Highlights From Pitchfork and Thought Enthusiast’s Year in Music Panel

Last night, Pitchfork readers, writers, and folks from across the music industry crammed into a loft space in Chinatown for the site’s first-ever Year in Music Mixtape, a series of conversations and games about all that went down in 2024. Deputy Director Jeremy D. Larson hosted, and Pitchfork’s head of editorial content, Mano Sundaresan, interviewed Alphonse Pierre about the year in rap, Arielle Gordon about the year in Brat, and Jael Holzman about her band Ekko Astral and their lauded debut album, Pink Balloons. The panelists also played games with the audience, such as “Is It Brat?” and “Is This a Real Mixtape Title?” Alphonse awarded the winners prizes from his personal stash of rap ephemera—the best might have been a DVD of Mr. 305: The Pitbull Story. And, to close things out, Jeremy gathered all of the panelists on stage for a game inspired by “101 Things That Happened in 2024, Ranked on the Pitchfork Scale.”

Special thanks to AdHoc and Thought Enthusiast, for helping organize the event, and sponsors Monopolio, Topo Chico, Visitor, and Good Spirits.