Albums I Liked This Year: 2024

Here is a list of albums I liked this year, and some brief thoughts on them.

Bleachers, Bleachers/A Stranger Desired

2021’s Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night remains one of my favorite albums of all-time, so it’s challenging to imagine a better Bleachers album. Their two releases in 2024, Bleachers and the reimagined version of their 2014 debut album, A Stranger Desired were both great, and worth the spins I gave them this year.

Beyonce, Cowboy Carter

I have a polarizing relationship with Beyonce albums. To be kind, I did not like 2022’s Renaissance. But Cowboy Carter had me at hello. Not only are there some absolute bops on here, but the mixed use of vocals and guitar, along with the storytelling within the songs, is masterful. Throw in a great reimagining of “Blackbird,” and some appearances by Dolly and Willie, and I had this album on heavy rotation this year.

Maggie Rogers, Don’t Forget Me

I consider Maggie Rogers the Sarah McLachlan of the 21st century, and I’m okay with that. Her music is super chill and palatable, and I was going to put this album in my Honorable Mentions, until I realized how much I had listened to it and how well I knew all of the songs. That’s really all I can ask for of a good album, so here we are.

Pearl Jam, Dark Matter

Hands down, this was my favorite album of 2024. I can always count on Pearl Jam for a solid rock and roll album, and Dark Matter did not disappoint. I couldn’t stop listening to this album this year, through a torrid election season and a bleak result. We’ll get through it together.

Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department

Tortured Poets is Taylor Swift’s worst album.

That’s not saying much, since I’m not confident this woman could create anything particularly bad. But - it’s too long (the full anthology clocks in at 31 songs and over 65 minutes of music, which I’m sure came in handy for Surprise Songs to tap for the remaining eight months of Eras touring Swift had ahead of her when the album was released). You have to know the backstory of Taylor and Matty Healy in order for most of the songs to make sense (an opinion I officially had for months before The New York Times released this article referencing this issue with today’s pop music). Musically, there’s nothing new happening on Tortured Poets - most of the songs sound like rejects from the folklore/evermore era.

Tortured Poets, to me, seemed like fan service from Swift, as she used the music to explain the ending of her six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn and her fortnight tryst with The 1975’s Matty Healy (I’ll spare you the backstory on all of this; you can Google it). It appears to be an act of voyeurism with which Swift herself was less than comfortable (or, so say the lyrics of TTPD songs like “But Daddy I Love Him” and “How Did It End?” among others). As a fan, it’s a little gross to think that we wanted this from her - that she needs to explain literally anything to any of us. Except, maybe that was the whole point. Even in the final track on the anthology, “The Manuscript,” she claims “The story isn’t mine anymore.”

TTPD, for its seeming shark-jump (I stole that moniker for this album from a friend), also contains some of Swift’s best songwriting, which is why I’m giving it praise this year. Songs like “Peter” and “loml” had me gutted, and “Guilty As Sin” contains some of the best musical religious imagery I’ve ever heard (and religious imagery in music is a secret fave of mine).

Part of liking an artist means being objective about what they produce. I adore Taylor Swift, but that doesn’t mean everything she churns out is perfect or The Best. If I’m ranking Swift’s albums, TTPD is at the bottom of my list. No apologies.

Gracie Abrams, The Secret of Us

Earworm of the year goes to Gracie Abrams, for “That’s So True,” with the help of TikTok. I loved this album - way poppier and much more upbeat than her previous work. Abrams is coming into her own as an artist, and it’s exciting to watch. Also, brownie points for me for taking until this year to realize Abrams is 100% Nepo Baby. Ugh.

Halsey, The Great Impersonator

This album made my top three for the year. A concept album, based on Halsey emulating multiple decades of female artists and music, it’s an amalgam of various styles and song types that all come together to make a great album. During the promotion and lead-up to the album’s release, Halsey posted homages (including photos, which were fantastic) to the artists she’s emulating in many of these songs (Stevie Nicks, Tori Amos, Bjork, Britney Spears). The music is impeccably written, as none of it feels like a copy. In the first days of promotion, I was obsessed with this song (“Lonely is the Muse”). It sounds plucked straight out of 1996’s last gasp of the layered female grunge days.

Honorable Mentions

Sabrina Carpenter, Short n’ Sweet: I take issue with Sabrina Carpenter’s excessive (and seemingly needless) - ahem - facial updates - and her Marilyn Monroe/Madonna-circa-1994’s-Bedtime-Stories ambiance with which she’s rolled out this album. Please please please do not bring back 90s Pick Me Feminism (I made up this label, by the way) because I cannot take it. I labeled Sabrina’s genre of music (and the overall trending vibe of today’s pop music) “Yacht Pop” (which I also made up), and while I liked 76% of this album, I cannot in good faith move it out of the Honorable Mentions category.

Other Honorable Mentions: Girl in Red, I’m Doing it Again Baby (not as good as her debut), Maya Hawke, Chaos Angel (another Nepo Baby that’s growing on me), The Decemberists, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (I didn’t enjoy this as much as I thought I would), Jack White, No Name (a surprise drop that’s a solid rock album, but otherwise unremarkable), Smashing Pumpkins, Aghori Mhori Mei (it’s the first album I haven’t hated since 2018’s Shiny and Oh So Bright), Foster the People, Paradise State of Mind (I was just so excited they released something new for the first time in seven years!), Susanna Hoffs, The Lost Record (this was solid, but I didn’t give it as much love as I should have - lots of shelved tracks that ended up on The Bangles’ 2004 album, Doll Revolution, which I spun a lot in 2004)