My 2024 Favorites: The Top Ten
We wrap up the Best Of series with an unranked list of my top ten albums of 2024
Happy New Year friends! Presumably we can still say that given that the year is only five days old. When checking in for our flight from Charlotte to JFK yesterday, two of the agents and my wife and I agreed that the 15th is probably the cutoff date for the joyous and hopeful salutations related to the year ahead. After that it starts to get weird. In any event, we've reached 2025—with what feels like alarming speed—and it's time for me to put 2024 behind me.
I've finally managed to put pen to paper (or finger to screen) to compile my top ten favorite albums of 2024. Honestly, I have so much I could write about these albums, but the truth is I'm a little burned out and I just don't have the mental bandwidth required to write anything substantial about these brilliant albums. I've decided to try something new: giving myself a break and taking the path of least resistance without doling out any of the self-criticism that is so common for me. Life's too short to beat up on myself for not writing a few thousand words on the ten albums that most moved me last year.
My last.fm stats tell me that I listened to tracks from these albums a total of 1,725 times in 2024. I was surprised to learn that the tracks from my top ten albums represented less than 8% of the total tracks I listened to last year. On average I listened to each of these albums 14 times, although that ranged from a low of 8 to a high of 21 listens. I'd assumed that the top albums would've represented a much larger proportion of my total tracks played and that I would've listened to each of them more frequently. Perhaps that’s just an indication of the overwhelming quality of fantastic music, both new and old, that’s vying for my listening time. What's important, though, is that these are the albums that I felt compelled to listen to in 2024; whether they brought me joy or comforted me as I sat in sadness, I found myself returning to them again and again.
While there are two albums that outshone all others for me, I've decided to once again list these in alphabetical order by artist name. As for waxing eloquently on each of these fine releases, I'm taking the same approach as I did with the last two installments by including excerpts of critical reviews that are reflective of my feelings on each album. For those that want to dig in further, I link to the full review. I've included my standout track from each album along with the YouTube video and have provided a songlink link for streaming each album on your preferred platform (no Qobuz, sorry!)
Happy Listening!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these picks! Please jump in to the comments and let me know what you liked or what you didn’t. Were there any new artists/albums for you here? Did you love them? Hate them? Indifferent? What amazing releases did I miss out?
2024 Favorites: The Top Ten Playlist
Brigitte Calls Me Baby - The Future Is Our Way Out
Review from AllMusic:
Likewise, on the Morrissey end of the spectrum, the band offer one song in particular, "I Wanna Die in the Suburbs," that not only sounds like a lost Smiths gem but includes a chorus that emotes, "I wanna die in your four-car garage/Turn out the lights and send in the entourage…But I don't wanna die alone." While these songs are a tremendous amount of fun for fans of their reference points -- because they're legitimately good songs, and to say that the band pull them off is an understatement -- the bulk of the album is populated by catchy, romantic, almost timeless material that lands somewhere in between while also borrowing from later eras of indie.
Standout Track: We Were Never Alive
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Bonny Light Horseman - Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free
Review from Americana UK:
In truth there are no weak songs, every track warrants its place on this audacious sprawling masterpiece, with its serendipitous blend of emotional energy, tension and release nestled upon a musical fabric that is both experimental and welcoming in equal measure. Rarely has an album felt so accessible and immediate and yet continues to reveal something new over repeated listening. Truly astonishing.
Lying at the very core of these songs is the vocal interplay between Mitchell and Johnson. Not for them the usual pedestrian format of swapping lead and harmony vocals from track to track, but rather within each song they wrap their voices around each other. On occasion one may deliver the opening melody before the other adds a counterpoint, sometimes as a call and response, sometimes as a dual narrative that seamlessly blends into one story and builds to anthemic proportions, such as on ‘The Clover’. and ‘Speak To The Muse’. Throughout the decades there has been many male/female duos that have warranted high praise for their combined vocal prowess, but what Mitchell and Johnson have created here is pure alchemy.
Standout Track: When I Was Younger
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Cassandra Jenkins - My Light, My Destroyer
Review from The Guardian:
It helps that the arrangements are beautifully done – there’s a gorgeous moment at the end of Devotion where the lyrics turn momentarily optimistic and a swell of brass slowly builds behind them – and that Jenkins’ grasp of melody is so strong: Only One might be the obvious pop standout, but the sigh of Clams Casino’s chorus and Aurora, IL’s sweet sadness run it very close. In fact, sweet sadness is a description that fits My Light, My Destroyer as a whole. It’s doleful but beautiful, a brooding delight: whatever pains were staked in its making were clearly worth it.
Standout Track: Devotion
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
The Cure - Songs of a Lost World
Review from Louder Than War
This eight songs that have finally made the cut are beautiful slices of Smithsonian art. Slotting somewhere between Pornography and Disintegration but with a new Cure 3.0 take on their own inner space, they amp up the melancholy for yet another new version of The Cure, with elegiac, brooding masterpieces that are dripping with melody, nuance, and atmosphere.
For years we waited for the follow up to Pornography whilst enjoying and understanding all their curveballs and tangents. We surfed the pop period and loved the lysergic wonk of it all, gorged on the beauty and sadness of Disintegration. But here we are with a bleak album that dares to own up to the most profound truths in life with a stark yet melodic powerful music and those deeply personal gorgeous vocals.
Songs Of A Lost World is a stunning work that could be their own end song but we know the Cure better than that and there are more twists and turns to come…
Standout Track: I Can Never Say Goodbye
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Gossip - Real Power
Review from DIY Mag:
On Real Power’s more upbeat moments, Gossip tend towards the disco rather than the sweaty party pit. Opener ‘Act of God’ splashes Motown-like vocals with ‘70s basslines; ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ is slinky and sultry in ways that mirror its lovestruck lyrics, while ‘Give It Up For Love’ could be a Nile Rodgers co-write for all its funky strutting. Generally, however, Real Power sits around the mid-tempo rather than going hell for leather as they may have done in younger years. Far from a slip into the middle of the road however, they find new ways to make it interesting - ‘Edge of the Sun’ utilises breathy backing vocals in ways that feel fresh for the band, while ‘Turn The Card Slowly’’s guitars sound like they’ve been listening to The xx’s atmospheric debut for cues.
Standout Track: Real Power
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Honeyglaze - Real Deal
Review from Clash:
Pre-release ‘Pretty Girls’ is a heady, hook-laden track. While its lyrics are at times sarcastic, the pop-inspired song is a thought-provoking comment on society, discussing the dire and often depressing effects of alcohol. Opening with a daydream-inducing riff, there is a paradoxical beauty to the at-time pessimistic song, showcasing the band’s talent in making dark feelings sound good.
Egged on by Shibuichi’s raging drums, Sokolow looks back in anger on ‘Don’t’, raising a middle finger to all the men who have done her wrong. ‘Ghost’ follows a haunting love plagued by a yearning for reassurance and recognition. Gearing up for a cathartic chorus, Sokolow croons: “You can see me naked without taking off my clothes.”
Standout Track: Ghost
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Joan As Police Woman - Lemons, Limes and Orchids
Review from Financial Times:
Lemons, Limes and Orchids is the 12th studio album by an unorthodox but consistently rewarding singer-songwriter. Its songs have a supple groove and probing feel as though circling an idea or scenario. Joan Wasser, aka Joan as Police Woman, sings with nuanced changes in emphasis, one moment pressing, the next softly languorous. The combination of rhythmic depth and vocal sophistication recalls the vaunted spirit of one of her musical inspirations, Joni Mitchell.
Standout Track: Long For Ruin
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
King Hannah - Big Swimmer
Review from Exclaim;
Swept across the Atlantic to embark on their first American tour, the pub-born rock duo from Liverpool found themselves traversing landscapes both profoundly new and eerily familiar. This paradox runs rampant throughout Big Swimmer, as the pair make sense of their formative experiences between stages on the other side of the pond. Just as their own dreams and perceptions become superimposed beneath those of the nostalgic American imagination, Merrick's withering deadpan and Whittle's sludgy riffs are drenched in its punk rock of the '70s and '80s; their woeful tales and dusty percussion distinctly rooted in its southern country and blues.
Standout Track: Milk Boy (I Love You)
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
Lady Blackbird - Slang Spirituals
Review from All About Jazz:
For this second outing, Lady Blackbird draws upon gospel music's powerhouse aesthetic, her body a pulsating sound chamber. This time she and Seefried have crafted their own material and the results are wildly seductive. Away from the autumnal vibe of their first effort, Slang Spirituals evokes a sap-rising springtide and glorious summers of awakening. From the outset with "Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled)," Lady Blackbird has the aura of a flower child singing in tongues of fire from a heavenly scroll. Her fantastic vocals testify about thorned roses growing from a stone, as Seefried's sparkling production captures a certain Muscle Shoals essence.
Standout Track: Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled)
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred pl
Orville Peck - Stampede
Review from KTLA:
Not only is the album Peck’s most ambitious album, but also his most confident. That confidence includes surprising experimentation, rich concepts and acknowledged limitations of his own voice. Peck’s vocals have never sounded better, as he sticks to his range while enlisting unexpected help to fill out the rest. These improvements over Peck’s already well-regarded previous releases, Pony and Bronco, signify a real proclamation of Peck’s own identity and his place within music.
Stampede shows musical roots of not only country but R&B, modern Latino radio, the works of Fleetwood Mac and euro-dance. Through his career, Peck has been difficult to categorize, as he straddles (pun intended) several genres, often simultaneously. But with Stampede, Orville Peck seems to announce, more clearly than ever before, “This is the kind of country artist I am.”
Standout Track: The Hurtin' Kind
CLICK HERE to listen on your preferred platform
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I was so happy to see Joan As Police Woman on your list! For some reason I missed that she'd put out a new album in 2024 and only first heard it a couple of weeks ago! Only one listen so far, but so good! -- she's one of the most underrated songwriters/musicians ever.
I also just learned, in the research for my Jeff Buckley piece, that she was in a relationship with him, and that he'd proposed to her days before his death. And that most of his band played with her both in her work and in the band Black Beetle (which never released their eponymous album).
She definitely deserves a deeper exploration in 2025. I might start from the beginning and work my way back to her latest album. That might take me all of 2025 to complete!
I was very lucky to have had the TV on one morning this last year when Brigette Calls Me Baby were performing live. They were quite good and the singer had a Roy Orbison sound and he looked like James Dean. They came to play west Michigan where I live and I bought a block of tickets for myself and a few bandmates. It was a Wednesday night show and there were probably only fifty people in the audience. They really blew us away. We were dumbfounded how good they were live and how great the vocals were. Their record sounds very ‘80’s but they are all guitars live. A must see band.