My Favorite Albums of 2024

Hey, y’all, as the proprietor of a music website, I’m obligated to make a year-end list. If I don’t, I’ll be forced to do the 33 ⅓ on Buckcherry’s 15, and neither of us wants that.

Hurray for the Riff Raff's The Past is Still Alive is my Album of the Year, but anything beyond that isn't in any order.

Hurray for the Riff Raff - The Past is Still Alive

Right before writing this, my wife and I embarked on a whirlwind drive from New Jersey to Southwest Virginia and back in 72 hours. I put this on as we crossed the Appalachians North of Roanoke at sunrise for our return journey. We weren’t talking much while waiting for the coffee to kick in and the sun to come up, and I realized I’m not sure there’s a songwriter I’m more interested in hearing from these days than Alynda Mariposa Segarra. The way they invoke finding joy in a ruined world has resonated with me deeply in the 10 months since the album dropped, and it’s the kind of energy I desperately need from the art I consume right now. 

I also highly recommend their newsletter, Resist Psychic Death. It inspired me to stop doomscrolling for a second, pick up my guitar, and try to learn “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” That alone is worth the cost of admission.

Laura Jane Grace - Hole in My Head

The amount of time I’ve been a fan of Laura Jane Grace can be measured in decades. Every record she puts out takes over my listening for a few weeks, and Hole in My Head is no different. The artists I feel like I’ve grown with always mean the most to me, and to see LJG’s songwriting and career take twists and turns through that span has been fascinating. How she writes about relationships now means as much to me as how she wrote about politics in 2002. 

Every so often, I catch myself singing, “I’m not a fucking cop cop cop. I’m not a fucking cop.”

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis

The record totally hit me upside the head and it’s what I frequently reach for when I can’t think of anything to put on. Jazz and punk-influenced rock comes together in a really delightful way here.

MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

I’m as taken with this record as everyone else. If Neil Young were a Zoomer, he’d probably sound like this.

Ducks Ltd. - Harm’s Way

If I had to listen to one kind of music for the rest of my life, it would probably be the twee/“raincoat band” scene from the UK in the 80s into the 90s. Ducks Ltd are not from that place or era, but they invoke that in me. Gentle, witty, pleasant. A great record.

Sarah Shook & the Disarmers - Revelations

I wrote about Revelations in The Firehose #3, but just to reiterate, it's far and away one of my favorite country releases of 2024. Raw and direct, Revelations talks about the world the way it is, not the way we wish it would be. That's exactly what I want from the genre nowadays.

Christy Costello - From the Dark

I'm a longtime fan of Off With Their Heads, and I try to keep an eye on anything Ryan Young & co are up to. When a newsletter from his label/record store (rip)/podcast shows up in my inbox touting Christy Costello, my interest is already piqued. Immediately, I found the single "Code Cyan," an infectious power-pop song that took over my home-office speakers for a few weeks. Just an infectious, joyful record that I'm sure too many people overlooked.

From Costello's Bandcamp

UFO'S are real!
Chin up!
Take shrooms!
Love yourself! And anyone you choose!
Fuck Nazis!
There's more. Always more. So much more.

That's as good of a mantra to take into 2025 as any.

Winged Wheel - Big Hotel

From The Firehose #6:

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the parking lot of my local pizza joint, waiting for them to finish my takeout order. My ritual for getting pizza is turning on Princeton's WPRB 103.3 because it's bound to be a strange and interesting listen instead of a boring one, even for a 10-minute drive.

I tune in in the middle of Winged Wheel's "Sleeptraining," a dark, bass-heavy krautrock-inspired dirge that rules. I didn't know any of that then, and Shazam was useless in sourcing the material (which, to be honest, is one of the reasons I like WPRB). I ended up taking a photo of the clock on my car dash to browse through the radio's playlist to find this goddamn song.

All of that was completely worth it. The record has a dark Yo La Tengo vibe that frequently sees Winged Wheel expand an idea over several minutes, adding things to it all along. "Smudged Textile" has a borderline religious vibe, with the vocals taking place as another instrument in the jam rather than a conveyor of lyrics. "Soft Hands" wouldn't feel out of place on a YLT record either.

I still stand by all of that. Great record.

Touche Amore - Spiral in a Straight Line

There are some bands that I would comfortably say, "I am a fan of this band," while knowing that I've hopped off the train for a little bit. I've heard and enjoyed every Touche Amore record, but since Is Survived By, my relationship with Hardcore (a reductive label for TA, but I digress) has gotten to the point where I don't reach for the genre regularly. It's a commuting genre, and since 2020 I've worked from home. However, I've been a much more active participant in frontman Jeremy Bolm's other output. I'm a religious listener and Patreon subscriber to The First Ever Podcast and have pulled dozens of music recs from there. I've enjoyed joshing around on the First Ever Discord. At least one book of Bolm's poetry is somewhere in my house. So I've been pretty aware of this record throughout the album cycle, and I put it on expecting another rendition of "oh, this is a cool record" and move on with my life. That didn't happen, and Spiral has pulled me all the way back in to Touche Amore's output.

Johnny Blue Skies - Passage Du Desir

Saying this record rules is well-tread ground at this point but I'd like to just highlight this:

For a couple of weeks after the album dropped the last notes of the closer, "One for the Road" would play and I'd ask myself "what do you want to listen to now?" And for the longest time I wouldn't have a better answer than "Passge du Desir again." Some days I'd listen to it 7 times in a row. It's one of my favorites in 2024 and absolutely worth your time.

VACATION - Rare Earth

Years ago, I saw a post on Twitter calling VACATION "Guided By Voices for people who grew up on pop-punk." As a huge GBV fan who grew up on pop-punk, this would obviously draw me in. I got really into their 2017 Southern Grass releases but found everything after that a bit same-y. Stupidly, this caused me to wait to hear 2024's Rare Earth for 7 months. That sucks because Rare Earth is VACATION's best release to date. It feels slightly more mature than their last few records, which feels like music nerd code for "produced a tiny bit better."

"Kink" would have been my song of the summer if I hadn't heard it right after Christmas.

Merce Lemon - Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild

Merce Lemon came out of nowhere for me in 2024, and she's the artist I'm most excited to follow into the future. I think most people will compare this to the other big singer-songwriter women that went nuts this year (compliment), like Waxahatchee and Hurray for the Riff Raff, and hey, both of those records are on this list, so I get it. But Lemon actually reminds me of the early-to-middle career Damien Jurado, mostly keeping her voice subdued, letting the lyrics do the emoting while tactically letting your voice stretch and crack for dramatic effect in big moments.

Most mornings, after my wife leaves for work, I crank Drive Them Dogs on my speaker while I make breakfast and take the dog out. It's beautiful and understated while paradoxically unafraid to get loud.

Chastity Belt - Live Laugh Love

After several records that didn't move me, Chastity Belt roars back with Live Laugh Love. "I-90 Bridge" is still one of the best songs this year.

Mamaleek - Vida Blue

Every time I've sat and tried to write the Mamaleek blurb for this, I think of NPR Music Producer Lars Gotrich's post on Bluesky:

With respect to Lars, though, I'd like to suggest a third option: "This is weird; what the fuck is going on?"

For a long time, this album was impenetrable to me. It's far apart from anything else I listened to and invoked something in me, but what the hell was it? I listened to Vida Blue probably 20 times, wondering this repeatedly before I netted out anywhere helpful. Truth is, it's an experimental rock record that's not particularly interested in the conventions of either genre. A few highly talented people tried to make something with a distinct artistic vision and nailed it. Vida Blue is as uncomfortable as it is beautiful. It's the kind of record that made me look inward to determine how I feel about music and art and creating both of those things for public consumption. I like it, but I'm unsure if I enjoyed it or if that makes any sense.

Dirty Three - Love Changes Everything

I came to the Dirty Three late, only learning of them after a Nick Cave phase in the mid-2010s when I saw Warren Ellis playing alongside him. The Dirty Three has been dormant the entire time I've been aware of Ellis, so this is my first go-round with them. Delicate, heavy, improvisational, and intentional, Love Changes Everything is an album of beautiful contradictions. It's a 42-minute slow build that earns every second.

The Virgos - Road to Noxon

I only found out about The Virgos this year, after being hipped to them from Eli Enis' fantastic newsletter Chasing Sundays. The record's opening sounds like standard Queens of the Stone Age worship, which is cool but not something I'm going to go crazy over. The album really hooked me on the second track "Demolition Dan" where they really add some THUMP.

Really cool album, I might need to head up to Wilkes-Barre soon.

fuubutsushi - meridians

fuubutsushi is a pandemic project from four musicians (Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage, and Patrick Shiroishi) to record an album together from across the globe. What results is a sort-of ambient, sort-of jazz, sort-of folk, with a touch of field recordings that's an absolute joy to listen to.

Godspeed You! Black Emporer - "No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead"

In 2006, I bought my first GY!BE CD, 2002's Yanqui U.X.O., from a used CD store in Chicago. I was about to leave for college at Temple University, and my soon-to-be roommate Will listed them as his favorite band on a little "get to know your future roomate" form we all filled out, so I thought I'd extend the olive branch and check them out. I hated it. At the time, I was into very direct punk-rock, and 20-minute slow-burn post-rock tracks were like oil to my water.

After living with Will for a bit, he ushered me into the genre with some less challenging stuff (Do Make Say Think's You, You're a History in Rust basically unlocked the genre for me). Eventually, I've come to appreciate Yanqui U.X.O., but I can't help but wonder if "NO TITLE..." would have fast-forwarded this process for me (assuming, you know, it was released in 2006 and not 2024). It's GY!BE at their more accessible and rock-oriented, which isn't a requirement for me nowadays; you can look at this list and see that I have a penchant for the strange, but it's pulled me in more than any of their other records have post-reunion in 2010.

Finally, I have a ton of respect for the band for putting the ongoing genocide in Gaza at the forefront of their record, directly referencing it in the album title, and forcing every media outlet referencing this band to do the same—king shit.

Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood

Waxahatchee's American Weekend struck me like a bolt of lightning in 2012, and I've loved watching Katie Crutchfield's career unfold over the following decade. Like MJ Lenderman, this is so many people's album of the year that I probably don't need to remind you to check it out. I'll say that "Crowbar" hit me like a ton of bricks, and after listening to it again to write all this out, I'm just going through that again.

Take care of yourself in the coming weeks and months. Don't try to save the whole world yourself; protagonism is best left to teens and the insane.