BMAs // Indie
A guide to the 2024 Boston Music Awards
The 2024 Boston Music Awards is at Big Night Live on December 11.
Hump Day News was nominated for Best Music Publication.
You can vote for all the nominees here.
To honor our glorious symbolic inclusion and insufferable clout chasing, we’re rolling out the BMAde Betterz series for 2024. In this series we send the nominees through the meat grinder to yield three main categories of sodium-enriched meat byproducts.
The “New To Us”
Never heard of them, or at least never heard them. But they’re on the list, so let’s have a listen.
The “House Specials”
We’ve covered these acts, we treasure these acts, we 100% get why they’ve been nominated.
The “New To You”
These artists didn’t make the list, but they should have!
Alt/Indie Artist of the Year // Nominees
Beach Weather // Beeef // Divine Sweater // Frances Forever // Future Teens // Horse Jumper of Love // Mallcops // Squirrel Flower // STEFAN THEV // Vundabar
Frances Forever’s latest album Lockjaw is an indie gem with sneaky sonic Easter eggs hidden all over the place. Definite pop/electro impulses, but it’s a dogma-free presentation, each song conjuring up its own beautiful vistas and new possibilities.
As for Beeef, I had slept on this band for a good long while, thinking I had a pretty good idea what a band that called itself “Beeef” would sound like. You know, kind of whatever. Then I finally listened to their new album Somebody’s Favorite, loved it, bought it, and realized again for the millionth time that you can’t judge a book by its cooover.
Divine Sweater finds its way back onto the BMA nominations after a year that included a new album (A Time For Everything), appearances at great local fests (Red Stage at Boston Calling, among others), and more. Damn good sweater. Stefan Thev hit the same stage. Future Teens are another local indie staple that always seem to pop up on your favorite bills. Hump Day News covered Horse Jumper of Love for the first time in 2024, holding down the second slot on a DIIV show at Royale. Love their pacing. S L O W. And Mallcops also celebrated the release of a new album Vacationland, which is “Out Now Everywhere,” but it’s not out on Bandcamp, so “everywhere” is not everywhere.
OK, Kal Marks is probably not “New To You,” and they’re not even local anymore, but what the hell, they rock, and they’ve got an awesome new album out called Wasteland Baby. Have a listen To Ruby Grove as well, a four-piece outfit evolving in interesting directions that’s a bit fusion, funky, jazzy. We’re pulling in Main Era into this category too, after also pulling them into the Best Rock Artist list. We’re crazy! You can’t stop us! They kinda sound like nu school Sonic Youth (veering away a bit from an earlier indie pop sound) and their chops got super polished in 2024 – we need more of all that. And what about Slow Quit? They rock with the crazy gazey textures, and they’ve been gigging everywhere, including benefits, which is an under-appreciated category of live shows.