// Year End

My favorite albums from 2024

My top albums from 2024. Indie, folk, hip hop, punk, hardcore, emo records and much more! The list you've been waiting for...

My favorite albums from 2024

It’s that time again! Another year is nearly in the books, so that means it is time to take a look at my favorite albums from 2024. (Also see: 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023)

It might just be recency bias, but I feel like there was a LOT of good music this year. Almost every record in my top 20 spent a little time as favorite to be my #1 at some point this year.

Looking at my stats from Last.fm, this year I’ve listened to:

  • 666 artists vs 645 artists in 2023
  • 837 albums vs 825 in 2023
  • 4,189 tracks vs 4,497 in 2023

That’s a lot of music!

My main goal with this list is to find you something new to listen to and love. You (generally) won’t see the same recycled albums you see on every other list, as I do my best to not pay attention to what other music blogs think…

To help with this, I also instituted a basic/simple rating system to help sort the large number of albums I listened to and liked (to some degree) this year. If you are curious, the rating system pretty much came down to me giving a score  to each track on an album:

  • 1, is a track I would probably never listen to again
  • 2, is a track I would listen to again
  • 3, is a track that would make a ‘best of’ song playlist

Then I just took the average of the track scores for the entire album and sorted high to low…thanks to the Collections app (macOS) for helping out with that task.

With that said, the scores generally came out in the order I had collected on Album Whale over the course of the year, so I feel validated – my first impressions were pretty accurate.

Let’s dig into my favorites!

Top 6 Albums of 2024

Liquid Mike - Paul Bunyan's Slingshot

Released: February 2, 2024 on self released

FFO: Sugar, Weezer, Piebald, Power Pop

Your first song: K2

Support: Bandcamp Listen

Spirit of the Beehive - YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING

Released: August 23, 2024 on Saddle Creek Records

FFO: shoegaze X psych rock X slowcore

Your first song: LET THE VIRGIN DRIVE

Support: Bandcamp Listen

Fontaines D.C. - Romance

Released: August 23, 2024 on XL Recordings

FFO: Shame, IDLES, Iceage, The Murder Capital

Your first song: Favourite

Support: Bandcamp Listen

My Method Actor - Nilüfer Yanya

Released: September 13, 2024 on Ninja Tune

FFO: Arlo Parks, Men I Trust, Sudan Archives, Cate Le Bon, Bon Iver

Your first song: Like I Say

Support: Bandcamp Listen

High Vis - Guided Tour

Released: October 18, 2024 on Dais Records

FFO: Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Fiddlehead, Militarie Gun

Your first song: Guided Tour

Support: Bandcamp Listen

Merce Lemon - Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild

Released: September 27, 2024 on Darling Recordings

FFO: Squirrel Flower, Big Thief, Dinosaur Jr.

Your first song: Backyard Lover

Support: Bandcamp Listen