The Best Albums of 2024
the indispensable list
Let’s take a break from our regular stream of interviews and discussions and needlessly deep dives to recognize the best records from 2024. Are these albums definitively the best of the year? Yes. Because I write on the internet, where opinions are facts. But before we get to those best albums, let’s knock out a list of assorted thoughts on the year in music.
The Musical Miscellany of 2024
In September, Disney released a fairly cynical, obvious cash-grab of a compilation titled A Whole New Sound that features iconic Disney songs being covered by various pop-punk artists. I’m one of those elder millennials who has lots of childhood Disney memories, little kids of my own, and a deep collection of pop-punk albums burned into my personhood, so this was basically a targeted attack. Anyway, look, The Goofy Movie was a big part of my life as a kid in part because “I2I” was and is a fucking banger and Magnolia Park keeps it real here. Among a few other choice entries, specific credit is due to Simple Plan who found the up-tempo banger buried within “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”
British indie rockers Orchards have released three singles so far this year—a sign of an unannounced album to come, perhaps? Of the three, I particularly enjoy two: “Sweetie Pie” should be on the radio in 1997 (somehow) and “Mug Song” is both smooth and glitchy and I love it, in part because “mostly, I miss drinking with you” is a phenomenal post-breakup line.
I’m one of those weirdos who still thinks dont smile at me is Billie Eilish’s best release and HIT ME HARD AND SOFT didn’t change my mind, but I did enjoy the swelling culmination of “THE GREATEST” which reminded me of another great Eilish swell: the epic back half of “Happier Than Ever” as performed in the rain on a modular home (?) at the Grammys.
Bilmuri’s AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS isn’t fully for me, though I can’t deny that “EMPTYHANDED”1 is preposterously effective in combining southern twang with beefy palm-muted power chords and … a sample of Kevin James absolutely screaming himself to death? Honestly, it’s worth watching the winkingly ironic video just for the 10-second audio-visual overlay of James, which starts at the 1:40 mark.
I probably won’t go back to Tyson Motsenbocker’s cover songs EP, Songs I’ve Always Liked and Will Never Admit, but there’s novelty charm in hearing the talented singer-songwriter covering a Nickelback tune.
I fully love Dustin Kensrue and I want to love Desert Dreaming, but it’s a bit too country for me, just like Kaitlin Butts’ Roadrunner! which was recommended by a few friends of the newsletter and leans heavily into country genre tropes in a way that will likely please a lot of folks, even if I’m not one of them. I did appreciate her covering “Hunt You Down” from Kesha’s Rainbow, though.
I also fully love Lizzy McAlpine, whose five seconds flat is an all-timer and whose Give Me a Minute has never let me down, but, even though there were moments of absolute triumph on her latest release, Older, the album as a whole never really grabbed me in the way that her prior two full-lengths did.
For a couple of years now, Sparrow Sleeps has been recording lullaby covers of various emo acts. My kids have aged out of the target demographic here, but I enjoyed poking around in renditions of Further Seems Forever’s The Moon Is Down (here re-titled as The Moon Is Up) as well as Acceptance’s Phantoms, rebranded as Tryptophantoms. (Thumbs down on that particular pun.)
Similarly, Underoath partnered with Less Gravity to release an EP of lo-fi versions of several of the screamo act’s most popular tracks. It’s worth a 16-minute listen if you’re a fan.
I have no meaningful thoughts on the latest album from Dua Lipa but I couldn’t let the year go by without making some note of her pretty solid book club.
Fans of Four Year Strong may enjoy the general sense of “more of the same” on the band’s latest album, analysis paralysis, but the two tracks that I kept coming back to were the uncharacteristically poppy “maybe it’s me”—love those stick clicks!—and finale “how do i let you go?”2 which surprisingly begins with nearly three full minutes of mellowness before exploding into an appropriately crunchy outro.
For as much as I love the three-album run3 of Losing Streak, Hello Rockview, and Borders & Boundaries (Anthem’s not half-bad, either), I’ve pretty well been out on Less Than Jake over the past, uh, two decades. And yet, I took a few minutes to spin their 2024 EP Uncharted and was pleased to find that some of the magic is still there. Opener “Broken Words” is a legitimately fun ska song—it’ll be on my Summer BBQ playlist next year, for sure—and finale “Shake Loose the Truth” is worth a listen for relapsed fans like me.
File this under shocking: Coheed and Cambria’s two newest singles clock in at five minutes and 55 seconds. Combined. Coheed! I once wrote an entire post (lovingly) ribbing the band for writing eight-minute songs for absolutely no good reason, and now they’re releasing three minute singles! Lord, I never. In any case, of the two, “Searching for Tomorrow” is the clear winner and has me enthused for next year’s The Father of Make Believe.
I’ve been a fan of Swedish pop act Violet Days since “Your Girl” hooked me nearly a decade ago. The latest Days EP, Shimmer and Blue, is worth a spin if only for the pure pop joy of opener “Mulholland Dr.”
Despite my deep and abiding love for 2021’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, I keep bouncing off of Halsey’s latest, The Great Impersonator. There are quality moments buried in there, but clocking in at over an hour, I can’t help but feel that the album drags.
As a last bit of miscellany, here are four albums that I enjoyed this year but about which I don’t have any particularly interesting thoughts to share: Let’s Start Degeneracy by Microwave, Wave Machine by Makari, with you in spirit by Balance and Composure, and I Caught a Light by Francis Doom (aka Songs & Stories favorite Jay Sakong of OWEL). All are worth a listen and, if you’re here, there’s a chance that at least one will hit you just right.
The Best Albums of 2024
Presented in alphabetical order by album.
As It Ever Was, So It Shall Be Again by The Decemberists
Regular readers may recall that earlier this year I became rather obsessed with As It Ever Was, So It Shall Be Again (or at least its finale), and with good reason: No matter how much time I tried to spend with other new releases this year, I kept coming back to this one. The inescapable conclusion is the simplest: As It Ever Was is my favorite album of 2024. There, I said it. That, 24 years into their run, The Decemberists are still releasing such phenomenal work is utterly remarkable. What other bands are hitting their ninth release while still operating at such a high level? The Beatles and, uh, Thrice, I guess?4 It’s a short list. As It Ever Was makes it indisputable that The Decemberists belong on it.
Deeper Well by Kacey Musgraves
As much as I enjoyed “justified” and “hookup scene,” I was not compelled to spend a lot of time with Musgraves’ last record, 2021’s Star-Crossed, which was both her “divorce record” and filled with a kind of crummy anodyne pop that felt shallow given the depth of what Musgraves had done on 2018’s Golden Hour. Deeper Well reverses that trend and goes back to Musgraves’ most successful formula: country + folk + pop + wit + drugs. It works. Deeper Well may not rise to the level of Golden Hour, but it’s been a regular staple in my rotation since its release.
While we’re here, it’s worth noting that Deeper Well, which was released in March, was essentially re-released in August as Deeper Into the Well, with a handful of b-sides bolted onto the album’s end. Musgraves didn’t pioneer this approach but she helped summit its peak as a whole host of artists used the same tactic this year, including Lizzy McAlpine, Blink-182, and Bilmuri, who at least had fun with the exercise: the aforementioned, Kevin James-invoking AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS was re-released as AMERICAN MOTOR SPORTS (420CC EDITION). He gets the joke.
Die Happy by Amskray
(Disclosure: Die Happy was produced by friend of the newsletter Kevin Ann Dye.)
The heart of Die Happy is all angular guitar riffs, punchy drums, and funky bass lines. And then, on top of that delightful core, vocalist Don Scherr layers uniquely compelling vocals that run the gamut from the thoroughly harmonized “Die Happy Reprise” to the charmingly playful “In the Ashes” to the gentle serenity of “When the Sun Is Down.” Of course, there’s an undercurrent of power that runs throughout Die Happy, a constant hum of adrenaline ringing through the album’s instrumentation and Sherr’s often visceral performance. The pinnacle of that combination is the album’s title track, a three-minute tour de force that begins with 90 seconds of technical bravado before mutating into a mixture of keys and horn-backed group harmonies that is instantly memorable and enduring. All of Die Happy is worth your time but “Die Happy” in particular is one of the best songs of the year.
Dust of the Human Shape by Ghost Atlas
Ghost Atlas’ last album, 2017’s All Is in Sync, and There’s Nothing Left to Sing About, had strong Saosin-with-Cove Reber vibes and Dust of the Human Shape keeps the Cove Reber-ness but drops a notable portion of the crunchy, riffy Saosin-ness. (Apologies to Jesse Cash, who is not only Ghost Atlas’ vocalist but also its singular driving force. Cash is both talented and accomplished—Ghost Atlas is his side project; in his day job he fronts metalcore act ERRA—and I bet he’s sick and tired of being compared to Reber … and yet the frame of reference is useful. Sorry, Jesse.) Not all of that heaviness is lost but enough has been displaced to make space for a wider range of sounds and textures. Cash uses that extra room to show off his impressive vocal range and melodic sensibilities5 and the result is an album that mixes a variety of styles and tones to great effect.
Forever by Charly Bliss
Charly Bliss had released a number of great tracks before Forever—I’m partial to “Young Enough” and “Glitter,” to name two—but their 2024 release has their greatest: “Calling You Out” is a power-pop masterpiece. The song’s production elements give a decidedly ‘20s feel—are we allowed to take that nomenclature from the 1920s yet?—and yet the actual song itself, with its ear-worm melody draped over a simple beat and a basic chord progression, is utterly timeless. There’s a compelling case that in fiction what happens is less important than how it happens or who it happens to, and that’s an apt metaphor for “Calling You Out.” Across the song’s three-minute runtime, nothing groundbreaking occurs and yet the way that the song goes about its business, particularly its simulated syncopation,6 creates remarkable results. The rest of Forever is worth your time, too—songs like “Tragic,” “Back There Now,” “I Don’t Know Anything,” and “Waiting for You” are all in the band’s upper echelon—but “Calling You Out” is a song I’ll be thinking about, and loving … well, forever. (Sorry.)
Oblivion, Vol. I by Fog Chaser
I read a lot but, as you may have noticed if you’ve been hanging around this newsletter for a while, I, uh, listen to a lot of music. A lot. More or less constantly. And that includes when I’m reading, so I’m always on the lookout for new soundtracks for my book excursions. Generally, I prefer instrumental tracks as a background so that lyrics—with which I am the teeniest bit obsessive—are not distracting me from what I’m reading. Over the years, I’ve built a stable of classics that I return to often: Tides of Man’s Young and Courageous,7 Explosions In the Sky’s The Rescue8 and Big Bend,9 The End of the Ocean’s -aire, and Vasudeva’s Generator, among others. In recent years, Fog Chaser’s collective newsletter-released oeuvre has joined that catalog, but this year we got something unique: An album intentionally written to be a reading soundtrack. Composed as a companion piece for the serialized novel Oblivion from fellow-Substacker Elle Griffin, Oblivion, Vol. I is representative of much of what makes Fog Chaser so beloved: ambient, chill tunes that are a perfect mix of engaging and relaxing.
(One last note: I’d be remiss if I didn’t specifically call out the recently released “Stone & Light” which has already become one of my favorite songs in Fog Chaser’s catalog.)
Sonido Cósmico by Hermanos Gutiérrez
A fitting chaser for Fog Chaser (sorry): Probably the single greatest contribution that Music League has made to my life, aside from a solid amount of music-themed trash talk, was an introduction to Ecuadorian-Swiss instrumental act Hermanos Gutiérrez. (Interesting heritage combo, right? The Gutiérrez brothers, Alejando and Estevan, were raised by their Ecuadorian mother and Swiss father in Switzerland and started their Latin-flavored band in Zurich.) This year’s Sonido Cósmico continues the pair’s sustained excellence, but anyone who’s interested should start with 2019’s Hoy Como Ayer which, as far as I’m concerned, may well be one of the five greatest instrumental albums ever recorded. It lends itself to infinite listening, which is more or less how I’ve consumed it10 (supplemented by all their other releases, including Sonido Cósmico, which I’m ostensibly recommending here). Truly fantastic stuff here.
And that’s a wrap. See you in 2025.11
Gotta say, I don’t love this trend of bands using either all caps or all lower case for their band names, album titles, and track listings. NOT A FAN.
God, it’s killing me to leave that “i” lower case. really not a fan of this trend.
Reader, I am bizarrely obsessed with the idea of the “three-album run.” History says that it’s really, really hard for a single band to release three top-notch releases back-to-back-to-back; it’s a substantial accomplishment and typically the marker of a band that either has true staying power or was, for an extended stretch, at the absolute pinnacle of their sound. Have I spent too much time thinking about a hypothetical listicle cataloguing great three-album runs? Yes, reader. Yes, I have.
The Beatles ninth album was Magical Mystery Tour which I actually quite enjoy despite its poor critical standing; of course, the Fab Four still had The White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be, and, um, Yellow Submarine ahead of them at that point. Three out of four ain’t bad.
Meanwhile, I’d argue that Thrice’s ninth release, To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere, is among the band’s two or three best albums. Love that one.
Dear reader, educate me: What other acts deserve inclusion on this list?
I have to note here that, intentionally or not, one of the key melodic lines in “Gaps in the Armoire” appears to directly mirror the chorus melody from Balance and Composure’s “Enemy.” Both are great songs! Possibly, it’s an homage. My guess: Cash has heard “Enemy” before and suffered a bout of cryptomnesia, an affliction I’ve somehow written about twice before.
In a few instances, particularly in the final iteration of the chorus-as-outro coming out of the bridge, “Calling You Out” does this neat trick where the guitars drop out for a beat or two only to come roaring back. The feeling is akin to the “pop-punk pause,” the overused syncopation that was so heavily utilized by early-2000s acts. Here, there’s not true syncopation as the guitars are coming back in on the downbeat, but the effect is similar and highly effective, potentially because crashing down on the downbeat this way feels just a bit novel relative to the expectation of true syncopation.
If you want an epic reading experience, read the (brutal, heartbreaking, life-affirming, perfect) last ten pages of A Tale of Two Cities while listening to “Measure Your Breath” on repeat and enjoy feeling that the world is a massive, gorgeous place, bursting with life and love and god how lucky are you to be in it.
Still their best album. Fight me.
Released in 2021 but, as previously noted, the soundtrack of much of my 2023 listening.
A few footnotes ago, I recommended listening to Tides of Man while reading Dickens. Let me here recommend listening to Hoy Como Ayer while reading Willa Cather. [chef’s kiss]
If you’ve made it all the way down to the end of this long-ass email which probably forced you to click a button so that you could keep reading it in a browser, thank you. You’re the real hero. Also, you’re the target audience for a little bit of news: After a somewhat atypical post that I’ve already written and scheduled for publication in January, I’m going to be putting Songs & Stories on an as-yet-undefined hiatus.
I love writing non-fiction. It’s really the only way for me to really get my thoughts in order about, well, anything. And yet! I also love writing fiction. But fiction-writing takes a different kind of mental commitment. I’ve largely focused on non-fiction over the last several years because, between family and work, life has been hectic and I’ve not had the bandwidth to make the commitment that fiction demands. Or at least, that’s been my excuse. My writing needs to take a break from excuses. So I’m going to spend the next few months, and maybe longer, writing exclusively fiction.
And, look, it feels so good to finish creative things, and in part I’ve been working on non-fiction projects because I know that I can finish non-fiction projects—even when they’re stupidly long, like last month’s aggressively overwritten Third Eye Blind post (who needs 7,000 words about Blue? Literally, no one but me)—but even though I like doing this work, it’s transparently the easy path. When it comes to my writing, I’ve been taking the easy way out. There’s a more rewarding but more challenging road in front of me and, in much of the time that I’ve been writing here, I’ve been avoiding it.
I’ve got some stories in my brain—particularly one book-ish one—and they’re just in there, festering, their incompletion keeping me from thinking up any new ideas. Ze Frank brilliantly called this problem being addicted to brain crack (if you’re even remotely a creative person, do yourself a favor and watch that two-minute video): You get an idea, but you have an excuse to not execute it (who has the time!) and so you don’t, and the idea stays in your brain, and the idea seems to keep getting better and shinier and now it feels even harder to execute, so you don’t. And the cycle continues such that you’ve not only failed to execute that one idea, but you’ve also blocked your brain from coming up with any new ones.
My fiction-writing is addicted to brain crack. I’m gonna take some time to try to kick the habit. Wish me luck. I’ll see you when I’m clean, hopefully later in 2025, both here and over at my fiction newsletter. Love you, gang. Happy new year.