Before recording our annual year-end special for XPN Local, DJs John Vettese, Abdur Rahman, and myself reflected on a long year in Philadelphia music with only our memories to guide us. Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, or even NPR won’t produce a list of specifically Philly music in review — that’s our job. The easiest place to start was to brain dump the events of the year, like memorable station events like Free At Noons and XPoNential Festival, of course, but also community-organized festivals, sold-out release shows, and starry nights at our favorite clubs. Combing through ticket stubs, old Instagram stories, and my iPhone camera roll also led to some notable contributions to this list.
What we came up with is your verified year in Philly music review — or as much of it that we could fit in two hours anyway. It reads like a venn diagram of John’s, Rock’s, and my experience in the local music scene this year, and tells the story of late nights past reasonable bedtimes, open-minded accepted invitations via friends of friends, eagerly consuming something random on Bandcamp, creaking floorboards under Doc Martens, and sometimes one beer too many. We did the work so you don’t have to — though we’d never advise not getting involved in your local scene.
Listen through the whole archived episode to hear our favorite discoveries of the year, including new music from Mannequin Pussy, Reef The Lost Cause, Dr. Dog, Orion Sun, and many more. Plus, performers from Roots Picnic, Sing Us Home Festival, Sweet Juice Festival, West Philly Porchfest, WXPN Homegrown Live!.
And where does that leave us going into 2025? Rock is placing “silent bets in my head” about who’s next to play Roots Picnic, John is already mapping out what concerts he’ll be able to attend (“there’s so many people doing album release shows this weekend”), and I just wanna do it all over again. Listen to the show in the player below, and scroll down to check out our playlist, for more, read Rock’s Philly Hip-Hop in 2024 rundown.