50 Best Art Moments of 2024
In no particular order, here’s what I was enjoying:
Season 5 of Fargo. What a fantastic season, mixing humor and darkness better than anything I’ve seen in a long, long time. The ending was surprisingly perfectly sweet. It was good to see Juno Temple do such good work here.
June Squibb’s performance in Sundance’s charming Thelma.
Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell at the Grammys. Two of the most gifted artists to ever walk this planet gave performances that will go down in music TV history.
Kacey Musgraves’ “The Architect.” A beautiful, beautiful song from a thoughtful album.
Alabama Shakes reunited for a single show. Please, God, let this continue in 2025.
Abbott Elementary returned with a brilliant season 3 premiere, giving life to another season that was among the very best of the year.
Dune: Part Two. A didn’t understand hardly any of it, but it sure was made well.
Iron & Wine and Fiona Apple’s “All in Good Time” announced itself as the preliminary song of the year. Good to have them both back and sounding so good.
And speaking of music, Hurray for the Riff Raff released an early album of the year contender with The Past is Still Alive, and MJ Lenderman did the same with Manning Fireworks.
Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood dropped, and I was tore up for weeks. It’s just a gift to be able to experience the whole thing.
Willi Carlisle’s Critterland showcased wonderful Americana.
Adrianne Lenker’s “Free Treasure” premiered and became one of the best songs of the decade. It was repeated A LOT by me! Also, Lenker’s album undoubtedly proved itself as one of year’s best.
Sierra Ferrell’s Trail of Flowers. What a brilliant, moving, and personal record. Just excellent!
Animal. Podcast of the year, without question. Animals. Life. Death. Beautiful explorations here.
Tyler Childers with Valerie June and Willi Carlisle in Alpharetta made a run for best live show I’ve ever seen. Tyler is at his best right now. He looks and sounds happy and healthy, and it’s a joy to see an artist at work like this. Triumphant.
Fleet Foxes FINALLY released Live On Boston Harbor, and I was in absolute bliss. Heavy rotation. Heavy…
Sturgill Simpson went on tour. I cried. I saw him in Nashville and Huntsville within a two-week span. It was magic. He also released a new album as Johnny Blue Skies. Yeah, I was DEFINITELY into it.
Inside Out 2 and Twisters provided that summer sequels can be pretty good.
I know some folks weren’t as wild about the new season of The Bear, but I was feeling it for real. It reminded me of literary vignettes. Nothing was happening, but so was everything. But… it’s not a comedy, and it drives me nuts that the powers that be keep insisting that it is.
Shoutout to Billy Allen + The Pollies for “I Thought You Wanted Him,” which growled with power.
Soundwaves put out some beautiful signed prints this past year. They continued the mission of helping various charities, too. I picked up a couple of nice additions for my office.
Non-fiction literary releases were excellent. I especially loved Bite by Bite and The Barn.
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. A cinematic masterpiece and probably on my top 10 of all-time list. I needed to sit with it for a while.
J. Drew Lanham’s Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves. A collection that mixed poetry with vignettes, reflecting on our natural world and race. It was an absolute beautiful book. And it’s featured on my main shelf of classics at home.
All Creatures Great & Small. This show continues to impress me. It’s so full of community and love and shows the importance of just being good to people. And there are also lots and lots of animals. It’s the best show PBS has ever done, and it’s one of the finest and most important works of television of this current century. I’ll declare this as often as needed.
Sierra Ferrell’s Tiny Desk Concert! Just brilliant. Girl can sing and put on a show. Waxahatchee’s was really good too.
Pachinko knows how to tell a story. It’s expansive and beautiful and sad.
The southern music and southern lit issues of Oxford American.
Evil ended—and gah lee was it wild! I loved every bit of it. Was the final season the best? Absolutely!
Jason Isbell and Brittany Howard were honored by the Alabama Humanities Alliance one night in Huntsville. It was a good conversation and a celebration of southern storytelling. The night ended with the celebrated musicians performing one song each, which was quite beautiful.
Cement City was wonderful. A podcast about a dying town that’s holding on. Lovely and tender reflections populate these episodes.
Only Murders in the Building continued its impressive streak as being funny AND smart!
The Southern Festival of Books. I hosted. I was a panelist myself. I visited food trucks. I bought a lot of books. A treasure.
Grey Wolfe LaJoie’s collection, Little Ones, gave some strange beauty to the fall. A delightful, affecting book of fable-like stories.
The Wild Robot moved me more than any film has in a long, long time. It’s also vivid and full of brilliant voiceovers.
Weird, wonderful, and southern books of fall! New novels from Jen Fawkes and Jamie Quatro delivered majorly.
James McAvoy’s unhinged performance in the wonderful Speak No Evil. And special mention to two other performances, too, with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in Wicked.
Marguerite Sheffer’s debut collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, gave literature some brilliant magic and horror. One of my favorite books of the year.
The Great British Bake Off is kind fun, and I always love it. This year, though, it had something better than it as a whole—and that was contestant Nelly. Give that woman her own show.
Somebody, Somewhere. One of the greatest shows to ever exist. The messaging on not giving up on ourselves is vital kind of stuff. How this doesn’t win all of the awards is beyond my understanding. This was real, kind, tender, and impactful storytelling, and it and its cast were brilliant.
Snoop on the Olympics. Ridiculous and strange and fun.
Simon Van Booy’s Sipsworth. Loneliness and animal friendship take the stage in Booy’s great new novel. Hearing the author talk about the book at the Southern Festival of Books gave the whole a nice added layer of the personal. And, man, does the author absolutely nail the tricky, delicate ending.
Margaret Renkl’s “Against Panic: A Survival Kit” reflected on the election quite affectingly and powerfully at The New York Times. I just have to say how brilliant Renkl is. I go on and on about Late Migrations all the time in real life, and she’s just an absolutely fantastic writer. She wrote several other pieces I have saved. And from 2024 alone: “Short Books are Perfect for our Distracted Age,” “Enough with the Fireworks Already,” “Our Pandemic Puppy Brought Pure Joy,” “In Search of the Lost Fireflies,” & “Taking a Cue From the Squirrels in My Birdhouse.”
Zach Top’s Cold Beer & Country Music. Classic-sounding kind of country record.
The script for A Real Pain. Genius. And since I’m on scripts, Didi deserves a special mention too. Damn good.
The photo of Tyler Childers riding his mule to vote on Election Day.
A Man on the Inside came out right before Thanksgiving and knocked me over with its depiction of community and kindness. Ted Danson was excellent, and it was great to see Stephen McKinley in such a strong role. Michael Schur struck warm TV gold again.
Horror films majorly bringing it. Nosferatu and Heretic were INSANE.
Sarah Wildman’s “If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us?” From The New York Times. What some important and beautiful writing about dying and death.
Reruns of Schitt’s Creek. No, it didn’t release in 2024. And no, I don’t care. My list. My rules. I watched through the entire series about 8 times, and I felt joy each and every time.