A thing that's always been a source of pride for me is that I still haven't reached a point where my music taste has calcified, where I stop being curious and only stick with artists I already like. Even though I ask myself more and more whether I'm becoming washed -- particularly when Pitchfork drops a new best-of list and it's filled with rap picks I find borderline unlistenable -- the thrill of discovery is still too powerful to ever want to retreat from it just because I sometimes stumble upon things I don't understand. So even though I'm an aging indie kid who continues to check out new Decemberists albums (don't laugh, this latest one was pretty solid!), I remain intrigued by the idea that my new favorite band could be right around the corner.
2024 was a year where I felt more open than I've ever been. I attribute that to new friendships with music lovers who have slightly different wheelhouses than I do and being inspired to meet them where they're at. It might not be fully reflected in my list of favorites below, but I tried a wide range of music this year and it was very nourishing. Below is a mix of old and new loves, but all of them made 2024 better. Enjoy!
The rules: The window of eligibility for this list is anything released from January 1, 2024 to now. This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.
Honorable Mentions (25-21)
Bouncing back from their jammy sojourn, Vampire Weekend return to their strengths with the pocket symphonies on Only God Was Above Us. Shadowbox is a warm showcase for the knotty, pensive rapping of Mavi. After being ambivalent on Tyler, the Creator for years, I continue my journey of re-evaluation with CHROMAKOPIA, another album packed with head-spinning songs from the rapper-producer prodigy. Magdalena Bay follow up their adventurous debut with Imaginal Disk, a meticulously tinkered-over set of pristine pop music. The jokes and the fried guitar riffs get all the attention when it comes to MJ Lenderman, but it's the melancholic undercurrent nagging at Manning Fireworks that keeps you coming back to it.
One blessing in the increased regional stratification of rap music is that no matter how much of the genre at large might not resonate with you as trends change, there will always be some geographic niche for you to enjoy. In 2024, that was Texan rap, thanks to BigXThaPlug (whose Take Care just missed an honorable mention) and That Mexican OT. Texas Technician engages in many classic Southern rap sounds: the rolling basslines, the bouncy piano stabs, the bluesy guitar licks. It has a sense of history -- including features from Lone Star State legends like Paul Wall, Slim Thug, and Z-Ro -- without coming off as oldhead pandering. It might be his fun spirit that keeps the music from having an eat-your-vegetables aura. His serpentine flow is a gift that keeps on giving -- there are numerous moments where he locks in on a verse, weaving in and out of the pocket at lightning speeds and rolling letters you wouldn't think a human tongue could roll. That Mexican OT's innate star quality shines all over Texas Technician, and it lends to making this one of the most purely enjoyable rap albums of the year.
Highlight songs
1. Bull Riding (feat. DRODi & Slim Thug)
2. Crooked Officer (feat. Z-Ro)
3. Cowboy in a Escalade (feat. Trapboy Freddy)
The songs that sextet The Goalie's Anxiety make resemble the stark chill of winter. They're laced with elegiac strings and drums that patter on in a funereal manner, and co-lead vocalist Ben Curttright is less of a singer than he is someone who whispers with intent. Somehow this is all more inviting than it sounds. It's music that feels like carving out a special space all for yourself. There's a melancholy to it, but also a homey comfort. You look forward to listening in the same way you almost look forward to crying, because you know there's a weightless relief that follows. That feeling is strongest when the band's other co-lead vocalist Becky Hanno takes the spotlight, with songs like "System of One" and "Tightrope Walker..." containing florid swells that crash like emotional levees bursting. The Iliad may not always be an album you're in the mood to listen to, but when you are, it can level you.
Highlight songs
2. April 25
As Roc Marciano enters his elder statesman era, we have to start asking whether he's become underappreciated. Most people acknowledge him as the father of the current boom-bap style brought to more popularity by the Griselda crew, but not enough value is put into the fact that he's still releasing reliably great albums every year or two. His writing skills have only gotten more precise, stacking compact, immaculately constructed couplets into verses. Depending on how you look at it, the laid-back delivery either disguises or enhances the humor implanted in his words. He can be casually funny ("The steering wheel ain't never felt hands this smooth/It's crazy, I don't even get manicures"), absurdist ("Threw a four in the Sprite to get wavy/I slept like a white baby"), or generate laughs from sheer escalation ("Got more style in my small toe than your whole torso" followed by "I oughta burn your whole wardrobe"). And that only makes the grim efficiency of violence like "Enemies thought that they figured me out/Sig blew his memory out" even more penetrating. Marciology effectively shows that the old man's still got a few things to teach us.
Highlight songs
1. BeBe's Kids
2. Larry Bird (feat. GREA8GAWD & Knowledge the Pirate)
3. Tapeworm
Remember that intensity of emotions you used to feel when you were in your teens and early twenties? How you could go from feeling the best you've ever felt to thinking that the world was over? How every new relationship felt like a lifelong one? The eponymous debut EP from Brooklyn duo Sex Week captures the specific exuberance and dejection that comes with youth. It's so exploratory in just seven songs, veering from woozy slowcore one second to their take on Figure 8-era Elliott Smith the next. They're exciting, somber, intimate, strange, and deeply romantic all at once -- an alchemy that gets you right in your gut. Those roiling emotions of youth, they do dull with age. Hopefully the thrill of Sex Week's music never fades.
Highlight songs
1. Kid Muscle
2. Toad Mode
3. Shady Sadie
Before Across the Tracks, Boldy James was in danger of reaching an oversaturation point. When you put out two or three releases a year and have such a consistent style, it's bound to feel like you're treading water. And because James likes to work with one producer per project, his quality became heavily dependent on who he's collaborating with. He found the perfect partner in Griselda staple Conductor Williams, who gives him material to deliver his best album in a few years. Boldy isn't exactly reinventing the wheel here -- you'll still hear alot of his same tics and ad libs, as well as the expected line about guns having titties on them (whatever that means) -- but he's rapping with the most verve in a while, particularly on instant pantheon track "The Ol Switcharoo." In the time it took you to read this blurb, he probably already wrote and recorded another full-length that's just as good as Across the Tracks. It's in his blood at this point.
Highlight songs
2. Permission (feat. Mafia Double Dee)
3. Undisputed
Sometimes thoughtful critiques fail you, and all you have to offer up about why an album works is that it sounds amazing. Life till bones is a real headphones album, rife with miniscule flourishes that fill out its songs, where every instrument is placed perfectly in the mix. It's exactly what Oso Oso's previous album was missing by design, as its producer passed away before final adjustments were done. Here, you can feel every touch has been tweaked to death until it was just right -- the panned guitars on "stoke," the crispness of the handclaps in the middle of "all of my love," the hiss of the hi-hat on "dog without its bark." This kind of meticulousness is usually reserved for genres more "serious" than Oso Oso's brand of guitar pop, but it does wonders when applied to such bulletproof hooks and riffs. To put it simply: yeah, this album sounds amazing.
Highlight songs
2. stoke
3. application
Because they've been honing their craft for a few years with EP releases, there are no rough edges in the full-length debut from duo Francis of Delirium. Instead, Lighthouse is a polished assemblage of big, emotive indie rock. The draw here is lead singer Jana Bahrich, whose lyrics can really burrow into a tiny detail. Take this line on "Real Love," for instance: "We were just kids when we met, and now we're half-drunk on a twin-sized bed." Every song is detail-rich, providing snapshots of pivotal moments in a relationship ("I remember where we first touched / I remember where we first fell in love," she sings on "First Touch"). They're so zoomed in you feel like you're right there, in the middle of the conversation as Jana intones, "Is this who you are? Freak out when it gets too hard?" to another person on "Who You Are." The cumulative effect is overwhelming, but so hypnotizing that you want to live in Lighthouse forever.
Highlight songs
2. Who You Are
3. First Touch
It might not seem like it on the surface, but The Tortured Poets Department is a spiritual successor to Reputation. Both albums came out in the wake of a major setback for Taylor Swift -- then, the public turning on her after the Kanye/Kim K phone call; now, the end of her longest relationship -- and are documents of how those events broke her brain. Because for as downtempo as this record is musically, emotionally it's volatile. It's an album of mania, despair, desperation, lashing out in all directions, retreating to past comforts -- you name it, Taylor Swift feels it on one of these songs. She processes these emotions by speaking in abstractions, metaphors, and heightened scenarios that only reveal more than direct statements would. But is the album good? Think of Swift like Lebron James: nobody's going to argue that either of them are operating at their peak right now, but it's impressive the way they use their veteran skills to muscle it out anyway. For her, this lies in canny melodic instincts and employing that one extra detail to make her recollections pop (it's all "messy top-lip kisses" and "rain-soaked bodies"). So yes, the album is good, even if that's not the prevailing opinion right now. After all, Reputation wasn't loved in its time either.
Highlight songs
It's common for hardcore bands, especially in recent years, to progressively get softer as they go along. None have done it as well as Mannequin Pussy though. Names won't be named, but what separates them from other bands of their ilk that fall off in the transition is that they have the songwriting to back up the downshift in intensity. Great hooks prevail no matter what you dress them up with, and I Got Heaven has them in abundance. Instead of an all-out assault, the band plays with tension in new ways, and they do so well on songs like "Loud Bark." There's tension in the lyrics too, exploring the constant push and pull between wanting to be a danger and wanting to be adored. Whatever they try on this record, whether it's staying in their comfort zone on ragers like "Of Her," or stretching out and getting atmospheric on "I Don't Know You," they succeed with aplomb. You may not be able to say their name in mixed company, but the fact remains that Mannequin Pussy is one of the best rock bands right now.
Highlight songs
1. I Got Heaven
2. Softly
3. Sometimes
Being a music lover never gets old, because there's always a great band waiting at the next stop, arriving out of nowhere to become a new favorite. Norwegian power pop band Onsloow weren't on my radar when they dropped their debut in 2022, but their follow-up quickly made an impression. Full Speed Anywhere Else is an absolute charm assault, a series of winsome songs with crystallized hooks that'll live in your head for weeks. It's an album in transit -- full of references to transportation or movement of some kind -- and it feels like a headrush listening to it from start to finish. The closest analogue to it is the first album from Alvvays, which I only had at 17 on my year end list in 2014, but now sounds like a classic. I could see Full Speed getting there once it has years of comfort and familiarity on its side as well.
Highlight songs
1. Taxi
3. Fortified
Shoegaze as a genre has become a bit like post-punk: if a band gets tagged with that label, I'm at least 60% less likely to check them out. Saddling Wishy with that burden does them a disservice. Especially since their excellent debut employs a much wider palette. Part of Triple Seven's well-roundedness comes from its trading of male and female vocalists, with Kevin Krauter's songs tending to be blazing alt-rock rippers, while the Nina Pitchkites tracks skirt dream pop territory. These are well-worn sounds they're playing with here -- a little Smashing Pumpkins here, a little of The Cranberries there -- but they synthesize them in ways that feel fresh and alive, all churning low-end and sparkling guitar parts. A peak example of their strengths can be found on penultimate track "Honey," a fuzzed-out riff bomb that has the confidence and purpose of a modern classic. 90s compilation CD vibes aren't exactly in short order these days, but this is the strongest iteration of it I've heard in ages.
Highlight songs
1. Honey
2. Game
What I love about Soccer Mommy's music is the simplicity of it, the plainspoken poetry. Where others obscure and abstract, she lays bare. She gets right to it in the opening lines of Evergreen, when she speaks about her mom, who passed away: "I've got her name / I've got her face and all these things / But I don't know what's in her dreams / It's lost to me." Grief, depression, isolation -- she sings about them in such clear, direct terms that they slip past your walls and straight to your emotional control center. It's no different when she's covering positive emotions either. "Abigail," a love song about a Stardew Valley character, is more heartfelt than most can manage about flesh-and-blood people. And after recruiting electronic wizard Daniel Lopatin to produce her last album, she harkens back to the unfussy sound of Clean (still her best album) here. At a time when another big expansion in sound felt logical, Soccer Mommy smartly strips it back to basics on Evergreen.
Highlight songs
2. Abigail
Where Renaissance felt like a reminder, taking dance genres that are rooted and still conversant in Black culture and emphasizing their power, Cowboy Carter functions more as a reclamation. It plays around with genres that only used to be known primarily as Black music. And that extends past country too, given there's a cover of The Beatles, the most beloved rock band of all time, on here too. Those ideas make for easy critic fodder, but beyond the academic aspect of the record, it's just full of fantastic songs. Beyonce finds many thrilling moments of variety across the tracklist, from the nightlife swing of "BODYGUARD," to the high noon saunter of "ALLIIGATOR TEARS," to the unclassifiable gumbo that is "YA YA." What a generous showcase of musicianship it is too. That's not just in the numerous guest vocalists, but also in the session musicians who get to go buckwild with funk bass explorations on "DESERT EAGLE" and galaxy-shifting guitar fingerpicking on "RIIVERDANCE." Given the facility with genre she displays here, there's no doubt she'll knock the inevitable homage she does to mall emo out of the park next as well.
Highlight songs
1. YA YA
2. BODYGUARD
3. II MOST WANTED (feat. Miley Cyrus)
The mountain of hardship that Christopher Owens faced in the last few years -- former Girls bandmate Chet White passing away, getting in a debilitating accident, his fiancée leaving him, and becoming unhoused for a while -- makes his first new album in nine years something of a miracle. That it's this terrific is icing on the cake. There's a delayed gratification of his arrangements that often stretch past the five-minute mark, simmering for three-quarters of that length before giving way to a piercing guitar solo, or a transcendent gospel-infused crescendo. It's that intricate tension and release of the instrumentation that makes the unvarnished appearance of his lyrics work even more. Owens has a way of saying platitudes and conveying his feelings with such a sincerity that, along with the immaculate music underneath, is able to push your emotions into the red. He's a person who feels it all too much, but you buy it because it's a hard-won earnestness. As a longtime fan of his work, it's an immense treat to see him back on his feet. But even if you don't have a vested interest, I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair is a superb album on its own.
Highlight songs
2. I Know
In music, there's too much of a push to always be doing something new. That almost happened with Katie Crutchfield, who initially tried to move in a more pop direction when recording Tigers Blood, before scrapping the idea after a day in the studio. Instead, we got a record that iterates on her last album Saint Cloud, a welcome return to a sound she seemed to just be getting started in. Waxahatchee albums feel like a secret only half-told, where you're always leaning in to know more. They're packed with phrases that seem slightly out of reach on a word-by-word level, but feel just right emotionally. Then you'll be greeted with a line that's simple and direct, like "what you thought was enough now seems insane," that hits even harder because of how elliptical everything else is. Crutchfield's voice keeps the songs centered, a guiding light gleaming through darkness, grasping ever higher for the notes in her melodies. Some say great art has to come from a place of anguish, but Tigers Blood is the second Waxahatchee record in a row that proves there's so much beauty to be found in contentment.
Highlight songs
1. Bored
2. 365
Am I allowed to gloat for a second? What a nice feeling it is for two of the pop stars that dominated the conversation in 2024 to be ones I bought stock in early. First is Sabrina Carpenter, whom I've been publicly boosting since 2019, and of course there's Charli XCX, whose team I've been on dating all the way back to 2013. (Unfortunately I cannot lay claim to being that early on Chappell Roan.) Brat feels like the best fusion of "the two Charlis" that have been warring for her whole career -- that of the pop hitmaker and the restless experimenter. It's an unholy blend of various strains of club music, and it's got incredible production touches all over, from the dentist drill synths whirring around in "Von dutch," to the house piano breakdown of "Mean girls." And even though there's always been a hidden vulnerability running through Charli's albums, this one places it on the surface multiple times, whether it be mourning the death of friend and collaborator SOPHIE on "So I," or musing about becoming a mother on "Think about it all the time." It would be easy to think of Brat as a fad, but it's got the energy and craft that makes me confident it'll age wonderfully.
Highlight songs
1. Von dutch
2. 365
3. Talk talk
Though it was only last year that they blew up thanks to ardent cheerleading from DIY Music Twitter, Liquid Mike are already approaching a rarefied air with bands like Spoon and Superchunk who write nothing but hits and make it look easy. Their songs are compact, spring-loaded hook fests, and on Paul Bunyan's Slingshot they're bigger and brighter than ever. The band hails from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and there's a regional specificity to their songs that recall the feeling of being stuck in a desolate small town and getting into hairy situations just to have something to occupy your time with. Songs are full of small jokes and humorous tales, where a story about passing out from playing a choking game is just setup for some goofy Coldplay wordplay. There's an entire universe inside of this special record.
Highlight songs
1. K2
2. Small Giants
3. Pacer
Over the course of her young career, Clairo has proven herself to be a surprising chameleon. After her debut album offered up a more polished version of the bedroom pop of her early Bandcamp days, she downshifted to quiet folk music on 2021's Sling. And this year marks another sonic transformation with the jazzy, soulful Charm. Working with producer Leon Michels and his usual backing band, Clairo's third album is an insular affair, but warm and lush all the same. There's no better example of that than the twin stunners at the center of the album, "Terrapin" and "Juna," which exhibit a level of intimacy and sophistication even the biggest Clairo acolyte couldn't have predicted her capable of a few years ago. In its lyrics, Charm is all about measuring the risk-reward ratio of choosing to be known, to be seen, to be desired. It returns to those themes over and over, layering them until they consume you. Who knows what sonic evolution Clairo has up her sleeve next, but she just keeps getting better.
Highlight songs
1. Terrapin
2. Juna
To hear Courting lead singer Sean Murphy O'Neill tell it, New Last Name is a "theatrical play within an album," full of "characters, acts, stage directions, etc." You'd have to be inside of his brain to suss out most of that from the record itself, but it doesn't dull the impact of its songs, nor its musings on nostalgia, yearning, and the fantasy of memory vs. the reality of life. It's an exciting grab bag of an album, throwing landfill indie, golden age television, and old internet detritus into a blender, creating a space where references to "Mr. Brightside" and a Bladee song can exist together. But for all its playfulness, there's a solemn streak as well. It revels in small moments of sadness, like running into somebody you haven't seen in a while at the grocery store, and only being able to remark on the prices changing in the intervening years. Like learning your ex has a number with a different area code now and a new last name. I don't really get the phenomenon of The 1975, but listening to New Last Name, with its meta reflections and clever pop sensibilities, makes me feel that special jolt people get from those guys.
Highlight songs
1. Emily G
3. America
The odds were against ever getting another Camera Obscura album again after their keyboardist Carey Lander died of bone cancer at the age of 33 in 2015. That was understandable, not just given the immense tragedy of it all, but also because 2013's Desire Lines would have been a lovely end to the band's sterling five-album run. It's a gift, then, that we got a new one from them in 2024, and that it's just as excellent as the rest of their oeuvre. Look to the East, Look to the West touches on Carey's death directly in stark terms on the ballad "Sugar Almonds," but it's just as moving when talked about through refractions on album highlight "Denon," a song about lead singer Tracyanne Campbell reconnecting with John Henderson, who left the band back in 2004. In its most potent line, she tells him "Don't live with regret because you only get one life. I know this, do you know this? Because she did." Despite that heaviness hanging over the record, there's an overall hope to these songs. It feels like a textbook middle-age album, about navigating the loss and heartbreak you've encountered along the road and plotting a way forward with a sense of peace and lightness. Campbell's lyrics are as emotionally rich as ever, effortlessly shifting from flinty to tender in a flash, and the band's sophisticated arrangements surround her wry words with bouncy rhythms and crystal clear guitar lines. Camera Obscura's songs have this timeless air to them, like they've always been by your side and always will be. This collection feels no different. On Look to the East, the Scottish cult favorites shake off 11 years worth of dust to reminds us why they're the best band on the planet.
Highlight songs
1. Denon
2. Pop Goes Pop
You've reached the end of my best albums of 2024 list. Thanks for reading! I love reading other lists, so feel free to share yours in the comments. Or if you want to share your thoughts on my list, then you can do that too! Most of the highlight songs contain YouTube links if you want to listen to them, but I've also created a Spotify playlist if that's your preferred method. You can find it below. And if you want a complete ranking of all the albums that were in consideration for this list, along with some other data you might find interesting, you can find it on this Google Doc.
HELL YEAH!!!
ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit
DeleteWow. This is the tenth time I've commented on an Antonio Whitehead end of year album list. In 2015, I didn't really like the new Vince Staples album. In 2024, I didn't really like the new Vince Staples album. Now Summertime 06 is one of my favorite albums of the 2010s, so maybe Dark Times will rise in my heart.
ReplyDeleteMy Five Favorite Albums of the Year
1] Brat - Charli XCX
2] gnx - Kendrick Lamar
3] Charm - Clairo
4] Box for Buddy, Box for Star - This is Lorelai
5] Evergreen - Soccer Mommy
I gotta actually listen to this Mexican OT record hot damn. I was disappointed by a lot of my favorites in rap/hip hop this year (Staples sounded like he was sleepwalking, I liked listening to Tyler's and then immediately forgot about it, hopefully Flo Milli follows her trilogy with new direction, straight up skipped JPEGMafia & Denzel Curry) so it'd be nice to hear a Texas rapper kill it ("HISS" aside, Megan did not this year). I do think Doechii could be the Zoomer GOAT so I will be looking out for her, even though I thought the mixtape was more B+ than A+.
Really I was disappointed by a lot of favorites this year in pop too (Ariana, Justin, Taylor, Beabadobee if we count her), so I was surprised that two of my favs that disappointed *hard* in 2022 rose up for me. Shout out to Charli and Kendrick. I also liked the Vampire Weekend album a lot more than Father of the Bride, and it probably deserved more listens then I gave it. I also did like Waxatachee's album, between it and Saint Cloud her music hits for me in a way the Ivy Tripp era didn't, though I liked those albums too. But I will say I do not like MJ Lenderman lol. Apologies to everyone, but he sounds like poor David Berman cosplay to me.
Comparing TTPD to Reputation is interesting, but comparing her to LeBron James is crazy. But I can see it. Country-pop was the Cavs 1.0 era, the humble beginning before turning into a villain. Teaming up with Max Martin for the megahits was Miami. Reputation & Lover was ths Cavs 2.0 return, where she made less than ideal line-ups work through sheer force of will. And Folklore era is Lakers era, where she hit big teaming up with an AD (Aaron Dessner). I hope she takes a break from releasing new music one the last of her TV's come out. I think she needs a break. As for LeBron? Never stop.
I feel so bad for not really feeling Vince Staples' recent output. Love the guy, but like you said, it just feels like he's sleepwalking. And I've seen him get defensive saying that people just want him to make "bangers" but like, dude...I just want you to make anything that doesn't sound like autopilot. I'm giving him one more album to turn it around! You're on thin ice, Mr. Staples!
DeleteI think Doechii is really cool too -- her mixtape is the 2024 thing I need to give more of a shot to in 2025 because I enjoy what I've heard. Plus I have to support any Florida rapper that doesn't suck.
Glad you enjoyed the Clairo album too, it's so good!! She definitely wins White Girl of the Year. I need to get more into the This is Lorelei record because everyone's going nuts for it and I've enjoyed it the two times I've listened.
I was in the exact same boat as you with MJ Lenderman for the longest time -- I just did not get it at all, but I have a friend who really loves him and it inspired me to dig in more, and all of a sudden Manning Fireworks clicked for me a few weeks ago. I still don't necessarily think he's a generational songwriter (he's not even the best songwriter in Wednesday!), but I've removed my hater goggles.
The Aaron Dessner/Anthony Davis parallel, you're cooking I'm afraid!! I mostly did the Taylor Swift and Lebron James comparison to piss people off. I'm a little stinker! I agree that she needs to take a break though, but I think she's gotten too high on the "Taylor Swift is a prolific genius who never sleeps" thing the fans are laying upon her.