The 50 best albums of 2024

10.

Kendrick Lamar

GNX

(PgLang)

After the inner gazing of Mr Morale, Kendrick spent much of 2024 bodying Drake with a succession of tracks that culminated in the genuine zeitgeist rap hit ‘Not Like Us’, Kendrick surprise dropped his victory lap album GNX in November.

Naming it after a prized car underlines the less weighty nature of the album than his last outing, in truth, it sounds as much like a mixtape you’d bump while cruising, filled with tracks where the raps are flashy and fun, loose and varied and productions that draw on hyphy, Latin Freestyle, repping the West Coast and club rap, with guest verses from local rappers alongside SZA.

K.dot raps about Drake (again), his status, lyric writing, ego, the reaction to his upcoming Superbowl performance and his place in the rap canon. GNX is still preoccupied with big ideas, this is Kendrick after all – but it’s less complex but a no less enthralling listen than previous works.

9.

Clairo

Charm

(Clairo Records)

Clairo’s album third album is an easy summertime listen with soul-dipped music co-produced with Leon Michels (of The Dap-Kings and El Michels Affair), and seventies soft rock-inspired production.

Clairo is still only 26 and has demonstrated a deft touch in changing and growing her sound since arriving with Immunity in 2019, as a bedroom pop artist.

8.

Waxahatchee

Tigers Blood

(ANTI)

The American artist Katier Crutchfield’s sixth album fully embraced largehearted Americana songwriting and honed her country tendencies with ease and wisdom.

My surprise song of the year notwithstanding, the album is brimming with uplifting songs acknowledging the ups and downs and ins and outs of live, love and pain.

7.

RÓIS

MO LÉAN

(Self-released)

RÓIS is a Fermanagh composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and electronic artist.

MO LÉAN blends sean-nós, folk and experimental sounds and was inspired by recordings of keening songs and the particular Irish traditions that surround death (“hymns based around the concept of death, life, mourning and catharsis”).

 The EP ( it is billed as an EP but fully worthy of inclusion on this list) was self-released, written and produced by RÓIS with additional production from John Spud Murphy (OXN/Lankum).

The death theme lends the work a liminal dark exploratory edge, and the combination of vocals and music that conjur up the otherworldly, place an emphasis on sonics, dynamics and the power of a voice, while channeling keening, wailing or moving impressively in scale, musically and literally, on tracks like ‘Caoine’ and ‘Feel Love’. 

A humorous nod to the Irish people’s fascination with death notices and RIP.ie is present on ‘The Death Notices’ and the Angelus is the basis of interludes on the 27 minute release.

 MO LÉAN is the most enchanting Irish release of the year.

6.

Jessica Pratt

Here In The Pitch

(City Slang)

How the San Francisco singer-songwriter so readily evokes music of another era, from Laurel canyon folk, 70s American psychedelia, and 60s pop, is quite a thing to behold on all of her records to date.

Fourth album Here In The Pitch continues the feeling of an artist being beamed from the airwaves from another time with warm analogue recordings that add retro sheen to the already otherworldly glowing voice of Pratt.

Pratt makes it all seem so natural, so simple, you wonder why more people don’t write music like this, but then that’s the beauty of this craft, it’s not easy to write music or sing this directly that it sounds as simple and as enigmatic as Pratt can.

5.

Doechii

Alligator Bites Never Heal

Top Dawg Entertainment / Capitol)

Sometimes it takes a viral performance for an artist to stand out among the deluge. Doechii had two in one day earlier this month.

Those Tiny Desk and Colbert performances illuminated this album to me late in the year (I was unaware it existed), and came after the Swamp Princess’ shining guest verse on Tyler’s new album Chromakopia this November.

The Tampa rapper’s mixtape Alligator Bites Don’t Heal benefits from not second guessing what people want, with the artist ripping up her own rule book, deflating the pressure she felt around her from her label to make a inventive and unpredictable album with explorations of self-doubt and rap supremacy under the lighter guise of a mixtape.

4.

Curtisy

What Was The Question

(Brook Records)

The Tallaght artist’s debut album is the sound of a rapper operating at full tilt.

Where most new artists breaking through in Ireland are addressing the socio-economic and cost of living and rent crisis this country is currently going through, Curtisy’s debut album is on a different tack – insular, personal, addressing his own situation, what’s happening at home and whether we are destined to repeat the predilections of our progenitors.

There are lines about strained parental relations (“need the fam to intervene cause I don’t want to be me dad” – Last Time’ ), overindulgence and reliance on alcohol and drugs as coping mechanisms (“I’m the problem why’d I think I need different friends” – ‘Landline!’), growing up in a place considered to economically struggle (“where I’m from you’re told to lower your hopes” – ‘Lower Your Hopes’) and promising himself in the cold light of day to not to rely on addictive substances so readily again (“all these sessions get depressing chap it isn’t a buzz / you said this shit doesn’t slap but it literally does – ‘Wok To Blackrock’).

The beats by Rory Sweeney, D*mp, Walshy and hikii lend the album a woozy Earl Sweatshirt-esque air, the perfect foundations for Curtisy’s often funny colloquial delivery. He can spit, and he can turn a phrase. He makes it sound effortless with every line, playful, precise, casual, coherent and a lot of fun to listen to again and again.

With the help of talented cohorts Ahmed, With Love, Lonely Chap and Walshy, What Was The Question is filled with many memorable lines and some of the best beats in the country. 

To paraphrase the song ‘Tree Sap’, It’ll have you chewing your jaw, losing your keys, losing the plot and grinning from ear to ear.

Curtisy on prolific collaborations & making an Irish album of the year – Podcast

3.

MJ Lenderman

Manning Fireworks

(ANTI)

North Carolina man Jake Lenderman is a songwriter and guitarist whose breakthrough fourth album excels at slacker alt-county-rock, and songs about sad sack characters who let life slip through their fingers in favour of the latest gadget or an unhealthy preoccupation with Guitar Hero.

Lenderman is a wry observational storyteller written with an economy on this album that is frequently hilarious (“Once a perfect little baby / Who’s now a jerk” /“Kahlua shooter / DUI Scooter” ) and a little bit tragic (“Don’t move to New York City, babe / It’s gonna change the way you dress.”)

2.

Charli XCX

BRAT

Atlantic

Strip away BRAT’s dominance in pop culture, the memes, the Kamala thing, the endless discourse about the word, and how a pop songwriter suddenly completely owned a single colour, BRAT is the best pop album of 2024, in a calendar year that had a lot of competition (Billie, Beyoncè, Sabrina, Taylor to name a few).

BRAT is a great album by any measure with Charli XCX finally delivering on the promise of a big brash brattish electronic pop album that those paying attention knew she could make ever since the early releases and her work with pioneering producer SOPHIE.

And BRAT is of course is in love with the freedom of the club and hedonism as an end, but there’s plenty of songs where Charli ponders her own inner predicaments, whether she is ready to become a mother in a competitive young industry, reflecting on the real or fake relationships with her peers, alienation in the circles she runs with, and how she regrets not letting SOPHIE in when she was alive.

All of these feels make for a cerebral album under the guise of high-energy club pop album for the ages.

1.

Cindy Lee

Diamond Jubilee

(Realistik Studios)

In a year of impactful albums that clocked in well under 30 minutes, the alterego of drag artist, songwriter and guitarist Patrick Flegel (formerly of the band Women) bucked the trend with a sprawling two-hour-plus epic of transmissions from a rock’n’roll abyss.

The 32 tracks on the double disc record (which was initially only available on YouTube and a fake GeoCities page), feature varied jangle rock guitar interventions and vocals inspired by ’60s girl groups refracted through a fun house of mirrors that takes in synth pop, lo-fi psychedelia, horror score, broken disco and garage soul.

Flegel’s guitar playing is masterful and varied, along with the yearning hypnagogic vocals that are soaked in reverb and longing.

In a very palpable way, the album’s length is its virtue that is still rewarding listens, and passages of music where the tracks feel like they are floating or taking a breather add to the sense of a self-contained work. With every listen of this stunning sweeping record, Diamond Jubilee feels more and more like a singular masterpiece, still offering fresh paths of discovery months later.