2024 was an incredible year for music. I’m often antagonistic to such generalizations, because great art is being made and released in perpetuity, but this year brought about so many staggering projects it’s impossible not to marvel. I listened to a lot of new records this year, more than I ever have, and more than I probably ever should. I’ll be reflecting on that in a piece to come, but first I want to present the product of my obsession. Cutting the list down to 25 is always a challenge, but the battle this year reached a new peak. There are so many passionate, innovative, or otherwise compelling albums that didn’t quite make it that I continue to listen to and hope to cover in the future. What remains, the crème de la crème, are records that resonated on impact and lingered long after. Music that has deeply inspired me and kept me company in a tumultuous year. Hopefully you find something special.
25: 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips by Xiu Xiu
An unusual psychedelic record. It's an infectious, industrial roller coaster that is as nakedly sincere as it is obscured by metallic clouds. An exploration of the guitar from one of the strangest and most singular bands of this century.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
24: Patterns in Repeat by Laura Marling
An unflinching ode to motherhood. Recorded in the same room as Marling's newborn, these songs are necessarily gentle and emanate a simple beauty, perfectly suited to introduce curious ears to the magic of melody. I'm not yet a parent, but I think about it sometimes, and this album overwhelms me with fantasies of playing while rocking my child(ren) to sleep.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
23: American Candy by death's dynamic shroud
A shapeshifting collage of American pop music, anchored in augmentations of Olivia Rodrigo's "vampire." Its a sprawling progressive pop anthems masterfully blur the line between sample and live performance, with everything soaked in a sugar coated haze of nostalgia.
Listen: Youtube
22: Piedras 1 & 2 by Nicolas Jaar
A double album made up of excerpts from a five hour sci-fi radio drama detailing a future political rebellion. Minimal, hypnotic grooves propel soundscapes of ice cold atmospheres, making this record as perfect a companion to aimlessly wander through a foggy city as it is for any task you need to lock into.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
21: Wall of Eyes by The Smile
The most complete, purposeful and compelling statement from a band I have incredibly high expectations for. At times it's groovy, at times it's haunting, at times it's explosive. It's always dipped in the psychedelic and surreal, but is never too alien or disarming. Listening while concussed seared these songs into my brain forever.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
20: The New Sound by Geordie Greep
A fever dream of virtuosic jazz prog rock fusion, exploding with overwhelming arrangements and underpinned by unpredictable Brazilian percussion. It all comes together to reinforce an exaggerated character study satirizing sex obsessed men with delusions of grandeur. Gotta love some purposefully dense maximalism.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
19: GNX by Kendrick Lamar
A victory lap from of the greats. It's packed with bangers that seamlessly traverse decades of west coast hip hop, transforming a celebration of ego into a tribute to the culture from which it came. I love to see a global celebrity turn to the hyperlocal, and hope this sets the stage for more to do so.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
18: Night Reign by Arooj Aftab
Lush, nocturnal and mysterious, never failing to leave goosebumps in its wake. Traditional Pakistani ghazal poetry is fused with chamber jazz, folk and art pop to weave a beautifully unraveling moonlit tapestry—one that's as delicate as it is wholly transportive.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
17: Where we've been, Where we go from here by Friko
An earnest and operatic debut from one of Chicago's most intriguing indie outfits. It's grazed by scene kid melodrama, elevating the sincere potency of its thoroughly well written tracklist. It sonically and lyrically revolves around moving the past forward, serving a relatable platter of emo nostalgia and youthful optimism.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
16: Tidal Memory Exo by Iglooghost
The best record yet from an artist I found far before my ears were ready. It's constantly shapeshifting and mashing together an explosive assortment of left field electronic dance music, and listening to it feels like blazing through a high speed chase in a futuristic inner city. Not for the faint of heart.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
15: Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt
A brief escape to a forgotten beach in Los Angeles, far away and long ago from all of today's saturation and inconvenience. A delicate collection of meditations on time that feel like mystical antiques, embodied in hypnagogic folk poetry.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
14: Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee
A warm slice of introspective Americana that lingers like a long summer's day. It patiently tries to navigate and find peace in the ever unfolding contradiction of simply being a person, and in doing so provides its listeners with a sturdy crutch to lean on and a comfy bed to sleep in.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
13: Scrapyard by Quadeca
A mixtape of ingenious leftovers from one of the most innovative producers of the 2020's so far. Its roughness around the edges heightens its sincerity, and the whirlwind of sounds and styles across the project are united by unflinching vocal fragility. A potent diary for a terminally online generation.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
12: Manning Fireworks by MJ Lenderman
An oversized serving of twangy, unbothered slacker rock from a man who has perfected the craft of penning sympathetic, post-ironic character portraits for dejected youth to deify. Crunchy guitar riffs and oddly endearing one liners. It's irresistible.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
11: AM/FM USA by Phil Geraldi
This record exists in a haze of pedal steel and radio static, preserving the lost dreams littered across the sprawling interstate highways of the United States of America. It's a collage that distills the ineffable yearning found on the open road into temporary fragments of Americana, like old memories that coalesce into a vivid yet unfinished story.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
10: Opus by Ryuichi Sakamoto
The swan song from a pioneer in electronic music whose ingenuity and impact can't be overstated. It was conceived with certain knowledge of his terminal cancer, yet these stripped renditions feel more like a celebration than a funeral. The music is imbued with unconscious memories of a rich life, filled with grief, love, hope and gratitude. A piece of his soul is in here, burning forever.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
9: Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay
An irresistible continuous mix of ethereal psychedelic dance music infused with shades of synthpop, disco and chillwave. It's a dense, maximal barrage on the senses, relentlessly groovy and shimmering with romance. It feels like being trapped in a mid 2000s computer in the best way possible.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
8: Cold Visions by Bladee
My most streamed album this year three times over. It's the most creative rage project I've heard since Whole Lotta Red and Bladee's best technical showing to date—his pockets are always evolving and the lyrics are vivid, ethereal and raw. Banger, after banger, after banger.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
7: Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker
A devastating display of love and heartbreak, radiating with a palpable care for the human spirit. It's playful yet profound, simple yet deeply vulnerable. The clearest statement yet from one of the greatest songwriters in the world, and words I've leaned on heavily in times of separation.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
6: Only God Was Above Us by Vampire Weekend
An album that mixes maturity with the energy felt during summers with old friends, eagerly exploring a bewildering world you're all coming to inhabit. Explosions of piano, unpredictable and ever so satisfyingly crisp percussion, infectious double bass, airtight production—everything that makes this band great, on crack. The best they've ever been.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
5: The King of Misery by Daudi Matsiko
A stunningly fragile exploration of depression, BPD and racial trauma that features meticulous yet bare production with no sound to hide behind. Each instrument hands delicately but penetrates deeply, and every layer stripped or added is felt profusely. I've never heard an artist wield silence with such mastery. My favorite debut of the year.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
4: Sky Hundred by Parannoul
A cacophony of blown out digital shoegaze so vibrant and full of life it feels like it radiates generations of human experience. It's absurd that in an era of mass surveillance and oversaturation, Parannoul has remained anonymous while vigorously refining and transcending his niche sound so masterfully. If he hasn't proven himself to be the best rock artist of this decade, he sure as hell is in the conversation.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
3: Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee
A treasure trove of haunting hypnagogic pop that preserves an eroding Americana in passages that blend together to be forever forgotten and rediscovered. A record full of deep nostalgia for a time and place long ago, or perhaps a capsule outside of time, strangely feeling like it has already existed in both my past and future, spinning perpetually at a bar at the edge of the universe.
Listen: Youtube
2: BRAT by Charli XCX
It's... brat.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
1: Night Palace by Mount Eerie
An album I'm still absorbing and probably will be for some time. An eighty minute masterpiece that grapples with the blood shed over the land we've come to call our home, arranged by a weathered songwriter looking for peace. There is so much packed into the dense production and musical form that only time will reveal its secrets.
Listen: Apple Music | Spotify
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