My 10 Favorite Albums of 2024

Of course Pearl Jam is on here

It’s that time of year! List-making season is upon us. Here’s my picks for some of the best new albums I listened to in all of 2024. Mostly, I stayed extremely on brand.

#10: “Leon,” Leon Bridges

Fort Worth’s favorite son (he now has a day named for him in Panther City) made a record that was about Fort Worth, but also about how far Bridges has come in his musical journey. Soulful, sweet, a little bit melancholy, and perfect to dance to: the Leon Bridges guarantee.

#9: The “Challengers” score, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

This ended up leading my Spotify Wrapped this year because I could not stop listening to “Yeah x10” on a loop while I worked. This is Reznor and Ross’ best score since “The Social Network,” and besides being a great listen, it does a lot of heavy lifting for key moments of the movie.

#8: “Twisters: The Album,” Various Artists

I’m not made of stone. You give me a modern Red Dirt-themed soundtrack with everyone from Flatland Cavalry, Charley Crockett and Leon Bridges to Miranda Lambert, Luke Combs and Jelly Roll, and I’ll listen. The only misstep was not including any Turnpike Troubadours songs on a soundtrack for a movie about tornadoes.

#7: “Live, Vol. 1”/”Highway Prayers,” Billy Strings

The live album shows why Strings is the future of bluegrass music; the studio album makes an argument for country and rock as well. An absolute powerhouse whom I hope to see perform live sometime.

#6: “Short n’ Sweet,” Sabrina Carpenter

As my former boss puts it, Sabrina Carpenter is “Mae West reincarnated as a 5-foot-tall Disney Channel refugee.” The vertically-challenged pop star and her double entendres won me over with “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” this summer, and the country stylings of “Coincidence” and “Slim Pickins” call to mind Dolly Parton, if Parton had come of age with the internet.

#5: “Radical Optimism,” Dua Lipa

Another great, straight-down-the middle pop record, this time about always finding the good in every situation (“Maria,” one of the standouts of the album, is a thank you to a partner’s ex for helping them become a better person).

I think I’ll always have a soft spot for Ms. Dula Peep after she soundtracked my first real “night out” once Covid restrictions were lifted a few years ago (tipsy dancing to “Levitating” without a care in the world? Heavenly). Also, her Tiny Desk performance? Infectious.

#4: “The Fear of Standing Still,” American Aquarium

The saddest man in country music returns with an album full of bangers about mortality, Cherokee purples, positive masculinity, Dale Earnhardt, and how gorwiing old is a privilege, but a sad one. Raise Hell, Praise Dale, Death is coming for us all. Live it up while we can.

#3: “GNX,” Kendrick Lamar

“new kendrick dropped” was the variation of the text I got in various group chats the day this album came out. I thought he was just putting out a new single doubling down on the scorched-earth onslaught that was “Not Like Us.”

It was that, and so much more. “GNX” combines every other Kendrick album before it into a new sound, one that highlights new voices as much as it recalls Kendrick’s influences. I haven’t been able to get “MUSTAAAAAARDDDD” out of my head, and the first time I heard “reincarnated,” I stopped in my tracks. Can’t wait to see what he’s got planned for the Super Bowl.

#2: “Dark Matter,” Pearl Jam

The best PJ’s sounded since “No Code,” in my opinion. “Waiting For Stevie” somehow encapsulates the spirit of Chris Cornell and the history of grunge while moving the band’s sound forward, and the title track is the hardest they’ve sounded in years.

#1: “Passage du Desir,” Johnny Blue Skies/”9/24/24 Moorhead, MN,” Sturgill Simpson

“Dark Matter” held the top spot on this list for a long time, right up until it was announced that Sturgill Simpson would release his sixth studio album under a new name: Johnny Blue Skies. Would the new sound be rock? Country? R’n’B? Techno?

Always one to play with expectations, Simpson returned with an album that both sounded nothing like anything he’d done before, yet completely tracked as something he’d put out. Some jam band rock, some Jimmy Buffett-lite, an 8-minute song about an old friend’s death.

Where you can really hear the full vision come together is on the bootlegs of Simpson’s latest tour, which feature new interpolations of all of Simpson’s catalog, including “Passage” and more from “Sound & Fury,” which got its tour cut short because of the pandemic. The Minnesota bootleg mentioned above features a “Purple Rain” cover and ends with Simpson trying to wrap up the three-hour-long show before curfew: “We mighta just got fined, but fuck it.” Great to have him back.