As usual (three years running at least), I’ve compiled a list of my favorite albums of 2024. This list is about a month later than just about anyone else’s, but the month of December and beyond had a lot of shit going around the house and beyond (dead refrigerator and loss of food, an unexpected hospitalization, replacing a broken sewer line from the house to the street, etc.), but I still hope you enjoy taking a look and hopefully you will find something to try out on your own sound system, whatever hat may be.
I acquired (legally!) a lot music this year, so this list, including the honorable mentions, represents about 10% of the total, all things considered. I think that sample size is enough to make this at least a little valid in the overall scheme of things. Stealing an idea from another site, I’ll be foregoing strict numbering, because that always felt weird to me anyway. Instead, I’ll be listing large groupings since any answers would change given a particular day.
Just skip to my favorites.
Albums of note that would make any top 100 list of mine
These albums would generally make a top 50 list, even, but I never extend the list that far. Let’s just say I enjoyed them all, but I’ll just provide a flat list, because who has time to provide context on that many albums.
Johnny Blue Skies – Passage du Desir (Apple Music)
The Cure – Songs of the Lost World (Apple Music)
These albums would be right at home in a top 50 list
X – Smoke & Fiction
I mean, c’mon. It’s X—47 years after their founding with their final album—Smoke & Fiction. Despite the longevity of band, it still sounds fresh and more urgent than many of their records. Of course, I included it because it’s fucking X. I mean, it’s no Los Angeles because age may have softened their anger, but only just a little bit
The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy
Prelude to Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party is one of a few debuts on my list year. And what a flamboyantly strong rock and record this debut is. Brian May has dubbed them part of the new rock royalty in the UK. This album full of beguiling, rocking songs, announces their appearance with authority.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024
Any album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor is never going to be a necessarily joyous affair. It’s just not their thing. This album uses a date and also a death toll as its title—13 FEBRUARY 2024. According to Pitchfork, this musically represent the violence rained down on Palestine since 2023. The mood of the music certainly nears this out. It makes you sit back and try to wrap your head around it all.
Mount Eerie – Night Palace
Phil Everum (a.k.a. Mount Eerie and The Microphones) has been at this for almost three decades, staring at the world looking for meaning. He thinks in larger terms on his new album Night Palace. The album has 26 songs (and isn’t even the largest on this list). In speaking about this album in a a recent interview, he said “It’s pro ambiguity, pro pointlessness, pro meaninglessness.” But the songs ask big questions and make the pointless echo from the word a great listen.
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God
Pitchfork leads their year-end review of Wild God by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds with this question: “I [it] really a rock album?” They never really reach what I’d call a definitive answer, but it does bring up some interesting points.
For me, Wild God is definitely a rock album, though it sounds a bit less adrenaline-fueled and dark earlier Bad Seeds albums. It’s a lot more introspective and after viewing the full expanse of the waste they’ve enumerated, dare I saw joyful.
Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven
I Got Heaven is a colossal rock and roll album—the culmination of all the band has done to date. It’s punk-informed indie rock at its most insistent. They captured the feeling of heartbreak on their previous record (2019).
With this record, Mannequin Pussy gives you with a primal, horny record about desire and sex or power. It’s raw, furious, and at times, tender, but always ready to be played loud.
Eels – Being Dead
Being Dead is an unhinged thrill, blending kitschy retro pop with an in-your-face garage-rock rager. Itd reminds me of The Kinks, The Beach Boys (at their best), and the Velvet Underground—all at different times alone and together.
The first half of the record serves up one off-kilter pop-rock jam after another. The song, “Blanket of My Bone” sounds like a raucous riot grrrl anthem and a spectral Cindy Lee song woven together (more on Cindy Lee later). Then you hear, “Problems,” a song that directly evokes The Velvet Underground. Its all fun and games while the music melts your face and brain.
Mary Timony – Untame the Tiger
Mary Timony returned as a solo artist for the frist time in almost two decades with Untame the Tiger. After stints in bands of various stripes (Autoclave, Wild Flag, and Ex Hex to name a few), she returns to her own damn self. She still retains her guitar chops whererver she lands in the studio and with whom. This is abundantly evident on this album.
To this, she adds conversational melodies that explore dark places, bringing them to the surface. Her grief brings fresh emotional clarity, and the songs here are disarmingly straightforward. “A brand-new day, it still hurts like hell,” she sings on the very first song. “What did I get for loving you?” she asks near the album’s end. You can see her eyes narrow as she mutters the answer: “Nothing but pain.”
Magdalena Bay – Imaginal Disk
Magdalena Bay was new to me this past year. Despite their newness to me, this is their second effort, and by all accounts they’ve truly avoided a sophomore slump with Imaginal Disk. Their music carefully weighs the balance of psychedelia and sugar coated pop.
The sounds on the album often begin end in separate worlds and realities. All while, they seamlessly progress to expand what the idea of pop music might be. Even with pop sounds, they reatain a rock core. They insert prog and shoegaze sounds throughout, but it never feels showy. It just adds an extra edge the music that would be lesser without it.
Mk.gee – Two Star & the Dream Police
Where the hell did Mk.gee come from? 2024 was the year that Mike Gordon, as Mk.gee, exploded into our musical consciousness with Two Star & the Dream Police. He’s now cemented himself as a guitar god for his generation, building an impassioned fanbase along the way. This album has everything you’d expect from such: shimmering production, obscuree guitar tones, smouldering lyrics and vocals that range from whispers to howls. This is one of 2024’s most beautiful and fascinating albums.
The album asks a lot of questions, but you’ll find few answers. Instead, you will ask your own: “Did I just hear a guitar or a synth?” or “What exactly is thatabout ?” Mk.gee toys with expectations and conventions. It sounds familiar even as you ask these questions.
Sadly, his mystique may bne lost with his anonynity. I hope it lasts, but enjoy it while you can.
The Smile – Wall of Eyes
What else can be said or written about The Smile. Wall of Eyes still sounds like a Thom Yorke/Johnny Greenwood record that reagins the jazzy percussion of their previous effort. And it’s still just as good. This is actually the first of two records by The Smile this year (Cutouts), and it’s the undeniably the stronger of the two.
They still are liberated from the Radiohead comparisons and expectations, and it sounds like a that other band seems to recedes from view (but not memory). They exceed even their own standards for technicality and dynamics, and take a step back to let each carefully constructed detail breat
English Teacher – This Could be Texas
In just about any other year, English Teacher’s album This Could be Texas, would be near the top of my list. Coming off their surprise Mercury Prize win in the midst of Brat-mania, the music follows thorugh.
There’s nothing deep or insightful to say about it really. It’s a post-punk albums that hits all it’s notes almost perfectly, so much so it verges on pop. Just listen and enjoy.
Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee
Another one from left field. Who would have predicted a sprawling
32-track record seemingly from another time. It was self released opting out of all streaming and current marketing avenues. Cindy Lee is art-rock Patrick Flegel’s drag alter ego, and he uses it to pair ’90s indie sesthetics with masterful melodies. So in that sense, it is a record displaced in time too.
As he moves from in-your-face guitar exercises to haunting girl-group pop, you can only settle into the groove. There’s no relaxing available. Sometimes its sounds like parts of the music is coming from another room—at other times, another galaxy.
Diamond Jubilee can be overhelming. The sheer volume of it takes up a lot of head space. A listener hasto wrestle with something of this scope, even as awesome as it is. But there is something thrilling to be said for that too. Maybe that’s just the way it ought to be.
Clairo – Charm
Clairo has always written introspective pop songs about basic human desires, and she’s been on this list for that before. On her third albums Charm she expands her ken. She moves from the bop to smooth balladry in a wink of an eye. Her music finally feels confident enough to spell out what she wants more forcefully. This album is her most pointed and sharp to date. She’s ever more lyrically present,
Like her previous album Sling, most songs on Charm are still only a slight bop and groove. Flutes turn into harmonies, which beget more harmonies. And her vocals become even more layered. But now, psychedelic and jazz undertones anchor her sounds.
Waxahatchee – Tiger’s Blood
Six albums already to her name before Tigers’s Blood, what else can be said about Katie Crutchfield (i.e., Waxahachee) and her prowess as a musician. With Tiger’s Blood, she continues the evolution begun in earnest on Saint Cloud (2020) On this album, she sounds free of previous challenges, preoccupations, and baggage. She is now fully in control.
Crutchfield has discovered a new timbre of her incredible voice. Here, she teams up with some incredible musicians, including MJ Lenderman (more on him below), Brad Cook, and Spencer Tweedy. Together, they create set of sepia-hued, classic songs.
When the dust had settled on what she has left behind her, we have the best album of her already impressive career—the deep human beauty of Tigers Blood.
Fontaines DC – Romance
Fontaines DC already had a formidable presence in prvious releases. Their latest effort, Romance though takes an experimental turn for the dramatic. So much so, it rivals some of Radiohead’s work. It’s a continution of the band’s astounding evolution.
Since their impressive 2019 debut Dogrel, Fontaines D.C. have mastered the art of mesmerizingly dreary post-punk. But now, they just can’t be bothered about making their image fit others’ expectations. With all its callbacks to previous sounds, Romance is a mess. I adore every second of it.
Awash in existential dread, the songs mix grunge, shoegaze, and thumping hip-hop sounds to display their unmatched ambition. And it produces another brilliant album. They ought to be careful. This is becoming expected release upon release.
And if you have the chance, see them live. One of the shows of the year last time around. Plus one for their long pub hang at EAYC too.
Any of these could be my favorite album of the year (number 1)
Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past is Still Alive
Alynda Segarra, as Hurray for the Riff Raff, first appeared on my list in 2022 for Life on Earth. The Past is Still Alive, her eighth studio album, rewinds to the folk sounds her earliest records. But it keeps an electric rock current and a focuses on the oppressed and solidarity with them.
She tells stories about America through the eyes of a hitchhiker, a train hopper, and others. “People who sleep outside [have] a form of expertise about what’s going on in this country,” she told World Cafe. The Past Is Still Alive reclaims some aspects of patriotism to redistribute power to the people living on the margins of society.
Feeling doomed, but finding the will to keep going anyway is a theme that runs runs through The Past Is Still Alive. Te record tells the story of making a home in a wasteland. “I’ll jump off this cliff with you, if it means we will survive,” Segarra promises, ready to endure the impossible for the sake of a better future. All delivered with lightness despite the despair. Today’s dark is a prelude to the possibilities of a better tomorrow.
It’s an album of two sides. It goes from sweet and smooth and easy on the first to mangy, grittier, and more real on side-B.
Jack White – No Name
This is the amplifier turned to 11 and glued there. On No Nome, Jack White returns to his most primal. This is Jack White at his rawest since The White Stripes—all in the best possible way.
He goes heavy on the hard stuff just as often as he scales back into melancholia. And just when you think it’s veering towards the mystical or ethereal, Jack will flay you with a guitar lick among his best.
It’s powerful stuff. He sounds like a frontman and guitarist again. That guy from White Blood Cells, Elephant, and De Stijl has returned. Icky thump indeed. And the momentum doesn’t let up. White wants to tear down walls and have you every crash as he demolishes the wood paneling in your 70s family room (aging myself of course).
The saddest story of my year last yea—I missed the surprise release of this at Third Man Records in Detroit by just days (we were there to see The Church and The Afghan Whigs at the Majestic). Had I been there, the staff would have just slipped it in my back along with my signed copy of Echoes by Will Sergeant.
Los Campesinos – All Hell
Is there a band that’s been consistently great for as long as Los Campesinos! have? Once they were among the wave of aughts bouncy scrappy, twee pop. Since then the Welsh band has only grown more refined, sharp, and timely.
All Hell is for the jaded punks, those who wearily dropped their heads doomscrolling through the pandemic and subsequent excruciating elections. Yes, the world seems cursed. But as agonized as All Hell can feel upon listening, it retains an air of hopefulness to it, too.
Sometimes anger and sadness are all we have left. Even those can help ups resist and perservere.
MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
MJ Lenderman delivers lyrics with devastating precision. This gives his stories of sad-sacks, losers and egotists either a withering edge or empathetic nuance—sometimes both in the same song. Each snippet is a story unto itself. NPR calls him: “a poet of the half articulate, he’s the guy at the backyard party who silently takes note of every sloppy kiss, dirty lie and borderline racist quip the alcohol inspires, recording them later in a secret notebook his kids will find in a closet in 50 years’ time.”
He is this generation’s slacker poet laureate.
Manning Fireworks offers up southern-fried Pavement songs with an extra dollop of twang backed by Neil Young and Sonic Youth sounds by way Drive-by-Truckers. It’s Americana as America is, not how we mythologize it. Still, Manning Fireworks is never pessimistic. No matter where his characters find themselves in trouble of some sort, they’re always funny and relatable in a hopeful way.
In the end, you have to root for them.
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis
What happens when you explore the intersection between jazz and punk rock? You get The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis.
Start with the rhythm section from seminal artist Fugazi and pair them up with guitarist Antohy Pirog. Then add lauded jazz saxophonist, James Brandon Lewis. Then magic happens. I’ve never had as jazzy a release on my list before this one, but it also brings the punk energy to the mix too. And it goes together in a way I never would have conceived possible.
This music isn’t heady, intellectual, or stuffy in the least. It’s physcal and brings as much intensity as the best rock albums. They crank up the band and the drums are relentless, while Pirog and Lewis trade off the melody either gently (“Boatly”) or funkily intense (“That Thing”).
At this intersection, you get this album, one of 2024’s hardest-rocking records.
If pressed on a favorite, won’t take no for an answer…
Nope just can’t. Last night it was Hurrayt for the Riff Raff, . This morning it was The Messthetics. Right now, it’s MJ Lenderman.
The inevitable playlist
I write a lot about music here, and one of the reasons I do this is to share things that I like with others, hoping they may find something they like too. And I really don’t trust my blathering on about this album or that band will inspire anyone quite like actually hearing the music will, so here is playlist of songs, one from 19 my favorite 20 albums (Cindy Lee was not on Apple Music or Spotify) plus an additional eleven, at large songs from my other albums of note (albums of note that would be top 50).
I certainly hope that you find something that you like as much as I do (or even more). As always, if you have something you think I should give a listen to, don’t hesitate to let me know. Direct link to playlist (as it only sporadically works in certain browsers)
And finally albums that really didn’t meet my criteria or ones to explore further
These list above are the new compilations or repressings from 2024 that I liked the most, but there but meet the new music requirement.
The Charlatans – Up to Our Hips (30th Anniversary Edition)
The 30th anniversary edition of Up to Our Hip, couldn’t have come at a better time for me personally. The Charlatans have long been a favorite of mine, but to acquire this on vinyl was prohibitively expensive. Now, newly remastered, it sounds as fresh and vibrant as it did in the mid-90s.
Along with the original album, you get a bunch of alternative mixes that show what could have been. But you know what? I’ll still hang with the original.
Various Artists – Virtual Dreams II: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, Japan 1993-1999
This music is rarely heard these days. Hell, it was as rarely heard in the 90s too. That said, it’s work exploring an entire different aesthetic than what I am used to. It captures a moment and sound in t time. It’s a musical stretch for me at times, but it is worthy of the time.
It revisits the moment when Japanese ambient music began to reckon with the influence of an evolving worldwide techno or digital music scene, even as pioneers.
Galaxie 500 – Uncollected Noise New York ’88 – ’90
I love Galaxie 500. Anytime something from them emerges, you just know I’m going to be all over it.
Uncollected Noise New York ’88 – ’90 is their most comprehensive collection of unreleased and rare material. It includes the complete Noise New York studio recordings of the band’s outtakes and non-album tracks. It captures sounds from their earliest recorded moments in the studio to their last. It includes eight never-before-heard studio tracks culled from all the Noise sessions.
The following list are albums that meet the 2024 release requirement, but I either wasn’t aware of themor hadn’t got around to listening to them enough yet to fully form an opinion. First blush, they all scored highly in other lists I trust and some of them sound very promising.
Deadletter – Hysterical Strength (Apple Music)
Brittany Howard – What Now (Apple Music)
Note: all images copyright of their original owners. Images sourced from Wikipedia or Label sites. using Creative Commons
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