Albums Of The Year 2024!

[Union 5-3992]

I've only heard The New Sound by Geordie Greep once and I realized I grossly overlooked this one. It's such a wild album. Lyrics are a little cringy but the mash of styles are so unique.

[treeduck]

9 minutes ago, Union 5-3992 said:

Nice thing about Gizzard is you don't have to wait long if something isn't your speed. I like Flight b741 as a fun ode to southern rock but it's no AOTY for me. Definitely a step above The Silver Chord

Would they not better calling themselves King Wizard or King Lizard or King Blizzard?

[Union 5-3992]

8 minutes ago, treeduck said:

Would they not better calling themselves King Wizard or King Lizard or King Blizzard?

 

I'll have no slander to long band names. KGATLW is already iconic and stands out from bands like King Crimson and King Buffalo and King Princess and Carole King and BB King and Freddie King. Consider the following other long band names of similar length with plenty of syllables:

 

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Paul McCartney & Wings

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention

The Claypool Lennon Delirium

Col. Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade

Rush & the Clockwork Angels String Ensemble

Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble

 

I may have taken some liberties with this list.

 

[treeduck]

Just now, Union 5-3992 said:

 

I'll have no slander to long band names. KGATLW is already iconic and stands out from bands like King Crimson and King Buffalo and King Princess and Carole King and BB King and Freddie King. Consider the following other long band names of similar length with plenty of syllables:

 

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Paul McCartney & Wings

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention

The Claypool Lennon Delirium

Col. Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade

Rush & the Clockwork Angels String Ensemble

Primus & the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble

 

I may have taken some liberties with this list.

 

I suppose I've made up a few myself...

[Stormtron]

1. Gouge Away - Deep Sage
2. MGMT - Loss of Life
3. Kendrick Lamar - GNX
4. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
5. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

[Entre_Perpetuo]

1 hour ago, Stormtron said:

1. Gouge Away - Deep Sage
2. MGMT - Loss of Life
3. Kendrick Lamar - GNX
4. Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
5. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

looooooove that Magdalena Bay album

[Entre_Perpetuo]

My top ten is nearly set and some records in my top 30 are still bouncing around. I’m gonna hold off on laying anything out until I have that top 30 finalized (hopefully by the end of the week), except for one thing:

 

If The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan had been released in 2024, it would have been my favorite album of the year.  Unfortunately for listing purposes, it was released in 2023, but not widely known about until about 9 months later by which point it was summer 2024, and that’s the first time I heard it too.  If I had known about it in its release year, it also would have been my top album of 2023, beating out Kesha, Paramore, and 100 Gecs. If it had released in 2022, it would have gone toe to toe with Panic! At The Disco for my number one spot.  If it had been released in 2021, it probably would have beaten out Weezer and Mastodon for my number one spot. If it had been released in 2020, it would have been second only to my beloved MisterWives.  So basically, you can expect Chappell Roan’s debut album in my top 5 of the 2020s AT LEAST when 2030 rolls around… you know, assuming we still make album rankings in five years.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

EP's TOP 30 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2024

Featuring a tiny anecdote to help illustrate why I like or love each record!

 

 

 

30. Holiday Death Tribute - Holiday Death Tribute

 

The breaks in the second half of Hello, Goodbye, where there's just enough silence between the hits for a well placed whoop!  That's my favorite moment at every HDT show, and my favorite part of their debut album.

 

 

29. Mdou Moctar - Funeral For Justice

 

I love the electric guitar, and Mdou plays it like no one I've ever heard before. Both hypnotic and total lightning in a bottle!

 

 

28. Idles - Tangk

 

This is the only record on my top 30 list I only had time to listen to once. There were many others like it, others which I enjoyed greatly, which I opted not to include.

 

 

27. Thus Love - All Pleasure

 

You can score a lot of points with me just by how engaged I am by the lead singer, and here they are all pleasure to my ears.

 

 

26. Childish Gambino - Bando Stone And The New World

 

Hops genres as much as any classic Queen record, feels alarmingly disjointed as a result, and further broken up by red herringesque (?) clips from the associated, still to be released, movie... and yeah that's what I love about it, lol.

 

 

25. The Smile - Wall Of Eyes

 

Johnny's guitar work on Bending Hectic, right?  I mean the whole thing is great, but c'mon.

 

 

24. You Fool! - What Is The Meaning Of This?

 

The most lusciously produced album from my local scene this year.  If it's threatening snow again where you are, next time it does, put on some nice headphones, and just watch the flakes fall while this is playing.

 

 

23. Kali Uchis - Orquídeas

 

Movement essential to the enjoyment of this album.  Still listeners will have their listening privileges suspended.

 

 

22. Clairo - Charm

 

This was a birthday gift from my younger sister, and it makes me feel so loved! :)

 

 

21. Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us

 

Enough here to dissect for two episodes of a Rick Rubin podcast (and he didn't even produce it), but if I could just zero in on that brief saxophone solo in Classical... happy little squeaks.

 

 

20. Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism

 

This doesn't seem to have popped off the way her last LP eventually did, and I think the problem is people want this to be a loud club record, when it's really a silent disco thing.  Yes, yes, of course you should move to it! But you should also let your mind take a spa day as the synths and clavinets tickle your eardrums. 

 

 

 

19. Opeth - The Last Will And Testament

 

Only Opeth. 

 

 

18. Lake Street Dive - Good Together

 

Just listen to the title track.  If you don't want to hear the rest after that, I cannot help you.

 

 

17. Glass Beach - Plastic Death

 

Let's be real. All record covers as designed for you to judge the record by them, but only some succeed. This is one of them.

 

 

16. Grimm Winter - Grimm Winter Vol. 1

 

I've probably seen more Grimm Winter shows than any other band at this point, but a whole new level of love was unlocked once I could finally hear the lyrics.  These songs fill my heart and move my whole body and evacuate my lungs repeatedly.

 

 

15. Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons

 

Pitchfork thinks this is the best rock album out of DC this past year. Wait... oh let me correct that. Pitchfork thinks this is the best rock album out of the planet Earth this past year.  I do have a few I like more, but it may very well be the most important rock album in the world this past year.  Keep the rhythm...

 

 

14. Billie Eilish - HIT ME HARD AND SOFT

 

Pop radio has Birds Of A Feather on repeat across the country. And they're right to. The only part they have wrong is stopping the record there.

 

 

13. Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To

 

Despite it's appearance, most metal and hardcore isn't really designed to scare people. Not the way say, horror movies or 24 hour news cycles are.  ...Most being the key word.

 

 

12. St. Vincent - All Born Screaming

 

I'm pretty new to St. Vincent, but I feel like I can still say confidently if anyone was going to find a way to invent (reinvent?) funky space punk in 2024, it was her.

 

 

11. Judas Priest - Invincible Shield

 

A denser, more guitar solo heavy sister to 2018's Firepower, which I rank as one of Priest's absolute greatest accomplishments. 

 

 

10. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - of the Last Human Being

 

The things you can find on wikipedia...

 

 

9. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

 

Recommended to me by my old college housemate who lives in San Francisco, and has the single greatest taste in music of anyone I've ever met.  

 

 

8. The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World

 

If, Heaven forbid, The Cure ended forever without releasing either of the follow up albums recorded simultaneous with Songs Of A Lost World, this record would have the distinction of being one of the single greatest swan songs in the history of recorded music.

 

 

7. Porter Robinson - Smile! :D

 

Why am I crying?

 

 

6. Coldplay - Moon Music

 

Yes, I am an absolute sucker for Chris Martin's voice, and frankly most of this album has been so therapeutic for me that I would be lying through my teeth not to include it in my top 10 at least.

 

 

5. Charli XCX - brat / brat and it's the same but there's three more songs so it's not

 

guess

 

 

4. Willow - Empathogen

 

I'm so absolutely floored by every aspect of this album that I don't know what to highlight here. It's like a half an hour long. Come on, I know you have a half an hour.

 

 

3. Twenty-One Pilots - Clancy

 

I don't really need to understand the lore to be sucked into the world building. It's like the Floydian aspects of Trench got punched up by whatever's playing on Tyler's new car radio. Might be my favorite of their honestly killer little discography.

 

 

2. The Last Dinner Party - Prelude To Ecstasy

 

One of a few different records in my top ten that have sat at my number one spot at one point or another.  It's like Fleetwood Mac meeting Queen for tea to discuss booktok and Greek Mythology.  And I just can't bring myself to put this at number one because I can't help but think their next one will be even better!

 

 

1. Another Sky - Beach Day

 

Around late March of 2024, I took a day trip to Virginia Beach.  I had bought a ticket for an early morning greyhound that would arrive just a few blocks from the ocean by 10 am, and I planned to lay down in the sand listening to my hastily compiled eight hour beach playlist and reading my new copy of Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act: A Way Of Being, who's first couple chapters had brought me to the realization that I needed to take this day trip. I needed to get out of the city. Away from my little compressed world defined by the walls of city blocks and broken relationships. I needed to see for miles, to be hypnotized by endless waves as they broke on the shore. I needed to remind myself to have a good life, and to love myself again.  But as I sat there at the end of the day, having poured over my book for hours, strummed away poorly on an underappreciated ukulele, and stared at the line on the horizon, I slowly realized I wasn't going to accomplish all that healing in one day.  So I packed my bag and took an uber to the bus stop that would take me back to DC, hopeful, a little sunburnt, but still discontent.  A couple weeks later this album caught my eye. Beach Day. That was what I had named my hastily made beach playlist. I'd never heard of Another Sky, but Wikipedia cited them as a new progressive rock band out of the UK. Okay, I love prog, and I've been known to let myself be persuaded by coincidence. Why not give it a try?  It starts with the title track, and as the simple opening riff breaks into Catrin Vincent's time stopping voice, I'm starting to think this is no coincidence. I'm gonna have a good life. Worked hard to love the girl who couldn't keep the sun in her eyes, and I'm gonna have a good life. Two thirds of the way in, I pick up my iPod and go directly to iTunes. Even if nothing else on this album comes close to this one song, I need it with me now.  By the time the song ends I've paid my 10 dollars to see it magically appear in my music library, and I play the rest of the album, uninterrupted, from there.  What follows is worth more, and time and time again over the course of the year I return to this album, a little more hopeful each time. A little less discontent.  A little more peace in my heart.  On Christmas Day my family gives me the red vinyl edition to add to my physical collection, and I spin it first of the four albums I have just received (all but one of which now grace my top ten btw).  As it's playing in the family living room, and I'm introducing my sisters to this wonderful music, I know what my favorite album of 2024 has been all along. And really, it isn't even close.

 

 

HONORABLE MENTION:

 

 

Chappell Roan - The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess

 

Okay so I said it wasn't close with Another Sky, which is kinda true. It wasn't close that it was my favorite album of 2024 released in 2024. But there was one album that, had it been released in the same year it blew up and I first heard it, would have shoved everything else out of the way. And it's Chappell Roan. Of course it is. When I said all but one of the records I received as Christmas gifts were in my top ten, this was the one that isn't, and it's literally only because of the 2023 release date.  I can not wait for more, but I will, endlessly if I must.

Edited Monday at 10:05 AM by Entre_Perpetuo

[yyz305]

Big call on Number 1. I'll have to check it out.

Your comment on Songs Of A Lost World are spot on. This album from your list is the only one that cracks my top 10 for 2024. 

Nice effort to elaborate on each of your selections!

[Entre_Perpetuo]

1 minute ago, yyz305 said:

Big call on Number 1. I'll have to check it out.

Your comment on Songs Of A Lost World are spot on. This album from your list is the only one that cracks my top 10 for 2024. 

Nice effort to elaborate on each of your selections!

Thank you!! I’m happy to provide a bit of variety around here, though that does mean I should really get to all these big metal records everyone else seems to have loved, lol.

[yyz305]

35 minutes ago, Entre_Perpetuo said:

Thank you!! I’m happy to provide a bit of variety around here, though that does mean I should really get to all these big metal records everyone else seems to have loved, lol.

I'm guilty of not checking out most of the metal albums that some of our members keep mentioning. My mind/taste isn't there at the moment.

[J2112YYZ]

5 hours ago, Entre_Perpetuo said:

Thank you!! I’m happy to provide a bit of variety around here, though that does mean I should really get to all these big metal records everyone else seems to have loved, lol.

 

If you want to check out some good metal albums from 2024 give Sounds Of The Forgotten by Witherfall and Phontoma by Unleash The Archers a listen. I think this year is already looking better than last year for metal. Lacuna Coil, Epica, Spiritbox, Dream Theater and Jinjer all got albums coming out soon. Testament and Anthrax could have their next albums out this year. Machine Head is also possible. Those three were in the process of recording last year.

Edited Monday at 03:15 PM by J2112YYZ

[Union 5-3992]

12 hours ago, J2112YYZ said:

 

If you want to check out some good metal albums from 2024 give Sounds Of The Forgotten by Witherfall and Phontoma by Unleash The Archers a listen. I think this year is already looking better than last year for metal. Lacuna Coil, Epica, Spiritbox, Dream Theater and Jinjer all got albums coming out soon. Testament and Anthrax could have their next albums out this year. Machine Head is also possible. Those three were in the process of recording last year.

 

Mastodon are also working on a new album. Brann says it'll be a supernatural horror concept album.

[Stormtron]

Good shit, EP. The Knocked Loose album is up there for me too and the Porter Robinson album is my daughter's favorite album of the year.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

40 minutes ago, Stormtron said:

Good shit, EP. The Knocked Loose album is up there for me too and the Porter Robinson album is my daughter's favorite album of the year.

Thanks Stormtron! Oh heck yeah, those two are wicked! You both have awesome taste in my book.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

On 1/13/2025 at 10:41 PM, Union 5-3992 said:

 

Mastodon are also working on a new album. Brann says it'll be a supernatural horror concept album.

Isn’t that what DT is doing?