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 to be the best, including the 25 I designate as my favorites. The latter is what this first list is all about. These releases went beyond the merely excellent to connect deeply with my soul, defining my year, and making it possible to get through the many personal and public shocks 2024 has delivered.

While finalizing the Top 25, I found myself trying to get a bead on what distinguished the albums that stubbornly refused to relinquish their perches on the mid-year list - or shouldered their way onto the year-end list, displacing other albums I loved. While that description almost makes it sound like I don’t have any choice in the matter, that’s semi-true. This process is driven by my gut, which compels me to listen hungrily to some albums repeatedly while others have to wait their turn.

But as the list began to assemble itself, a word arrived almost unbidden in my mind: visionary. The albums drawing me closest to their orbit have a certain quality that makes them seem out of the ordinary. Father John Misty did not just make an orchestral folk rock album. Cassandra Jenkins did not just gather up recent songs and put out a singer-songwriter album. Chris Trapani did not just say, oh hey, here’s a new song cycle. They, and all the other albums below, sought to define a world, or even a universe, presenting a self-contained expression of consummate artistry combined with an emotional fire that can’t be ignored. Maybe “visionary” is what I needed most from music this year and these albums delivered.

But that could be my barely hidden pretentious side revealing itself. I’ll close by saying these albums mean the world to me. Maybe you’ll feel the same way. But this might be the place even if you’re merely looking for some of 2024’s best music, hoping to find something new to listen to or love. Give these 25 artists a shot - even if they’re not to your taste, you’ll probably be glad they exist. I think you’ll also appreciate that they have managed to put out stellar work despite all the obstacles the world puts in their way. I know I do, especially the several debut albums I’ve included.

Finally, to paraphrase Marty DiBergi, that great documentarian of rock, “Enough of my yakking” - here’s the list!

You can hear selections from all but one of these albums here or below.

1. Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer “And now Jenkins's voice is echoing in my head and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future, along with all the marvelous sounds she and producer, engineer, and mixer Andrew Lappin (L’Rain, Slauson Malone 1) blended to make this all-timer of an album.” My Light, My Destroyer was a constant listen for months. I even tracked down the Rough Trade exclusive CD with the Cosmic Companion bonus disc to get more wonderful sounds, including a gorgeously abstract cover of Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust. Just an absolute masterpiece. I also got to see Jenkins live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg and she proved to be a deeply connected performer, who lived out each song with great immediacy, accompanied by a crack band of musicians whose devotion to her music was certainly not desperation!

2. Father John Misty - Mahashmashana As I noted when the album came out, “While sticking with a similar string-laden sound world as Chloe, Mahashmashana is unweighted by any concept, free to soar on the eight extraordinary songs Misty has assembled.” I would also note that anyone predicting the death of the album should experience the segue from Screamland into Being You - preferably on vinyl - with the chopped ending of the former dropping you into the delicate, almost tentative opening of the latter with a vertigo-inducing sensation. What a thrill to have our Father back at the top of his game.

3. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee I’m still “…captivated by [Patrick] Flegel’s mastery of a variety of song forms, from 50s soda-shoppe pop to 60s jangle and Velvety hypnotics to icy 80s post-punk, 90s dance funk to 21st century indie rock and beyond.” I’m also happy to report that Diamond Jubilee is now available on Spotify, Bandcamp and vinyl. My daughter pre-ordered a copy for my birthday, which will be quite the gift when it arrives in February!

4. Faye Webster - Underdressed At The Symphony “On her fifth album, Webster doubles down on her sublime combo of bullet-proof hooks, lush production, and lyrics that slalom through wry, witty, and vulnerable poles like a gold-medal Olympian.”

5. Michael Hersch - Poppea “Typically for Hersch, he zeroes in without hesitation on very modern themes of trauma, resilience, and self-actualization. His longtime collaborator, the genius soprano Ah Young Hong, puts in her finest, most concentrated performance, which is saying something.”

6. Or Best Offer - Center “Or Best Offer is one of those bands that put aside the conventions of music to tap into its primordial power.” I was also fortunate enough to see them live twice this year - don’t hesitate if you spot them at a venue near you.

7. Boogarins - Bacuri Brazil’s finest psych-rock band returns with their first studio full-length since 2019 and delivers a set of expertly crafted and adventurous tunes with warm melodies and sky-flying guitars. Their production techniques are so assured you may not even notice all the chances they take. Bacuri provides all the satisfaction of rock classics of yore while feeling relentlessly fresh and contemporary. “Currently only available on Spotify and YouTube, the album is a true gem and must be sought out no matter what ideological objections you have to music-streaming services.”

8. Moor Mother - The Great Bailout “While there is more conventional beauty here than in albums like The Drift or Bish-Bosch, Scott Walker may be the only other artist willing to similarly confront humanity’s darkest histories in a deeply empathic, honest, and artistic way. The Great Bailout is essential listening for our times.” Equally essential is the album's deluxe version, which includes a live recording of the original three-movement collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra that became the basis for The Great Bailout.

9. Anastasia Coope - Darning Woman “Coope’s approach to songwriting, singing, and production results in obdurate creations that seem to exist out of time. They could be playground chants from a hidden society - or transmissions from another world.”

10. Talea Ensemble and the Harlem Chamber Players - Julius Eastman: Femenine “It manages to channel the pioneering spirit of the 1974 live recording within a sleeker, stunningly engineered context that hits all the marks for a contemporary Eastman record.”

11. Arushi Jain - Delight “The result is an utter triumph that sounds completely effortless.”

12. h. pruz - No Glory “A series of organically crafted songs featuring delicately intertwining guitars, piano, vocals, clarinet, and cello, the album also includes a wealth of unexpected details that seem to be direct transmissions from the instincts of the players.”

13. Friko - Where We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here “…an extraordinary range of sounds from gnashing, gnarly guitars, and pounding pianos to delicate, string-laden chamber folk, it’s a fully rounded album made by and for musical omnivores.” The expanded edition features even more of an embarrassment of riches in 11 additional tracks, including b-sides, demos, a cover of When You Sleep by My Bloody Valentine, and three live tracks that prove I was not hallucinating greatness when I caught them at Brooklyn Made earlier this year.

14. Elsa Hewitt - Chaos Emeralds “Anchored by overlapping keyboard loops and decorated by an array of sharp and satisfying little sounds, each track acts as a facet of the whole glorious gem of a record.” Hewitt has also put out eight songs from her next album, Dominant Heartstrings, made up of “self-soothing guitar loop melodies,” yet another new direction for this protean artist.

15. The Slashsound Sound: I-R - Detroit Densha Seikatsu “These two understand sound thoroughly and deploy heavy beats and complex distortions with the mastery of architects.” And: kuuma - koniwa “…sheer heaven, a constantly unfurling tapestry of looping cells and swooping lines that feels like an enveloping forest of sound.”

16. Hannah Frances - Keeper Of The Shepherd “The mastery displayed throughout this sixth release by the Chicago-based singer-songwriter-guitarist is at times nearly overwhelming, as on Bronwyn and the title track, which rushes by at a fast gallop.”

17. Christopher Trapani - Noise Uprising “…an absolute knockout…a 90-minute song cycle named for and inspired by Michael Denning’s book…19 songs, each named after a harbor town…Trapani has found the ideal collaborators for this journey, including Zwerm, a Belgian electric guitar quartet, and two extraordinary singers: Sophia Burgos, a Puerto Rican soprano, and Sophia Jernberg, an experimental singer with roots in Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Sweden.”

18. MIZU - Forest Scenes “Flutter, which comes near the center of the album (just after Pavane, already a modern classic), is a perfect example, its combination of a languorous cello melody, field recordings, and electronic sounds and rhythms creating an aural world in which to immerse yourself and perhaps experiment with some new identities of your own.” In November, Mizu released another extraordinary album, the darkly mesmerizing 4 | 2 | 3. Based on a collaboration with choreographers Baye & Asa, the hour-long piece encompasses the human lifespan as structured by the Riddle of the Sphinx, hence the title. What a great year for Mizu fans…become one.

19. claire rousay - sentiment “…as well-sequenced as an album as the sounds she assembles in her tracks, with off-beat pop enjambed with sound collages and other forms of assemblage.” We were also gifted with sentiment remix, which had simpatico collaborators deconstructing and reconstructing several tracks from the album, and The Bloody Lady, a moody and sleek new soundtrack for Victor Kubal’s 1980 animated film telling the lurid tale of the pedicidal Elisabeth Bathory.

20. Billie Eilish- HIT ME HARD AND SOFT “…a dimensional heat-seeking pop album suffused with Eilish’s winning, witty, and winsome personality.” NOTE: The more I’ve lived with this album the more I’m convinced Eilish [and her brother Finneas] is a melodic genius. The way the songs get under my skin goes beyond their lyrics and musical backgrounds. Which reminds me - Memo to Disney: When are you releasing an audio-only version of the Hollywood Bowl/L.A. Philharmonic concert?? Let the music be free! P.S. I’ll pay for it, Disney, as would millions of other people, I’m sure.

21. Kendrick Lamar - GNX I likely speak for only a few others when I express my disinterest in Lamar’s beef with Drake and the dis tracks that followed. That’s partly because Drake is so far beneath Lamar’s talent that he shouldn’t have bothered (and what was left after Pusha T eviscerated the former Aubrey Graham six long years ago?) and partly because I found the tracks to be one-and-done listens. But maybe the exercise licensed Lamar to lighten up a bit for his sixth album, especially after the therapy-session solipsism of 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. While that album had its highlights, it’s not one I’ve returned to often.

    But GNX is not only a return to form, it’s a new form for Lamar. My first reaction was, Oh, this is a lean and mean collection of hip-hop songs. And that is partly true, as there isn’t an overarching concept, like DAMN.’s circular structure, instead just a series of short films from the mind of one of the greatest rappers of all time. But on further listening, its riches began to reveal themselves. The songs took on a magisterial air, such that I had to wholeheartedly agree with Lamar’s repeated declarations of “I deserve it all” in Man at the Garden.

    The production, mostly by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff (of all people!), is filled with stunning details, like the meaty bassline in Reincarnated, or the earthy voice of Deyra Barrera, who has never appeared on a hip-hop album before. The lyrics can be sliced and diced without ever reducing their magic to mere words. Check out this verse from my favorite song, Reincarnated, which has Lamar rapping furiously in the persona of a singing star who rose from nothing only to throw away their career due to drugs:

    Turned on my family, I went wherever cameras be
    Cocaine, no private planes for my insanity
    Self-indulged, discipline never been my sentiments
    I needed drugs, to me, an 8-ball was like penicillin
    Fuck love, my happiness was in that brown sugar
    Sex and melodies gave me hope when nobody's lookin’

    Lamar has also chosen his guests well, from known entities (at least to me) like SZA, who lends her beautiful voice to Luther, to new names like Hitta J3, Peysoh, and YoungThreat, who back him up on the title track, making for a helluva posse cut. If you want to know everything GNX is not, read the lame review in Pitchfork. In ten years, I’ll celebrate the anniversary of this masterpiece by doing a point-by-point dissection of everything that piece gets wrong. But who has time for that now? I’d rather just listen to GNX again.

22. Frances Chang - Psychedelic Anxiety “Through Chang’s artistry (and in concert, it became even clearer what a great musician she is), her compassion and empathy translate easily to the listener like text messages from a good friend.”

23. Big Numbers - s/t “While the sound of Big Numbers is sparer and more relaxed than some of Richard’s earlier music, either as Ocean Music or under his own name, it’s certainly closer to that rock sound than last year’s mind-blowingly brilliant electronic Dylan cover…All they ask of the listener is to trust them: while the impact may not always be instant, there will be an impact.”

24. Wild Ponies - Dreamers “Returning after seven years with their strongest album yet, Doug and Telisha Williams present a vision of community, both musical and otherwise. With Doug serving up guitars that sparkle or sting and Telisha relentless on upright bass, the songs also incorporate pedal steel and other signifiers of country music…”

25. Freak Slug - I Blow Out Big Candles “…the first single, Spells, is GREAT. After some distorted screams, it kicks into an insidiously catchy bass and drum rhythm, with her sweet voice set off further by scratchy guitar. In perfect dance-pop fashion, there’s a wordless chorus, a cowbell breakdown, and a massed wall of guitars that threaten to take over near the end.” I wrote that before hearing the whole album, which I’ve been delighting in for a while now. The spell of Spells easily spreads over the other songs, filled with sticky melodies, relatable lyrics (haven’t we all met the guy in Piece Of Cake?), and clever instrumental twists. When I interviewed Xenya Genovese, who performs as Freak Slug, she was upfront about her goals: “Yeah, man, you know what? I’m well into being accessible. Like, I actively made the choice for Freak Slug to be accessible.” But, as I pointed out to her, she’s done it without compromising any of her personality, making these catchy, fun tunes connect with me more deeply because this slug is fully human. I got to see her NYC debut at Baby’s All Right and it was PACKED. No surprise, when she comes back in April it will be at the Bowery Ballroom. Buy tickets well in advance!

Did any of these make your list? Did I introduce you to something new? Let me know - and keep an eye out for the genre-specific lists to come!

From the archives:
Best Of 2023: The Top 25
Best Of 2022: The Top 25
Best Of 2021: The Top 25
Best Of 2020: The Top 25
Best Of 2019: The Top 25
Best Of 2018: The Top 25
Best Of 2017: The Top 25
Best Of 2016: The Top 20
Best Of 15: The Top 20
Best Of 14 (Part 1)
Best Of 14 (Part 2)
Best Of 2013
The Best Of 12: Part One
The Best Of 12: Part Two
The Best Of 11
Best Of Ten
A Blog Is Born: Best Of 2009