Jacob’s Top In 2024
Early in 2024, it felt pretty clear to me that it would be a good year for new music. It was exactly that. We got plenty of records I’d been anticipating, there were even more releases from artists I like that I wasn’t actively hoping for this time last year, and I found a bunch of solid albums and EPs from new-to-me artists. It seemed like every time I got a new record on vinyl, I kept wanting to keep it on or next to the turntable so I could play it another time or two (or more) before putting it on the shelf (and maybe pulling it back off a little bit later). It’s a simple thing, but I loved so much music this year and it’s nice to have this exercise to remind myself of that.
For these posts, I typically only share my top 20 albums, though I usually make a list of the top 50 or more for the year that just lives on my computer. Some years, it feels like getting to 50 records that I’ve spent enough time with to have a strong positive relationship with is a bit of a stretch, but I’m at about 70 right now and think that the ones in the 50–70 range are about as worthy as the ones in the 40–50 range. The same is true for many in the 20–40 range feeling almost as good as the ones in the 10–20 range. If I were somehow unaware of my final list and you told me that any of the top 16–17 had been ranked high enough to get a blurb, I don’t think I would’ve been too surprised. Because there were so many great albums that I spent a lot of time with this year, I (unfortunately still the person responsible for putting together my own list) really struggled with sorting things out in a way that didn’t feel like I was leaving out records that were worth highlighting. It’s a good problem to have, even if I wouldn’t complain about having a few more exemplary records running away with these spots and elbowing out the best things from the past few years (I’m not going to get too far into it, but Brave Faces Everyone still wears this decade’s crown).
With that intro out of the way, you’ll find below my favorite albums and choices for a bunch of other superlatives. There are two primary playlists to go along with this post: my Top 25 Songs of 2024 and the much more expansive What’s Good In 2024. My Fellow Crybabies will appreciate that I’ve also developed the fifth annual version of the Empowered Wallowing playlist to let you have the best bad time throughout the early part of 2025.
Thank you for clicking my link. I hope you find something new to love.
I don’t know that I have a better way of explaining why this album is at the top of my list than just asking you to go listen to it. The quality of the songs is kind of self-evident; there are plenty of little details to pick out on repeat listens, but you can hear how good this album is immediately (or, at least that was my experience). These songs are built for stadiums, but they aren’t pandering or lowered to any common denominator to get there — the best thing about this album is how much character it has. “Beach Chair” shows the massive scale of this record from the beginning, where everything starts with hearing one set of fingers move along guitar strings and there’s a run of smirking, lovingly needling observations and vows, and then you ultimately get to a point where the last chorus feels like it’s being played for the whole world. It happens so seamlessly, and you get something kind of similar with “In My Room,” which manages to make a whole account of childhood loneliness feel almost anthemic while also to somehow have the line “I’m in my room learning the guitar and playing with my dick” not sound juvenile. “Crying Over U” has that incredible bridge with the insane piano part and the overlapping vocals, while “Cutting Thru The Country” is a huge centerpiece that sounds like the open road, sweeping you up in the seeking. The last stretch of album shows the breadth of songs here that no one else is really writing — “Hey Sandra,” “Can’t Be Cool Forever,” “Say It Back,” and “Stick Around” all sound so different from one another and so unlike anything else I heard this year in their approach, tone, and overall quality. It all goes down easy by virtue of Nick’s voice and the production, but there’s also so much depth of emotion and creativity. I wasn’t anticipating this record at all, but there wasn’t anything else you’d be more likely to hear around our house after I found it. It’s the album of the year.
It sometimes feels hard to pin down exactly what makes Bleachers the sort of album I’ve kept returning to again and again, but that’s exactly what I’ve done ever since it came out. I don’t know where this ranks in the band’s discography, but it’s definitely worthy of being self-titled. Sonically, it carries through the more live-oriented sound of TTSOOSN (without any of the weird volume issues) while bringing back more of the studio magic and creativity that made Gone Now and Strange Desire so interesting. Lyrically, it’s still so imbued with the grief and anxiety that few write (or talk) about better, but it’s also full of humor, present-tense joy, and little hits of Bleachers meta. Something like “Modern Girl” is meant for the band’s exemplary live show and leaning into the communal bits, but that sax hook works no matter where you hear it. You get the internal vulnerability of “The Waiter,” and an external version paired with a heavy dose of self-deprecation in “Self Respect” (that second verse is rare in its specificity and directness and how it pulls this thread from the most removed public moments all the way through the most personal and universal ones). Jack has written a few really nice love songs over the years, but I don’t think anyone has pressed quite the same buttons as he does on “Ordinary Heaven” or “Tiny Moves” (I need the Carly Rae Jepsen Terrible Thrills version of that one). I love the evocative flow of “Alma Mater,” the careful, beautiful writing in “Isimo,” and the euphoric bombast of “Call Me After Midnight” (even if I don’t believe that Jack has more than Jersey on his mind, that little callback to “Wild Heart” is a nice touch). Even the songs that don’t completely land for me have their redeeming moments, and the variety of sounds doesn’t at all stop it from feeling like a cohesive record. This feels like both a return to form and a blueprint for how the band can keep growing, and I can’t wait to hear where things go from here.
Similarly to the two records above, Weird Faith really didn’t leave my rotation over the course of 2024. Maybe even more than those, putting it on feels like spending time with an old friend, familiar and comfortable in a way that only the best albums ever touch. Some of that is how much it’s built out of resonant and tactile instruments and so much vocal presence, but it’s even more the way that Madi writes songs. There’s an almost casual sense of vulnerability, humor, and confrontation that can only really be earned from intimacy; the first lyric is “what the fuck do you want?” and “Everything Almost” recounts a dream of being pregnant and “ordering you around the house like a bitch” before immediately reverting to thoughts of how she wouldn’t be able to handle it if her parents weren’t around for that part of her life. Even as relatable as so much of the songs can be, they’re written with an incredibly unique and identifiable perspective and tone; the jealousy in “Girlfriend” isn’t a new idea or feeling, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song that actually admits that type of insecurity and adversarial response in quite this way. I love how the instruments push and pull the dynamics in a song like “God Person,” and every heavy piano note and thick drum hit helps the album fill out the sonic space nicely. “Don’t Do Me Good” lets you hear how easily Madi’s songwriting could scale up to a bigger audience, while her version of “For Months Now” shows how her voice adds so much more emotion when compared to something like the shiny Trousdale cover of the song from last year; I can’t imagine wanting her to sand off any of the expression or thinking that filling out the arrangements more would do anything other than distract from the quality of the songwriting. There’s such a mastery of language and melody that even the more simply produced and almost quiet title track is built on a stack of hooks. I’m going to be listening to this one for a long time.
4. Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties — In Lieu Of Flowers
If this is the last Aaron West album, Dan really stuck the landing. One of the things that makes this project special is the care that goes into making it all click together — not just telling a story, but doing so in a way that sets you up to be blindsided with the little details as much as the main narrative components. It’s one thing to have your character lose his baby, wife, dad, sobriety, and use of his hand (and to face a half dozen other setbacks, on a good day). It’s a completely different thing to have his old friend ask if it’s hard to sing about that wife when hearing his songs for the first time a few years after the separation and divorce (he shrugs, “Dolly still sings about Jolene”) or to have him hear dead leaves scrape concrete while walking alone, only to turn and have it be that same wife pushing a stroller (“and smile, ‘cause I love you and I know that you found what you need”). It’s his sister intervening after a burst of alcoholism ruined an opportunity for their band (“You paint dad like a damn saint, and you know that I loved him too, but he drank himself to death the same way; I won’t let it happen twice, no, not again”) and then him still touching a note in their dad’s handwriting (“last year I tried the number, but the line’s dead”) for good luck after a stint in rehab and making amends. Putting all of that emotional weight on top of this sort of evocative music only heightens everything; for as alone as Aaron sounds at the opening of the album, it’s exactly as communal when the band kicks in and as painfully aching when you hear the pedal steel in “Whiplash.” The pure triumph of the brass hook in the title track is as much of a release as the song’s chorus, and it’s nearly comforting when that big swell dies down and Aaron walks into the s̶p̶a̶c̶e̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ venue at the end of the album. This project rewards your attention by hurting your feelings, even with something like a happy ending. I couldn’t recommend it more. Start at “Our Apartment” and listen to all 35 songs. I’ll see you in the water.
5. Origami Angel — Feeling Not Found
Origami Angel is maybe one more release like this from getting a full paragraph in my 2020s recap post. I was hooked by Gami Gang and have been so impressed by the growth on The Brightest Days and Feeling Not Found that I trust them to keep putting out some of any year’s best music. The variety and flow of each record is always such a strength, but this one feels like benefits from some more traditional songwriting to let each idea be more of its own thing and really hit, with the overall themes of the album paying off just one step better through the way they come out at the beginning and then fully land in the title track (it’s an insane flex to have a chorus and bridge that good and hold them for the last song). I love how you can hear little moments where their influences (most obviously Motion City Soundtrack and Relient K) pop out so clearly without it ever feeling like the band is fully aping them. A lesser version of this could fall flat or sound like a retread, but there’s not a moment on this record that doesn’t come across as fresh; there’s a specific voice and energy here that transcends whatever you’d expect from a basic written description of the band. It’s the earnestness and attitude and the seemingly endless fount of hooks, riffs, and breakdowns, while Will Yip’s production lends a little more low end and dissonance without losing the brightness and melodic joy that makes the band as good as it is (as always, it’s insane that this much creativity and such a huge sound comes from only two guys). This is just a really fun and well-written record, and I’ve had one or more of these songs stuck in my head most days since it was released. I’d have been absolutely obsessed with this album and band in 2005 or 2015, and the same is as true today, even as I’ve gotten soft in my middle age. Just give this one a shot and thank me later.
11. Father John Misty — Mahashmashana
12. Snow Patrol — The Forest Is The Path
13. Hovvdy — Hovvdy
14. From Indian Lakes — Head Void
15. Katie Gavin — What A Relief
16. Maggie Rogers — Don’t Forget Me
17. Coldplay — Moon Music
18. Novo Amor — Collapse List
19. Many Eyes — The Light Age
20. Lucy Rose — This Ain’t The Way You Go Out
It’s been such a solid year that it would feel bad to click publish without mentioning a few others, so here’s an unranked endorsement of the newest albums from Bayside (this one probably would’ve been on the list above if it the best songs hadn’t already been released on EPs), Bright Eyes, Bring Me The Horizon, Joywave, Kacey Musgraves, Katia & Marielle Labèque, Kendrick Lamar, Lo Moon, Sabrina Carpenter, The Smile, St. Vincent, State Champs, Twenty One Pilots, Waxahatchee, and Wild Pink.
Top 10 Songs:
1. “Disposable Camera” — Anna Tivel
2. “What Are You, A Cop?” — Carly Cosgrove
3. “Keep Walking” — Katie Gavin
4. “Say It Back” — Medium Build
5. “Don’t Do Me Good” — Madi Diaz (Ft. Kacey Musgraves)
6. “Monongahela Park” — Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties
7. “Self Respect” — Bleachers
8. “Nobody’s” — Touché Amoré
9. “That’s What Time Does” — oso oso
10. “Pretending” — Fletcher
I listened to around 3,200 new songs this year. Here are the Top 25.
Best Album Art: Balance And Composure — With You In Spirit
This album hits a few specific spots so well, maybe most in terms of the overall vibe. It’s easy to press play and sit in this sonic world for a bit, and I think the album art conveys exactly what you’re in for when you dive in. It’s moody and has a sense of emotional kinetic energy, with the text floating almost ominously overhead. I love the colors, and I’m a huge sucker for this type of border. It’s just a really good and well-matched image for the music.
Favorite Live Show: Modest Mouse at MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, MA 11/19/24
I saw a bunch of great shows in 2024. There were intimate performances by Ruston Kelly, Madi Diaz, and Anna Tivel at Levon Helm Studios, and also Aaron West And The Roaring Twenties acoustic outside of a donut shop (and later with the full band in a more traditional venue). I got to see Spanish Love Songs, oso oso, Sydney Sprague, Punchline, Have Mercy, Bleachers, Movements, The Wonder Years, The Maine, Kacey Musgraves, and Father John Misty. I was at the front of the stage to watch Pianos Become The Teeth play Keep You front to back at a tiny venue in Brooklyn, and was almost as close to see Maggie Rogers and The Japanese House at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Maggie Rogers Day (we unfortunately got to Philadelphia too late to get tickets to see her in a smaller venue the same day as the Aaron West donut shop performance). These are just the highlights, so it wasn’t a bad year by any means. I could’ve picked almost any of those as my favorite, but the most satisfying shows were the two dates of the Good News For People Who Love Bad News 20th anniversary tour. It was so good to see my favorite band play the album that made me a fan, and to hear how much life these songs still have two decades on. This might be as good as the band has sounded in the 15+ years I’ve been seeing them live. It was especially fun to hear excellent live songs like “The View” and “Bury Me With It,” and I was maybe even more excited to see some of the songs from No One’s First, And You’re Next that I’d rarely or never seen live before. “King Rat” and “Whale Song” remain undefeated, but it was so cool for “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and “History Sticks To Your Feet” to have some live energy (I didn’t get to hear “I’ve Got It All(most),” but maybe I will for the 25th). Both dates were fun, but I got to also hear some of the fan Q&A and be at the barricade for the Boston date (and the Brooklyn date didn’t have as many of the b-sides in the encore), so it gets the top slot.
Biggest Surprise: Kendrick Lamar — GNX
After a year in which Kendrick dominated a feud and was announced as the performer for the Super Bowl, I don’t know if I should’ve been fully surprised to find out that he’d dropped a new album right before I took off on a transatlantic flight or to hear this exact sort of energy when I finally got to hit play when I landed. The fact that Kendrick decided to skip the easy button of including “Not Like Us” (or any of the other diss tracks) and to not explicitly continue to bury Drake is maybe the bigger surprise; he’s always been more artistic and concept-oriented, very comfortable doing instead of showing, but this set of songs has some extra subtlety in running a victory lap without really feeling the need to acknowledge that there was a competition at all. I appreciate his talents from a vision and scale perspective, but I honestly just want more bangers from him, and this one followed through on both fronts. A nice surprise all around.
Biggest Disappointment: Bright Eyes — Five Dice, All Threes
Disappointment usually requires anticipation, and I don’t think that I could’ve had higher hopes than for the album coming after Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was. It’s become one of the measuring sticks I’ve referenced at the end of each year to see whether anything new might end up near the top of my list at the end of the 2020s. That record has proven to be a pretty high bar, so it’s not really a slight to be worse; I didn’t think Five Dice, All Threes would be as good, but I still expected any new album from this band to be somewhere higher on my list at the end of the year. I was tepid and maybe even a bit pessimistic after the singles, but there’s no world where I press play on a new Bright Eyes record without a little buzzing excitement. I ultimately like the record because I love the band, but it’s probably my least favorite thing Conor’s been involved with since…Payola? Outer South? (My most critical listen might go somewhere back before Fevers And Mirrors.) I don’t know if it’s the Alex Orange Drink of it all or that it’s pretty intentionally a step away from maximizing the sort of ornate sonic magic that no other band does as well, but the overall energy and some of the lyrics really don’t click for me in the way almost everything else the band’s released has. There are still some good songs here (“Real Feel 105º,” “Tiny Suicides,” and “All Threes” are my favorites), but there’s not really anything on the album that touches either the scale or the emotional resonance of the band at its best. It sounds like it was probably fun to make and kind of a relief after how much work went into Down In The Weeds, but I think all of that effort paid off in depth, refinement, and overall quality in a way that this spontaneity simply didn’t. It’s a letdown, but I trust that I’ll love the next one more.
Best New Discoveries:
1. Medium Build
2. House Of Protection
3. Lo Moon
4. Tiny Habits
5. Eliza And The Delusionals
Most Anticipated:
1. Phoebe Bridgers
2. The 1975
3. Lucy Dacus
4. Beach Bunny
5. Punchline
6. Manchester Orchestra
7. Adult Mom
8. Carly Rae Jepsen
9. Modest Mouse
10. Speak Low If You Speak Love
Again, if you ever need to fill a bunch of hours with good songs, here’s almost everything I liked this year, all in one playlist (it’s in alphabetical order by artist, so I recommend just shuffling): What’s Good In 2024
Thanks again for reading, and thanks even more for getting all the way to the end. Let’s talk about music more online or in the real world.
P.S. My vinyl Instagram account is still the most consistent music writing I do these days. Even if you don’t want to read the maxed-out captions, you might have a good time looking at all of my beautiful things. There’s always lots of great stuff to come, so I’d appreciate a follow!
