The 25 best albums of 2024

A Traveling Wilburys for the cool kids at the Gen X table, The Hard Quartet overcome the stigma of their goofy name with a debut album that pulls together all the strengths of the four men involved. Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney of Chavez/Zwan fame, longtime Will Oldham collaborator Emmett Kelly, and Dirty Three drummer Jim White have known each other for decades, and that camaraderie makes these 14 songs both familiar and fresh-sounding at the same time. And with Malkmus, Sweeney, and Kelly taking turns at the mic, songs like the slanted and enchanted “Earth Hater,” the barstool charmer “Rio’s Song,” and the Alex Chilton-evoking “Our Hometown Boy” harbor the fluidity of confidence that only seems to transpire from a Malibu hang between old friends. This is one supergroup we hope enjoys a longer shelf life than the ones who’ve come before them. [Ron Hart]

“Act natural,” a distant voice yells at the noisy, discordant opening of “My Kind,” the barn-burning stomper on Rosali’s raucous and soft-hearted third LP, Bite Down. Rosali succeeds. Reuniting with one of America’s great rock bands, David Nance’s Mowed Sound (who also put out an excellent record this year), singer-songwriter Rosali Middleman returns with an electrified, classic rock backbone. Bite Down sees her and the band rattle off one song after another, acting naturally as if they’ve been doing this for years. On the defiant “Slow Pain,” swaggering “Hopeless,” and luminous “Rewind,” the band balances Rosali’s sumptuous voice with a powerful sense of ease. Middleman’s gift for cutting, evocative lyrics, offering snapshots of interpersonal turmoil and romantic vulnerability, has never been sharper, and the band teases it out of her, drawing her in with a casual propulsion. Her smoky, robust vocals carried confidently across her earworm melodies on distortion, spilled drinks, and unrelenting grooves. Bite Down gives listeners a lot to chew on. [Matt Schimkowitz]

Faye Webster opens her fifth album with “Thinking About You,” a soft-rock serenade that sways and sways for over six long, lovely minutes. The track could easily end halfway through, and a lot of people would prefer it that way. But the Atlanta songwriter carries on, repeating the daydreamy title like a mantra, as harmonized guitar leads sparkle like distant stars over waves of piano and glockenspiel. It’s the ultimate expression of “vibe first”—and that feels like the central mission of the tastefully chill Underdressed at the Symphony, which utilizes Webster’s wispy coo as one texture in a larger mosaic. It’s a bold but satisfying move, as the arrangements explode with color, from the shapeshifting art-soul of “Lego Ring” (featuring Lil Yachty) to the icy chamber-rock of “But Not Kiss.” [Ryan Reed]

“It Was Coming All Along” is the title of the leading track from Maggie Rogers’ heart-acher Don’t Forget Me, but it could just as easily describe the album as a whole. Rogers’ writing has always had a wise-beyond-its-years quality to it, but that confidence has never been more apparent than across these 10 songs. If you could bottle up the sweet ache of nostalgia mixed with the last breeze of a warm summer day, that recipe would sound a bit like “So Sick Of Dreaming,” “The Kill,” or the album’s excellent title track. Channeling her forebears like Brandi Carlile and Joni Mitchell, Rogers goes full folk as she sings about childhood, lost love, and the inevitable passage of time. With momentum like this, we couldn’t forget her if we tried. [Emma Keates]

Lorely Rodriguez’s fourth album as Empress Of may be her most accessible, but it is no less intricate or interesting than her previous works. In fact, For Your Consideration—its title even expressing the desire to be, if not loved, at least widely liked and respected as only someone in the entertainment industry can express it—boasts the kind of art pop that can win over both casual fans and staunch critics alike. Rodriguez blends her knack for melody with production from a who’s who of 2024’s most notable dance producers; see: Nick Sylvester’s mind-melting beat for “Femenine,” Casey MQ’s blending of flamenco patterns to a house beat for “What Type Of Girl Am I?”. But For Your Consideration is also plenty willing to ditch the cool factor for big, vulnerable choruses. Rodriguez ends the album, teaming with MUNA, on a note of confused passion. “I didn’t want to have someone that I need / But if this isn’t love, can you tell me what love means?” she sings. It sounds like she may know the answer. [Drew Gillis]

Fresh off winning her second Academy Award for Best Original Song, Billie Eilish appears to be firmly part of a newly emergent establishment; few other artists of her generation have taken home quite so many awards. Given all these accolades, it’s to her considerable credit that Hit Me Hard And Soft, her third album, doesn’t feel complacent or calculating. True, the surfaces might be smoother and the tempos generally slower but underneath that cool veneer, Eilish seems restless, ready to explore new emotional territory with a sense of quiet urgency. That controlled determination lends a sweet ache to the hit “Birds Of A Feather” while also suffusing “Lunch” with a ravenous carnality. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

The first of two excellent albums delivered this year by Charley Crockett, $10 Cowboy finds the hardest-working man in country music easing into a mellow, reflective groove. Crockett still is a Texan troubadour, singing his hard-luck pleas and loser ballads in a high, lonesome voice and making space for the plaintive cry of a steel guitar. This is hardly an austere affair, though. If $10 Cowboy is a throwback, it’s to the glory days of progressive country, when working-class anthems were dressed in strings and underpinned by southern soul rhythms. The smooth touch makes the sad songs go down easily. Crockett followed $10 Cowboy a few months later with Visions Of Dallas, a straighter country record that nevertheless found the singer-songwriter retaining a similar sense of soulful swing. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

These one-time teen babes from Hawthorne, CA are in their late 50s and early 60s in 2024. But 45 years after breaking bad as children of the Los Angeles punk scene, brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald still possess the same youthful vim that dazzled alternative rock fans throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Yet on their note-perfect ninth LP, self-titled in homage to The Beatles’ White Album, the band—which also includes guitarist Jason Shapiro and Melvins drummer Dale Crover—utilize the wisdom of their collective years to turn in a double album’s worth of seasoned power pop that hits all the marks. Songs like “Stunt Queen,” “Terrible Band,” and “Emanuelle Insane”—all 18 of these tunes, for that matter—quintessentially embody the brilliance of the Redd Kross brand better than anything these guys have done since Phaseshifter. Could this be the best album of their illustrious career? Signs point to yes, but there’s a good chance they could top themselves on the follow-up. [Ron Hart]

Few play six strings with as much force and fury as Mdou Moctar, the Tuareg guitarist from Niger. Moctar’s latest LP, Funeral For Justice, is an eruption of emotion, channeling the rage and horror but never hopelessness of worldwide political strife. Set to danceable, syncopated rhythms, Moctar bounces around the fretboard, pulling off and hammering on the strings like his ax was ablaze. In some ways, it is. The jittery, desert blues of “Djallo #1” and the circular hypnotism “Takoba” enchant with a keen focus, layering heroic guitar leads over Moctar’s boundless, enlivening vocals. The closer, “Modern Slaves,” brings together a community of chanting vocals, ending the album with a sense of calm and solidarity, hinting at the upcoming acoustic version of the album, Tears For Injustice, coming in 2025. Funeral For Justice is a pointed and proudly psychedelic political message about life and violence within his home of Africa. Moctar’s guitar sets the funeral pyre ablaze for all to feel. [Matt Schimkowitz]

Sturgill Simpson first unveiled the nom de plume Johnny Blue Skies on A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, burying the appellation within the liner notes. With Passage Du Desir, he brought Johnny Blue Skies to the forefront, crediting his eighth album to his alter ego. The change in name coincides with a shift in attitude. Passage Du Desir finds Simpson softening his iconoclastic stance, relaxing into mellow, soulful grooves without abandoning his musical wanderlust. Simpson still stretches the limits of metamodern country music—the closing “One For The Road” ascends in psychedelic jams worthy of Pink Floyd—but the key to the record is the breeziness of “Scooter Blues,” where happily accepts the mundane details of domestic bliss. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

It’s easy to sound cool in press releases and pull-quotes, name-dropping The Beach Boys and Modest Mouse next to Frédéric Chopin and Philip Glass. It’s much more difficult to meld those influences with coherence and originality—a feat this Chicago duo achieves on their thrilling debut LP, Where we’ve been, where we go from here. Just take, for example, mid-album highlight “Chemical,” which emerges from an ambient haze into a quick strain of “Ave Maria” and then some springy post-punk riffs, accentuated with choral-styled voices. Turns out, Friko are comfortable traveling just about anywhere: piano-and-strings balladry (the very Elliott Smith-like “For Ella”), emo-leaning power-pop (“Get Numb To It!”), and the kind of heart-on-sleeve, early-2000s indie-rock that few pull off convincingly (“Crimson To Chrome”). More, please. [Ryan Reed]

When presented with a year as challenging as this one, it’s important to give yourself some space to wallow without sinking into complete and utter despair. That’s the project of Father John Misty’s Mahashmashana, a sweeping, cinematic ode to nihilism that somehow never caves to its most depressive tendencies. Mahashmashana sees FJM alternate between his classic ’70s-esque orchestration, disco, and straight-up stadium pop, but it all somehow comes together to create a gorgeous and fully-realized portrait of our time. His pen remains as sharp as ever on tracks like “Josh Tillman And The Accidental Dose” and the standout “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools Of Us All,” as he sings about “Pynchon yuppies,” a “himbo Ken doll” and getting career advice from a dead rattlesnake. Yes, the album occasionally reads like a university syllabus, but in the end, the journey is so satisfying that you won’t mind doing the work. [Emma Keates]

Kim Deal is so associated with the Breeders, the alt-rock legends she’s guided through lineup changes and intermittent hiatuses over the last 35 years, that the idea of a Kim Deal solo album seemed unnecessary. Nobody Loves You More proves that assumption is false. The construct of a solo album frees Deal to venture into new musical territory, buttressing “Nobody Loves You More” with strings and buoying the sunny pop of “Coast” with brass. All the new, sumptuous textures are countered by jolts of noise, cloistered electronics, and fuzzed-out guitars, all proving that she hasn’t abandoned the spiky rock & roll that’s her trade. The musical freedom allows Deal to be emotionally unguarded on Nobody Loves You More, processing the recent losses of her parents and Steve Albini, a friend and collaborator since her time in the Pixies, with clear-eyed candor. The immediacy of feeling is striking, especially when combined with the expansive musical outlook. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

The heir apparent to the slacker kingdom, MJ Lenderman picks up on what Neil Young was putting down back in the 1970s, placing equal emphasis on shaggy songs and unkempt guitars. Manning Fireworks, the sequel to 2022’s acclaimed Boat Songs, proceeds at a lackadaisical crawl, a pace that allows Lenderman to linger with his guitar and to drawl his cockeyed observations with a shrug that disguises the precision in his language. His askew outlook freshens his deliberately retro form but his adherence to old-fashioned album rock means Manning Fireworks plays like an old favorite, one where the songs seep into the subconscious with each subsequent spin. At a certain point, it winds up seeming like a classic record too. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

Over the last decade, and especially since 2017’s Flower Boy, Tyler, The Creator has settled on a sound that is unmistakably his, alternating between huge, swaggering, percussive tracks and funkier, more introspective, vocal-forward cuts. Chromokopia has both of these in high supply— “Like Him” is an especially gorgeous example of the latter—and that’s a compliment. When you find a style that works, the opportunity then is to continue to refine it. That’s exactly what Tyler does here, using the album to probe new, and often more mature, themes than his previous work. “Hey Jane” explores an unexpected pregnancy and whether he’s ready to be a parent; single “Noid” probes the access people expect to have to the rapper as he only gets more famous. But Chromokopia is often a lot of fun, too; on posse cut “Sticky,” for example, Tyler leads a braggadocious parade with Lil Wayne, Sexyy Red, and GloRilla. He’s more than earned it. [Drew Gillis]

The second installment in Beyoncé’s planned trilogy of albums celebrating overlooked contributions from Black artists to American musical culture, Cowboy Carter is nominally a country album. Certainly, Cowboy Carter has the trappings of country: Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton both cameo on the record, as do Shaboozey and Post Malone, and there are line-dance shuffles, ballads, and country-soul slow-burners. What makes the album fascinating is that these explicitly country threads are part of a tapestry that weaves together rock ‘n’ roll, folk, funk, and even The Beatles, whose “Blackbird” is performed by Beyoncé alongside Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and Reyna Roberts. Few records in 2024 offered as rich and revelatory a text as Cowboy Carter, an album whose conceptual daring never replaces visceral pleasures. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

Doechii snuck up on anyone who wasn’t paying close enough attention and pulled off one of 2024’s biggest star turns. Beyond a great appearance on Tyler, the Creator’s Chromokopia, the 26-year-old rapper presented her own work in its clearest, most confident form yet with Alligator Bites Never Heal. The album often captures the hazy feel of a humid summer day, the air conditioning non-existent and a desk fan lazily blowing occasionally in your direction. The Tampa native rarely keeps her cool, instead indulging in theatrics that recall the best of Nicki Minaj’s early work. “Denial Is A River” is a full conversation with herself reflecting on the trials and tribulations over the past five years; “Boiled Peanuts” sees the emcee deliver a chorus like a cartoon villain. “Nissan Altima” in particular shows off her rhythmic dexterity, comparing herself to Carrie Bradshaw and dubbing herself the “lyrical Madonna.” There is a bevy of ideas here and Doechii keeps it moving—the vast majority of the songs are under three minutes. In the wrong hands, this could easily be exhausting, but here, it’s thrilling. [Drew Gillis]

Jack White has been recording wonderfully strange music for decades—long before he was collaborating with Q-Tip on a bonkers prog-rap song called “Hi-De-Ho.” But the further he’s evolved away from his blues-rock roots, the more critics have complained, clearly pining for some of that early-2000s garage-rock magic. No Name, his surprise-released sixth solo LP, delivers on both that front and others. It’s heavy and decidedly unfussy—a soothing balm for those who first grew disgruntled after he dabbled with marimba on Get Behind Me Satan. In White Stripes terms, No Name is a close sibling to 2007’s Icky Thump: brimming with electricity and angst, balancing every monster riff (“Old Scratch Blues” sounds exactly like you’d expect) with the kind of surprises that White’s grown to love over time (the rabid-sermon delivery of “Archbishop Harold Holmes,” the squealing bad-reception guitar solo on “What’s The Rumpus?”). [Ryan Reed]

Quietly and subtly over the last five years, Clairo found the sound that is unambiguously her. This year’s effort Charm solidifies that, harkening back to the mellowed-out sounds of 1970s soul with piano tones that sound equal parts Mac Miller and The Holdovers. That’s to say the sound is also distinctly modern; the speedy delivery of the memories that the singer, born Claire Cottrill, runs through on “Thank You” reflects a social media-age anxiety and the pull to narrate your own life for your own camera. But rather than a blend of old and new, the result feels more like timelessness. “Second Nature” makes use of a Carpenters-style sing-along refrain, built for humming along to yourself while cooking dinner or with a crowd in the pit of a Clairo show. That craving for connection is the central theme of Charm; on lead single “Sexy To Someone,” Cottrill sings: “Sexy to somebody, it would help me out / Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house.” Lucky for her, Charm sounds great on either side of that door. [Drew Gillis]

Here In The Pitch finds Jessica Pratt moving beyond the spare, almost skeletal, arrangements that characterized her first three albums, all without losing her sense of delicately rendered, achingly felt intimacy. Hints of chamber-pop and bossa nova echo through Here In The Pitch, rising to the surface in the form of jazzy chords, spectral strings, faded piano, and melodramatic percussion. All of this additional instrumentation is performed on a modest scale. Pratt deploys the colors in her expanded aural palette with precision, letting slight accents and passing phrases shape the emotional thrust of the record. These nuanced choices make Here In The Pitch feel tantalizingly out of time: It’s an album that captures the feeling of twilight introspection. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

Emerging from the digital ether, Diamond Jubilee felt untethered from the reality of 2024, both in form and content. Cindy Lee—the nom de plume of Patrick Flegel, former frontman for the late-2000s indie band Women—draws upon vast reservoirs of pop and indie-rock history, stitching together girl group melodies with the stylized primitivism of the Velvet Underground. It is a sound that feels familiar yet foreign, like a half-remembered hallucination. Like a dream, Diamond Jubilee sprawls with its own internal logic. It quietly fades into view and ends abruptly, spending its two hours cycling through sighing melodies, tinny fuzz, sparkling harmonies, and foreboding shuffles. Where other albums of considerable length tend to develop their own momentum, Diamond Jubilee instead drifts and floats, inviting a listener to get lost in its haze. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

A month ago, Kendrick Lamar still would have been one of 2024’s big winners. He won his springtime battle with Drake decisively, dropping a track that was undeniably nasty but irresistibly catchy enough to maintain a hold for an entire summer. With that in mind, GNX, which Lamar dropped in November with effectively no prior promotion, reads as a victory lap. The album’s beats are arguably the most pop-leaning the emcee has released in over a decade—at least since DAMN., to be certain—and expand the celebratory feeling of the aforementioned “Not Like Us.” GNX finds Lamar on top and using that vantage point to both survey a scene he is currently the patriarch of, and to reflect on those who came before him. The result is a body of work that is often remarkably beautiful and romantic, as on the SZA-assisted “Luther” and “Gloria,” and boldly confrontational. As Lamar himself would say, love and war are both necessary; on GNX, he finds the balance. [Drew Gillis]

Songs Of A Lost World begins at the end. “This is the end of every song that we sing,” Robert Smith croons on “Alone,” the album’s opening track. “The fire burned out to ash, and the stars grown dim with tears.” It takes roughly three-and-a-half minutes to get to those words; the first half of the song is all ethereal instrumentals, building to a boiling point before Smith’s vocals finally kick in. Across the album’s eight songs, Smith meditates on time: how it slips so quickly through our fingers, and how comparatively little of it he has left. He started The Cure when he was a teenager, singing about waiting for a girl to call at the end of the night. Now, at 65, he’s singing about the end of everything—his work, his career, his legacy. His life. To be fair, Smith’s always been a little death-obsessed, but it hits differently now. Much more than a comeback album, Songs Of A Lost World reestablishes Smith as one of the most vital voices in rock music. “I will lose myself in time,” Smith sings on the album closer, “Endsong.” “It won’t be long.” Let’s hope he’s wrong about that. [Jen Lennon]

It’s rare that a pop star blows up over a decade after their debut but that’s exactly what happened this year with Charli xcx. Six albums deep in her career and feeling the onset of her thirties, she’s looking back with ennui, not nostalgia. Still finding a thrill in the incandescent rush of indie sleaze, Charli xcx emphasizes beats and hooks so effectively that it’s easy to miss the melancholy undercurrent flowing through Brat. She still feels the pull of club classics, is still enraptured by the discovery of the new, but she also muses about mistakes and missed opportunities. Charli xcx isn’t concerned about the paths she didn’t take as much as the toll of the road she’s traveled. That self-awareness gives Brat its urgency: Charli xcx still finds late nights at the club alluring—that much is clear from the pounding, visceral sound of the album—but she can’t help but notice the clock ticking away. [Stephen Thomas Erlewine]

On the third track of Tigers Blood, Katie Crutchfield, the solo artist behind Waxahatchee, invokes David Foster Wallace. “This is water,” she sings, referencing the author’s famous commencement speech to the Kenyon College graduating class of 2005. When the speech was published as a print book after his death, it came with a subtitle: Some Thoughts, Delivered On A Significant Occasion, About Living A Compassionate Life. With Tigers Blood, Crutchfield argues that every occasion is significant, each moment we live worthy of examination and contemplation. This is what Wallace was getting at, too: We need to constantly remind ourselves to be present and engage empathetically with the world around us, and it’s hard, so hard, but it is, ultimately, worth it. “It’s blood loss,” Crutchfield continues. Living with that kind of hyper-awareness drains you, but it can also sustain you, as she realizes on the very next song. “Your love written on a blank check / Wear it around your neck / I was at a loss,” Crutchfield croons on “Right Back To It.” Crutchfield’s vocals are slow and deliberate, layered over country-inspired instrumentals that defy the genre. (Tigers Blood was nominated for Best Americana Album at the Grammys, Crutchfield’s first career nod at the annual awards show, and that’s about as close as you’re going to get to putting Waxahatchee’s music in a neatly labeled box.) The songs on Tigers Blood radiate empathy, but Crutchfield is open to receiving it, too, learning to navigate the world without getting lost in it. [Jen Lennon]