Dec 24, 2024
Dec 14,2024
The older I get, the more I appreciate a good list. There's something quite clarifying and definitive about listing stuff from one to whatever. Here are my decisions, now show me yours…
These 24 albums from the last 12 months have much to recommend them or they wouldn’t actually be listed here. Every single one of them soundtracked moments from a year of ups and downs, ins and outs, push and pull.
In an era when tunes and playlists are pop’s loudest lingua franca, it’s reassuring that artists still consider the album to be their most valuable currency. Despite attempts by tech bros and their kin to unbundle tracks from the album setting, the artefact still abides and hurrah for that.
It’s how musicians want to present their work because it’s what they consider to be the best form for a collection of songs. If you want a list of the 24 best NFTs for 2024, you will have to go elsewhere.
The album I kept coming back to when I was compiling this guide was the one at sharp end of the list. Romance is the place where Fontaines DC truly fly. They’ve worked like bejaysus over the last few years – recording, releasing and touring like these are activities about to go out of fashion – but the songs on Romance are next-level, hardcore statements of derring-doing. The band have found a groove and a gait which is all their own, a setting with intent writ large, a sound which will only widen and deepen in coming years.
The other 23 albums also still give me goosebumps and happy memories aplenty. I saw Beth Gibbons playing a show in a lovely theatre in Utrecht and Lives Outgrown provided much of the fabric for that outing. Jamie xx’s In Waves soundtracked so many long car drives up and down the country.
Pigbaby’s baby foxes and me was a tune of rare emotional heft which led smartly to the album. Niamh Regan is becoming a quietly assured national treasure with that surefingered approach to her craft. More people need to start digging what Landless are doing and check out the elegant trad of Córas Trio and start flipping out about Róis.
I love the fact that Kim Deal finally made a solo album after decades in bands and that it turned out to be a humdinger. Kendrick Lamar made a hip-hop record that sounded like a proper hip-hop record rather than a lad going on about his woes like his last one. MJ Lederman is taking all the new-school guitar rock accolades home with him and Kamasi Washington is still taking those giant steps.
Nala Sinephro’s new one is coolness personified, while Ruthven’s songs capture a mood and a moment. Jack White made a secret record and it turned out to be the best thing he’d done in decades. Shabaka Hutching’s new adventures with the flute are producing beautiful shards of sound, while Kelly Lee Owens’ Dreamstate is music for your next series of new gold dreams.
All of this is what the year sounded like for me…
(1) Fontaines DC - Romance
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(2) Ruthven - Rough & Ready
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(3) Nala Sinephro - Endlessness
(4) Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown
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(5) Ezra Collective - Dance, No One’s Watching
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(6) Jamie xx - In Waves
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(7) Landless - Lúireach
(8) Shabaka - Percieve Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace
(9) Niamh Regan – Come As You Are
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(10) Córas Trio - Córas Trio
(11) Kendrick Lamar - GNX
(12) Fabiana Palladino - Fabiana Palladino
(13) Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More
(14) MJ Lederman - Manning Fireworks
(15) Nubya Garcia - Odyssey
(16) Michael Kiwanuka - Small Changes
(17) Villagers - That Golden Time
(18) Róis - Mo Léan
(19) Jack White - No Name
(20) Charli XCX - Brat
(21) Rosie Lowe - Lover, Other
(22) Pigbaby - i don't care if anyone listens to this s**t once you do
(23) Kamasi Washington - Fearless Movement
(24) Kelly Lee Owens - Dreamstate
