The second: This was not a year of revolutionary new technologies, but rather a year of technology refinements. When I look back at the bar I’ve set for “Technology of the Year” since I started this, there was simply nothing in 2024 that approached what I offered in past years. Sure, there was some progress in Generative AI, but there were regressions as well. Windows got a boost in the ARM, but Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X offerings still can’t compete with Apple M4. The fact that Microsoft woke up to ARM in 2024 might have been the most important step of the year, but the technology behind it isn’t worthy of calling out.
For a period of my life, I was involved with an awards organization that had criteria for first, second, and third places. In some cases, we only offered a second, or even a third place award. In other cases, we offered no award at all. This organization had standards! I always respected that. I feel the same way about The Progressive CIO’s “Technology of the Year” – I don’t want to award something simply because it was better than other humdrummery.
So it will be this year.
I look forward to writing more deeply for you all in 2025. Happy New Year to you and yours!
You might mock me for liking Vampire Weekend. I can take it. I was frankly surprised that Only God Was Above Us is as good — if not better than — almost everything they have ever done. It’s certainly on par with Modern Vampires Of The City. The concluding track, Hope, might convince you, too. It will be a useful track for 2025.
You haven’t heard of The Dip? That’s a shame. Here’s your chance. Love Direction is the best new album from the most under-the-radar band I listened all across 2024. It is a true album in the classic sense: you will want to listen to it from start to finish, and you will want to do so multiple times. Every track features interesting key changes (how about that, Rick Beato!), including the very last track, Let Love In, which pulls a cleverly emotional key change just when you’re not looking, straight out of Chicago. The music is in no way derivative; it is 100% original, Tom Eddy is an incredible singer, and the entire band really knows how to play.
Les Amazones d’Afrique is a rotating supergroup of West African activists who have created some of the most powerful and danceable music of 2024. I can make a cheap comment and suggest that if this were 1986 and Paul Simon was creating Graceland, he would have wanted to work with Les Amazones d’Afrique. But that would diminish the music on display here. Imaginative, intense, and powerfully female, this is a record for current times. Do not miss this!
Given my proximity to the northern border of the US, I have a penchant for Canadian music, and this is my favorite Canadian album of 2024. We seem to be in the middle of a folk rock renaissance, and Abigail Lapell is among the best of the best. The two tracks with Great Lakes Swimmers are instant classics of the genre. This is an album filled with thoughtful compositions and performances. It’s also remarkable in that you can listen to it as background music or foreground music, but please start with the latter, then surprise and intrigue your dinner guests with it as the former.
6. The Sixteen – Charles Villiers Stanford: Partsongs, Pastorals and Folksongs
I am a classical music fan, but this is my first award given to a classical album. That’s not because there aren’t great classical recordings every year — there certainly are — but there are few that blow my mind in a way that non-classical albums tend to. This album did. I’ve been a fan of The Sixteen for many years, but this iteration sees the group perform with as many as eighteen performers, and they are performing music from Charles Villiers Stanford that is universally accessible and gorgeous. Stanford was an influence on, and teacher to, many classical composers you probably know, from Ralph Vaughan to Gustav Holst. No matter what music you like, I suspect you will find something to love about this album. Peace to you and yours until this time, 2025.
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