Happy Oscars Sunday! Today’s bonus newsletter, actually, has nothing to do with movies—except for a soundtrack named at the very end. Like Friday’s post, here I choose some favorites from last year’s culture, except the focus today is on music.

With this bonus post, I will be testing out MTWZ’s revolving public-then-paywalled model for the first time. As explained in the first and second MTWZ newsletters, the post below will be fully viewable to free and paid subscribers alike over the next three days. After 72 hours, it goes behind the MTWZ paywall.

If you are reading this over email, then this post is yours to keep, whether you are a free or paid subscriber! If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter, consider hitting the big red button above. Free subscribers get full immediate access to most posts.

25 Favorite Albums of 2024

I intended to append this list to Friday’s newsletter, but I had so much fun embedding YouTube links I crashed my browser. Here instead is a separate, bonus post dedicated entirely to favorite 2024 music. Compared to the last one, this newsletter is light on text.