The best albums of 2024

It’s unfair to compare a band that released its first record five short years ago with one that’s been a household name since the mid-’90s. But while the Mancunian legends were focussing on dynamic gig pricing, this year’s ‘Romance’ was a total reinvigoration for dynamic guitar music, delivering a more widescreen sound and a vision of a band with near-limitless horizons. Grian Chattan’s continued evolution from pub bard to rock star soared on the back of ‘Starburster’s rasp, the melancholic James Joyce riffs of ‘Horseness is the Whatness’ and the poppy high of ‘Favourite’. It was topped of with a storming Park Stage set at Glastonbury. Blissness.

Chappell Roan has been up and coming for a while now, and although this record was *technically* released in 2023, this is the year it resonated for me. Every song on her dazzling debut album hits, and its targets are all over the map. This is music of many moods – from the synth-party-anthem cheek of ‘…HOT TO GO!’ to the bite of ‘Casual’ and the Lana-Del-Ray-covers-Radiohead wistfulness of ‘Picture You’ – all united by a bio-queen drag sensibility that keeps vulnerability and self-armor in a fascinating tension.

What’s most remarkable about Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee is that its two-hour-plus runtime contains little – if any – excess. On a base level Patrick Flegel simply pushes out sweet, swooning pop tunes through washes of foggy, sentimental, psychedelic noise – but they also constantly yet gently shift. Flegel deftly adjusts tempo and dips into new styles while regularly reaching heights that are unabashedly, stratospherically pretty. It’s those plaintively beautiful bits that stay with me the longest; instead of being exhausting, Diamond Jubilee is a work of grace.

Brat might have been appropriated by the normies and politicians, but we can’t forget that as well as launching a million brain rot memes, Charli XCX did also drop the AOTY. This no-skip album is as close to a perfect pop record as you’re gonna get, and XCX has never had so much bravado. Yes, Brat is the story of a chaotic party girl, but what really makes it stand out is XCX’s raw vulnerability. Ricocheting between brash electro-clash, wubby bass, vigorous hyperpop and sombre synths, XCX drags us through the whole spectrum of emotions and dumps us hungover out the other side.

It’s been 16 years since shock-haired goth-pop icon Robert Smith popped up with a new Cure album, and even longer since the band have hit such bleakly beautiful form. Lyrically, Smith is a man battered by time, memory, age, the ebbs and flows of love, and, above all, loss. It’s no exaggeration that this is an album haunted by death – the wrench of losing loved ones, and the terror of our own mortality. So it’s almost ironic that, musically speaking, there hasn’t been this much life in The Cure for decades. Brooding, pummelling, snarling, soaring, even packing a few gnarly wah-wah guitar freakouts, Songs of a Lost World tempers its melancholy with sheer power. Who knows how many more years, let alone albums, Smith and the gang have in them? But if this is an ending, it’s one hell of a goodbye. 

It’s been just shy of a decade since Jamie XX last put out an album. Skipping through trance, disco, house, breakbeat and everything in between, In Waves is a dance record about being in the dance. There’s ‘Baddy On The Floor’, the bouncy, elated gospel-house track with Honey Dijon; the dizzying, spoken-word stomper ‘All You Children’, and ‘Dafodil’, skewing more to the leftfield, all slowed-down slurred vocals and distant drum beats creating a soundscape akin to a ketamine-induced daydream. Together, the 11 tracks are an ode the club, but, as ever with Jamie XX, there’s a layer of sophistication which makes you feel euphoric, melancholic, nostalgic all at once; as though you’re reminiscing on the night out before it’s even finished. Heaven.

‘Stop! Stop! He’s already dead!’ begged Drake fans (we presume) after Kendrick Lamar dispensed with the Canadian popstar over a series of diss tracks in spring 2024. The last of those disses, ‘Not Like Us’, went on to become one of the songs of the summer – yet that wasn’t even Kendrick’s biggest flex this year. That title goes to GNX. Lamar’s surprise-released sixth studio album was a triumphantly swaggering, technically splendorous display of his might, foregoing high concepts and sensitive introspection for a work of punchy, slick, ruthless rap.

Enough time has passed since Vampire Weekend’s debut that a return to punk-flavoured chamber music with a Paul Simon-esque embrace of African rhythms feels borderline nostalgic. But that’s perfectly fine by me when you have familiar-yet-fresh lead-off songs like ‘Ice Cream Piano’ and ‘Classical.’ After that woozy opening rush, Only God Was Above Us continues to pump out jangly licks, laid-back choruses and, in the case of ‘Mary Boone,’ an esoteric, very Upper West Side choral ode to a tax evading art dealer. Yep, this is still Vampire Weekend, alright.

If you really want to ‘dance to A.G.’, put down brat and listen to Britpop instead. While being a major collaborator on Charli XCX’s sixth studio album, PC Music founder A.G. Cook was also working on his own excellent full-length record. This varied three disker bounces between ethereal EDM, jagged industrial moments and sugary hyperpop. Standouts include the melancholic pop track ‘Lucifer’, with vocals from XCX and Addison Rae, and the sentimental guitar tribute to SOPHIE, ‘Without’.

2024 has been a year for the hardcore kids. While Mannequin Pussy have been grinding away for a while, I Got Heaven really pushed them out of the underground and onto the big Spotify playlists. The album oscillates between sexy slow burners and chaotic fits of rage, as frontwoman Marisa Dabic takes you on a ride through lyrical themes of womanhood, self-definition and expressing oneself in the purest, most authentic and vulnerable way. It’s filled with stadium-sized anthems, like Loud Bark that prime them for top festival slots in the future. Just you wait.

Schoolboy Q is a master at switching between beats, flows, tonal inflections and perspectives with ridiculous finesse. His sixth album, Blue Lips, is a testament to this versatility, revealing his different sides from unapologetic gangster to doting father. Tracks like ‘Pop’, ‘Yeern 101’, and ‘Thank god 4 me’ nail Q’s brash yet introspective style, combining gritty honesty with layered beats that hook you instantly with fast-paced synths, shimmering soul and subtle jazz infusions. It’s hip-hop that feels raw and refined, showing a seasoned rapper at his best.

It’s been absolutely ages since I heard a new heavy metal album I enjoyed as much as this. Blood Incantation is progressive death metal – but don’t let the cheesy, guitar-influencer connotations put you off. Unlike a lot of bands in that genre, the Denver four-piece isn’t concerned with complexity for complexity’s sake. Their fourth album is cosmic and psychedelic. True, the riffs aren’t going to win any awards for originality, but the effect of the records’ entirety is what stays with you. If you thought simultaneously pleasing fans of both Morbid Angel and Tangerine Dream was impossible, then give Absolute Elsewhere – a six-part opus consisting of two ‘songs’ – a listen.

Colombian-American songstress Kali Uchis has been active for over a decade, but her fourth studio album (and second in Spanish) proves her bouncy, sultry and imaginative sound is as fresh as ever. On Orquídeas, the 30-year-old hones her voice and leans deeper into her Latin side, spinning poetry that melts effortlessly from Spanish to English, touching on themes of love, jealousy and self-preservation. From a theatrical ballad about revenge (‘Te Mata’) to a reggaeton banger with Karol G ‘Labios Mordidos’), it's all drenched in Uchis’ lush, dreamy aura, making the album a fun listen whether you’re doing the laundry, driving with the windows down or dancing in the club.

With Renaissance, Beyoncé seemingly conquered dance floors for a full year with a disco and house-inspired album that was impossible not to play non-stop from start to finish. This year, with her country-tinged follow-up Cowboy Carter, she switched the world trading sequins for cowboy boots. From the infectious ‘woo’s’ and ‘hey’s’ of ‘Texas Hold ‘ to the twangy Miley Cyrus duet ‘II Most Wanted,’ the creative leap forward was another example of why the international superstar is at the top of her game. (Genre resistant country radio stations be damned!)

The modern-day guitar god and former White Stripes frontman went solo 12 years ago, but his sixth stand-alone album, No Name, is his best, and finds the rocker getting back to his roots. In true White fashion, he wrote, recorded and produced the entire effort himself, then unveiled it unceremoniously by slipping unmarked copies into customers’ purchases at his Third Man Records stores two weeks before its official release. Fans were treated to Stripes-esque guitar riffs from the opening track, ‘Old Scratch Blues,’ and on the catchy ‘That’s How I’m Feeling.’ The standout track, though, is ‘Archbishop Harold Holmes,’ a clever monologue from the POV of a huckster preacher.

There was a crescendo of hype around The Last Dinner Party by the time their debut album was released in February; so much so that you could be forgiven for lowering your own expectations before hearing it. But that would’ve been a mistake, as this is one bolshy, confident stab at a debut album. It opens with a tantalisingly frivolous orchestral track and crashes, lurches and drags you through another 11 excessive, decadent songs. From guttural belting to ghostly Kate Bush-esque whispers, Abigail Morris’s lead vocals shine on ‘On Your Side’ especially – but the entirety of this album is a testament to her skill as a frontwoman. A really, really exciting band.

Rachel Chinouriri’s debut album What A Devastating Turn of Events is a visceral alt-pop journey through purging, pettiness, tragedy and triumph, and one that refuses to succumb to a single genre. In ‘Garden of Eden and The Hills’, we hear the south-Londoner’s soft, cherubic voice contrasted against grungy streams of guitar. Later, she brings a more playful tone with the gloriously petty ‘It Is What It Is’ (​​reminiscent of peak Lily Allen) and ‘Dumb Bitch Juice’. Later, things turn darker and more sincere affirming Chinouriri’s talent for really getting you in the gut.

Ethereal, romantic, wistful: there are many ways to describe Grammy-award winning singer Arooj Aftab’s voice, but when it comes down to it, you’d be better off just listening yourself. This album was my introduction to the Pakistani-American artist, and I was blown away by its contradictions: the way she sounds gloomy but also uplifting, how the tracks work together into something which feels timeless but shockingly new. It’s soft, gloomy, lightly experimental, and the perfect chilled-out album to play while flitting round the house, burning sage and sipping hot tea. 

Adrianne Lenker is some kind of magician. Her sixth (sixth!) solo album – and that’s on top of five albums with day job band Big Thief – is small but large; a masterclass in making giant leaps sound like intimate whispers. This brand of twinkling, acoustic romance isn’t nearly as twee as it could be. Instead, the sublime ‘Free Treasure’, misty wild swimming anthem ‘Donut Seam’ and a gleefully jagged take on Big Thief’s ‘Vampire Empire’ have got real guts. Also, she’s wearing a really fucking cool cowboy hat on the cover.

Nils Hoffman is a Berlin-based producer with classical training. His latest release Running in a Dream is an effervescent escape that reminds me of why I fell in love with electronic music in the first place. It’s a release that feels pure, open and as true as a breath of fresh air, but sensitive enough to not feel too earnest in its optimism. I think if I do a midnight run while listening to this, I might just be reborn.

Anyone who’s seen this Aussie four-piece perform live will know that their schtick is party music – obvs – but Confidence Man’s third studio album 3AM (LA LA LA) still packs an astounding amount of energy that does not let up. Experiencing tracks like ‘Janet’, ‘So What’ and ‘BREAKBEAT’ live at Banquet Records’ album launch party turned what was a Tuesday evening in Kingston Pryzm’s ornate hall into a flashing, pulsing warehouse party. That was back in October, but given what’s happened in the world since, there’s been no better time for such a brilliant modern nod to 90’s rave culture. 

Ten Fold is authentically Yaya Bey in every way, but this time around, she’s talking about grief; knowing it, confronting it and embracing it to become (in her words) ‘something that shines’. The record is about the passing of her father Arub Bey (AKA rapper Grand Daddy I.U.), who died in 2022 while she was touring for her last album, but it’s far from just 16 tracks of melancholy. This album has it all: dancey funky tunes, slow neo-soul numbers and some that are, frankly, a little weird. If you listen closely, you’ll hear recordings of her father’s voice on some of the tracks.

The dystopian 1979 film The Warriors has become a cult favorite in part because it gets at the sense of danger that comes with living in a city like New York. But the movie is not just about fear; it’s about rising above fear through solidarity and community. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davis’s wild ride of a concept album pushes this New York classic to new heights in a star-studded, action-packed combination of two of the city’s signal cultural innovations: hip-hop and the Broadway musical.

The Bleachers’ re-imagining of their 2014 debut album, Strange Desire, is a bit reminiscent of Taylor Swift re-recording all of her old records (after all, frontman Jack Antonoff has produced a number of Swift’s hit songs). But rather than simply giving us ‘Jack’s version’, Stranger Desire (2024) delivers a refined, near-perfect sound that underscores the band’s evolution as artists and musicians. Admittedly, I miss some of the rawness of the original tracks, but I can appreciate the confidence and maturity that comes through in tracks like ‘Wild Heart’ and ‘You’re Still a Mystery.’

Expectations were high when Tyler announced CHROMAKOPIA, and while it’s not quite had the same impact as 2019’s Igor, the lyrical lore grows on you with each listen. This is a new chapter for Tyler, whose quick-witted rap flits through soul-searching topics like fatherhood while acknowledging his new found maturity. Those brief moments of introspection are balanced with bits of braggadocio, of course, and you still get the bold beats, kaleidoscopic instrumentals and zingy delivery that we’ve grown to expect and adore.

When the world’s biggest pop star releases a new album in the middle of a record-shattering tour, it’s clear she’s got something important to get off her chest. For more than an hour (two, including the bonus tracks), Taylor Swift opens a window into her tortured, grieving soul. You don’t have to be a Swiftie to feel the sorrow on ‘Loml’ and ‘So Long, London,’ or the seething anger on ‘The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived’. It’s yet another feat for one of the most celebrated artists of this generation.