20. Maggie Rogers – Don’t Forget Me (Capitol)
“I’m still tryin’ to clean up my side of the street,” declares Maggie Rogers on the title track to her third studio album, Don’t Forget Me. Where many viewed her sophomore record Surrender as a release of eclectic energy built up over the isolation of the pandemic, Rogers’ latest LP is a soft and breezy return to the musician we met on her debut studio effort Heard It in a Past Life. Indeed, Don’t Forget Me follows the classic third studio album concept from any up-and-coming singer-songwriter: She blew us away with her debut record, showed us what more she could do on her second, and now she’s ready to be herself on her third. – Jeffrey Davies
19. Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well (MCA Nashville / Interscope)
“I’m sayin’ goodbye to the people / That I feel are real good at wastin’ my time,” sings Kacey Musgraves on the title track to her sixth studio album, Deeper Well. “No regrets, baby, I just think that maybe / You go your way, and I’ll go mine.” Taken at face value, the song reads as a kind of sequel to “Slow Burn”, the opening track of Musgraves’ largely successful fourth LP Golden Hour, which won her the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. This, in turn, marks a return of the folksy, down-home version of Kacey Musgraves that listeners, even outside country music fandom, have come to know and love.
While Deeper Well can be listened to as a companion to Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves isn’t necessarily trying to recreate its magic formula. Instead, the singer has grown significantly as a musician and lyricist over the last six years. Musgraves is doing what she does best: seeing herself and the world as constantly being in flux and trying to examine her place within it. – Jeffrey Davies
18. Maude Latour – Sugar Water (Warner Records)
After the viral single “One More Weekend” and multiple legs of live shows, Maude Latour offers her long-awaited debut album, Sugar Water. She describes the record as “a theory, a hypothesis, an argument for a way of being”, explaining that the title refers to life itself as a brief drop of sugar water between two unknowable oblivions. Throughout the 12 songs, Latour offers a manifesto for a more mystical way of being. Even without the aggressively catchy hooks of the genre’s heaviest hitters, Latour delivers a succinct and realized vision of grandiosity and wonder. With a debut this decisively cohesive and self-assured, it’s impossible not to love Latour just as hard in return and follow her on her journey through the Universe, wherever it leads. – Rachel R. Carroll
17. Dua Lipa – Radical Optimism (Warner)
With the help of Kevin Parker and Danny L. Harle, Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism sounds like Tame Impala meets PC Music and goes to headline Glastonbury. It’s easy to focus solely on Parker’s production in Radical Optimism, which would not be correct. Still, writing only about Lipa’s authorship of this record would be equally unfair. Regardless of the percentage of contributions, this is a win-win for both the co-creators and, more importantly, for the indie scene and pop music. The former gains another precedent for the successful reinvention of stadium-worthy hits with indie music tools, and the latter is really diverse and sophisticated production. – Igor Bannikov
16. CXLOE – Shiny New Thing (Independent)
CXLOE is the biggest pop artist you have never heard of. She has toured arenas across Australia alongside Maroon 5 and opened for Sugababes as part of WorldPride. Her music boasts over 200 million streams on digital platforms, with “Show You” being named an essential song in the history of Australian pop music. Rolling Stone recently crowned her an “alt-pop star” who is one of the country’s “most-watched music exports”. However, none of these achievements lessen CXLOE’s anxiety regarding her place in a competitive independent music market.
On her debut album, Shiny New Thing, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter toys with the question of an expiry date for her ambitions. “Am I going to make it?” she asks on the pulsating title track, affecting the same cool detachment as fellow Antipodean Troye Sivan, “I’ve got nothing left to lose”. Her desperation plays out on the dancefloor, describing a Faustian bargain for commercial success in a nu-disco rush: “I’ll be your shiny new thing, I’ll do things I don’t mean,” she purrs with ironic abandon, caught somewhere between giving up and giving in. – Chris Rutherford
15. Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft (Interscope)
Billie Eilish‘s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, belies her young age. At just 22, the singer-songwriter has a deep, mature soul that is special for someone so young. The two-time Oscar and nine-time Grammy-winning performer has established herself as an essential artist, distinguishing herself from other young pop singers with an indelible knack for songcraft. Hit Me Hard and Soft builds on the excellence of her previous efforts with some of her most interesting and engaging work.
Justly embraced by critics upon its release, Hit Me Hard and Soft shows Eilish (and her longtime collaborator Finneas O’Connell) stretch her creativity and sound palette, finding moments of Joni Mitchell-eque introspection, while also making space for groovy pop and shiny synthpop. “Birds of a Feather”–arguably one of the singer’s strongest songs ever–is a gorgeous, moving paean to 1980s-influenced synthpop. “L’amour de ma vie” is an ingratiating jazz-pop pastiche, and the hypnotic “Lunch” sports a sinewy groove while exploring and celebrating Eilish’s sexual fluidity. All of the songs on Hit Me Hard and Soft feature Eilish’s distinct vocalizing, an airy, ethereal style of singing that allows her voice to flit and float over the music. – Peter Piatkowski
14. Halsey – The Great Impersonator (Columbia)
In the 18 days counting down to The Great Impersonator’s release, Halsey teased each track one at a time alongside different immaculately recreated cosplays as different acts throughout the decades who inspired her. Though some sonic through lines are distinctly easy to trace, like Fiona Apple‘s influence on “Arsonist”, or the Bruce Springsteen-eqsue opening to “Letter to God (1983)”, these songs aren’t meant to be 1:1 replicas. Instead, the album offers homage to how a lifetime of varied experiences and musical inspirations can overlap within one person.
Herein lies The Great Impersonator’s greatest strength: Halsey achieves a level of honesty so sprawling that it gives the record the ability to hold contradiction. Halsey has never needed anything more than a pen to debilitate her fans with heart-wrenching truths (check out her poetry collection I Would Leave Me If I Could if you want proof), but production choices underscore the music’s vulnerability to devastating effect. – Rachel R. Carroll
13. Laetitia Sadier – Rooting for Love (Drag City)
With ten tracks and a duration of 42 minutes, Laetitia Sadier‘s Rooting for Love is an exploratory work that never settles into a single groove or unified message despite its residing theme. This assessment is not to say that it is inconclusive or uncommitted. Similar to her past work with Stereolab, which regrouped in 2019, Sadier uses pop music as a vehicle for social criticism. In this instance, Rooting for Love approaches the title subject from different perspectives to decenter strictly romantic versions of love. But more than this, she sees love as a solution for our contemporary ills, whether personal, political, or planetary. For Sadier, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Rooting for Love is not Marxist by any crude stretch, but Sadier still beholds a radical worldview, with love’s potential to enable revolution by other means. – Christopher J. Lee
12. Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown (Domino)
Releasing a solo debut under your own name over 30 years into a music career will give people pause. It’s nearly impossible not to read it as a personal statement, declaring, “This is me, this is who I am,” which is especially tantalizing with a figure as shadowy and enigmatic as Portishead‘s Beth Gibbons.
Lives Outgrown is less of a departure and reinvention and more of a consolidation of everything Gibbons has done since releasing Portishead’s defining two LPs in the 1990s. Sonically, it’s closest to the last album released under her own name, 2002’s Out of Season with Talk Talk’s Paul Webb, contributing under the name, but with a hint of the challenging modern classical she explored on Henryk Mikołaj Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Like Out of Season, Lives Outgrown is opulent with strings, woodwinds, and an honest-to-goodness children’s choir, creating a gorgeous jeweled setting for Gibbons’ spectral folk transmissions while ghostly choruses murmur and wail in the wings. It’s a haunted garden that’s twice as lovely for its poison and shadows. It’s also a stunning achievement in one of the most interesting and uncompromising careers of the last 30 years. – J. Simpson
11. Ariana Grande – Eternal Sunshine (Republic)
Even if Ariana Grande weren’t starring in one of the biggest movies of 2024, it would be a banner year for the pop songbird. Even though her seventh album, Eternal Sunshine, is somewhat overshadowed by Grande’s upcoming performance in the film version of Wicked, it proved to be the songbird’s best work. Not merely a showcase for her three hit singles – “Yes, And?”, “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” and “The Boy Is Mine” all hit the Top 20, with the first two going to number one – Eternal Sunshine is a near-perfect pop tale of love and heartbreak.
Featuring high-profile collaborators, including legend Max Martin, Eternal Sunshine is a shimmery, multi-textured record with influences of 1980s new wave, 1990s house, and millennial urban pop. Grande’s voice is a constant marvel, all light and strength: a hummingbird crossed with an eagle. On the summery “Bye”, Grande dismisses an errant lover, but it’s the sweetest breakup, all 1970s soul pop, and the soulfully poignant “Imperfect for You” is moving and oh so vulnerable. The best moment is “Yes, And?” which invites the audience to the club. The breadth and depth of Eternal Sunshine show off an artistic confidence that’s bracing and impressive. – Peter Piatkowski