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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ben Beaumont-Thomas

The 50 best albums of 2024: No 2 – Cindy Lee: Diamond Jubilee

Unerringly brilliant … Cindy Lee
Unerringly brilliant … Cindy Lee. Photograph: Vanessa Tignanelli

Before you even pressed play, Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee took you back in time. When it was released in March, the only way to hear it (aside from a YouTube video) was to go to a GeoCities website – a relic from the 90s internet, complete with multicoloured Times New Roman lettering – and download the audio files via Mega, the filesharing service beloved of 00s music blogs.

The music itself went even further back, and indeed sideways, into a parallel dimension of 20th-century pop: doo-wop, glam, folk-rock, Nuggets-y psych/garage, Velvet Underground-style art-rock, French chanson, classic soul, 60s girl-group pop, synthwave, rockabilly and ambient all feature, emerging through lo-fi production as if corrupted on its journey from this spirit realm.

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