My Favorite Albums of 2024

2024 was a decent year for music, let's look back at the best

2024 was a pretty solid year for music overall. There’s been more exceptional years in the past, but this one had plenty of albums to choose from and making eliminations was harder than I expected it to be. I always have a tradition to make this list right when the internet’s most popular music nerd, Anthony Fantano starts his list week, where he counts down the best and worst albums of the year. So here are my disclaimers before I start the count down of my ten favorite albums of 2024. I have listened to 58 albums from the calendar year, which makes me feel qualified to make this list. However, I’m sure there’s albums I haven’t listened to that would make this list if I heard them. Comment below albums I should listen to from 2024! I’m sure this time next year, this list might look different depending on new albums I’ve listened to or new relationships on past albums I’ve created. It happens all the time, it’s just a part of the overall experience.

With that being said, I’m gonna count down ten albums as honorable mentions here. All of these albums are very good and you should check them out! HIT ME HARD AND SOFT - Billie Eillish, Charm - Clario, CHROMAKOPIA - Tyler the Creator, Non Stop Flight - Drake Bell, Short n’ Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter, Heavy metal - Cameron Winter, NO HANDS - Joey Valence & Brae, BRAT - Charlie XCX, Where We’ve Been, Where we go from here - Friko and No Name - Jack White.

Now let’s start the countdown!

10. The New Sound - Geordie Greep

Black Midi is certainly one of the most influential groups in the current iteration of the British experimental post-punk scene, along with groups like Black Country New Roads and Squid. When the band announced an indefinite hiatus a lot of got concerned for the future of the scene, especially when their last album Hellfire was widely considered their best. Then lead singer Geordie Greep announced his solo project, The New Sound, a little on the nose but an effective statement with a really jarring and somewhat explicit album cover. The music matches the daring sentiment. The New Sound is one of the most ambitious and sprawling albums of the year. Geordie not only expands on the sound expressed through Black Midi and sticks to his experimental routes but also starts to explore aspects of classic Yacht Rock. There’s a lot of Steely Dan flourishes in this album that are pretty stunning. This album is perfectly produced and unlike anything else you’ll hear this year. My one warning is it’s quite explicit. Geordie writes graphic lyrics about some of his frustrations - including some in a sexual context that makes this quite the dense listen. You’ll be chuckling and then wonder if you really should be. This album is crazy but it is one that stuck with me throughout the year.

My favorite track on the album is the title track, The New Sound. A jazzy and summery almost five minute instrumental track that is exciting and daring.

9. Songs of a Lost World - The Cure

There has been rumblings for years about a reunion of famous Gothic punk band The Cure. Lead singer Robert Smith has always said they weren’t done yet, but after twenty four years people wondered if a reunion album would ever happen - or if we even wanted to. The Cure is one of my all time favorite bands. To the point the first job I had, one of the security questions was ‘what is your favorite band in high school?’ and my response was The Cure. So I was really excited when the band dropped a surprise single and an announcement of an album to come. However, several popular bands from the 80’s will have comebacks years later and not have the same magic that made them so successful in the first place, so I was worried that The Cure might follow the same suit. Fortunately, they haven’t and made one of their boldest albums to date. Robert Smith hasn’t missed a beat, sounding exactly how he did on an album like Disintegration. It’s a lush auditory experience overall. Not a single song on the track list stands out like Friday I’m in Love or Pictures of You have on previous albums but overall this album is an impressive feat from a band who hasn’t lost any momentum twenty four years after their last album.

My favorite song on the album is A Fragile Thing, a very intimate song from the band showing the emotional vulnerability that made them such an iconic emo band in the first place.

8. Prelude to Ecstasy - The Last Dinner Party

Watch out for The Last Dinner Party. If this band continues to be this consistent with sound and energy, I could see them becoming as popular as a band like Paramore in the future. This album is one of the best debut albums in recent memory. Each track is a bop, all twelve songs on the album are lively and exciting. This band is able to get across their angst in a really funny and subversive way. This doesn’t just sound like whining for an hour, these songs are electric and filled with personality. Each song feels like this group taking back their power and pathing their own future. I wish them the best for their future and thank them for giving us an incredible album full of songs that will be Hot Topic staples for years to come.

My favorite track is hard, this one is filled with so many fun and infectious songs. Nothing Matters, their biggest hit to date is so much fun. I might use this time to shout out a slightly lesser known song - Sinner (if you consider 37 million spotify streams lesser known), which I find to be a compelling and challenging song lyrically while still having such a fun groove.

7. Bright Future - Adrianne Lenker

Adrianne Lenker, the lead singer for one of my favorite bands currently making music, Big Thief, released her own side project this year Bright Future. It’s one of the best albums of the year as Lenker is able to vent about her own trauma and insecurities in a vulnerable way. Not that Big Thief doesn’t also have depressing songs, they do but that bands sound sonically is a lot larger in scope. Lenker’s solo projects feel more stripped down, like she’s directly speaking to us. I’m glad to see a new more alternative country music genre coming out from independent artists and I think that is in direct correlation of the impact of Big Thief and Lenker overall, and this album continues to show why she’s one of the best artists working right now. Try to scroll through Tik Tok without hearing at least one of her songs played, it’s amazing to see people embrace this type of music in a huge way.

My favorite song on this album is probably Vampire Empire, a song previously recorded by Big Thief last year that she did her own rendition of on this album. Since I put that on my favorite songs list of last year, I’ll take a different direction here and say my second favorite song on this album is Sadness as a Gift which is one of the years best tracks. I can’t listen to it as often as some other songs I’ll mention later on because it’s very emotionally affecting to me. It’s Lenker lamenting that the sadness and grief that she feels is a gift she should appreciate because it means she’s still able to feel something. It’s devastating! Listen to it!

6. SMILE! :D - Porter Robinson

Smile from Porter Robinson was easily one of my most anticipated albums this year. In 2021, his album Nuture made a really big impact on me and is one I continue to listen to this day. His electronic sensibilities juxtaposed with his transcendent lush instrumentation was enough to spark my imagination. SMILE is certainly a different take on his sound, he is creating a much more traditional electric pop album here. This album, instead of sounding like a blissful Animal Crossing soundtrack feels more like an album bands like The 1975 or MGMT would make. That’s a positive for me though, I really loved it. This album is a ton of fun, filled with songs with incredible hooks, instrumentation and production. It’s silly lyrically, but in presentation Porter really sells himself. He is able to not take himself too seriously while saying some poignant things about his own mental psyche. It’s an album about the male ego, him reflecting on a love in his life he had to say bye too prematurely. This album and it’s song list tell an interesting arc of angst and acceptance and by the time it gets to the final track - it chokes me up every time. While it’s not as sonically interesting as his previous album, it’s emotionally just as dense and wonderful.

Lots of songs I could choose as my favorite track off of this album, but I have to go with Cheerleader, the lead single off the album. It’s fun and full of energy, and it was my second most listened to track of the year.

5. SCRAPYARD - Quadeca

Technically, artist Quadeca says that SCRAPYARD is a mix tape, but I’m including it on the list anyways because it’s an incredible listening experience and a highlight for music this year. Quadeca started off as a YouTuber talking about music who decided to take his swing as a YouTube rapper. This has been the kiss of death for so many creatives on the platform, but not Quadeca. While his first album was considered by most to be okay, everyone say potential in Quadeca and wanted to see him succeed. His next album showed an advancement of his artistic sensibilities, but this new mix tape is a crowning achievement. Hip Hop and R&B are usually genres I appreciate more than I enjoy, but Quadeca really caught my attention with this one. I believe it’s because of all the experimental art pop influences he brought onto the project. I believe the track U TRIED THAT THING WHERE UR HUMAN has lots of flourishes of classic shoegaze in vein of an artist like my bloody valentine. It’s sonically so dynamic and interesting and while some tracks work much better than others, the entire thing is impressive and inspiring as someone trying to get art made on the internet as well.

My favorite track on the album is the much more stripped down and vulnerable song Guide Dog, which genuinely brings me to tears anytime I listen to it. It’s a song about Quadeca wishing someone could see themselves the way he saw them and while that sounds pretty cliche when I type it out, on the song it feels honest. It’s one that hit a little too close to home for me this year and puts me in a certain time and place.

4. Only God Was Above Us - Vampire Weekend

The top five gets really difficult to rank. I had this as far as number two as I was shuffling the list. Only God Was Above Us is easily the crowning achievement of Vampire Weekend’s discography. I’ve been a fan of this band for a while now. I love the bouncy, sunshiny indie pop elements that Vampire Weekend brought and their influence to indie pop is undeniable. They are almost a household name at this point. Their last album, Harmony Hill, got a mixed reception from critics and even some fans. I personally really enjoyed that album but also understand that they didn’t advance their sound any with it. Only God Was Above Us still has the elements that made this band a sensation but now they are going above and beyond. The lyrical structure, the huge and bombastic production on this album and the scope is unlike anything they’ve tackled before and they succeeded here, bringing us one of the most expansive albums of the year. There isn’t a single bad song on here and they all feel structurally unique from each other, Thematically, the album also has a lot to say about art and ego. The idea that Only God is Above Us now, meaning yes were still grounded but look how far we’ve come. Beautiful and inspiring stuff, horns and piano haven’t sounded better on another album thus year.

For the best song on the album, I gotta go with Capricorn, a song lamenting someone who was born in leap year. This song explores the idea that some people feel like in an astrological sense they are ripped away a sort of identity. It’s lyrically a really brilliantly structured song and I’m obsessed with the way the keys sound in this song, making it one I returned to quite a few times this year.

3. A Dream is All I Know - The Lemon Twigs

If I had to choose a favorite band working right now - The Lemon Twigs might be my go to answer. Their album, Everything Harmony that came out last year became the bands biggest hit to date. Not only was it my album of the year last year, but it’s become one of my favorite albums of all time. Their follow up, A Dream Is All We Know was easily my most anticipated album of the year. Thankfully, the album lived up to my expectations. While I still think their previous album is a little stronger, this album is still absolutely amazing. There’s not a single bad song on it. The album still continues to explore the flourishes and influences of 60’s bands like The Beach Boys, The Beatles and The Zombies. It does feel like they belong to that era and somehow found themselves making music in 2024, but I’m glad they did. It’s so refreshing to hear production that is so crisp and clean with really sharp lyrics to go along with them. The hooks in this album are infectious and there are times it’s hard to distinguish what these brothers are cooking up vs what Brian Wilson was producing with Pet Sounds and Smile, which is the biggest compliment I could give an album. Is it reinventing the wheel when it comes to music? No, and purposefully so. This album is bringing back a sound that is so missed and deeply appreciated by so many.

My favorite song on the album is hard, but I have to go with A Dream is All I Know, which will always hold significance to me for the rest of my life for reasons I won’t write here, but it’s a song that holds significant sentimental value to me. It’s also one of the catchiest and boppiest songs of the year, a bold statement for all of us struggling artists out there - a dream is all we know.

2. Two Star and the Dream Police - Mk.gee

Mk.gee is someone who’s been taking off recently. He appeared on SNL and people were blown away by his live performance and his most recent single, ROCKMAN, is starting to go viral on Tik Tok. I’ve been screaming about this album since it came out in January. This bedroom pop album captures the nighttime driving aesthetic better than any other I’ve ever seen. The album has elements of a group like The 1975 but even contains flourishes of Prog Rock that was on early albums from Genesis. Eric Clapton called Mk.gee the greatest guitar player of our time and say what you will about Clapton, but I can’t deny the claim. Outside of someone like Jack White of The White Stripes, it’s hard to find a guitar in modern music that sounds better than Mk.gee’s music. The soundscapes on this album are lush and gorgeous. The lyrics are introspective. It’s hard to find another album that feels this precisely produced and it’s one I’ve returned to a lot this year.

A favorite track here is also hard, but I’m going to go with I Want. This tracks instrumentation is the one that has the most Prog and Synth influences to it and is Mk.gee being at his most reflective, talking about his own attachment and abandonment issues that resonated with me deeply.

1. Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay

A lot of music pages who aren’t the mainstream like Rolling Stones are gonna agree that Magdalena Bay’s latest Imaginal Disk is the best album of the year. It is the highest rated album of the year on the cult website Rate Your Music for good reason. This neo-psychedelic art pop album is not only my album of the year, it’s one of my favorite albums of all time. Their last album, Mercurliar World, is one that I loved as well. It’s one of my favorite albums of the decade, but this might be my single favorite album of the 2020’s so far. The instrumentation on this album is perfect. Production has never sounded this good. The pop songs here are perfect, catchy, hooky and take a lot of daring experimental swings that all pay off so satisfyingly. The lyrics are tactful and the production behind them is just sweeping. This is the most etherial album I’ve ever listened to and I can see pop artists and producers being inspired by this album. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard and it’s a bombastic artistic statement by Magdalena Bay who I might argue is my favorite band making music right now. This album will make you feel like you are floating for an hour, it’s like if the cult art exhibit Meow Wolf was an album. There’s not a single bad song here and they all build off of each other perfectly.

The best song on the album, my favorite song of the year and one of my favorite songs ever that inspired a short film I’m cooking up is called Angel on a Satellite. The song is a gorgeous anthem about someone avoiding an angels influence for so long and finally coming to acceptance and even peace from it. Synths and keys have never sounded so peaceful than they do here, it’s enough to bring anyone to tears. Good creative music is still alive and well if you search for it.

Those are my favorite albums of the year! What are some of yours? Comment below and let me know some stuff I should listen to. I’ll start counting down favorite movies as well, when I see some films I still need to I believe could crack the ten. Until then, see you in the next post!