Top Albums of 2024
Veteran artists cracking the code
In 2024, I listened to over 120 new albums. Glancing over the Google Sheet I used to keep track of them all, I noticed that my favorites were more likely to be long, sprawling, noisy, indulgent, and maximalist. In fact, only one album in my top five doesn’t include a track over six and a half minutes.
However, it wasn’t until I started writing this post that I realized that all five of my favorite records this year are from artists well into their careers. And largely, the reason I love their new albums is not because they took a massive risk and mined some new creative vein. Rather, I think these artists reached a level of skill and maturity that let them finally make the record they’ve been trying to make all along.
That said, please check out the honorable mention list at the end of this post as I made sure to include some smaller and newer artists.
I’ll be sending out my top ten songs of 2024 in the next few days so subscribe if you’re not already!
1. The Past Is Still Alive - Hurray For The Riff Raff
I used to think I was born into the wrong generation
But now I know I made it right on timeTo watch the world burn
To watch the world burn
To watch the world burn
With a tear in my eye
On their previous eight studio albums, Hurray For The Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra has sometimes alluded to their youth spent as a queer teenage troubadour who ran away from their aunt and uncle’s Bronx home and spent years hopping trains, busking for spare change, and eating from the garbage. But on this year’s The Past Is Still Alive, that story is front and center. However, rather than coming all at once, it is told in fragmented anecdotes weaved throughout ten masterfully-penned tracks that barrel ahead with an unrelenting sense of urgency. As the title suggests, the songs weren’t designed to serve as a historical account; rather, they are an exploration of how Segarra was shaped by those experiences, how we never truly escape our pasts, and how maybe that’s ok.
2. Only God Was Above Us - Vampire Weekend
The final moments in a doorway
The sacred light of afternoon
Something starts to shake the leaves
You tug upon your T-shirt sleeves
And shiver 'til the rising of the moon
It’s hard to explain what’s different about Vampire Weekend’s fifth album. Musically, there are the same fragments of ska, hip hop, Baroque, jam bands, and Afropop. Lyrically, there are still oblique references to the East Coast, religion, and forgiveness. Maybe they simply got the ratios just right this time. Whatever the case, this is the best record from a band that’s never made a bad record.
3. As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again - The Decemberists
So America, heal me
Come kick my door off the hinges
Swap me out for a real me
One that’s not always going on about
How he’ll never belong
The Decemberists’ first record in six years, is as grand as one could have hoped. A double album with a long runtime, a long title, and a nearly-twenty minute final track mythologizing Joan of Arc—somehow, miraculously, never gets dull. There are enough murders, Latin rhythms, peppy horns, and tender moments to keep even my Instagram-reels addled brain entertained.
4. Mahashmashana - Father John Misty
The great-ish minds of my generation
Gladly conscripted in war
Of defending any Goliath
That would darken the door
Now with your genius for picking battles
It's no wonder every helmet is too small
I guess time just makes fools of us all
The title for Father John Misty’s sixth album, Mahashmashana, is an anglicization of a Sanskrit word that means “great cremation ground.” The word was the perfect title for this record—not just because it conjures death, but also because, as Tillman puts it, “it has all these sha-na-nas and ha-ha-has in it.” The scope of the record is huge and career-spanning bridging Hollywood strings, intense loneliness, social critique, self-mythology, and existential boogie.
5. Dance of Love - Tucker Zimmerman
So bring around a tip jar and we'll collect the rain
And we'll mix the old drops with the new
'Cause it's the season
When all the dreams of your dreams come true
Tucker Zimmerman released his debut album, Ten Songs, in 1968. Although David Bowie numbered it among his 25 favorite albums, Zimmerman’s career never earned the acclaim and notoriety that many of his contemporaries were able to achieve. Nevertheless, his music had an impact on Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief who was able to track him down, coax him out of his secluded home in Belgium, and into a cabin in New England fitted with recording equipment. The result is a wonderfully surreal, Basement Tapes-like record fronted by 83-year-old Zimmerman and supported by Big Thief that pitches, sways, and putters along.
Some honorable mentions
Creekbed Carter - Creekbed Carter Hogan
Diamond Jubilee - Cindy Lee
How Can I Possibly Sleep When There is Music - Luka Kuplowsky
In This City They Call You Love - Richard Hawley
Manning Fireworks - MJ Lenderman
Woodland - Gillian Welch
What was your favorite album that came out this year? I’d love to listen to it!