Every December, I look forward to the end-of-year ritual where we all reflect on what we watched, read, and listened to. This post is about the music of 2024.
Spotify usually dominates the narrative thanks to Wrapped. This year though, I feel like a ton of people are sick of the streaming giant. And not just because it pays artists so poorly. Even people who shared their lists seem to think Wrapped 2024 was a letdown. I get it.
Spotify laid off so many people recently that even the CEO Daniel Ek was like, “oopsie!” They must have cut everyone who made Wrapped exciting. Those lists of unhinged genres, my favourite part of Wrappeds past, were out this year. Instead, we got an AI slop podcast that made headlines for the weird comments it made about One Direction to fans who returned to the music after a former member’s death. Another Ek oopsie!
Most people, myself included, just found it boring. One casualty of the Spotify layoffs, former Spotify “data alchemist” Glenn McDonald, told Business Insider in a story about Wrapped’s flop that this year’s version didn’t provide any context for the data.
No wonder I didn’t enjoy it. That context is the best part of this time of year. Sure, I want to see what you liked, but I really want to hear why you liked it. I want to reflect on the trends and events of the past year.
So that’s what I did. This article is my reflection on 2024 in music. At the end, I’ve tacked on a list of my favourite albums of the year. You can head straight there if that’s all you want. But in between, I will provide some of the context Wrapped lacked.
A year of reflection on streaming
Let’s keep harping on streaming for a second. Long before Wrapped, I noticed a lot of people this year taking a critical look at streaming services, Spotify specifically, and realizing they didn’t like what they saw. Articles and videos calling for a return to physical media abound. After watching one series about a guy who tried to go a month using a “dumb-i-fied” phone, which involved listening to music on an iPod, YouTube has bombarded me with similar content, which I’ve mostly enjoyed watching.
I’m still streaming music as of writing this, but one of my favourite albums this year did force me to take a step away. Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee is only available – well, it’s only not available on the major streaming apps. I downloaded it from a delightful Web 1.0 site, but I plan to buy it on vinyl.
Stumbling onto Diamond Jubilee felt like how finding music used to feel before streaming giants monopolized the space. First I read a positive review, then I kept hearing rumblings that the album was incredible. Eventually, I went looking for it. It never auto-played or came into my life through some other opaque, algorithmic process. Humans signalled it was good, and I had to opt in explicitly.
And what an album it is. I’ve seen critics compare Diamond Jubilee to the experience of scanning the FM waves, encountering an eclectic mix of music along the way. That’s mostly accurate, but many songs remind me of something I might have heard as a kid on the ancient AM radio in my grandparents’ kitchen. It’s a love letter to many eras of music, and it’s dense. Somehow it remains cohesive and enjoyable across its 32 tracks spanning over 2 hours.
It’s amazing to me this experiment worked. It’s easy to imagine it garnering no attention, or making a splash in March, but being forgotten by year-end when it appeared on no streaming year-end lists like Wrapped. I’d like to say its success is proof of a widespread hunger for something different. While that may be true, I do think a big part of Diamond Jubilee’s success is due to its stunningly good music. If the hunger isn’t yet there, at least Cindy Lee has proved that a different, better way of engaging with music remains possible.
Okay but maybe algorithms are good for something
Look, despite the anti-streaming tone I’m taking, I must admit sometimes the algorithm hits. Though, generally not Spotify’s. TikTok has been a blessing for finding new music, something I’ve struggled with in the past.
Without Kelsie of The Yellow Button, there is no way I would have checked out Fievel is Glauque in 2022, so I would have missed their album Rong Weickness this year. Belgian jazz-pop is just not on my radar, though maybe it should be.
I also wouldn’t have given MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks a second shot if not for her. Every year I belatedly fall in love with an album or two that didn’t click immediately. This year, it was this one and Fontaines D.C.’s Romance. I kept trying the latter because I knew I liked the bad, but I had no strong connection to MJ Lenderman. Kelsie hasn’t led me astray before, I thought, and I’m glad I put that faith in her. Manning Fireworks contains some of the most infectious riffs I’ve heard in years and I’ve had it on heavy repeat since returning to it.
Kelsie tends to shout out certain bands in her videos, so it’s easy to link her to specific titles. Other critics deal more in playlists and roundups, so it’s a little tougher to remember who put me on to what. Still, my year in music would be way different without Emilie the Aux’s weekly roundups, the monthly lists of WillTalksMusic, and the curation and interviews done by marg.mp3.
Without them, who knows if I would have heard the noisy shoegaze of my anti-aircraft friend by julie, the chaotic synths of QWERTY II by Saya Gray, or the name Nilufer Yanya well in advance of her album My Method Actor, so I could enjoy the slow trickle of exciting indie rock singles before the September release somehow exceeded my already high expectations.
I’m so thankful for creators like them who share their passion with the world and build communities around it. It’s a great antidote to the usual doom and gloom you normally (rightly!) hear about social media. These four creators and others like them are fulfilling the most optimistic promises of the internet.
Without TikTok, I probably also would not have listened to Charm by Clairo. It’s a gorgeous blend of soul, funk, pop, and rock. I’ve seen no one else make this comparison, but so many songs evoke the same sounds and vibes of early Toro y Moi, which are some of my favourite records ever. Charm is now right up there too.
Am I missing something?
Allow me to make another weird comparison. Kelly Moran’s gorgeous piano album, Moves in the Field, evokes a similar feeling in me as the soundtrack CD included with the Nintendo DS game Radiant Historia composed by Yoko Shimomura. They are both gorgeous works of solo piano arrangements that I, a classical music idiot, absolutely adore.
Both became, at different points in my life, the background music to my daily existence. They both comprise gorgeous, captivating songs, and they both make my brain focus effectively on tasks. The alone makes Moves in the Field incredibly valuable to me.
According to Pitchfork, Moran had intended to compose a duet album with another pianist, but pivoted to a self-duet during the pandemic, aided by a Yamaha Disklavier player piano that she programmed to play music beyond what would have been physically possible on her own.
I can understand that in a general sense, but when listening, I have no idea when any of the physically impossible stuff is happening. You don’t need any special knowledge about music to enjoy this record. It’s just so gorgeous.
Another album I lack a significant amount of knowledge to fully grasp but nonetheless love is Sentir Que No Sabres by Mabe Fratti. As you can tell, this album is in Spanish, so I’m going purely off vibes when I listen, but the vibes I can access are immaculate.
Fratti is a cellist who plays genre-bending but ultimately accessible experimental music. I became aware of her after being blown away by the 2023 album Vidrio by Titanic, of which she is one half. So naturally, I made sure to listen to her latest solo record.
Both albums are so good that they make me want to learn to speak Spanish so I can understand the lyrics. As it stands, I treat Fratti’s voice like another instrument, which often cuts the tension evoked by her bassy cello. Again, if you know more about music theory than me, this album is probably even more incredible. But as someone who likes nice sounds, I can say Sentir Que No Sabres has them in abundance.
2024 was a personal pop turning point
I’ve had a negative relationship with pop music since high school, when my social training as a wannabe punk led me to dismiss it wholesale. In university, I went hipster, which did not help the cause.
There were always cracks in my anti-pop veneer though. After all, I was once a kid obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. Even during the darkest anti-pop years, the odd song would cut through. The beginning of the end of this pretenstion came when “Call Me Maybe” blew up in 2012.
Progress has been slow, but 2024 felt like a milestone. Why? Simply put, Chappell Roan.
Her ascendance is interesting when considered through the lens of a year-end list. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess came out in 2023, featuring songs that had come out as early as 2020. But 2024 was the year Chappell Roan became a superstar. How do you account for her in something like this, with arbitrary boxes she simply can’t fit into? On second thought, her not fitting into arbitrary boxes is on brand.
Sadly, in a bit of poetic justice for my hipster past, I did not like Chappell Roan before she was cool. I became aware of her in 2023, but I didn’t start listening until early 2024 like most of the world. I’m thankful for that though, because I doubt I would have fully appreciated what she’s doing prior to now.
This is another change attributable to TikTok. Part of my problem with pop was that I only interacted with the stuff played to death on commercial radio and retail playlists. TikTok users can overdo it too, but my algorithm seems to spare me from the worst of it.
The app is now how I find out about pop acts. I saw all kinds of strange videos by Magdalena Bay that piqued my interest, and I was not disappointed when their album Imaginal Disk dropped. It’s a good place to start if you’re a crusty hipster who wants to become fun to be around. Weird enough to appeal to you, but chock full of bangers that will have you reconsidering your life choices.
That other pop record
Yeah, Brat gets its own section.
I did know about Charli xcx before she blew up. A friend told me about her in 2014 and, while I didn’t dismiss her outright due to this being post-“Call Me Maybe”, I was also not ready to fully embrace a hyperpop musician. I mentally marked her music as not for me and moved on. Then last year, my partner got me into Rina Sawayama, and I realized I might have to reassess hyperpop. I mentally marked that as “TBA” and moved on.
Brat forced the issue. It’s shocking to me how obsessed I became, especially as a person who has long hated the club, who goes to maybe two parties a year (and tame ones at that), and who likes to be in bed by like 11:30pm at the latest – after an hour of reading.
On top of that, I am not a musician straddling the line between underground success and mainstream fame. I am not subject to a rapidly ticking biological clock and a lifestyle that further complicates any decision to have children. My social circle does not consist of a group of famous women who, due to forces outside our control, act in ways that I find confusing such that these issues need to be worked out on the remix.
Yet Charli presents these topics in such an approachable, beautiful way that someone like me, with almost no window into this world, can still feel those feelings like they were my own. I literally cried to “Girl, so confusing featuring lorde” once.
And the music itself is infectious pop bangers that wiggle their way into your brain and demand to be played on repeat. She could have done one or the other, but she did both. No wonder Brat is on top of so many of these year-end lists. The album is a masterpiece.
Don’t call it a comeback
Apparently, 2023 was a rough year for hip hop. I think what people mean when they say that is there were few rap hits in 2023. Fair enough. The hip hop albums I loved last year were underground masterpieces. Maps by billy woods and Kenny Segal, Scarin’ the Hoes by JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown, and Real Back in Style by Potter Payper come to mind a year later. None consists of the dancy club bangers you’d expect to see high on the charts.
2024 has changed that narrative, and it’s all thanks to hateration in this dancery. In February, Megan Thee Stallion’s Nicki Minaj diss “Hiss” debuted at No. 1, something so unusual for a diss track that Billboard assembled a roundtable to discuss it. And yet, amazingly, it’s probably not the No. 1 diss track from 2024 that first comes to mind.
Before we get to “Not Like Us” though, I should note that “Like That”, a Drake diss from Future, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar, also hit No. 1. In a way, it kicked off the months-long beef that led to “Not Like Us”, though F.D Signifier’s video I’m What the Culture Feeling shows how this showdown had been a decade in the making.
“Not Like Us” really blew up though. I went to a summer fair in Beachburg, Ontario, a town of 1,000, to visit friends who were living there for work. While there, I heard “Not Like Us” like five times. We were only at the fair for a couple of hours – on one day.
As it became clear Kendrick won and the beef faded, there was a little more breathing room for other artists. And many showed up to firmly prove hip hop is not in a recession.
Doechii made a huge splash with her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal, and what is widely considered an all-time great Tiny Desk Concert. Her music is so interesting, and even her more experimental stuff seems to be finding a wide audience. She was featured on a track on Chromakopia by Tyler, the Creator, another amazing hip hop record.
Even Kendrick Lamar moved past the beef. His surprise album GNX came out in November and led to yet another No. 1 hit in “squabble up” and a popular meme thanks to “tv off” (mustaaaaaaaaaaaaard).
I also want to highlight Kenny Mason, who had two projects this year. My favourite was Angel Eyes, which also dropped in November. Mason has an eclectic style and incorporates elements from emo music. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but he pulls it off.
My favourite albums of 2024
Well, that was the context. Without further ado, here’s the top “10” list, which astute readers will note contains 15 albums. I couldn’t whittle it down, so we have a few ties. Fuck it!
10. Rong Weickness – Fievel is Glauque
9. Sentir Que No Sabes – Mabe Fratti
8. Angel Eyes – Kenny Mason
7. QWERTY II – Saya Gray
6. Romance – Fontaines D.C.
5, tie. Chromakopia – Tyler, the Creator
5, tie. my anti-aircraft friend – julie
5, tie. GNX – Kendrick Lamar
5, tie. Alligator Bites Never Heal – Doechii
4. My Method Actor – Nilufer Yanya
3. Imaginal Disk – Magdalena Bay
2, tie. Brat – Charli xcx
2, tie. Diamond Jubilee – Cindy Lee
2, tie. Manning Fireworks – MJ Lenderman
2, tie. Charm – Clairo
1. Moves in the Field – Kelly Moran