and visible releases.
Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood
Odds: 16-to-1
Pros: In the indie realm, Waxahatchee has Beyoncé-levels of critical esteem. It’s just hard to imagine Katie Crutchfield not doing very well on a year-end list, no matter the album or the year. She’s even crossed over to “nominated for an Americana Grammy” status. (It helps that she delivers consistently good albums, of course.)
Cons: I’m not sure I can quantify this, but anecdotally I get the feeling that Tigers Blood is viewed as a worthy and well-made but ultimately lesser sequel to the previous Waxahatchee record, 2020’s Saint Cloud, one of the finest and most beloved indie releases of the decade so far. There’s also the matter of MJ Lenderman — who appears throughout Tigers Blood, including the standout single “Right Back To It” — and whether Manning Fireworks will undermine the Waxahatchee voting bloc.
Billie Eilish, Hit Me Hard And Soft
Odds: 16-to-1
Pros: Of all the big superstar pop albums I have already mentioned, Hit Me Hard And Soft feels like the least heralded. But in terms of album reviews, it actually performed nearly as well as Brat and Cowboy Carter, and significantly better than the Taylor Swift record. For years, Eilish was the pop star to which rock-minded people gravitated — if Dave Grohl or Billie Joe Armstrong or Eddie Vedder namechecked a recent hitmaker in an interview, it was bound to be her. She’s moving out of that category now (Olivia Rodrigo and Chappel Roan have now assumed that role) but Eilish still seems like the pop star of choice for those who don’t take other pop stars seriously.
Cons: Are there really many critics (or any critics) who don’t take pop stars seriously at this point? Note that I said that Hit Me Hard And Soft was “nearly” as loved by critics as Brat and Cowboy Carter. That means it drags ever so slightly behind, which I would expect to also be true on year-end lists.
Sturgill Simpson/Johnny Blue Skies, Passage du Desir
Odds: 18-to-1
Pros: In 2009, Chuck Eddy of The Village Voice bemoaned what he saw as too many indie records at the top of the newspaper’s annual “Pazz and Jop” poll by making up a cruel-but-funny MOR caricature he called Kevin McFrench. This person was “a fake daily-paper hack from Ohio with the corniest, rootsiest, stodgiest, most clichéd and clueless white-bread biz-sucking middle-aged middlebrow Midwestern Springsteen-to-Wilco do-gooder dad-rock critical tastes you ever saw.” Funny enough, Eddy was complaining that there weren’t enough of these writers represented in the poll. (That’s how much he disliked Animal Collective, I guess.)
Anyway: The modern version of Kevin McFrench — with whom I am aligned musically and philosophically in many ways, shoutout to daily-paper hacks from flyover country — would definitely love the Johnny Blue Skies record. (Jack White’s No Name could also go in this slot.)
Cons: If 2009 had a shortage of Kevin McFrench’s, 2024 likely will have a full-on McFrench drought.
