The best albums of 2024 challenged orthodoxies, blended and created new genres, and spanned a vast range of musical styles and traditions, while looking forward.
In Brazilian pop, it’s hard not to connect the best music released in 2024 with the themes that dominated politics, culture, and social media discussions.
The best experimental albums highlight the breadth of human expression and take listeners to heretofore unknown realms in music, pushing boundaries.
The year’s best album re-issues include rock legends, essential R&B artists, classic pop, jazz, alternative rock, global beats and so much more.
The genre rediscovery via TikTok during the first stages of the pandemic has been going on long enough that we might consider it a Shoegaze Revival Revival.
Artists worldwide have been exploring the visionary potential of electrical instruments in all manner of new and novel ways to create psychedelic music.
As always, rock was a guitar-led extravaganza in 2024 with artists drawing from an ever-widening musical well. These are the 25 best rock albums of the year.
This was another year of riches in the best jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away.
Thematically, much of this year’s best punk and hardcore music addressed mental health and working through the past while striving for a more peaceful present.
Americana has never been better with the quality of music, diversity of styles, and the artists’ demographics in terms of race, gender, and wealth.
The year’s best folk albums transcend genre boundaries, yet each entry remains firmly grounded in the folk ethos of connection and storytelling.
In 2024’s best global music, celebrations of culture abound, with performers playing with sounds of home and family from the Caribbean to Tanzania and beyond.
