The best albums of 2024.

The phenomena that marked the post-pandemic period in music for the masses became obvious to everyone this year: first of all, pop music in the narrow sense today has become not only the most commercial, but also the most avant-garde genre - the most talented artists create within it, the most important social issues are raised and relevant messages are launched that explain our age... all other genres show signs of repetition and wear and tear, including the almost unassailable hip hop and trap.

The following fundamental fact is: women saved the music business - all the big hits this year are theirs, all the trends and all the front pages belong to them, and after Taylor Swift's "Eras" tour, which set new, hitherto unsuspected standards in the risky business of organizing concerts, it probably became clear to random passers-by.

The key new question of 2024 was – how long will the album last, respectively long play music release format? It seems that slowly but surely the tendency towards the shorter single format is winning, while for something longer the audience has less and less patience, so we have less and less relevant new records... Another important question was - how long will the video last in its luxurious form, as we have known so far? Just like recording an album, recording a serious music video requires more and more resources, which even the biggest stars rarely decide to do. Instead, more and more often we get computer graphics as a visual accompaniment to music, and no one complains, because everyone listens / watches it on their mobile phone anyway.

Music thus adapts to the ever-faster life we ​​live, and which every day threatens to overtake us.

The final dilemma that this musical year leaves us with was – where is rock'n'roll in all that, except on critics' lists? Part of the answer lies in the fact that during 2024, the best-selling release with the label of that genre was Fleetwood Mac - "Rumours", originally released in 1976 (the undersigned remembers very well that pleasant mainstream records from his high school days). We could collect the circulation releases of this type on the fingers of one hand, and a deeper analysis in this direction is even more devastating: of the 25 rock albums of this year that we find on the top list Billboard, 20 of them were reissues, and only 5 were new records.

Here is a selection of the best 30 albums in 2024. Preference is given to works with high artistic value, not necessarily to those with a large number of hits. The first 10 are ranked, and the places between 11 and 20, as well as 21 and 30 are not. Live albums and compilations are not considered here.

1. CHARLIE XCX "BRAT"

The best album according to all criteria: title, cover and color of the year - represent an introduction to the modern definition coola and the cultural phenomenon that marked 2024. Charlie XCX turned it with "Brother". hyperpop genre into a key musical form today, a kind of electro-punk within pop music. Until yesterday, still seen as a trivial teenage pastime, with this album, hyperpop became an art form, an engaged social attitude and an important testimony of this time, and Charlie XCX a new great global heroine. The main proof that today women are writing history.

"Chromesthesia sound visions of Charlie XCX, hard-line feminist attitude and original music adorn the album 'Brother. "(Zorica Kojic, "Life is woman-centric", Time, 11. 7. 2024.)

...

2. BEYONCE "COWBOY CARTER"

A renaissance approach to American pop culture from the biggest star America has right now shows us that she has matured into an extraordinary artist, at her peak. A step further from Madonna, and further on her humanistic path, Beyoncé on this album of grandiose momentum touchingly and playfully reveals to us all the complex depth of interracial relationships from which pop music, and even country music, was born. Without the cooperation of blacks and whites, it would not exist. This is an outstretched hand of understanding from blacks that whites will fail to grasp.

"Beyonce us on the album "Cowboy Carter" takes you through the complex history of the relationship between black and white America, letting us know how many are apparently traditional "bele" things actually had their dark-skinned pioneers, heroes and audience. This is a large plate., without any doubt"(Zorica Kojic, "Through African American and female heroes", Time, 19. 4. 2024.)

...

3. THE SMILE "WALL OF EYES"

Even the two albums released by The Smile in 2024 stand not only as artistic, but also as moral guideposts of where contemporary music should go. Uncompromisingly restoring faith in the power of art, Thom Yorke and his friends on "Wall of Eyes" (January) and the extension "Cutouts" (October) offer us a return to oneself, that is, self-knowledge as the only path to true meaning. Deep in the art-rock tradition, they provide a new possible vision of how rock 'n' roll can still remain a relevant statement: a return to the purest emotions, which we thought had disappeared from popular music.

"It's hard not to think of the Beatles from the period with this album 'Sgt. pepper's a '"(Bojan Savić Ostojić. "The end of the era of mother bands", Time, 7. 2. 2024.)

...

4. BETH GIBBONS "LIVES OUTGROWN"

The debut solo album of the singer of the group Portishead was prepared for ten years, so that in the end we got a masterpiece. Somewhere halfway between this beloved Bristol group and PJ Harvey, grounded in English folk and dark soul, the record "Lives Outgrown" forms an unforgettable cycle of autobiographical compositions that bring a stripped-down and merciless look at the way one life was lived. Rarely are music and poetry so superbly united in a poignant statement. This is where art definitely beats time, which we all love to hear.

"Album Beth Gibbons 'Lives Outgrown' was created in response to unspecified recent painful losses and deals with establishing a relationship with the untimely passing of loved ones.. Is there a greater task for the common man, and are there fewer pieces of music that describe him well?” (Dragan Ambrozic, "Hidden behind her name", Time, 28. 5. 2024)

...

5. THE CURE "SONGS OF A LOST WORLD"

The comeback album of the biggest gothic group is a historical artistic triumph that goes far beyond the genre significance of a single line-up. Baroque songs that last for minutes create a spell of feelings that Robert Smith imperceptibly draws us into, until in the end we no longer want to leave that fairy world of memories for a better life. Rounding his path, he decided to tell the last great pop fairy tale, and he did it with the same majestic elegance with which he carried the career of The Cure, and his character as the unexpected star in black, our favorite prince of darkness.

"Saying goodbye to us, The Cure recorded an album that represents the emotional climax of their career"(Dragan Ambrozic, "The clown is crushed", Time, 6. 11. 2024.)

...

6. NICK CAVE "WILD GOD"

And just when we thought he had nothing new to say, Nick Cave surprises us all. This time he surrendered to happiness, as perhaps the only emotion that he never described in his opus of larger tragic songs. It's probably true that all of his last albums are farewells in some way, but each one is different, proving that good old Nick has finally grown into a serious artist to measure the passage of our time by. He deserved to experience at least a little peace, which he finally gets a glimpse of on this great album, and thus ends his epic journey from dislike to dislike.

"Surprising us, Nick is still able to surprise and amaze himself, infinitely extending its life. "(Zorica Kojic, "Singing with the heavens", Time, 4. 9. 2024.)

...

7. DAVID GILMOUR "LUCK AND STRANGE"

A record that is recorded once: another reckoning before the end of life's journey is hidden here, warm and inspired. As the legendary guitarist of Pink Floyd, Gilmour had nothing to prove, his place in history was guaranteed, and yet he felt the need to address us and tell us that the greatest wealth is in our loved ones and family. Carried by this noble message, coming deep from the blues tradition and aiming for some unfathomable future times, he thus signed a new classic, which makes us stronger in the broken, icy reality that surrounds us.

"David Gilmour's latest solo album is an unexpectedly intimate work, which sheds a different light on his post-Pink Floyd career"(Dragan Ambrozic, "Aging in black and white", Time, 18. 9. 2024.)

...

8. FOUNTAIN D.C. "ROMANCE"

Faith in love, as sincere as the Irish heart, irrepressible and insatiable, overflows from the new album of the best rock band of the moment. No one has established a more consistent string of releases in the 2020s, and the fourth record of these greats in the making finally takes them out of alternative circles and into the mainstream. mainstream scene. An intense and messy work, "Romance" looks at us from the top of the charts, heralding festival successes on stages around the world, which are eagerly awaiting them.

"The Irish composition of the newer generation Fontaines D. C. decided these days to invest his Dublin post-punk spleen in the pop music of millions"(Zorica Kojic, "New challenges for new generations", Time, 28. 8. 2024.)

...

9. CINDY LEE "DIAMOND JUBILEE"

The solo project of Canadian rock singer-songwriter Patrick Flegel, his most ambitious release is 2024. A massive two-hour undertaking, an oneiric study of the music of the 1960s and 1970s in low fi technique, which counters everything digital, of a kind sepia photos of what rock and roll used to be. A real opportunity to remember all those forgotten corners of the sensual life with which we grew up. Nostalgia transformed into aesthetics, completely in the spirit of the times.

...

10. ADRIANNE LENKER "BRIGHT FUTURE"

An album that celebrates the intimacy of the inner experience of the world, it is more than a release recorded in a break between the projects of the extraordinary parent group Big Thief. Adrianne Lenker has long been one of the key phenomena on the American alternative scene, and with this performance she confirms how capable she is of saying the things we all think but are not so good at saying. Didn't all the great pop poets have just such a role, to reveal the deepest secrets? At a time when our privacy is exposed non-stop for everyone to see through social networks, it is a precious discovery that there are still things that can only be said in song.

"Everyday ecstasy sets Adrianne Lenker apart from the sea 'granddaughter of Joni Mitchell' that have flooded the alternative music scene in recent years"(Dragan Ambrozic, "Intimate masterpiece delo", Time, 3. 6. 2024.)

...

10. MJ LANDERMAN "MANNING FIREWORKS"

The best alternative rock album of the year, a return to the roots of this sound from the 1980s and 1990s. A celebration of the signature guitar sound we don't hear every day, by the super talented MJ Lenderman from Asheville (not Nashville). An ironic view of the world and ourselves, which we certainly miss at a time when everything seems so cruelly too serious.

"As MJ Lenderman himself said in a song: 'Don't laugh., only half of what i said was a joke'system. (Dragan Ambrozic, "Old new world", Time, 18. 12. 2024.)

11 20

Richard Thompson "Ship to Shore"
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard “Flight b741”
English Teacher "This Could Be Texas"
Michael Kiwanuka "Small Change"
Billie Eilish "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
Sabrina Carpenter “Short n' Sweet”
Dua Lipa "Radical Optimism"
Tyler, the Creator “Chromakopia”
Kendrick Lamar “GNX”
Kim Gordon "The Collective"

21 30

Ariana Grande "Eternal Sunshine"
Tyla “Tyla”
Fabiana Palladino "Fabiana Palladino"
Nilüfer Yanya "My Method Actor"
Camera Obscura "Look to the East, Look to the West"
Arab Strap “I'm totally fine with it, don't give a fuck anymore”
Jesus Lizard “Rack”
Jack White “No Name”
Mdou Moctar "Funeral for Justice"
John Cale "Optical Illusion"