Oasis, Taylor Swift, dynamic pricing... 14 talking points from the world of music in 2024
Pictured left to right: Taylor Swift; Brian Warfield of the Wolfe Tones; and the scramble for Oasis tickets.
Noel Nagle, Tommy Byrne, and Brian Warfield featured in our talking points last year, as we expressed amazement at the aerial photograph of the heaving crowd trying to catch a glimpse of them in a tent at Electric Picnic. Twelve months later, the Wolfe Tones were on around the same time, early Sunday evening, at the main stage - and you could still barely see them from the back!
One of the biggest crowds ever at the festival, which, though unrecognisable from its inaugural outing, celebrated 20 years in September. We thought the Wolfe Tones were retiring with a trio of shows at 3Arena in October, but their Final Farewell tour continues to Limerick’s Thomond Park in July 2025. Will they be headlining Electric Picnic 2025?
It’s safe to say who won the rap feud of the century. By December, Drake had issued an embarrassing legal filing in a New York court accusing Universal Music Group and Spotify of “illegally” boosting streams of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’. Kendrick Lamar, meanwhile, is set for the Super Bowl half-time show in February and has announced a humongous US tour with SZA. The pair traded diss tracks as summer 2024 approached - did Kendrick have a mole in Drake’s camp? - but ‘Not Like Us’ towered over everything else. A blockbuster feud which left Kendrick a bigger star than before.
It’s only been 15 years since Oasis’ last gig, the Gallagher brothers allegedly getting into a fist-fight ahead of a show in Paris, prompting Noel to quit “with some sadness and great relief”. And yet when rumours started floating around in September 2024 about a reunion, you could sense copies of Definitely Maybe and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? being dusted down and old pals getting in contact as gig plans were hatched. It helps to know Liam Gallagher’s shows at the 3Arena in the summer went down so well - it bodes well for what are sure to be beer-swilling tears at Croke Park on August 16-17, 2025.
A side-effect of the Oasis gigs was that the sheer demand for tickets led to many hopefuls who were stuck in the queue eventually making it through to the purchase screen only to be greeted by prices many multiples of the €86.50 starting price (plus booking fee, of course). There followed claims by politicians that Oasis were scalping fans - a bill seeking to ban so-called dynamic/surge pricing was even introduced. In widespread use in the US, it was only a matter of time before it made itself known to Ireland and the UK.
After doing house and disco on 2022’s Renaissance, Beyoncé went country with Cowboy Carter - even though she might say it’s not a country album; “Used to say I spoke too country, and the rejection came, said I wasn't country 'nough,” she states on opener ‘Ameriican Requiem’. It’s the second in a planned trilogy of albums that seek to showcase and reclaim the influence of black people in US culture and music.
The feelgood song of the year came from a most commendable community project. The Kabin in Knocknaheeny, on the northside of Cork City, has been ongoing since 2012, led by DJ GCMBeats aka Garry McCarthy, and helping give voice, literally, to youngsters.
They’ve released music and tunes in the past but they struck gold in 2024, collaborating with the Lisdoonvarna Crew, with ‘The Spark’. Over an indie sleaze beat - er, ask your parents - they spit bars like “Making bangers at a young age”, “If we see a dream you know we’re gonna chase it”, and “That’s my passion and I couldn't live without it”. The crews took it near and far, from Electric Picnic to Belgium’s Pukkelpop to the Late Late Show. Think you can stop what they do? I doubt it.
While we could do without the Brat/Brat Summer politics and news thinkpieces ever again, it’s hard to argue against 2024 being the year of Charli XCX. Her career has always been interesting - she first tasted No.1 in the charts with Icona Pop’s ‘I Love It’ in 2012, her quest for superstardom was almost a meta one, featuring in her lyrics regularly, and her collaborations with the late producer SOPHIE were undoubtedly her creative peak. But everything to date has been distilled on the puke-green Brat. “It’s OK to admit that you’re jealous of me,” she spits (in autotune) on ‘Von Dutch’. She finally made it to arena status in 2024 and plays Malahide Castle in Dublin next summer. It’s Charli, baby!
Synonymous with Cork, Rory Gallagher bought his iconic Fender Stratocaster from Crowley's Music Store in the city in the early 1960s. Under its custodian, Gallagher’s brother Donal, it was announced during the summer that it was to go up for auction. It led to calls for the State to step in - a fundraiser campaign was even set up by Sheena Crowley, the current proprietor of Crowleys. The guitar was eventually bought for almost £700,000 (€841,000) by Live Nation Gaiety, founded by Cork promoter Denis Desmond, with plans to donate it to the National Museum of Ireland. So one saga ends but another begins - will we see Rory’s Strat return to Cork?
Nobody rose faster through the ranks than Chappell Roan in the past 12 months. She released her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess in September 2023, though it was ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ in April that became a phenomenon. She had already outgrown the Olympia by the time she played in September and has been announced as a headliner for the likes of Primavera and Reading and Leeds Festivals next year. And that roaring success is on top of her not taking any industry BS - she told a rude photographer on one red carpet to 'shut the fuck up'.
The biggest artist in the world arrived in Ireland for three sold-out dates at the Aviva Stadium at the end of June - with a capacity of around 50,000, they were relatively intimate by Swift’s standards. She wrapped up her mind-boggling Eras Tour - officially the highest-grossing music tour ever - in Vancouver on December 8, having released the relatively ho-hum The Tortured Poets Department in April and an anthology on the same night. Her eighth album since 2020, if you include the ‘Taylor’s Version’ rerecordings, we reached peak Taylor at some point this year - will 2025 be a fallow year for the superstar?
Even though he didn’t want to tell us when interviewed by Ellie O’Byrne in November, we knew Cork musician Gavin Dunne aka Miracle of Sound was doing well for himself (“It’s so crass talking about money, especially these days when lots of people are struggling… I’m not struggling, let’s put it that way.”) but it was startling to see his figures on Spotify alone for his 2024: 7.39m listeners and 110m streams across 183 countries. Ahead of going on his first tour in 2025, Dunne shows that success in the music industry comes in various guises these days.
We lost some good ones this year: Quincy Jones at age 91; producer and Shellac and Big Black frontman Steve Albini died of a heart attack at 61; Kris Kristofferson is wrapping his arm around Sinéad O’Connor up in heaven, just like he did in 1992, after he died in September aged 88. One Direction frontman Liam Payne’s death in Argentina, in October at age 31, was a shock and left people questioning the supports in place for reality TV alumni. Closer to home, Anto Carroll of The Wormholes died at the start of October, bringing back memories of the 90s underground scene in Dublin. Singer-songwriter Johnny Duhan’s death at age 74 in Galway in November was a shock, while showband legend Dickie Rock died on December 8 at age 88. Cork producer Eoin French, 36, aka Talos died in August after a short illness. A shock to many, the first of three Talos posthumous projects, the Sun Divider EP, was released on December 6.
It’s reassuring that we can still be surprised with music. Cindy Lee aka Ontario musician Patrick Flegel, had released half a dozen albums in as many years and was beloved of a niche musical community. That all changed with the 32-track Diamond Jubilee, released initially via an old-school Geocities website and as a single two-hour track on YouTube. It was heralded with a 9.1/10 review by Pitchfork and was finally released on Bandcamp in October, with a vinyl release due in early 2025. The instant acclaim might have been too much though as Flegal subsequently cancelled a tour that sold out almost immediately after said review. While it’s reassuring to know music media can still make an impact, it’s a warning that fame, in its many guises, isn’t for all.
When you have Mail Online writing furious headlines like ‘Anti-British Irish-language movie funded by UK public money wins Best British Film gong’, you know you’ve had a good year. It’s been a whirlwind 12 months for the Belfast rap trio Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí aka Kneecap. They won a legal case in November against the British government, over a decision by now-Tory Party leader Kemi Badenoch to refuse them a £14,250 (€17,114) funding award. They released a movie, starring Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender, about the band’s rise, and they released their long-awaited debut album Fine Art to critical acclaim. They’ve already sold out a show at Dublin’s Fairview Park next summer, and are supporting Fontaines DC at London’s Finsbury Park. And that’s all alongside the unquantifiable good they’re doing promoting the Irish language.
