Girls On Top

From Seoul to Dublin, Melbourne to Brighton, my fave music of 2024 was fun, feisty and female-fronted

Jan 05, 2025

As noted on my last post of last year, 2024 was a banner twelve months for good music across the board. My own “Best of” playlist is now 210+ artists/songs and still growing. One reader sent me their own Top 100, another linked me to 449 songs (not-a-typo) they loved from 2024. It’s all too much, but in a good way, if we can approach/appreciate the informational overload with all due positivity and gratitude.

But what was the takeaway from 2024? What was the music that impressed me the most? Specifically, the new music from newer artists? Who really excited and surprised me, made me want to jump and down in the front rows, had me yearning to be super young and pogo strong? Was there a sound, a sensation, a series of songs that wrapped themselves around 2025 both thematically and globally, that left me extra optimistic about the future in both the mainstream and the margins?

Yes. The music that most excited me in 2024 was all female-fronted, much of it entirely female-performed, it was feisty and it was fun. It was generally loud and rebellious, much of it non-hetero, and most of it delivered with a glorious couple of fingers raised to respectable and conventional society, which often meant menfolk-at-large. It was music I could sing along to – and shout along to – and yet it was music that got stuck in my head at the same time. Perhaps best of all, it felt global.

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SAILOR HONEYMOON

Exhibit number 1 is the song “F**x Urself” by South Korean all-female punk trio Sailor Honeymoon, which landed as part of my non-personalized Qobuz New Releases playlist, at the end of April. Preceded by a debut online “single,” “PMS Police,” and followed quickly by an eponymous debut eight-song, 20-minutes-long EP/album, “F**x Urself” stands out amongst the act’s short catalogue not merely by virtue of its title, but, musically at least, by the degree of its overly fuzzy, lo-fi indie guitar rock, the way the vocals are buried but the guitar riffs are turned way up.

However, what really sells the song, what renders it a cut above the rest and absolutely one of 2024’s best, is the finale. When, two minutes in, Sailor Honeymoon pause after a two-line chorus, only to repeat it one semi-tone higher – i.e. modulating it upwards – and slightly faster, the initial reaction is a smile of familiarity at one of the older tricks in the book. When they do it again just one line later, and then again, and again and again, each single-line chorus going up a semi-tone and faster with it, that instinctual reaction becomes one of digital suspicion given the meticulous nature of the performance: Was this a post-recording concept, perhaps, something manipulated in the mix? But as the whole thing collapses in on itself in a final frenzy of mayhem, not only do we receive confirmation of in-studio performance but also of its genius. For the manner in which this finale catches the listener unawares, keeps them hooked, and still manages to raise a smile on multiple repeat plays, I cited “F**x Urslef” it in my masterclass for The Songwriting Academy last month as a prime example of “The Art of Surprise.”

Being as old as I am these days means that I understand Sailor Honeymoon’s musical reference points – which seem to be more firmly rooted in British shambling indie rock of the 1980s (Shop Assistants, Fuzzbox and the likes) than the US-led Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s. I am not alone in this: “The fact we’re Korean and not making K-pop is the same as [us not being] English and making English-rooted music,” says drummer and singer Abi Raymaker, who grew up in the US before moving to Seoul, where she teamed up with local techno DJ/guitarist Shin Zaeun, the trio now rounded out by bassist TOMYO. “It doesn’t matter anymore – not that it ever really did – but people are so patriotic about, ‘This music is from here’.” Indeed. Which may be one reason Sailor Honeymoon sport t-shirts cheekily proclaiming, “Korean girls invented punk rock not England.”

There’s something as refreshing in this statement (itself a nod to Kim Gordon’s influence) as in its sheer preposterousness. For, let’s be honest to ourselves, presuming that English language white bands – male bands, historically – have the lock on rock is oh-so-very 20^th Century, and we are now fully one quarter through the 21st. Seoul is as much a global capital as anywhere – that city’s author Han Kang, whose 2016 novel Human Acts was by the far the best novel I read in 2024, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year - and Sailor Honeymoon are as representative of our global cultural music scene as anyone.

Nonetheless, having formed their label, Good Good 굿굿 Records, in collaboration with a London-based producer, Sailor Honeymoon’s UK connections and influences means that they got to play five shows in my old home country around the online EP’s release, at least their second trip to Britain. An entertaining and high-energy promo clip for the song “PMS Police” was evidently shot in London/England, though the video for the EP’s opening song “Bad Apple,” which I take to be a spectacularly lo-fi, endearing homage to the Beastie Boys’ infamously big-budget “Sabotage,” was just as clearly shot on the streets of Seoul/South Korea.

There are also copious live videos of Sailor Honeymoon on YouTube, most seemingly shot likewise either in London or Seoul and the vast majority at close quarters, in small gigs, where the band appears to excel. I have chosen this gig-length video from April 2024, not because the trio necessarily blow me away, but because in its gritty neon underground colorful zest, it appears to exemplify a vibrant, close-knit South Korean indie scene. Seriously, what’s not to love?

AMYL & THE SNIFFERS

Barely a month after Sailor Honeymoon knocked me sideways, fellow Substacker Joe Bonomo turned me on to Melbourne, Australia’s Amyl & The Sniffers, via his deep dive into a quartet that dates back several years, a couple of albums, and at least that many prior US tours given Joe’s familiarity and fandom. OK, so once more I’m late to the party, but what better an entrance point than this year’s lead-out single “U Should Not Be Doing That,” a song of all-out female-independent defiance delivered by front woman Amy Taylor with what appears to be her trademark venom. It came accompanied by one of 2024’s absolute must-watch videos, in which Taylor’s stunning performance is complemented by actor Steven Ogg, he of Grand Theft Auto V and The Walking Dead.

From best I understand, “U Should Not Be Doing That” is something of a “fuck-you-i-won’t-do-what-you-tell-me” riposte to those who want to impose their own values on Taylor, including from feminists who do not approve of her dress code. Truly, I know nothing more of the back-story than that. What matters more to me is that on the other side of the world, indeed in a historically conservative country, there is a four-piece rock group in which the boys in the band are willing to serve the girl in the group who dominates them in every which way, including with the lyrics and visual presentation: “We’re a vessel for her message,” admits bassist Gus Romer in this Guardian interview.

Exemplary of our era of musical overload, it is only in writing this round-up that I see that Amyl and the Sniffers released their accompanying third full album, Cartoon Darkness, on Rough Trade, at the end of October. (And that it was recorded in Los Angeles, where the two other male members of the band have relocated.) It may be too much to hope that any other single song will resonate and resound with such musical malice as “U Should Not Be Doing That,” but based on not just the promo video for “Jerkin’,” but this live clip from the London Roundhouse in November, I should have plenty fun finding out.

Meantime, Taylor continues to battle off hometown critics who, in that very Anglo-Aussie way, would rather this woman did not get on top. “Which one’s heavier: criticism or not being able to do what I do?” shrugs Taylor. “To me, I’d rather just keep doing what I’m doing.” Amy, we should all be doing that.

SPRINTS

Closer to my ancestral home, Dublin, Ireland quartet Sprints released their debut full-length album, Letter to Self (on City Slang) at the very top of 2024, but in the usual way of things, at least of my things, it did not cross my radar until Rob Levy played the single “Feast” on at least one, if not all, of his three excellent radio shows (listen to him on The Face Radio here and Louder Than War radio here). As with Amyl & The Sniffers, Sprints are a rock quartet in which the female front person overshadows the males behind her, and in the sense of righteous anger and catharsis that exudes throughout, there are further musical similarities between the Dubliners and the Melbourners. But as the video (and lyrics) for “Feast” reveal in their gothic sensibility, Sprints are otherwise cut from something of a different cloth.

Frontwoman, singer and guitarist Karla Chubb describes it thus in an interview with Clash magazine,

“I think the album is so confessional and autobiographical and it definitely bookmarks a time in our lives, and a lot of the struggles I’ve faced up until this point, particularly internally… How did you deal with the homophobia or the abuse or the struggles with mental health and feeling a total lack of belonging? How can I process that myself internally? I think if you do that so bluntly, that anyone who’s experiencing anything remotely similar or struggling can probably relate or heal a little bit.”

Sprints, like Amyl and the Sniffers, are no secret – indeed, they are British media darlings - and nothing I’m writing about here is trying to suggest any of these acts should be hid under a bushel. For me, this is music that takes up batons handed down and over by prior generations of identity-outsiders, music that deserves all its acclaim, that should be shouted from the rooftops. Oh, and as with Amyl and the Sniffers, Sprints also look like a top live band. Exhibit B follows:

LAMBRINI GIRLS

Even later in the year, and even closer to my old South London home, Levy hit me again with Brighton, England’s Lambrini Girls, whose “Big Dick Energy” is every bit as raucous as its title and which doesn’t so much shout its grievances at toxic masculinity as laugh about them with unforgiving volume and velocity. It’s full-on and unforgiving, maybe too much for some, but me, I effing love it, and I wish it had been around decades ago.

I’m seemingly not alone: Iggy Pop voiced his enthusiasm for Lambrini Girls as far back as 2022, when first online single, “Help Me, I’m Gay,” hit the indie media, and indeed, Phoebe Lunny and Lily Maciera have been raising roofs across the UK and the European continent for years already. Such has been the anticipation level for Lambrini Girls’ debut album that the duo even snuck into New York for a couple of shows this December.

Interestingly, Lambrini Girls share not just a label with Sprints, as I have only just discovered in writing up this feature, but also, a producer, in Daniel Fox, which might explain why I sensed a certain sense of musical sorority between those two acts. But where Sprints (and indeed, Amyl & The Sniffers) are very much rock bands, Lambrini Girls are anything but. There are guitars and drums a plenty, but this is an act that disassembles our idea of the standard “sound” as much as they build upon it.

“We like to be messy and have a party,” Maciera told The Line of Best Fit in an excellent article published just last week. “Obviously, a lot of the songs are quite heavy and talk about serious subjects, [but] as much as we are a serious and political band, we’re also absolutely ridiculous and very silly.” This balance allows them to throw in synth-pop experiments alongside riotous DIY analogue tracks, and to balance songs about neurodivergence and gentrification with an album finale entitled “Cuntology 101,” preceded by one called, simply and with all due unoriginality, “Love.” A romantic ballad it is not.

That debut album, Who Let The Dogs Out, drops from City Slang on January 10, and threatens – yeah, threatens – to be the first “come-and-have-a-listen-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough” set of 2025. Trailered not just by “Love” but by another single, “Company Culture,” the album aligns itself with the Sailor Honeymoon camp of knowing that too much of a good thing is too much: Who Let The Dogs Out is 11 songs long, and 29 minutes short. As a trailblazer for the dickless energy we will need to get us through 2025, especially in the US where a convicted sex criminal has just been elected Prersident, I’m trusting it lives up to promise. And even if it doesn’t, I’m grateful for what Lambrini Girls brought to the year gone by.

But what then of this here USA? Where are our compatriots, the musical sisterhood of South Korea’s Sailor Honeymoon, of Ireland’s Sprints, of Australia’s Amyl and the Sniffers and England’s Lambrini Girls? Where are the riotous American riot girls of 2024?

They are in my midst and that, my friends, will be the focus of my follow-up post.