OPE! Mixtape #46: The calm before the something something

Horsegirl, A. Blomqvist, Miso Extra, Bobby Halvorson, Gold Star, and more

Welcome to OPE!, the weekly newsletter by writer and rock critic Brady Gerber. This is where I share my favorite new (and new-to-me) songs and links, along with the occasional announcements and life updates. All typos are intentional.

Well, hello there. How are you?

I’ve already submitted my EOY albums and songs picks and blurbs to a few of my freelance outlets, thus officially narrowing down the albums and songs that stood out to me the most in 2024 into an official list. I’ll share with y’all my EOY lists around mid-December as usual. For now, I can say that this was a weirdly boring (but not bad) music year, full of great songs and albums that weren’t exciting to talk about. BRAT was fun for two seconds until it got meme’d to death, Chappell Roan was one year too late, and all my favorite bands this year except for Vampire Weekend have never heard the phrase “media training.” Mentally, I’m already in 2025, since this is also the time when work slows down and we get to focus on the holidays. But there’s still plenty of great music to discover this year. So let’s do that.

Here are this week’s links and songs.