It’s hard to believe we’re sailing into 2025, and I think it’s highly appropriate to paraphrase Bette Davis (as Margo Channing in the 1950 film classic All About Eve) here by saying “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy year!”

Hailing from Abilene, Texas, four-piece rock band Dexter and the Moonrocks is comprised of James Tuffs on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Ryan Anderson on lead guitar and backing vocals, Ty Anderson on bass, and Fox on drums and backing vocals. According to their website bio, they were formed when “a former fry cook, oil field operator, concrete surface decorator and kids’ baseball coach met up in a small town in West Texas and started playing country western music together (as one does in small town West Texas). But something didn’t feel right – so their roots in country began to cross-pollinate with the rock and grunge music they heard their parents playing at home. ‘Grunge and country are honestly so similar,’ says Fox. ‘Look at Johnny Cash’s cover of ‘Hurt’ by Nine Inch Nails. Both speak to the oppressed and the depressed – country with twang and grunge with a bite. A pair of boots can mean cowboy or combat. We are huge fans of artists like Zach Bryan, Tyler Childers and Noah Kahan – and when you take that sound and plug it into amps with electric guitars, you get Dexter and the Moonrocks. We took a bet on ourselves, and it’s paying off immensely,’ he continues. ‘We believed we had something special, and if we could just get people to pay attention they’d fall in love, and we did just that.’ ‘It feels like a fever dream, and it’s definitely helped the health of my knees’, says Ty’s cousin guitarist Ryan Anderson, who never plans to decorate concrete again.”

Describing their sound as “sad cowboy music”, they released their debut single “Couch” (which has been streamed over 17 million times on Spotify alone) in late August 2021, followed by their self-titled EP that November. The rousing ear worm “Sad in Carolina”, one of six songs featured on their latest EP Western Space Grunge, released on Nashville-based label Severance Records this past July, is my new #1 song in a week that straddles the new year. Judging from their prodigious social media posts, the guys appear to have a wicked sense of humor. And on their Spotify account, they wryly state “Our entire lives we dreamed of being pool cleaners, but we guess this will work.” I’m confident it most definitely will!

In other chart developements of note, the endearing “The Faithful Heart” by Wons Phreely + The Horses – which I love with all my heart – moves up two spots to second place, while “Bobby Sox” by Green Day advances two spots to enter the top 10 at #10. Debuting this week are two songs, the first of which, entering at #27, is the delicious “So Cold” by New Zealand alt-pop duo Balu Brigada, the music project of multi-instrumentalist writer/producer brothers, Henry and Pierre Beasley. The song was released last June, but I only learned about it – and them – a few months ago when it appeared on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. I honestly liked it when I first heard it, but inexplicably, it’s taken until now for me to add it on my chart. I now love it, along with many of their songs. Balu Brigada opened for twenty one pilots on the North American leg of their Clancy World Tour, which ran from mid-August to mid-October.

The second debut, coming in at #30, is the enchanting “Afterlife” by Sharon Van Etten, along with her backing band The Attachment Theory (consisting of percussionist Jorge Balbi, bassist Devra Hoff, and multi-instrumentalist Teeny Lieberson). The song is the lead single from her forthcoming seventh studio album Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, due for release February 7, 2025. I love Van Etten’s voice, and it’s her fourth song to appear on my chart, the previous three being “Seventeen” in 2019, “Like I Used To” (with Angel Olsen) in 2021 and “Mistakes” in 2022.

1. SAD IN CAROLINA – Dexter and The Moonrocks (2)
2. THE FAITHFUL HEART – Wons Phreely + The Horses (4)
3. A FRAGILE THING – The Cure (1)
4. HARDCORE ROMANCE – Beach Weather (3)
5. FAVOURITE – Fontaines D.C. (5)
6. DIE WITH A SMILE – Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars (6)
7. NEVERENDER – Justice & Tame Impala (8)
8. A TEAR IN SPACE (AIRLOCK) – Glass Animals (10)
9. NOBODY’S SOLDIER – Hozier (7)
10. BOBBY SOX – Green Day (12)
11. CAN’T SLOW DOWN – almost monday (9)
12. MIND GAME (3:33) – Collette McLafferty & John Serrano (13)
13. DOPAMINE – Sum 41 (14)
14. IN THE LIVING ROOM – Maggie Rogers (15)
15. ARROW – The Head and the Heart (16)
16. GIVING UP – Michigander (17)
17. SUPERSAD – Suki Waterhouse (11)
18. AUTUMN LEAVES – Secret Postal Society (20)
19. ROUTINES IN THE NIGHT – twenty one pilots (21)
20. GILD THE LILY – Billy Strings (22)
21. PEACE SONG – Fat Dog (24)
22. DARKERSIDE – David Kushner (25)
23. YOU’RE MY DRUG – Talk in Waves (26)
24. DETROIT – Badflower (28)
25. SAILOR SONG – Gigi Perez (29)
26. DAY & NIGHT – Oli Barton (30)
27. SO COLD – Balu Brigada (N)
28. BOTHERING ME – Sarah Blasko (18)
29. KINKY – bby (19)
30. AFTERLIFE – Sharon Van Etten (N)