Honorable Mention: Make It Fit - Karate
Karate returned for the first time in 20 years with Make It Fit. The album was unique to say the least. Over the last 20 years, frontman Geoff Farina has been in multiple bands, jazz groups, solo ventures and duos with other artists. His style has changed over the years because the mainly because of Tinnitus, the main reason Karate broke out. Farina couldn’t play hard rock anymore, but with modern earplugs and amplifiers, Karate was able to return in 2022.
This album has more of a classic rock feel on songs like “Defendants,” “Bleach the Scene” and “Cannibals.” It sounds closer to Farina’s previous band, Exit Verse. But there are tracks that later Karate fans come to expect, like “Liminal,” “Rattle the Pipes” and “Fall to Grace.” The album has a climactic ending with “Silence, Sound,” one of the band’s best songs they’ve ever released. It’s a true testament to their quality that the trio can release great music nearly 20 years after breaking up.
- Logan Hurston
Honorable Mention: Smile! :D - Porter Robinson
Porter Robinson’s SMILE! :D is both as silly and simplistic as its title, reveling in 2000s nostalgia and fame culture while simultaneously scrutinizing the dependency between internet celebrities and their fans. While Porter’s 2021 cult classic Nurture was filled with sweet sentimentalism and layered textures, SMILE! :D takes a left turn with clichés and basic pop structures throughout most of the album. This rebellion against his old sound is ushered in with the first track “Knock Yourself Out XD” using a square wave synth lead like you’d hear in an old arcade game. It's immediately apparent how unserious the track will be. But between the celebrity ego and insincerity of much of the track, Porter brings into question the fans’ sincerity, “If I’m everything you talk about, I’m in the mirror, baby, let it all out. Knock yourself out.” It’s a rather ironic song to write a review about, and the next track and lead single “Cheerleader” pushes further into the idea of fan culture with a tongue in cheek song about a toxic relationship between Porter and some “cheerleader”. Opening with a grating synth and a cheer squad chant, the song’s lyrics follow by playfully interpolating a popular comment in internet threads, “She’s addicted, obsessed like ‘I know I can fix him.’” The rest of the lyrics on the track provides a sort of thesis for the album, suggesting that while problematic, both parties depend on each other, even if their connection is shallow.
While much of the album seems void of pure sincerity, the moments it is sincere recontextualize all of the humor to either be a deflection or have some ulterior meaning. Take for example “Year of the Cup”, a raw confession of destructive behavior cut between clips of a Lil Wayne interview where he’s shutting down the question of what’s in his cup (alcohol). My favorite song and the climax of the album, “Is There Really No Happiness?”, looks to the past for comfort in today. Porter sings about his childhood and the magic in the mundane, “I remember the family PC, there was snow in the hallways, there was blood on my teeth”, then asking if he can ever again feel the way he did as a kid, or at least how he thought he felt. Aside from the lyrics, the hook in the chorus is my favorite hook of the year. Closing the album out, one of my personal favorite songs “Everything To Me” summarizes his career thus far and how distant the fan to artist relationship really is as suggested in one of the closing lines, “I shouldn’t say ‘I love you’, I don’t know your name. But I’ll just say it anyway cause it feels the same.” While SMILE! :D can seem like one big long joke at a distance, it does an impressive job addressing issues like obsession and fame by initially satirizing them. Although it carries a deep underlying message, it shouldn’t be overshadowed that so much of the album is danceable and fun and worth screaming in your car. SMILE! :D, try it out.
- Trey Hibbard
10. I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU - JPEGMAFIA
Following the release of his collaborative album with Danny Brown, SCARING THE HOES, JPEGMAFIA (AKA Barrington Hendryx or Peggy) meets high expectations with his fifth studio album I Lay Down My Life for You. This album fuses JPEGMAFIA's experimental hip-hop style with heavy metal to create a masterpiece of production.
Some speculate Hendryx's work with ¥$ influenced the production of I Lay Down My Life for You. Leading up to its release on Aug. 1 of 2024, Hendryx worked on ¥$'s Vultures 1 before releasing the singles "Don't Rely on Other Men" and "Sin Miedo." Amidst ongoing controversy with Ye, Peggy praised Ye on Twitter as the "best artist of this lifetime."
The album opens with "i scream this in the mirror before i interact with anyone." Peggy oftentimes references the experiential hip-hop trio Death Grips as a strong musical influence, and this is likely a reference to their song "I Break Mirrors With My Face in the United States." This reference is further cemented with the eighth track on the album holding the same name as Death Grips' debut mixtape: Exmilitary. In traditional JPEGMAFIA style, this track flaunts Hendryx's dangerous presence and radical political views through brilliant rhymes and at times, humorous lyrics. With the track clocking in slightly under two minutes, Peggy quickly sets the tone for I Lay Down My Life for You.
Sampling 2 Live Crew's "Hoochie Mama," the second track "SIN MIEDO" exponentially raises the energy of the record. Translating to "fearless" in Spanish, Peggy is not afraid to speak his mind, shooting disses at Drake, ex-girlfriends, keyboard warriors, and even his barber. The music video accompanying the song perfectly matches the spirit of "SIN MIEDO," which is tattooed across Peggy's stomach. The video features edgy and skimpy clothing, punk styles, and a smoking guitar during the song's solo. Furthering the lyrical motif that Peggy shows no fear in the face of censorship.
Switching to my viewpoint, with the help of Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats, "JPEGULTRA!" is one of my personal favorite tracks on the album. Sampling "Get Up!" by Akira Ishikawa and His Count Buffalos, the song explodes with radiant jazzy energy. While Denzel Curry raps about street fighter and his swamp shoes, Peggy takes shots at Destroy Lonely and Playboi Carti. As the beat switches into something much more sinister, the duo takes on a good cop, bad cop dynamic. Denzel's lighthearted and fun persona juxtaposes Peggy's warnings for those who have betrayed his trust. The dichotomy between the two creates a synergy like no other which only increases my affection towards this track.
Although, I Lay Down My Life for You is controversial among JPEGMAFIA fans, this album grazes the upper echelon of his discography. The constant evolution of Peggy's production and lyricism is unlike his contemporary peers. JPEGMAFIA is a one-in-a-lifetime talent, and with a deluxe or (DIRECTORS CUT) coming in the near future, I am incredibly excited to see what Mr. Hendryx will continue to offer.
- Charlie Timberlake
9. Any Light - Loving
Known for their intimate atmospheres and Jungian influences, Canadian folk-pop duo Loving have mystified listeners with soft vocals and delicate instrumentation since their debut in 2016. By expanding on these sounds and themes, members Jesse Henderson and David Parry deliver a delicatesoundscape detailing the mystery of the unconscious and the joy of newfound insight on their 2024 sophomore LP, Any Light.
The album begins with steady guitar chords leading into swells of strings, pianos, organs, and percussion that transports you into a comfortable trance. After nearly 2 minutes of thesegentle waves, Henderson emerges to offer the succinct lines “I’ve been waiting so long / How I had it all wrong / Never have I seen you / With open eyes / With any light / Any light / Now that I see you / I can renew / My love / My love.”
The track fades into “Medicine,” a 4-minute waltz that is as playful as it is beautiful, with a gliding Wurlitzer and soft melody that feels like a warm hug. Tastefully placed among its long scores of warm tones and textures are Henderson’s verses,which are based on a mixture of psychedelic experiences and internal discoveries sung almost at a whisper. It’s the first time(but certainly not the last) in Any Light where the band’s writingreally shines. Loving paints the listener pictures to describe difficult feelings with near inexplicable clarity, and Any Lightconsistently shows off this ability.
As the album floats along, we also begin to pick up on new instrumentation such as slide guitars and organs heavily contributing to tracks like “No Mast” and “On My Way to You.”Any Light equally thrives on grandiosity and intimacy over its succinct 29 minutes, with the four instruments on “AskDirections” feeling no less impactful than the fourteen on “Any Light.” Every inclusion (or lack thereof) feels intentional.
I never go more than a week without listening to at least one song off this album. After almost a year since its release, I still find new reasons to love it. The masterful mixture of texture, pacing, imagery, and instrumentation makes Any Light a quiet and thoughtful collection of meditations that has emerged as my favorite release of 2024. It is a powerful, yet intimate argument that, indeed, loving helps.
- Luke Allen
8. The New Sound - Gordie Greep
Geordie Greep's 2024 album "The New Sound" masterfully brings together slam poetry-eqsue lyricism and alternative sound. He sprinkles notes of hispanic guitar and chest shaking bass lines. This album reminds me of musical theatre songs I've listened to over the years in the best way. Greep perfectly balances storytelling and unique musicality. Each song tells some type of story, and it's nonsensical and compelling at the same time. Who can hate a song that says:
"Can you feel it, you can feel it, you can feel it
See? There's a universe in this room
You scrounger of toilets and pillager of tombs
You don't have to work because working is for schmucks"=
Favorite tracks: "As if Waltz," "The Magician," "Holy, Holy"
- Mary Davis
7. Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay
The album that flooded music journalism and your indie friends' Instagrams with 10/10s and AOTY reviews, Magdalena Bay's Imaginal Disk is more than deserving of its praise. From the album name and peculiar album art to the opening track's tape whir noise followed by a distant otherworldly "hello" backed by glitching synths and vocals, it's hard not to fall in love with the album's futuristic landscape. Quickly, the sound shifts from a soft-sounding lullaby to a frustratingly pounding bass and manic scream shouting "She Looked Like Me!" The track "Killing Time" continues with a massive sound, delivering one of the best lines on the album: "Count up all the years that we spend asleep. If time is meant for living, why's it killing me?" As the album progresses, it becomes pretty clear that a lot of emphasis is placed on the closing part of the tracks. The first third of the album holds some of the fan favorites, like "Image" and the lead single "Death & Romance". It's after this third that my personal favorite track, "Vampire in the Corner," halts the pacing of the album with words of self-consciousness and timid vocals, only to explode back with the most intense and beautiful binaural synth that scratches your brain like a head massage. The latter half of the album impressively maintains the novelty of the record while keeping every track distinct. Approaching the end of the album, the second-to-last song "Angel on a Satellite" effectively acts as a closer. You can't help but feel like you're floating up to heaven. And then you're left in heaven singing the encore "The Ballad of Matt & Mica," named after the band's duo. The soft start, early change of pace, and lyrics call back to the opening track, "Open heart, old cliché. Two kids in a new town, baby. Is it my turn, Small-time fame. Bang-bang and a happy ending." Magdalena Bay has been in the eye of indie electropop for a while, but Imaginal Disk sent them to darling status for new and old fans, and deservedly so.
- Trey Hibbard
6. Two Star and the Dream Police - Mk.gee
Mike Gordon - the artist that you are! I don’t know exactly what I was expecting going into this album, but I do know that this Prince-esque, raw, groovy, intimate, soulful, thoughtful masterpiece had my jaw on the floor from beginning to end. Gordon - professionally known as Mk.gee - has been on my radar for a little while, primarily as a member of Dijon’s live band, who I saw live at RE:Set Nashville in the summer of 2023. The two collaborated on Dijon’s 2021 album Absolutely, which was a huge turning point in his discography that he largely credits to Mk.gee’s influence. This is clearly a wildly symbiotic creative relationship - beneficial to both artists, and to their listeners. Two Star & the Dream Police is a beautiful blend of 80’s synth R&B sounds mixed with pop and rock influences that is unlike anything else I have ever heard. Listening to this album feels like listening to your friend jamming to himself in the next room. It makes its listener feel privileged to have the opportunity to overhear. It’s full of texture, and it’s somehow able to balance being deliciously messy and gritty as well as incredibly cohesive - each track eases so seamlessly into the next. It’s not everyday that an artist’s debut studio LP is a no-skip album, but that is exactly what I found in Two Star & the Dream Police. This album will absolutely be joining my Sunday morning rotation, and I highly recommend that everyone give it a spin.
Favorite tracks: “Little Bit More,” “You Got It,” “Are You Looking Up” and “DNM”
- Mary Morgan Scott
5. GNX - Kendrick Lamar
After his viral feud with Drake in the summer that ended up with a number one hit in “Not Like Us” and a Super Bowl halftime show in his future, everyone was wondering when Kendrick Lamar would drop his next album. There were rumblings all year that Kendrick would drop something soon, but most people thought he would wait until 2025 to coincide with his Super Bowl performance. To the surprise of his fans and his label, K-Dot dropped GNX with no lead up or announcement on November 22.
The album sounds like a victory lap, proving that Kendrick is the best rapper alive. He’s boastful on tracks like “wacced out murals” and “Man in the garden.” He goes back to his introspective roots on “reincarnated” and “heart pt. 6,” continuing his theme of saying he’s not perfect from Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. He brings back frequent collaborated SZA on “Luther” and “Gloria,” while also featuring younger west coast rappers, putting most of them in the mainstream light for the first time. It would be malpractice to talk about GNX and not talk about its most viral song “tv off,” the song that has been used in edits for Kendrick’s iconic yell of “Mustard!” With a stadium tour with SZA and the Super Bowl performance on the horizon, expect GNX to be on heavy rotation for most of 2025.
- Logan Hurston
4. Manning Fireworks - MJ Lenderman
I’ve never considered myself a big fan of country music, but sometimes you hear music so good it transcends genre preferences. MJ Lenderman, guitarist of the band Wednesday (responsible for Rat Saw God, one of my favorite records of 2023), released his fourth solo
album Manning Fireworks in September 2024. Here, Lenderman blends his traditional indie rock with alt-country influences, leading to far more sonically diverse tracks than the rest of his
discography.
“You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In” features beautiful clarinet playing, the devastating lyrics of “Rip Torn” are amplified by a poignant string section and “Bark At The Moon” evolves into a nearly six minute section of static ambience. Lenderman’s lyrics on this record have an air of experience and age, despite being only 25. The stories he sings about range from mundane to pitiful, telling tales of the pathetic. “Wristwatch,” my personal nomination for catchiest guitar solo of the year, paints a picture of a man using his wealth to hide his insecurity with lyrics like:
“So you say I've got a funny face, It makes me money. So you say I've wasted my life away, Well, I got a beach home up in Buffalo.”
“Joker Lips” tells a similarly depressing story, in a much more concise fashion: “Kahlúa shooter, DUI scooter.”
Ultimately, this is a tried and true breakup album, and “She’s Leaving You,” my personal favorite track, conveys a tone of yearning that is present throughout the entire album. Lenderman has a gift for writing about typically ordinary things with an air of melancholy. To say I’m excited to see what he does next would be an understatement.
Favorite Tracks: “She’s Leaving You,” “Riptorn” and “You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In”
- Drew Williamson
3. Charm - Clairo
Clairo released her third studio album, Charm, July 12, 2024 to generally positive critical—and definitely positive personal—reception. Charm was released four years after her second album, Sling, a record that featured the artist retreating from the Tik Tok bedroom pop sounds of her debut, Immunity.
Charm, like its predecessor, is another step away from Clairo’s initially established sound. In the latest record, Clairo builds off of the soft, folk-derived, vulnerable sound of Sling that, while sticking to the organic style that initiated in her sophomore album, brings back some of Immunity’s viral melodic structure that found singles like “Sexy to Someone,” “Juna,” and “Add Up My Love,” becoming ear-worm-y summer staples.
The album as a whole is my favorite of her three because of its ability to garner mainstream pop attention while including wildly creative instrumentation. The flute is featured on six of the eleven tracks, with the clarinet and saxophone also making consistent additions throughout the record. These, in addition to the range of keys— piano, organ, and Wurlitzer— and percussive instruments create the whimsical, warm, and 70’s inspired soundscape of Charm. Vocal elements further add to its catchy, quiet whimsy. The majority of tracks feature warping self-harmonizing backgrounds vocals, overlaid with Clairo’s signature quiet—almost whispered—lead melody. All of these sonic elements work in perfect tandem with each other through the masterful production of Leon Michels, who I believe is the key to this album’s warm endlessly-listenableness.
The lyrics also echo that of past albums, with Claire exerting the confidence of a songwriter knowledgeable in both the popular and vulnerable. Tracks such as, “Thank You,” “Slow Dance,” and “Juna,” all feature a directly addressed and seemingly lost “you.” This adds to the emotional songwriting of Charm, that is gut-wrenchingly simple, deeply personal, introspective and inevitably, catchy
- Caroline Chesnut
2. Brat - Charli xcx
Charli xcx’s time in the spotlight was a long time coming. The “Boom Clap” singer has released a slew of
critically acclaimed and innovative pop albums since her last track to breach the Billboard Top 40.
Working with producers on the cutting edge, such as A.G. Cook and the late Sophie, Charli xcx has set
herself apart from the rest of pop music, with little recognition from popular culture. In 2024 however,
Charli xcx’s BRAT combined a controversial marketing scheme with fine-tuned and electric production
to create one of the year’s best, and most popular albums. Charli xcx’s sixth album was nothing short of
a cultural phenomenon, a “moment” if you will. Spawning Tik Tok trends, spurning graphic design principles, and even inspiring marketing for a major, albeit ill-fated presidential campaign, “Brat summer” echoed the musical achievement that Charli xcx put to record.
BRAT contains an eclectic mix of dance tracks, melodic symphonies, and bouncy bubblegum pop bangers, all strung together by Charli xcx’s unique, blunt and introspective lyricism. The album heavily features producer A.G. Cook, known for his iconic futuristic sound, on tracks that move the pop genre into new territory. Charli XCX
has been spent the last few years leaning into hyperpop production, and combines that sound with contemporary stylings to create an album that is the best of both worlds. BRAT stands head and shoulders above the rest of the years pop music in 2024 thanks to jarring and distinct tracks “Sympathy is a Knife” and “I think about it all the time,” bouncy pop hits “Talk talk” and “Apple,” and dance
anthems “Club classics” and “365.”
It is also worth noting Charli xcx’s collaborative album Brat and it’s
completely different but also still brat, which houses entirely remixed version of all of the original album's tracks, featuring a whole host of pop artists to boot. All in all, Charli XCX put on a show this year, and BRAT has proven to be a definitive album of 2024.
Favorite Tracks: “B2b,” “Sympathy is a Knife” and “365”
Cameron Kasprzak
1. Chromakopia - Tyler, The Creator
Tyler, The Creator dropped another amazing album last year, giving listeners around the world another deep look into his psyche. This time around, Tyler has delivered his most personal album yet, touching on the crushing aspects of not quite being young anymore, the stresses and paranoia that comes with being a world renowned artist at his age, and finally settling some of the most traumatic baggage that has been bothering Tyler for the entirety of his musical career.
Songs such as “Darling, I” and “Tomorrow” build this picture of Tyler as someone who is very much anxious about the present. Throughout the album we get glimpses into Tyler’s fears of not finding a partner to settle down with, and the fear that his mother won’t live long enough to see him have grandkids. It’s pretty apparent that seeing the people around him get older, settling down, and having families has left Tyler with a great deal of mental anguish. Tyler has also mentioned in interviews that he himself is still coming to grips with being physically older, revealing that his hair has been starting to grey, which has shown to be a hard thing to come to grips with as someone who’s still in his early to mid thirties.
Having been in the public spotlight for so long, Tyler also uses Chromakopia to express the stress of his stardom and how it’s affected his life. Among being one of my personal favorites on the album, the song “Noid” perfectly encapsulates this feeling of having everyone’s eyes on you by emphasizing the inescapable pressure and paranoia that comes with success and stardom.
Despite being a rollercoaster of emotions, Chromakopia still manages to capture that fun and energetic vibe, especially with songs like “Sticky” and “Thought I Was Dead.” It can be hard for albums to find that balance of fun and serious, and you can argue that Chromakopia does not have this balance by having the laughably, unserious song, “Balloon” come right after the song “Like Him,” probably the most emotional song on the album. However, the goofy transition between the two songs only added to my enjoyment of the album, because it shows that even through all the pressure and anxieties, Tyler still just wants to have fun with his music.
Chromakopia might not have been my favorite album that came out last year, but it definitely had one of the most exciting album rollouts of the 2020s so far. I’m still figuring out how it ranks among my personal favorite Tyler albums, but I’m leaning towards somewhere in the top three for sure. However, when it comes to messages and themes alone, Chromakopia is definitely among his best.
- Connor Phillips
