Happy New Year! Nick kicks things off with Three For Thursday: 2024 Albums of the Year Edition. We’ve heard songs from these albums over the past year, but Nick believes they’re the cream of the crop in 2024.

Songs:

Ghost Note - “Where’s Danny?”

Vampire Weekend - “Mary Boone”

Plantoid - “Insomniac (Don’t Worry)”

Greg brings us up to speed on a documentary he’s recommending we all watch over the holiday break. Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary can be found on Max and recounts the rise in popularity of the, later dubbed, yacht rock genre that emerged from the west coast in the late 70s.

Song: Doobie Brothers - “What a Fool Believes”

Jay wraps the week (and the year) with a fantastic article in the Jan 2025 Harpers Magazine titled “The Ghosts in the Machine” [Harpers Magazine]. The article reports Spotify’s internal program aimed at filling ‘background music’ playlists with licensed sound-alike content that costs much less that the royalties paid to streaming artists. It re-raises a familiar question on the show, can the economics of the music industry ever result in a system that benefits and is fair to its artists.

Song: Frank Zappa - “Andy” (checkout Tyler Bartrem’s video about this song if you’re interested -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Jq0DX0bfc )