5 Songs from 2024 that Give Me the Shivers

Ahhh, it’s good to be back. Did ya miss me?

That’s right, this dusty old blog is back in action (a solid 7 years after my last post). I’m not even sure if blogging is a thing anymore.

Anyway, I figure it’s fitting to do a retrospective listicle to get the ole typing fingers warmed up again. The theme here is “songs that give me the shivers.” You should know the feeling: listening to a tune so enveloping that it triggers a physical reaction. That tingling sensation that travels up your spine. Could be when a certain chord is struck. Could be a killer saxophone riff that resonates with your innermost soul. Could be vocal harmonies so serene that your feel yourself ascending to the heavens. Point is, some tracks hit our pleasure centers more directly than others. And lucky for all of us, 2024 was a damn good year for music.

So here are 5 songs from 2024 that give me the shivers, in no particular order.

1) “Life is” – Jessica Pratt

It feels like a message from on high; the kind of song that would make you join the cult. In typical Jessica Pratt style, it is drenched in angelic reverb. Her signature woodland-creature voice cooing into the void. But unlike most of Pratt’s earlier material, this one features drums and bass, which lends “Life is” a gravitas, a heavier weight than her older work. The lovely lilting rhythm adds a heartbeat to the gentle guitar that strums at your heartstrings.

As soon as the guitar and bass kick in after the percussion introduction, I’m helpless. Then the song builds; adding sweeping strings, triumphant horns, and a bit of xylophone for vibes’ sake. It grows from pastoral folk pop into a Spectorian wall of musical bliss. All while Jessica Pratt chants “time is, time is, time is, time again.” Sending my head spinning.

2) “Crashing Through” – Friko

An absolute meteor of a song, it truly lives up to its title. Right off the bat, crunchy, whammy-bar guitar tones crash through the mix like a gorilla on the loose.

Lyrically, “Crashing Through” is brutally honest, with lead singer Niko Kapetan coaxing out the devastating line:

“I haven’t said what I mean to say,

Haven’t done what I mean to do,

Cause every coward looks away,

from all the light crashing through”

And in that hoarse honesty, he conveys a raw, unpolished passion that can only be found in the finest of rock music.

Music-wise, the band plays around with surprise rhythmic inflections, vocal yelps, and structural misdirections that continuously ratchet up the emotional intensity until the howling catharsis of the song’s climax crushes it into singularity. This is a masterwork of pacing, poetry, and heavy distortion that must be heard loudly to be truly understood.

3) “I Don’t Know You” – Mannequin Pussy

One of many damn-near-perfect tracks off Mannequin Pussy’s stellar 2024 album I Got Heaven, this one brings the shivers because of the sonic juxtapositions it creates. It is a simmering, shimmering ode to missed connections. It delves into the feeling of losing something you never had. The aching sensation of “what if?”

There are three little words that I wish I had said,

But I wouldn’t tell you, No, I couldn’t tell you,

I know a lot of things, I know a lot of things,

But I don’t know you

As lead singer Marisa Dabice sings these breathy lines, the musical stock thickens. A textural blend of deep, thumping bass, grainy distorted guitar, and airy arpeggiated synths sound like heaven and hell looking at each other through the lens of the mortal world. A deep bottom and cavernous ceiling, with miles of empty space between. A musical embodiment of simultaneous infatuation and regret.

4) “Mary Boone”- Vampire Weekend

The newest in a long line of quintessential Vampire Weekend tracks, this one comes off as a hipper, more world-weary Hannah Hunt.

“Mary Boone” excels because of its freewheeling creativity. It’s the kind of song only a seasoned band can engineer. Like a Swiss watch ticking away, the story unfolds like origami, layer by layer. Perfectly paced. As he’s singing the first chorus, Ezra Koenig slips into a lower register than usual. With a touch of reverb, it almost sounds like a riffing saxophone in an empty concert hall. Cutting through the would-be silence. And then the real shivers come.

The surprise boom-bap refrain excites with every listen. Baroque strings, sitar, and synthesized interjections dance atop that head-nodding beat and produce a kaleidoscopic effect. It works every time.

True to Vampire Weekend’s origins, “Mary Boone” is a collage of New York. It grasps at that platonic ideal, that perception of the city that lives in everyone’s mind (maybe only in the mind, for that matter). The risk, the rumbling trains, the high art of choirs and string quartets, and the drums that might make RZA crack a smile, all stewed together in just the right measure.

5) “Everything is Romantic”- Charli XCX

Of course, BRAT is on here.

It might seem an odd choice, but this song is the otherworldly headspace between asleep and awake, where you lose your body and slip into an REM splattering of disparate memories. Images that your subconscious somehow retrieved at once:

bad tattoos on leather-tanned skin,

Jesus Christ on a plastic sign,

fall in love again and again,

winding roads doing manual drive

And you keep slipping deeper and deeper into the trance, reliving a rapid-fire slideshow of your vital past:

early nights in white sheets with lace curtains,

Capri in the distance,

in a place that can make you change,

fall in love again and again

The kick drum sends you plummeting down the rabbit hole. There’s no escaping now. You find yourself tumbling end-over-end into the valley of the subconscious. All touch with reality is lost as the dreamscape sucks you in.

And then, without warning, you jolt awake, out of that weightless REM dream state. But you find yourself longing for it, longing for the electric sensation again.

And so, BRAT is on here.

Honorable mention: “Butterflies” (feat. Tim Bernardes) – Liana Flores

Breezy bossa nova with gorgeous nylon guitar syncopation, complimented by sparse, resonant piano. And Liana Flores channeling Jobim, to hypnotic effect. Her breathy voice blends with Tim Bernardes’ to form a single instrument.

It stands with the iconic sounds of bossa nova’s golden age- Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Luis Bonfa- a delightful rendering of a bygone era that conjures images of that one cloudy day during your tropical vacation. The only day when you had time to think something other than “wow, it’s pretty here.” A memorably sour moment in paradise.