Best Of 2024: The Top 25

Consummate artistry meets emotional fire in the visionary albums that defined my year

This year’s list-making seems unusually fraught, with many people either questioning the point of the exercise or feeling the need to defend it. I’ll make no grand pronouncements about it except to say I know I have readers who look forward to the lists every year. Also, I enjoy planting a flag and trying to put a shape around the many albums I consider…