Hey, it's been a year, or maybe, just another year? With every passing one of them, I find myself less and less well-equipped to truly judge the Year in Music. I suppose it was folly to think I ever truly did, but 10 years ago I at least had time to listen to rock, hip-hop, and um, Panda Bear. Nowadays, I'm buried under so much bleep-bloop that I can barely come up for air to whimper, "what's this Geese thing you kids are talking about?!" So, same as it ever was, I suppose, the 2025 list is just what came across my headphones this year and what I thought was fun and worthy of proselytizing about. Gaze upon the Top 10s below, or read all about it and dive into the archives over on the Charts page.

So, first of all, ever since "Neverender" came out back in the spring, I would hear it in my car and sorta hum "Music Sounds Better With You" over it, cause it does kinda have the same little high double-note on the three-and-four-and. Also, both French! But even without checking the songs' compatibility in the secret Mashup Generator software we've all had for years, I just felt like the keys would be way too far off to even attempt to actually blorp the songs on top of each other like I used to do.

Anyway, months went by, and finally I thought, "well, let's just try it," and by gum if they don't sort of work. I made a draft and sent it to good ol Adriana of Bootie Mashup Inc., asking "is this anything?" And she was like, "yeah." Next thing you know, it's in the Bootie Best of 2024 and everything. Am I cool again? Press one for yes, two for no, or say, "representative."

Honestly, by the way, download the wave file, and just go ahead and ignore that Best of Bootie link above, because Adriana asked for a radio edit to fit on the CD (retro!) so I made one and that's what they have, but I still like this 5:28 version better. Also, I feel like I have to explain the cover: I was trying to make some connection between the Justice cross and the model airplane in the Stardust video, which is vaguely cross-shaped... but even I admit it's a stretch.

Anyway, come for the mashups, stay for the lists of other people's music. I've tried to rank albums and songs again this year, and you can see those lists along with my patented aw-gee jibber-jabber over on the Charts page. Pretty soon I'm gonna have to reformat that page because the "previous years' charts" box over on the right is stretching down into infinity. It's so crazy I was making charts when I was 3 years old!!! Hahahahaha anyway see the top 10s below:

Of course, my job requires me to also sum up the year in music in the dance and electronic space(s), which I did in cooperation with my fellow genre experts and aficionados employed by our corporate overlord. As usual we came up with two song-based lists, which you can check out below:

Best of 2024: Dance
Best of 2024: Electronic

Happy new year, noone!