Pop
In a vintage year for the giants of contemporary American pop – a field now dominated by young women – 23-year-old Billie Eilish triumphed with an “artistic coming of age”, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. Her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is a “heartbreak masterpiece”, ranking alongside Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” as one of “the all-time great breakup albums”.
Sabrina Carpenter‘s “Espresso” was the “song of the summer”, said Helen Brown in The Independent. Her delicious collection “Short n’ Sweet” confirmed her as a major talent, confidently flipping between “TikTok pop, yacht rock, country and R&B”.
On Taylor Swift‘s ballad-heavy “The Tortured Poets Department”, there were many “great moments”, said Lindsay Zoladz in The New York Times. But at 31 tracks, Swift’s poetry needed an editor.
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When it comes to British artists, none made more impact than Charli XCX. Her album inspired the global pop-culture phenomenon of the year: the party-girl “Brat summer”. Charli XCX records are always filled with euphoric bangers, said Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone, but on this “confessional” collection she “stays out later and goes harder than ever before”.
Although her debut, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”, was actually released late last year, 26-year-old Missouri-born Chappell Roan was “one of the biggest breakout pop stars” of 2024, said The New York Times. The album offers “grand-scale, 1980s-influenced pop”, with a campy drag-queen aesthetic.
Singer-songwriters
At the folky, contemplative end of the spectrum, Laura Marling released the beautiful “Patterns in Repeat”, said Fiona Shepherd in The Scotsman – a “tender pacifier” of an album inspired by childbirth and motherhood. Portishead’s lead singer Beth Gibbons produced a “singular, astonishing” solo debut, 16 years after her band’s most recent album, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. “A dispatch from the darker moments of middle age”, “Lives Outgrown” is “frequently beautiful and invariably gripping”.
Michael Kiwanuka‘s “Small Changes” marked the “exquisite return” of the Mercury Prize-winner – a real talent “at his creative peak”, said Damien Morris in The Observer. The last song, “Four Long Years”, is “a stunning ballad that beautifully answers the question: What if Bill Withers covered Radiohead?”.
MJ Lenderman is a folk-rock songwriter in the tradition of Neil Young or Jason Molina, said Pitchfork. In his “outstanding” fourth album, “Manning Fireworks”, he writes with wit and sincerity about losers and mystics in small Southern towns.
Rap, crossover and jazz
The once rage-fuelled rap of Tyler, The Creator continued to mellow and deepen in fascinating ways on “Chromakopia”, said Thomas Hobbs in The Daily Telegraph, combining introspective lyrics with banging tunes. Released without warning last month, Kendrick Lamar‘s “GNX” is a “meticulous, versatile, hard-hitting masterpiece”, dripping with wit and menace, said Peter A. Berry in Variety. It “immediately eclipsed every rap release this year”.
The reigning queen of R&B, Beyoncé, took an unexpected turn with the “clever, sexy, angry, soulful” country crossover album “Cowboy Carter”, said Neil McCormick in The Telegraph. What holds this sprawling “masterpiece” together is that it honours the black roots of country music, while aiming a “folk-rock hip-hop broadside” at its conservatism. Another class act out to break down genre boundaries was British duo Bob Vylan, said Aliya Chaudhry on NME. “Humble as the Sun” was “electrifying” and “empowering”, gloriously blending hip-hop, rock, grime, punk, rap and trap.
Jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington, an auteur with a long-standing “disregard for divisions between genres”, released the virtuosic “Fearless Movement”, said Ludovic Hunter-Tilney in the FT. On “Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace”, British jazz colossus Shabaka Hutchings swapped his sax for the flute, said John Mulvey in Mojo, and “breathed new life into the New Age”.
Electro and dance
A.G. Cook‘s “Britpop” is a three-disc odyssey through cutting-edge dance and pop, said Tilly Foulkes on NME. “For every track you can imagine blacking out to in a bizarre underground club, there’s a more celestial one just around the corner.”
Ezra Collective‘s “Dance, No One’s Watching” edges the jazz-led Londoners further towards “hard funk, dub, neo-soul, Afrobeat and highlife”, said Ben Lee, also on NME. Confidence Man‘s “3AM (La La La)”, saw the Australian electro-pop band fully embrace dance, said Will Richards in Rolling Stone. It is “the most fun you’ll have all year”.
Rock and indie
It was a year of sensational comebacks for some elder statesmen of British rock and indie. The Cure‘s “Songs of a Lost World” was the band’s first album for 16 years – and their best since the 1980s, said Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. The record is the “most straightforwardly personal” that Robert Smith has ever written – infused with grief, powerful, and “possessed of a dark beauty”. Peter Gabriel left even longer between albums – 21 years, said Helen Brown in The Independent. His “i/o”, a celebration of the natural world, proved a “sublime” triumph, full of “gut-churningly hypnotic” basslines and “bombastic bangers”.
Another veteran prog rocker, David Gilmour (four years Gabriel’s senior at 78) returned with the ruminative and melodious “Luck and Strange”. The Pink Floyd star’s first album for nine years proved he can “still drip hi-def liquid mercury from his fretboard”, said Brown. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were also on great form: “Wild God” was a “widescreen, uplifting” collection, said Will Hodgkinson in The Times – nine “rich and involving” songs with shades of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
Two exceptional young British groups announced themselves with stunning debuts. The London-based all-female quintet The Last Dinner Party – “hailed as the heirs to everyone from Kate Bush to Sparks to Roxy Music” – delivered on their vast promise with a smart but fun collection, “Prelude to Ecstasy”, said Poppie Platt in The Daily Telegraph. All “curtsy to the new queens of pop”. Also staking a claim to future greatness were the Leeds four-piece English Teacher, led by frontwoman Lily Fontaine. “This Could Be Texas” was “everything you could want from a debut”, said Andrew Trendell on NME. Melding post-punk, indie rock and witty pop, it was a “truly original effort from start to finish”.
“Romance”, the fourth album from Dublin rockers Fontaines D.C., had a melodic and lush feel while sacrificing none of the band’s potency, said The Irish Times. An “incredibly compelling” collection, it should propel them to “arena-sized” success.
“What a Devastating Turn of Events” was an irresistible debut from London’s Rachel Chinouriri, said Damien Morris in The Observer. She sings in a “hushed, husky voice” originally developed so as not to disturb her Zimbabwean parents; and “ideas spill out of every crammed corner of this collection”. The new wave “indie queen” promises even greater things to come.
Brittany Howard, of Alabama Shakes, returned with “What Now”, her “outrageously great” second album, said Kitty Empire in The Observer. She mixes “dancefloor bangers” with vintage soul and funk on a record that “never puts a foot wrong”.
Classical
Aged just 20, South Korea’s Yunchan Lim is a “prodigiously gifted” pianist, said Andrew Clements in The Guardian. Lim’s debut studio recording offered breathtakingly brilliant accounts of Chopin’s “Études”.
His technique is “dazzlingly immaculate” and his musical impulses are “startlingly original”. In the autumn of an illustrious career, Simon Rattle has delivered a “deeply impressive” recording of Mahler’s “harrowing” “Sixth Symphony” with the Bavarian RSO, said Edward Seckerson in Gramophone. This is “plainly the product of journeying with it over many decades”: a work of vision and “extraordinary artistry”.
The youthful cantatas written by Handel in Rome proved a glorious showcase for the young British soprano Nardus Williams, a “shining star”, said Geoff Brown in The Times. Singing these solos is “not for the fainthearted”, but Williams “sails through” them with “thrilling aplomb”.
