The Full Vessel 2024 New Year's Playlist
Aural inspiration for actualization ahead
To welcome in 2024 — you know, the year where all the false starts and detours of the last couple years reveal themselves to be, in the words of Gabrielle Bernstein, “detours in the right direction” — I put together a playlist of songs I feel might be useful as we embark on the tone-setting first days of the year. Some are a little on the nose, some are a bit of a reach, but hopefully we’ve got some just right tracks in here and I’m happy to update with any of your suggestions.
Looking forward to getting started with Full Vessel in earnest this week!
Apple and Spotify playlists linked below followed by a key with some thoughts on each song…
1. Superchunk “City of the Dead”
In 2022, in the wake of my divorce (which unfortunately coincided with a move from just outside New York City back to Miami), both the title of Superchunk’s twelfth album (Wild Loneliness) and this, the opening track, felt almost eerily tailored to my situation. Covering five or six miles a day—sometimes double that on weekends I didn’t have my kids—with lines like “Well, you can walk for miles/In the evening to clear your head/But still wake up each day/Oh, in the City of the Dead” in my headphones carried a near-Truman Show vibe.
But wait! The song ends on a New Year’s-apropos aspirational note:
Remake the world when the old one dies
Cover your mouth and open your eyes
Build your pyramids tall and your avenues wide
'Cause colonial dirt that you can't fertilize
You take world under orangey skies
Cover your face when you need a disguise
Unleash the storm and the season
To bring back the butterflies
Unleash the storm and the season
To bring back the butterflies
2. The Zombies “This Will Be Our Year”
Self-explanatory, I think? The classics, they never go out of…well, you know.
3. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “All I Ask of Myself is That I Hold Together”
Ned’s had a little MTV boomlet with the singles “Not Sleeping Around” and “Walking in Syrup” from 1992’s Are You Normal? but today—at least stateside—they seem to be remembered only for 1991’s God Fodder. Which is a shame because by the 1995 swansong Brainbloodvolume the band had (at least in my humble opinion) gotten a lot more interesting, even if not everything worked.
Anyway, this song is a tour de force and has the right question for 2024.
4. Promise Ring “Suffer Never”
Wood/Water is admittedly my least favorite Promise Ring record—it’s too mature by about half for my taste—but this clearly (to me, considering the moment) pretty Flaming Lips circa Soft Bulletin-inspired track is the best of the bunch and has a lovely message to boot.
2024 relevant lyric:
If we suffer never
We won't know if we're out of the woods
We won't know if we are feeling good
5. Jawbreaker “Save Your Generation”
1995’s Dear You is the best Jawbreaker record in my eyes—and it isn’t even particularly close. I was surprised to learn in the documentary about the band’s spectacular implosion in the wake of that record’s release (Don’t Break Down; check out hilarious clip featuring Steve Albini here) that the final straw was a co-headlining show in Providence, Rhode Island with Jawbox. Which I attended...and thought was good…but left early because it was late and cold and I had a long walk home. Really sad to hear the band cite people walking out during their set as a factor in throwing in the towel.
My bad!
I’m glad the band got back together and has been on an extended victory lap playing Dear You in its entirety to sold out crowds who stick around.
2024 relevant lyric:
If you could save yourself, you could save us all
Go on living, prove us wrong
Your leap of faith could be a well-timed smile
Survival never goes out of style
6. Sinead O’Connor “Hold Back the Night”
I was having a hard time choosing between this and “Troy”…then realized I don’t have to. Glad I got to see her a few times on tours for superior albums, including in NYC backing Faith and Courage. RIP to a legend—when in doubt, listen to The Lion & the Cobra.
2024 relevant lyric:
What will become
Of you and I?
We had a dream
Don't let it die
Just hold back the night
7. Sense Field “The Horse is Alive”
Would it be more sensible to go with “War of the Worlds,” which specifically namechecks New Year’s Eve? Probably! But I like “The Horse is Alive.” (“Overstand” is another great runner-up.)
2024 relevant lyric:
Now I want to live, live with myself
Now all things are possible, I know we'll rise like the sun
The horse is alive, darling we're gonna ride
Home in a beautiful chariot, darling we're gonna ride
8. Owen “Everyone Feels Like You”
I’m a Mike Kinsella superfan. I interviewed him a couple times for Magnet and sang the praises of Cap’n Jazz, Owen, and American Football, but we ended up talking a lot about classic era Megadeth and parenthood. You just really never know! Anyway, No Good For No One Now is a favorite.
2024 relevant lyric:
A head that aches doesn't have to stay that way, just let what's dead go
I know there's pain in leaving things all too well.
In time, you'll find needing things only kills you slowly.
If you're not sure who you are, you're not alone.
If you're not sure what you want, you're not alone.
9. Braid “New Nathan Detroits”
This is a weird one, maybe, but this song always just felt like a New Year’s song to me. (Okay, so New Year’s 1998, but whatever.) Also, we could use a little jubilance and fist-pumping on this list, so…
10. Embrace “End of a Year”
New Wave-y Ian MacKaye is top shelf Ian MacKaye in my estimation. The 1987 self-titled release by this mash up of Minor Threat and Faith is such a great album and also a perfect chrysalis moment bridging D.C. hardcore and the post-hardcore scene that spawned so many of my favorite bands.
Maybe you don’t have to love a song that starts with the line “I don’t like parties…” but I kind of do.
2024 relevant lyric:
We're always talking
but nothing ever changes
It's the end of a fucked-up year...
there's another one coming
11. Bluetip “Past Tense”
Staying in D.C. long enough to say, “See you later, 2023!”
Hatebreed “Perseverance”
We’re going into Jeff Buckley next so I feel like a bit of knuckle-draggery is acceptable. Lyrics = self-explanatory. (Also, dude didn’t make it to the video shoot, but RIP Boulder.)
12. Jeff Buckley “New Year’s Prayer”
“Fall in light/Feel no shame for what you are.”
13. Abba “Happy New Year”
To call this even a second-tier Abba song would likely be overly kind, but it’s got some bracing 2024 relevant lyrics for us:
Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It's the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we'll find***
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I
14. Chisel “It’s Alright, You’re O.K.”
It’s true. You are. (And how great is it this record finally got reissued in 2023? Bright spot!)
15. Death Cab for Cutie “The New Year”
Feels, as I noted in intro, a little on the nose, but I like the wall of sound and vocals here, and if you’re going to be on the nose…
2024 relevant lyric:
So this is the new year
And I don't feel any different
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance
In the distanceSo this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
Or self-assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions
16. Sinead O’Connor “Troy”
Remember I said I was going to do this. And now I have. 2024 follow through!
17. Mountain Goats “This Year”
The Sunset Tree is one of the few records I consider front to back perfect and I love that this has become considered something of an anthem since the record’s 2005 release.
We are going to make it through this year if it kills us.
@zombyboy I meant to mine a Lanegan track to include on this for you! 🤣🙌