The best albums of 2024 are in danger of being obscured by the year’s extracurricular music stories: Charli XCX painting summer lime green with the Brat phenomenon; Taylor Swift taking her unstoppable Eras tour to Europe; Kendrick Lamar burying Drake in the most electric rap beef in years. But they shouldn’t be, because it was a vintage year for full-length releases.
Veterans in pop (XCX), indie (Vampire Weekend) and rap (Tyler, the Creator) have released some of the best work of their careers. Debuts from Two Shell and Fabiana Palladino show there’s ample new talent around. Laura Marling has broken hearts with her bewitching folk music, and Pa Salieu has released his phenomenal post-prison tape.
With the year now at a close, here are the very best albums of 2024 – 24 of them, in fact, in honour of what's been a great 12 months for music.
Serpentwithfeet – Grip
Experimental Baltimore R&B artist Serpentwithfeet’s third album, Grip, sounds like nothing he’s come out with before. On “Damn Gloves”, which features Ty Dolla $ign and Yanga YaYa, the silky-voiced singer leans away from the gospel-inflected pop gems of earlier years and further into clubbier, bass-heavy territory. The album’s beats bang harder than those on its predecessors, but it isn’t at the expense of the songwriting, which shines on some of Serpentwithfeet’s most passionate and overtly sexual songs to date.
Fabiana Palladino – Fabiana Palladino
Singer-songwriter and former session musician Fabiana Palladino has impeccable credentials. Her self-titled debut album is released by the storied independent label XL Recordings, with contributors that include soulman-of mystery Jai Paul – who once cold emailed to encourage her to take her own songwriting more seriously – and her father, the legendary bassist Pino Palladino. The graceful, mournful R&B of Jai Paul collab “I Care” is a highlight, but the rest of the record is rock-solid too, including “Forever”, its stunning closer.
Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us
Vampire Weekend are indie’s great survivors. Not only did they release some of the best work of that genre’s golden era, but they’ve kept up the same quality since. Their fifth album is Only God Was Above Us, which follows the fun but slightly baggy Father of the Bride in 2019. OGWAU is darker and more compressed, but still showcases delightfully weird arrangements on songs like “Connect” and “The Surfer”. And, of course, the songwriting is world-class. “Mary Boone”, named, in true Vampire Weekend style, after a disgraced art dealer, is is probably one of 2024’s best tracks.
Maggie Rogers – Don’t Forget Me
If an album could smell like pine trees, hot summer nights and skinny dipping in a lake, then Maggie Rogers’ third album, Don’t Forget Me, is it. This one came out on the same day as Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, but don’t let that distract you from another artist with honey-sweet vocal chords and heartstopping lyrical brilliance. Rogers has the ability to make you feel nostalgic for memories that you didn’t even know you had, and grieve for lovers you don't even remember. “Love me ’til your next somebody / Oh, and promise me that when it’s time to leave, don’t forget me”, she sings on “Don’t Forget Me”. Ouch.
A.G. Cook – Britpop
The Brat extended universe birthed another great album this year: Britpop, the third full-length release of producer and Charli XCX collaborator A. G. Cook. It’s a bit looser than Charli’s album – it’s nearly 100 minutes long, in fact – and goes deeper down experimental pop rabbit holes. But it’s also full of great melodies and stunning arrangements, plus an appearance by XCX herself on the title track. If you’ve played “360” to death, this is where to go next.
Charli XCX – Brat
Charli XCX’s sixth album, Brat, has every other pop star green with envy – specifically, the shade of radioactive lime green that plasters the album cover. “Von Dutch” is the dancefloor-ready first single that’s so pumped up it almost sounds unhinged, in the best way possible. “360” is another stone-cold banger, as are “Mean Girls”, “Rewind” – basically every track, in fact. Brat summer had everyone “bumpin’ that” this year.
James Blake and Lil Yachty – Bad Cameo
As collaborative albums go, this is a screeching left turn – or is it? Though James Blake and Lil Yachty’s sounds might seem quite different, both artists are known for their musical adventurousness: Blake has worked with rappers like Travis Scott and Andre 3000 on previous releases, while Yachty’s last album, Let’s Start Here., was a full-blown psychedelic opus. On Bad Cameo, the two manage to gel: the combination of Blake’s sad-boy electronics and Yachty’s sad-robot Autotuned vocals makes for one of the year’s most unlikely but most engaging albums.
Clairo – Charm
Third time’s a charm, they say. Clairo took that literally and named her third album Charm. And it has just that in abundance: the record is a warm, inventive stew of jazz, soft rock, folk and a mellow vibes; the wonderfully off-kilter “Juno” even has a drum beat that nods to reggae. Elsewhere, Clairo combines a cloud-soft croon with slide guitar on “Sexy to Someone”, and gets some flute going on “Slow Dance”. Few things sounded as blissful in 2024.
Mura Musa – Curve 1
Mura Masa, the inventive producer born on Guernsey, of all places, is best known for his collaborative work, like his 2016 song with A$AP Rocky, “Lovesick”, and PinkPantheress’s “Boy’s a Liar”. But his solo work is great too. Curve 1 is his fourth album, and it’s more unambiguously dancey than the others. But that doesn’t make it any less inventive: the tracks are uniformly strong, and range from the hyperactive drum and bass of “Whenever I Want” to the robot house of “Drugs”.
Fontaines D. C. – Romance
Few bands are on the kind of hot streak that Fontaines D. C. are on right now. The Irish group’s new album, Romance, delivers an assured case for why guitar music matters in 2024. There’s creeping, existential dread on “Starburster”; Akira-influenced ennui on “In the Modern World”; and blissfully perfect pop-rock on the closer “Favourite”. The legacy of groups like the Arctic Monkeys and the Manic Street Preachers is in very safe hands here.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Wild God
Nick Cave’s musical career has been going for nearly 50 years, which is all the more impressive when you consider that he’s put out some of his best music this century – this decade, even. Wild God, his latest album, keeps up this run of form. The songs are majestic enough to fill stadiums and wrestle with the biggest questions of human existence. Just when you think the record might be getting a little too dreamy, the pumping gospel coda to “Conversion” will bring you to your feet.
MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks
It takes a lot for an indie-flavoured, guitar-heavy album to cut through in 2024. But at the grand old age of 25, MJ Lenderman has risen to the occasion. Manning Fireworks, the North Carolina musician’s fourth solo album, is a funny, moving rock record that teems with sharp songwriting and sharper riffs. The closer, “Bark at the Moon”, is a rambling 10-minute epic that reminds us that sometimes, shorter isn’t better.
Nala Sinephro – Endlessness
To most people, the harp might seem like a dusty piece of hardware. Not Nala Sinephro, a Caribbean-Belgian musician who combines the instrument with keyboards, synthesisers, saxophones and more to conjure up a sound part classical, part jazz and part electronic. Her debut album, 2021’s Space 1.8, was a stunning, ambient-leaning work – and the followup, Endlessness, continues that immaculate vibe. Muted keyboards, winding saxophone lines and that ever-present harp create a dreamy sound that matches the floating astronaut on the album cover.
Jamie xx – In Waves
Though legendary indie trio the XX haven’t released a group album since 2019, they’ve kept busy with solo work: Oliver Sims released his debut Hideous Bastard in 2022, and Romy put out hers, Mid Air, last year. Now producer Jamie XX has followed up In Colour, his glorious 2015 album. In Waves is an assured, frequently ecstatic record that plays to his strengths: inventive samples, heartfelt vocals and slow-burning, expertly structured song dynamics. Highlights include “Baddy On The Floor”, a pumping track with Honey Dijon driven by hectic horns and piano; “Dafodil”, built around a sample of the R&B singer J J Barnes; and “Breather”, which swells, ebbs then swells again to a breathtaking high.
Dar Disku – Dar Disku
Those in the know have always known that the Arabic world is full of brilliant pop music – the German DJ Jannis Stürtz’s Habibi Funk project has been reissuing old Arab pop albums for several years. Now the Bahrain-born, London-based DJ duo Dar Disku have put out a debut album that recreates the same impeccable vibe. Disco beats hit different with Arabic crooning and sinuous Middle Eastern melodies over the top: drop “Baar Barr” or “Galbi” at your next house party to take it to the next level.
Ezra Collective – Dance, No One’s Watching
Last year, the London quintet Ezra Collective became the first jazz group to win the Mercury Prize since it was established in 1992. Not resting on their laurels, they’ve followed up the album that bagged them the award – 2022’s Where I’m Meant to Be – with the gloriously toe-tapping Dance, No One’s Watching. “Ajala” lives up to the album’s title with an infectious drumbeat, as does the Fela Kuti homage “Expensive”.
Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate
Kelly Lee Owens makes the kind of electronic music that’s only ever a soaring synth line away from euphoria. But just when everything’s all sky-high and weightless, a thumping drum beat pulls you back onto the dance floor. The title track on her latest album is a case in point: it morphs effortlessly from one mood to the other with the kind of dynamism that few dance tracks can match. The rest of Dreamstate is great too, ranging from stately ballads (“Ballad (In the End)”) to spacey club tunes like “Love You Got” and “Sunshine”.
Laura Marling – Patterns in Repeat
Marling’s last album, the wonderful Songs for Our Daughter, came out during the pandemic in April 2020, and the title track was written as a letter to a fictional daughter. Three years later, Marling gave birth to a real one. She's followed that with Patterns in Repeat, a beautiful, near-faultless record that's probably her best yet. “Child of Mine”, the opener, is a stunning meditation on motherhood that's likely to make you shed a tear (or straight-up bawl your eyes out). Songs like “Patterns” and “Caroline” are equally good – in fact, this warm, string-drenched album is one of the year's best displays of songwriting full stop.
Two Shell – Two Shell
Over their five-year career, production duo Two Shell have contented themselves with releasing EPs and loosies – but no longer. Now they’ve given their strange brand of electronic music the platform of an entire album. And the move pays off: the record is full of their usual hallmarks, like hyperactive beats, chipmunk-y edited vocals and weird song titles, but everything gels together into a strange but cohesive whole.
Tyler, the Creator – Chromakopia
Odd Future’s most famous – and productive – alumnus is on his eighth album now, but his creativity shows no signs of running dry. To a large extent, Chromakopia is classic mid-career Tyler – inventive, melodic production with inventive, introspective lyrics. But it also has an incredibly stacked features list, with contributions ranging from barely-there backing vocals to scene-stealing raps from Doechii, Lil Wayne and Sexyy Red, the latter two on “Sticky”, a gloriously unhinged posse cut. By now, we're used to Tyler knocking out reliably great albums, but we shouldn't take it for granted.
Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien
In April, Pa Salieu was released from prison, after a year and a half inside for his role in a 2018 nightclub brawl. Judging by his first full-length project since, his musical flame has not dimmed in the interim. As per its title, African Alien is an Anglo-African, Afrobeats-centred creation, with plenty of infectious melody and rhythm: “Belly” in particular is a party-starting banger. And it wouldn’t be a Pa Salieu record without his inimitable voice at the centre of it all – a voice so charismatic and dynamic that it sets fire to any beat it lands on.
Kwengface – A Gangster’s Holiday
With UK rap now in a commercial golden age, it’s important not to overlook the grittier, street-level stuff. The year’s best drill mixtape, for example, comes from Kwengface, who’s put out a full-length release despite currently being in prison. Whereas last year’s Joy Orbison and Overmono collab “Freedom 2” leant into dance, A Gangster’s Holiday is more old-school – it’s all clicking snares and sinister talk of gang violence. But the beats are good enough, and Kwengface’s rapping is inventive enough, for it to never sound derivative. Spoken-word interludes from James Messiah and George The Poet show this is far from drill-by-numbers.
Kendrick Lamar – GNX
After the fireworks of his Drake beef, all eyes were on Kendrick Lamar to see if he’d follow it up with a full-length album. With little-to-no warning, he did. GNX both is and isn’t a product of recent events. Explicit disses, especially of Drake himself, are kept to a minimum, but many of the tracks – “Squabble Up”, “TV Off”, “Peekaboo” and more – are leaner, harder and more banger-worthy than the reflective stuff with typically get with Kendrick. Even when he’s not examining his darkest fears, the man can rap like no one else, and it’s a treat to hear him keep things relatively simple for a change.
Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
Mahashmashana is derived from the Sanskrit word meaning “great cremation ground” – and yes, the latest album from the louchest middle-aged American singer-songwriter currently operating does delve into a few existential themes. But Father John Misty is one for a joke too, such as on “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose”, a wry ironic tune about an acid trip at an unbearable house party. His lyrics are always singular, yet on this record, the sounds – extended, crunchy disco on “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”; fuzzy distortion crashing into strings on “Screamland” – also deliver.
