Stuart Berman's favourite articles written in 2024 by Stuart Berman
It's like the In Memoriam reel at the Oscars, but for my writing
Welcome to stübermania, where I usually dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars, but over the holidays, I’ll succumb to music-journo peer pressure and feed the Year in Review content beast.
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You don’t need me to remind you that 2024 was a chaotic year in music journalism, so I feel extra-grateful that I still get to do my thing from time-to-time for some premier outlets. Here are the things I was especially stoked to work on this year:
PITCHFORK REVIEWS
I filed this review of the reissue for Swervedriver’s 99th Dream right before the axe fell at Pitchfork last January, and for a moment there, I wasn’t sure if it would see the light of day amidst all the restructuring happening there. But I remember thinking, if the review does indeed run, I’ll take it as a reassuring sign that there’ll still be room for shoegeezer content in the new world order.
Ty Segall’s Three Bells came out back in January—i.e., 7,000 years ago—and I feel like its early release date made it easier for critics to forget about it come year-end-listmaking time. But the double album is one of the free-ranging rocker’s best. If you haven’t checked it out, let this review convince you to dive in. And I quote: “This is rock’n’roll as an M.C. Escher painting—a balance of innovative engineering and disorienting up-is-down logic.”
I got to write an extended Sunday Review about one of my eternal obsessions, Mercury Rev’s mind-altering 1991 debut Yerself Is Steam (a.k.a. the American Loveless).
Here’s my write-up of a live album documenting the strangest Neil Young and Crazy Horse show of all time.
As Alan Partridge once opined, Wings were “the band The Beatles could’ve been,” and this 50th-anniversary release of the long-buried documentary/soundtrack One Hand Clapping proves he was kinda right…
…whereas Redd Kross’ self-titled double-album proves they’re the band The Beatles could’ve been had Lennon/McCartney cut their teeth at Black Flag house shows instead of the Cavern Club.
For my second Sunday Review of the year, I wrote about the most influential music critics of the 1990s (Beavis and Butt-head), the Boognish-to-Skibidi Toilet pipeline, and the sketch-com rock brilliance of Ween's Chocolate & Cheese.
Any Nick Cave fan with an active email account is no doubt a regular reader of his Red Hand Files newsletter; with Wild God, he’s essentially writing an advice-column inquiry to himself.
While Godspeed You! Black Emperor win the award for the most inescapably grim album title of the year, the music contained within ranks among the most unabashedly uplifting of their career.
If you were introduced to Jennifer Castle through her prime song placement on Season 3 of The Bear, then your next move should be bingeing her new album Camelot.
TORONTO STAR ARTICLES
Speaking of The Bear—I did a retrospective feature on Oddfellows, a Toronto restaurant that was only around from 2008 to 2011, but it played a crucial role in turning chef Matty Matheson into !!!MATTY MATHESON!!!
The same week that the fourth and final season The Umbrella Academy premiered on Netflix, I got to speak with series star Elliot Page about the much-less-seen Close to You, a low-budget indie drama that he called “undoubtedly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.”
STEREOGUM FEATURES
I spoke to Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain about JAMC No. 1 fan Sir Elton John, their absolutely miserable experience at Lollapalooza ‘92, and brawling with the cast of Riverdance.
Prior to the release of the latest Pearl Jam album, Dark Matter, I selected their 10 best tracks from the 21st century, prefaced with an explanation of how a band that once meant the world to me have become more like the sort of distant acquaintance I only interact with occasionally on Facebook.
Here’s my Q&A with John Davis about getting Superdrag back together, making a new album that sounds like Superdrag but isn't a Superdrag album, his love of SST Records, getting covered by Snail Mail, '90s-nostalgia tours, and more.
Thank you for reading/listening this year, and a happy 2025 to you all! The stübermania newsletter will resume its regular programming on Thursday, January 9.
This is a free newsletter, but if you really like what you see, please consider a donation via paid subscription, or visit my PWYC tip jar!