10. Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
In 2012, his debut album attracted a lot of attention. In 2015, the follow-up was a favourite among fans, and launched him into stardom. 2017 saw him grapple with darker, more personal themes on another very successful album, and, while reviews were mixed at the time, this album is now widely received as one of his best. In 2022, he returned with a shift to a more understated sound, with a concept album that challenged listeners and rewarded them alike. In 2024, he’s back.
This feels like a return to form, in a strange way, since there’s been no real dip in the quality of Josh Tillman’s output since his debut as Father John Misty. However, there has been a change in direction, his last two releases were a lot more understated than the grandiose albums that marked his early solo career, and he has matured gracefully as a songwriter, now with the ability to tackle the existential topics we all know and love with, for want of a better word, a simpler approach. This feels like an album he’s been reaching toward for a while, and would be a great starting point for any new listener.
Best Track: Josh Tillman and The Accidental Dose
9. Mach-Hommy – #RICHAXXHATIAN
There are a few albums here that I’ve not got much to say about, other than the fact that I enjoy them even more than any album I’ve written about previously here; this is one of those. Tight, perfect delivery. An amazing bed of murky, tasteful beats. Lyrics that deserve to be properly listened to, not read about.
Best Track: SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON
8. Vince Staples – Dark Times
I didn’t think Vince Staples had it in him to release my favourite Vince Staples album this year, because it feels like he does it every year. I was once again proved wrong by the man with the best name in hip hop. This album is bleak, obviously, but still stays human – Vince feels like he is guiding the listener through the darkness, explaining it, rationalising it, poking fun at it, but never leaving it. There isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel here. Album highlight “Étouffée” provides exactly 10 seconds of fun at the end before immediately pulling the rug from under your feet. Even if you try to escape by turning the brightness up on your phone screen as you listen to it, you are confronted with a noose. This album is exceedingly dark, but never cold.
Best Track: Étouffée
7. Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene
This is just vibes. Pretty much every sunny day this year was soundtracked by this album for me, so I had to give it a few goes in writing this list to remind myself of the distant feeling. Lush, weaving, intricately-arranged country that could easily, and will, fill stadiums for years to come.
Best Track: American Nights
6. The Smile – Cutouts
The boys did it again. After a very well-received comeback in “Wall of Eyes” earlier in the year, fans were ready for the next long drought between Thom Yorke projects. However, we were not completely satisfied, as some of the band’s best songs seemed to only exist on their setlists, and they clearly had a lot more to show. One cancelled tour later, and The Smile neatly tie up all the loose ends so far with career highlight “Cutouts”. Where “Wall of Eyes” slinked its way into your consciousness subtly, Cutouts demands attention from the get-go. Opener “Foreign Spies” is a slower song, sure, but the sheer scale of the synths here, the crescendo and their payoff, is nothing short of transcendent. We make our way through the consistently brilliant, if a bit crudely put together track list until we reach “Eyes and Mouth”, maybe the best single song Thom has done in a good decade. Oh my god. The way the drums just barge in at the start, instantly kickstarting the energy, then Johnny’s signature guitar arpeggios locking in immediately, with a piano bringing everything together. This is a simple song, it’s just written and performed so damn well I’m still not over it.
This album may not be as cohesive in vision or sound as much of Thom’s output, but when it bangs, it bangs.
Best Track: Eyes and Mouth
5. Charli XCX – Brat
While it seems most are now on their own path when it comes to their music taste, with tailor-made algorithms and playlists recommending more new, diverse music than ever before, Charli XCX managed to do the impossible this year, breaking through those digital and social barriers and giving everyone the album of the summer. Genuinely, I can’t remember the last artist to have the music scene in such a chokehold for so long, topping charts and review aggregator sites alike. It was an autocrat summer.
Glitchy, forward-thinking pop music that slams you in the face and tugs on your heartstrings in equal measure. I will have fond memories of walking through town, with the shimmering, psychedelic chorus and pounding bass of “Girl, so confusing” in my headphones, trying not to strut too aggressively.
Best Track: So I
4. The Thief Next to Jesus, Ka
Artists have been trying to balance the scales holding human suffering and their faith in a higher power since art began, pretty much. It’s a big old topic. Included in Ka’s masterful contribution to this age-old philosophical paradox is the influence of the Church on black people, throughout time, and throughout the world. The same forces that oppressed and enslaved also brought with them a faith that gives many black Americans hope, love and community. Add in the generational trauma of all of this, and you’ve got the very basic premise of Ka’s latest, and last album. One of the greats for sure, and I hope, in future, his discography sees some more love as one of the best artistic runs in hip-hop.
Few albums this dense present themselves in such a palatable way, it’s just as interesting to listen to as it is to analyse. A near-perfect rap album. Self-produced, self-released, self-effacing.
Best Track: Tested Testimony
3. JPEGMAFIA – I Lay Down My Life For You
The heavy guitars lacing together the first half of this album serve as a much needed through-line against the sonic assault the listener undergoes from track to track, as brief instances of house music (Sin Miedo), Brazilian funk (it’s dark and hell is hot), nu-metal (vulgar display of power), and straight-up brostep (I Scream This in the Mirror Before I Interact With Anyone) take it in turns to throw a punch. Standout track “I’ll Be Right There” gives the listener an early break; a soulful, gospel choir-sampling, orchestra-filled beauty of a hip hop song. This sounds like Late Registration. By the last third of the album, this sound returns, consistently, and as we are no longer able to keep our guard up against the sonic onslaught, Peggy lets down his. There’s something here for everyone, but it’s by no means a cheapening of his sound.
JPEGMAFIA’s album titles continue to grow increasingly apt. “Veteran” was a breakout in experimental hip-hop by a guy that’s been at it for years. He is also ex-military. “All My Heroes are Cornballs” turned his sound on its head, and lyrically honed in on the long-covered theme in Peggy’s music of looking down on those you used to look up to. “LP!” is an album, and it is shouting at me. And now, with “I Lay Down My Life for You”, he gives me everything I’ve ever wanted from him. I don’t ask for much.
Best Track: either on or off the drugs
Best Track: either on or off the drugs
2. Kendrick Lamar – GNX
… In 2012, his debut album attracted a lot of attention. In 2015, the follow-up was a favourite among fans, and launched him into stardom. 2017 saw him grapple with darker, more personal themes on another very successful album, and, while reviews were mixed at the time, this album is now widely received as one of his best. In 2022, he returned with a shift to a more understated sound, with a concept album that challenged listeners and rewarded them alike. In 2024, he’s back. No one saw it coming, except, maybe, Father John Misty.
Kendrick Lamar’s first foray into releasing a relatively normal album has gone very, very well for him. This is not a cinematic masterpiece, or a poetic deconstruction of the human condition, but a damn fine collection of songs showing Kendrick at his best. His voice here is stronger than ever. While it’s always been a key tool in Kendrick’s process, recent singles and releases, to me, have seen a marked shift in confidence, and he is rapping circles around anyone else in the same sphere as him. There are silly little vocal inflections all over this thing, from the iconic hook of “Squabble Up”, to pretty much all of “Peekaboo”. It adds a lot of charm to an already welcoming album. The music here is forward-thinking but very accessible, drawing from g-funk and west coast hip hop as well as modern R&B influences, resulting in a smorgasbord of styles that contrast and compliment each other beautifully. Lyrically, each track stays in its own lane, with some tracks delving deep into Kendrick’s psyche, exploring his relationship with his work and how the last year has gone for him, other tracks definitely just existing for fun. All in all, this feels like a celebration of everything that Lamar comes from and stands for, and all but one are invited.
Best Track: heart pt. 6
1. Mount Eerie – Night Palace
As both Mount Eerie and The Microphones, Phil Elverum has given the world everything from dense black metal laden with existential dread to simple, soulful, acoustic musings about his place in the world. His work took on a much darker tone with 2017’s A Crow Looked At Me, which dealt with the crushing grief of an immense personal loss almost in real time. It covered his thoughts, feelings and fears in the lead up to, and in the immediate aftermath of, losing his wife to cancer. Hints of hope could be found in Crow’s follow-up, Now Only, as we hear, in detail, the moments Phil and the late Geneviève spent together patinate into loving memories, as their daughter brings more light into this new, dark reality. His output never falters in consistency or quality throughout this tumultuous time. Career highlight The Microphones in 2020, a sprawling epic folk song that is essentially a full autobiography put to music, seemed to be him at the height of his powers. Now, the ever-philosophical Elverum returns with 26 tracks of, to my ears, pure bliss. The reverence with which Phil always wrote about nature has always deeply touched me, but in the new context of his recent loss, his writing takes on whole new meaning, and has fable-like lessons to bestow. Natural disasters are temporary, the earth always recovers, and they are, in a way, necessary for growth. There is music in nature, and the more often one stops to hear it, the louder it gets. There is profound meaning to be found in sweeping.
After being transported through the world from Phil’s perspective for well over an hour, closer “I Need New Eyes” wrestles with the idea of perspective itself, with Phil coming to the zen outlook that “Nothing arises in the first place, All this impermanence is just another thing my mind made. I was never here, and nothing goes away”. The closing line, “I need new eyes”, not only consolidates the idea he is reaching toward, but is also masterfully calling back to a track at the midpoint of the album, “Blurred World”. A track that, as well as covering the niche but brilliant subject of losing your eyesight as you age, and being fine with it, gave me an immediate gut-punch as I recognised Geneviève’s backing vocals working their way out of the wash of acoustic guitar and tape hiss. There is such sincere, deep and deliberate meaning in every note of this album.
By far and away my favourite album of this year, and of the last few years.
Best Tracks: I Walk, Demolition, I Spoke With a Fish, Myths Come True, & Sun