{"id":811049,"date":"2024-12-08T10:51:02","date_gmt":"2024-12-08T16:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/08\/the-12-best-albums-of-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-12-08T10:51:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-08T16:51:02","slug":"the-12-best-albums-of-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/08\/the-12-best-albums-of-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"The 12 Best Albums of 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music <\/p>\n

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Music<\/a><\/p>\n

And other singularities from the year in music.<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n
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\nPhoto illustration by Slate<\/span>
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The best-of-2024 lists below no doubt would be somewhat different if events in early November had gone another way. It\u2019s a reminder of how subjective and unfixed these evaluations inevitably are.<\/p>\n

Back in the summer, we critics were buzzing about how revitalized pop felt this year. New-generation artists had surged. Energy filled the charts. A surfeit of candidates<\/a> vied to become the song<\/a> of the<\/a> summer<\/a>, after several years when finding a few felt like a stretch. The scripture of the prophet Kurt<\/a> practically seemed fulfilled: Everyone<\/a> was<\/a> gay<\/a> (at least the women<\/a>). Gossip and controversy roiled vigorously; you could debate the value of the Kendrick\u2013Drake beef<\/a>, but not that it was an event<\/em><\/a>. All that even before Charli XCX engineered total vibe fusion by tweeting, \u201ckamala IS brat<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now many of us squint back at that time through a veil of disappointment and fear. Every kind of populism has gone sour again. Is that stink wafting through the zeitgeist the supplement-toxified testosterone of young Rogan-fan voters, or stale dry-ice clouds from the celebrity endorsers at Harris rallies?<\/p>\n

Chart dynamism turned to near-stasis as those songs of summer stuck around through the fall with little to replace them. My Slate colleague Chris Molanphy\u2019s series \u201cWhy Is This Song No.\u00a01?\u201d went months without a new installment<\/a>, as \u201cA Bar Song (Tipsy)\u201d dominated that spot for months on end<\/a>. The rest of the top 10 likewise has been stuck on shuffle, except when new albums debuted by artists with a very particular mix of mass and cult appeal. Those would be Tyler, the Creator\u2014whose Chromakopia <\/em>just barely missed my list\u2014and Kendrick Lamar, whose surprise-released GNX<\/em> hasn\u2019t won me over yet but is currently making him just the fourth artist ever to occupy the whole Billboard top five simultaneously<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given all that, my lists reveal a step back from broad pop-forwardness to a craving for more intense catharsis or more intimate contact. The order is always a shell game; ranking a collection of perfect pop confections relative to an hourlong jazz composition is less apples-vs.-oranges and more butterscotch sundaes\u2013vs.\u2013Antikythera mechanisms<\/a> (you decide which is which). But now I felt particularly inclined to highlight the lesser-knowns, especially given the plethora of lists that get published<\/a> these days as soon as the calendar hits December. Many of the runners-up here easily could have been first tier. My top dozen simply felt a touch more personal.<\/p>\n

After that, instead of a top singles list, I\u2019ve put together a set of \u201csingularities\u201d\u2014some songs but also other musical moments and mutations that summon the essence of 2024, a year divided against itself.<\/p>\n

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The Top 12 Albums (in alphabetical order)<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

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\u0623\u062d\u0645\u062f <\/em>[Ahmed], Wood Blues<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Based in the U.K., this is something of a pan-European supergroup (Pat Thomas on piano, Seymour Wright on sax, Joel Grip on bass, and Antonin Gerbal on drums). It was formed to pay tribute to the bass and oud player Ahmed Abdul-Malik<\/a>, a figure on the 1950s New York bebop scene who reinvented himself in the 1960s to pursue Arabic-jazz hybrids of his own invention. At each performance, \u0623\u062d\u0645\u062f [Ahmed] selects a single Abdul-Malik composition to explore live, under the rubric, \u201cNo discussion. No plan. No solos.\u201d In this recording of a 2022 show in Glasgow<\/a>, the result is a 58-minute panorama of, perhaps, an oil field going up in flames, including close-ups of the fleeing laborers, crowds of protesters, conspiracy theories running amok, and the angel of history overhead, flying in reverse. It\u2019s a lot to absorb\u2014the group also released a five-disc set of other 2022 performances, called Giant Beauty<\/em><\/a>, this year, but I have not tackled that yet. (Nota bene:<\/em> I might have otherwise included even more jazz records in this list, but my Slate colleague Fred Kaplan covered many of the best in his own tally this week<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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Arab Strap, I\u2019m Totally Fine With It<\/em> ???? Don\u2019t Give a Fuck Anymore\u00a0<\/em>????<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

The idea of the \u201clockdown album\u201d feels hackneyed by now. But I hadn\u2019t realized how much I needed to hear one that deals with how far out of joint our internal and external worlds have remained<\/em> since that great disruption. The Scottish duo Arab Strap, who showed off their sardonically drawling handling of the sordid facts of life from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, prove to be just the men for the job on their second studio album since reuniting in 2016. Grim scenarios of social disconnection<\/a> swell to epic synthesized scale<\/a>, a little like on this year\u2019s Cure album, but with more variety. It pulls off the best trick of deeply depressing music\u2014by telling truths the listener hasn\u2019t known how to talk about or acknowledge, offering improbable comfort.<\/p>\n

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Madi Diaz, Weird Faith<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Singer-songwriter Madi Diaz caught a weird break in 2021 when, after a dozen-plus years gigging around New York and Nashville, she got a call to open some dates for Harry Styles, then to join his touring band. I didn\u2019t know this when I saw her at a Toronto club earlier this year and wondered why a horde of teenagers was clustered at the front screaming for every song. Her good luck becomes ours in that it likely means she\u2019ll be able to keep putting out collections of songs like this. Her style doesn\u2019t have much in common with Styles\u2014Kacey Musgraves\u2019 presence<\/a> on one track here is a better clue (though it\u2019s much sharper than Musgraves\u2019 own sadly fuzzy-minded album this year). But on this album about the hopeful<\/a> insecurities<\/a> of grown-up new love, and a similarly jumpy relationship to religion and family and fate (hear \u201cGod Person<\/a>\u201d), her ability to make quizzical introspection so invitingly musical is good cause to jump up and scream.<\/p>\n

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Doechii, Alligator Bites Never Heal<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Officially it\u2019s a mixtape, but to my ears, Doechii\u2019s Alligator Bites Never Heal<\/em>\u2014the title a nod to her Florida roots and to the theme of unresolved trauma\u2014is the freshest rap album of the year, with an internal coherence that lodges it as a whole in the memory. I\u2019m often down on the prevalence of therapy-speak in 2020s music, but the way that here it\u2019s bounced off dirty-mouthed humor and classic hip-hop hungry ambition<\/a> (as well as side-eye to narrow industry expectations of women in rap) makes it feel like part of a fully rounded self-portrait whose pace carries me through its 47 minutes in what feels like half the time.<\/p>\n

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Mary Halvorson, Cloudward\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Surely by now we can just acknowledge guitarist-composer Mary Halvorson, now in her mid-40s, as one of the giants of contemporary jazz-or-whatever-you-call-it. As the title suggests, her pieces can be like cloud collages turning slowly for the listener\u2019s contemplation. But then in an instant they can also be like mansions collapsing down the side of a hill, raindrops firing at you from octopus-arm guns, surreal parables or stern admonitions. The six-person ensemble here (seven when assisted by Laurie Anderson on violin on \u201cIncarnadine<\/a>\u201d) comes across as tight and disciplined in its unpredictable pursuits. Besides Halvorson\u2019s guitar, it features trumpet and trombone and rhythm section, plus the vibraphone of Patricia Brennan, who herself put out another of the best jazz records of 2024, called Breaking Stretch<\/em><\/a>. And you should hear two other fantastic albums with Halvorson this year, the Tomeka Reid Quartet\u2019s 3+3<\/em><\/a>, and Wingbeats<\/em> by the trio Thumbscrew<\/a>, both also featuring Cloudward<\/em> drummer Tomas Fujiwara.<\/p>\n

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Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

I fell for this album by this New Orleans ensemble, led since 2007 by nonbinary singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra, harder than I ever have for its previous ones. I might have to call it my favorite this year. The Past Is Still Alive <\/em>is a memory book\u2014created in the wake of Segarra\u2019s father\u2019s death\u2014of Segarra\u2019s dislocated and underprotected youth, the people (often lost) they experienced those ramblings with, and the America in which it all took place, as geographically ravishing as it can be socially unforgiving. But unlike some of the band\u2019s previous records, it\u2019s sparing in its didactic or scolding moments (so they land all the harder). It\u2019s suffused with love, grieving, grievance, and gratitude in dynamic balance. Its folk and country-rock structures still feel roomy but not so rickety. Audition \u201cColossus of Roads<\/a>,\u201d for instance, and see if any doubts don\u2019t quickly collapse.<\/p>\n

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Various artists, I Saw the TV Glow<\/em> (original soundtrack)<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

The record industry has been trying hard to sell us on Twisters <\/em>as the movie soundtrack album of the year, and sure, it\u2019s got some Nashville bangers among its overstuffed 29 tracks. But it can\u2019t compete with the album for Jane Schoenbrun\u2019s oddball trans allegory and horror-fantasy period piece<\/a>. Its 15 songs fulfill the director\u2019s dream of simulating a great lost 1990s indie mixtape. But they also convene a summit of some of the great queer\/weird-kid music heroes of the 2020s. As a Torontonian, I might have been a little suckered by the fact that it begins with Yeule\u2019s cover<\/a> of the greatest-ever Broken Social Scene cut, \u201cAnthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl<\/a>\u201d\u2014and again, as a Phoebe Bridgers devotee, by it ending with her only official 2024 release, a collaboration with her old band Sloppy Jane (the band in the club in the film) on \u201cClaw Machine<\/a>.\u201d But then there\u2019s more from Frances Quinlan (Hop Along), Caroline Polachek, Florist, King Woman, Jay Som, L\u2019Rain, and the Weather Station, music that should serve to remind you not to neglect to dig your best friend, or alter ego, out of their grave, and that teen movie soundtrack albums can be the greatest thing.<\/p>\n

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Ka, The Thief Next to Jesus<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Of all the people in and around music who died in 2024, one of the saddest losses was that of Kaseem Ryan, the fiercely independent rapper known as Ka, at the age of 52. Having given up dreams of stardom in his youth, he worked as a respected firefighting captain by day. In his off time, he wrote, produced, performed, released, and marketed his own music, nine solo albums over the past 16 years\u2014most of them with central conceptual focuses, as on this one, which explores and critiques the relationship between Black American communities and Christianity. In a larger sense, all of his albums were about struggle, survival, and loss, grounded in hard memories of coming up in Brownsville, Brooklyn (as here, for instance, on \u201cCollection Plate<\/a>\u201d). It\u2019s not easy listening, often downbeat and severe, but rich in story, sound, and emotion. I confess I didn\u2019t give his music enough time before his death, despite the urgings of my Slate colleague Jody Rosen, who was one of Ka\u2019s greatest advocates over recent years, and whose beautiful obituary of the man<\/a> I\u2019ll recommend as required reading.<\/p>\n

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MJ Lenderman, Manning Fireworks\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Manning Fireworks <\/em>is the one album among my top dozen that will show up on pretty much every other list you\u2019ll see this year. It\u2019s also an album I listened to more than almost anything else in 2024, so I couldn\u2019t pass it over. For one thing, the North Carolina singer-songwriter and guitarist carries into the mainstream more than ever before the influence of the late poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Purple Mountains<\/a>), the subject of the book I\u2019ve been working on. MJ Lenderman shares Berman\u2019s alt-country style and his penchant for juxtaposing sardonic one-liners with aching lyricism and other verbal leaps\u2014like Lenderman\u2019s much-quoted reference to his \u201chouseboat docked at the Himbo Dome\u201d on the perfect \u201cWristwatch<\/a>,\u201d or his \u201cBark at the Moon<\/a>\u201d counsel \u201cDon\u2019t move to New York City, babe\/ It\u2019s gonna change the way you dress.\u201d But he can say equally much with a volley of string-bending Southern-rock guitar notes. At only 25, he\u2019s already honed those skills through several previous albums, but here is where it all clicks into place. A recurring theme is symptoms of masculine dysfunction, among the older generation (as on \u201cShe\u2019s Leaving You<\/a>\u201d) but perhaps also among the Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate acolytes who are his peers. So another level it operates on might be undercover journalism\u2014or else displaced confession.<\/p>\n

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The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

This project feels like something made expressly for me, or that I just imagined in a daydream: the former rhythm section of the great (arguably greatest) 1980s and 1990s post-hardcore band Fugazi, in collaboration with one of today\u2019s most compelling younger New York jazz creators and players, James Brandon Lewis (who had two albums on my 2023 list<\/a>). I wasn\u2019t so taken with what bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty, together with guitarist Anthony Pirog, did on previous Messthetics releases, which drifted a bit too far toward prog rock. But Lewis\u2019 presence on sax seems to ease their anxiety about filling in available space, which he\u2019s able to do with more strategy and sensuality. The outcome on tracks like \u201cEmergence<\/a>\u201d nods to decades-past iterations of jazz-rock and jazz-punk fusions while sounding completely 2024. Also don\u2019t overlook Lewis\u2019 quartet release this year, Transfiguration<\/em><\/a>, with pianist Aru\u00e1n Ortiz and another great rhythm section, Brad Jones (bass) and Chad Taylor (drums).<\/p>\n

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Peso Pluma, \u00c9xodo<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

For all the talk about Brat <\/em>summer, \u201cEspresso\u201d fever, and everybody going country<\/a>, there was another record this summer racking up hundreds of millions of streams and reaching near the top of the charts that seldom entered the conversation: Peso Pluma\u2019s double album \u00c9xodo<\/em>. <\/em>It\u2019s rooted in regional Mexican music and corrido, <\/em>but ranging far beyond that, with one disc full of traditional brass and strings and the other loaded with trap beats and guests such as Cardi B, Quavo, and Rich the Kid. My Spanish is practically nonexistent (I\u2019m Canadian; we took French), so there are limits to what I can analyze here\u2014certainly not the debate over the glorification of drug-cartel activity in the subgenre of narcocorridos, except to say it doesn\u2019t seem so far removed from the lyrical fixations of hip-hop icons such as Pusha T. What I do know is that almost anywhere I push play on \u00c9xodo<\/em>, whether the more folkloric \u201cRompe La Dompe\u201d or the ultramodern \u201cBellakeo\u201d or anywhere in between, almost everything sounds like a hit, and I don\u2019t want it to stop.<\/p>\n

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SML, Small Medium Large<\/em><\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Sounding at various points like a contemporary electronic dance record, On the Corner<\/em>\u2013style 1970s fusion, or 1980s New York mutant disco like Liquid Liquid and ESG, the West Coast quintet SML\u2019s first album is constructed from live improvisations transformed through postproduction editing and processing. The group has its roots in Jeff Parker\u2019s Los Angeles jazz venue ETA, which closed last year; bassist Anna Butterss and saxophonist Josh Johnson are also both on Parker\u2019s superlative double album this year, The Way Out of Easy<\/em><\/a>. But the shimmery, pulsing sound of SML, with its synthesizers, guitars, percussion, and loops, has the potential to entice a listenership not usually drawn to free-jazz types, perhaps the way Chicago\u2019s Tortoise did in the 1990s\u2014with the squared-off anti-funk of \u201cIndustry<\/a>,\u201d for instance, or the near-ambient pit-a-pat of \u201cWindow Sill Song<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s a sound for which I, personally, am almost always in the mood, or if not, it will take me there.<\/p>\n

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Plus 20 More (alphabetical)<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

Adeem the Artist, Anniversary <\/em>(hear \u201cOne Night Stand<\/a>\u201d)
Arooj Aftab, Night Reign <\/em>(hear \u201cRaat Ki Rani<\/a>\u201d)
Sabrina Carpenter, Short n\u2019 Sweet <\/em>(see below)
Jennifer Castle, Camelot <\/em>(hear \u201cLucky #8<\/a>\u201d)
Charli XCX, Brat <\/em>and Brat and It\u2019s Completely Different but Also Still Brat <\/em>(see below)
Clairo, Charm <\/em>(hear \u201cEcho<\/a>\u201d)
Caroline Davis and Wendy Eisenberg, Accept When <\/em>(hear \u201cAccept When<\/a>\u201d)
Mabe Fratti, Sentir Que No Sabes <\/em>(hear \u201cEnfrente<\/a>\u201d)
Jake Xerxes Fussell, When I\u2019m Called <\/em>(hear \u201cAndy<\/a>\u201d)
Gastr del Sol, We Have So Many Titles <\/em>(archival) (hear \u201cThe Seasons Reverse<\/a>\u201d)
The Hard Quartet, The Hard Quartet <\/em>(hear \u201cHey<\/a>\u201d)
Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer <\/em>(hear \u201cClams Casino<\/a>\u201d)
Mach-Hommy, #Richaxxhaitian <\/em>(hear \u201cSur le pont d\u2019Avignon<\/a>\u201d)
Mdou Moctar, Funeral for Justice <\/em>(hear \u201cFuneral for Justice<\/a>\u201d)
New Starts, More Break-Up Songs<\/em> (hear \u201cAsbestos Roof<\/a>\u201d)
Nia Archives, Silence Is Loud <\/em>(hear \u201cUnfinished Business<\/a>\u201d)
Carly Pearce, Hummingbird <\/em>(hear \u201cHummingbird<\/a>\u201d)
Mary Timony, Untame the Tiger <\/em>(hear \u201cNo Thirds<\/a>\u201d)
Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood <\/em>(hear \u201cRight Back to It, ft. MJ Lenderman<\/a>\u201d)
Wussy, Cincinnati Ohio <\/em>(hear \u201cInhaler<\/a>\u201d)<\/p>\n

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Singularities: Songs, Moments, Happenings<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

1. Beyonc\u00e9, \u201c<\/strong>Daughter<\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As on Renaissance<\/em>, Beyonc\u00e9 was presenting a whole musicological thesis on Cowboy Carter<\/em>, but this time it felt as if it sprawled a bit out of control, maybe because she had less specifically to say about country music than she first proposed\u2014a lot of the best stuff had more to do with rock \u2019n\u2019 roll. (See my review<\/a>.) The lowest point was a rewrite of \u201cJolene\u201d that turned Dolly Parton\u2019s classic into a routine power flex. But immediately after that came the wild twist of \u201cDaughter,\u201d in which Beyonc\u00e9 performed part of the operatic aria \u201cCaro Mio Ben\u201d (showing off a part of her training many of us weren\u2019t aware of) and matched it with a narrative that seemed to compensate for the absence she\u2019d just hollowed out of \u201cJolene\u201d by becoming more potentially revealing about her own family and emotional makeup than almost anything she\u2019s ever sung.<\/p>\n

2. Shaboozey, \u201c<\/strong>A Bar Song (Tipsy)<\/strong><\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Shaboozey appeared as a guest on Cowboy Carter<\/em>, <\/em>I had never heard of him, and in what felt like about 30 seconds later, he had the biggest hit of the year (which I still really like)\u2014and also seemed in some ways to be more successful at tilting the racial makeup of the country charts. My colleague Chris Molanphy has a great piece this week about what\u2019s going on with that<\/a>. Only part of it is gender, although when it comes to crossover, it was also conspicuous how much more casually the white dude Post Malone was able to mosey across the genre line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Sabrina Carpenter, \u201c<\/strong>Espresso<\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started out the summer resistant to \u201cEspresso\u201d as a culture-swallowing hit\u2014it sounded too much like other songs<\/a>, even whole unrecognized genres of song<\/a>. But with subsequent singles and then her album, it became clearer that Carpenter was more than a cutesy white appropriator, and actually had a whole consistent, witty, dirty-minded aesthetic<\/a> behind her appeal. So I learned to stop worrying and love \u201cEspresso,\u201d which also refreshed a vital lesson for songwriters and critics alike, that with pop lyrics it is often all the<\/em> better <\/em>when they don\u2019t make logical or grammatical sense.<\/p>\n

4. Charli XCX, \u201c<\/strong>Girl, So Confusing featuring Lorde<\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The saga of Brat<\/em>, <\/em>which propelled perpetual alternative-pop second-stringer Charli to pop-culture prom queen, has been perhaps too much told. But especially post-Kendrick-and-Drake, the most heartwarming part was the switcheroo between versions one and two of \u201cGirl, So Confusing,\u201d the transition from purported catfight fodder to a celebration of empathy and friendship across mutual awkwardness. I preferred Charli and Lorde\u2019s version to Galinda and Elphaba\u2019s in Wicked<\/em>, <\/em>although both involved prominent tints of green.<\/p>\n

5. Kendrick Lamar, \u201c<\/strong>Not Like Us<\/strong><\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

All other details of the beef aside, this incredibly catchy anthem, more than any hit in recent memory, boggles my mind on a regular basis that a big hit is allowed to say the things it says. You can\u2019t forget where you were when you first heard it. Like nothing since \u201cPumped Up Kicks<\/a>\u201d or \u201cMy Neck, My Back<\/a>,\u201d maybe, it restores one\u2019s faith in the bottomless weirdness of pop. The depth of that weirdness was perhaps best expressed, as so often with pop-culture news, in comedian Josh Johnson\u2019s YouTube video about it<\/a>. What the beef actually indicated about the general health of hip-hop as a field is another, less fun question.<\/p>\n

6. The Delightful Rise and Regrettable Disillusionment of Chappell Roan (and Everyone Else)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Chappell Roan\u2019s album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess <\/em>came out last year basically unnoticed outside of gays-only circles, but this year she rapidly became one of the three or four hottest things in pop, with one entrancing single after another\u2014\u201cGood Luck, Babe!<\/a>,\u201d \u201cHot to Go!<\/a>,\u201d \u201cPink Pony Club<\/a>\u201d(!). Yet at the peak of her arc this summer, Roan suddenly went public about how many of her new fans were invasive jerks<\/a>. There was a parallel here with how Taylor Swift complained throughout The Tortured Poets Department<\/em><\/a> <\/em>about fans deigning to judge her private life, especially on perhaps my favorite track<\/a>, \u201cBut Daddy I Love Him<\/a>.\u201d You might even compare it with Patrick Flegel of the unexpected indie breakout band Cindy Lee, which after doing its very best to prevent people from listening<\/a> to its album Diamond Jubilee <\/em>(now Pitchfork\u2019s No. 1 album of the year<\/a>), canceled its tour after people annoyingly persisted in enjoying it. (If it\u2019s any consolation to the group, I did not.)<\/p>\n

But damn, it\u2019s almost as if artists fostering parasocial relationships with fans through social media and Easter egg hunts over lyrical clues to their personal lives turns out to have a downside. I don\u2019t fault any of these artists for their complaints. I just wonder if the overall conditions<\/a> are capable of changing.<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong>\u00a0C\u00e9line Dion, \u201c<\/strong>Hymne \u00e0 l\u2019amour<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u201d Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony, July 26\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just a bit more than a month after a documentary about her health condition<\/a> that made many of us question whether she could ever perform again<\/a>, C\u00e9line Dion mounted the Eiffel Tower (the Eiffel Tower!) and sang this song of doomed love<\/a>\u00a0by Edith Piaf (Edith Piaf!) so passionately and perfectly<\/a> that friends of mine who had resisted Dion their whole lives were instantly converted. In retrospect, obviously the timing of the documentary had been calculated in order to make her imminent comeback feel all the more miraculous. In my relief for her (at least partial) recovery, and awe at that performance, somehow I didn\u2019t resent the manipulation at all.<\/p>\n

8. Will \u201c<\/strong>Supernatural<\/strong><\/a>\u201d Be the Last NewJeans Single?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best band in K-pop, at least to dabblers like me, is NewJeans, who put out its latest two singles this spring while becoming subsumed in a complex legal and corporate battle<\/a> that has exposed a lot<\/a> about how the K-pop industry functions behind the curtain. The young women in the band have publicly taken sides, which, depending on the outcome, might jeopardize the group\u2019s existence. Meanwhile, this week, the South Korean president attempted to declare martial law, then was forced to take it back, as part of his ongoing clash with the legislative opposition. Did the NewJeans power struggle presage the South Korean government crisis? Probably not. But does it mean the end of K-pop\u2019s incredible winning streak? Also doubtful, though it could bring some transformations<\/a>, as Katherine St. Asaph writes at Stereogum. Still, so much drama!<\/p>\n

9. The Dream Birth of \u201cHit Em\u201d Dance Music, July 29<\/strong><\/p>\n

As proof that good things can <\/em>still happen on the internet, near the end of July, Drew Daniel (Johns Hopkins University English professor and half of the venerable experimental electronic duo Matmos) tweeted<\/a> that he\u2019d had a dream in which a girl at a rave told him about \u201ca genre called \u2018hit em\u2019 that is in 5\/4 time at 212 bpm with super crunched out sounds.\u201d (Oh, and did he mention that he lived in a grave covered in slime?) Some 7\u00a0million views later, Daniel found that people all over the world were making his subconsciously conjured genre a reality and producing \u201cHit Em\u201d tracks. In November, a 26-track Hit Em compilation<\/a> was released by Tabula Rasa records titled Thank You, Dream Girl<\/em>, <\/em>including many well-known producers. But that\u2019s only a small portion of the nearly \u201cinfinite jukebox\u201d of Hit Em productions that are archived at the Hit Em website<\/a>. And what does it sound like? Super crunched out, mostly.<\/p>\n

10. The Red Hot Org Is on Fire<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Red Hot Organization<\/a> was founded in 1989 as an AIDS awareness and fundraising organization, and remembered from those days for the Red Hot and Blue <\/em>Cole Porter tribute album featuring everyone from Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor to the Jungle Brothers, which sold a million copies. It\u2019s carried on ever since, but lately it seems to be operating at a particularly high level. Last month it released a nearly four-hour, trans-support-themed compilation called Transa<\/em>, <\/em>with contributors including Sade (whose first new song in six years, \u201cYoung Lion,\u201d is dedicated to her trans son), Julien Baker, Andr\u00e9 3000, Jlin, Moor Mother, Sam Smith, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Laura Jane Grace, Perfume Genius, and too many others to name. That follows two more special-guest-packed, Sun Ra\u2013themed anthologies this year, one \u201chosted\u201d in a sense by Meshell Ndegeocello and the other by the Kronos Quartet. Along with the Noise for Now reproductive rights organization\u2019s delightful recent compilation Songs for Sex<\/em>, these are all examples of part of what music people can do to face the coming challenges.<\/p>\n

11. Lara Trump, \u201c<\/strong>Anything Is Possible<\/strong><\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the other hand, this harshly autotuned, saccharine power ballad by He Who Shall Not Be Named\u2019s daughter-in-law (who stepped away from her \u201cmusic career\u201d to co-chair the Republican National Committee this year) is a dystopian ghost of pop future. I haven\u2019t been able to get \u201cthat little girl\/ Ridin\u2019 on her Pegasus\u201d out of my head since April, mostly because David Rees on the Election Profit Makers<\/em> podcast kept playing ridiculous digital deconstructions of it in every episode. It has become the sonic equivalent in my mind of Orwell\u2019s \u201cboot stamping on a human face\u2014forever.\u201d And while the viral TikTok hit \u201cMan in Finance<\/a>,\u201d by Girl on Couch\/Megan Boni, was meant to be satirical, with its vocal-fried checklist of dating attributes (\u201cI\u2019m looking for a man in finance\u00a0\u2026 trust fund\/ 6\u2019 5\u201d\/ Blue eyes\u201d), sadly, its apparent cultural accuracy makes it more depressing than amusing to me. At such moments, I reach for a powerful humanist statement like Laurie Anderson\u2019s incredible setting<\/a> of C.P. Cavafy\u2019s all-too-relevant 1898 poem \u201cWaiting for the Barbarians<\/a>,\u201d performed at Saint Thomas Church in New York. Or the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 funny-sad plea to find \u201cA New Bohemia<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

12. John Zorn Puts Out 12 Albums in 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then again, we could just look back to the old bohemia. Last year, when music geeks widely celebrated the experimental label Tzadik coming at last to streaming services<\/a>, we didn\u2019t stop to think that meant that we\u2019d be met by the ever-flowing spigot of its founder John Zorn\u2019s astoundingly prolific output in real time. This year the New York avant-garde saxophonist, composer, and new-music impresario is 71 and he has released, as of this writing, 12 full-length albums\u2014not just live improv recordings as you might think, but three albums of compositions for organ, one live album of radical love songs, two volumes of the acclaimed classical singer Barbara Hannigan performing Zorn\u2019s intricate vocal compositions, a quartet album called Ballades<\/em>, another called\u00a0Lamentations<\/em>, a trio record called Her Melodious Lay<\/em>, <\/em>another of his ongoing project the New Masada Quartet live in concert, and a reunion of his death metal\u2013jazz trio Painkiller. On sampling, not a dud in the bunch. What have you been up to?<\/p>\n

13. Carsie Blanton, \u201c<\/strong>Song of the Magi<\/strong><\/a>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both the best Christmas song and perhaps the best protest song I\u2019ve heard this year is \u201cSong of the Magi<\/a>\u201d by Carsie Blanton, a New Jersey DIY singer-songwriter whose latest album (also very good) is called After the Revolution<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>It was only after many listens that I found out \u201cMagi\u201d is actually a 2007 song by Ana\u00efs Mitchell, which I\u2019ve never heard anyone else revive. It turns on the simple fact that Bethlehem is now a West Bank war zone, as the biblical wise men tell the newborn infant in the manger, \u201cYour home is a checkpoint now \u2026 put your hands in the air, my child.\u201d Yet fittingly for a seasonal hymn, it does end on a note of hope. Its only rival on that level is \u201cGaza Is Calling<\/a>\u201d by Mustafa (formerly of Toronto<\/a>), from his album Dunya<\/em>. <\/em>Despite the title, it\u2019s no call to arms but an aching story about being separated from a Palestinian childhood friend whose mind was always drawn back to home. It\u2019s about the complexity of exile, not easy solutions.<\/p>\n

14. Maggie Rogers, \u201c<\/strong>Don\u2019t Forget Me<\/strong><\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes you just want something simple and beautiful. Maggie Rogers\u2019 single from last winter made me cry the first time I heard it and every time since. Amid 2024\u2019s vast smorgasbord of sounds, \u201cDon\u2019t Forget Me\u201d and Waxahatchee\u2019s \u201cRight Back to It<\/a>\u201d are the two that have kept replenishing me most\u2014and make me want to keep listening in 2025, whatever else comes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to Carl Wilson\u2019s playlist of the best music of 2024 on <\/em><\/strong>Apple Music<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, <\/em><\/strong>YouTube<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, <\/em><\/strong>Tidal<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and <\/em><\/strong>Spotify<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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