The year is finally 2025 and with 2024 coming to an end, it is time to start talking about the year in review. This past year in music has been absolutely fantastic, with its fair share of classics and big-name releases. Without further ado, here is my recap for 2024 music.
I think when most people look back at this last year in music, the name that will most likely come to mind is Kendrick Lamar. While it was not his best year in terms of quality, Lamar dominated the headlines, specifically with his dispute with Drake and November album GNX.
With “Not Like Us” being dubbed an instant classic, Lamar earned a performance at the Halftime Show of the Super Bowl, considered the biggest stage in the world by many. Lamar’s big year will be talked about decades from now, and it just adds to the insane trophy case that he possesses.
While Lamar controlled the headlines, rap music as a whole saw a great year.
Tyler, the Creator dropped another great album in Chromokopia, an album that sees the Hawthorne rapper at his most mature.
Additionally, Vince Staples released his anticipated Dark Times, his best record to date, highlighted by some of the year’s best tracks, “Black&Blue” and, “Shame on the Devil.” Among these, other great rap albums released this year include rap legend Lupe Fiasco with his project Samurai, an absolutely fantastic return to form, Chief Keef with his long-awaited Almighty So 2, and ScHoolboy Q with the acclaimed BLUE LIPS.
Quadeca, former YouTuber-turned-musician, also released SCRAPYARD, a beautiful and experimental album that attracted lots of attention.
Despite the year being filled to the brim with great rap releases, one stood above them all. This album was JPEGMAFIA’s I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU. The New York rapper put out quite possibly his best album to date in 2024, with easily the most repeatable tracklist of the year, at least for me. With songs like “don’t rely on other men,” “vulgar display of power,” and “JPEGULTRA,” featuring the talented Denzel Curry, JPEG’s producing chops and instantly recognizable rapping made for a hard-hitting and lush listening experience. Also featured on the album is “either on or off the drugs,” a song labeled by many to be the best rap song of the year.
As a whole, rap music saw one of the best years in the genre’s history. While the aforementioned projects were the year’s greatest highlights, there were also many record lows.
Following Drake’s unceremonious and disgusting exit from the beef with Kendrick, he quickly became a feature on Snowd4y’s “Wah Gwan Delilah,” a ‘cover’ of The Plain White T’s iconic “Hey There Delilah.” Instead of the cheesy lyrics that made the original song so beloved, the Canadian rappers made an autotune-filled lump of garbage, brutally stuffed with awful one-liners. The song was so poorly received that as a result, Drake’s eventual return to releasing solo music was a whimper compared to his past success.
The formerly great Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign released two awful albums in 2024, VULTURES 1 and VULTURES 2, a duology of albums so bad that it even alienated most of his own fanbase (besides the participants in the TikTok Rizz Party).
Finally, J. Cole released Might Delete Later, a project released in the midst of the beef with Kendrick and Drake. On this album was a track called “7 Minute Drill,” in which he took shots at Kendrick Lamar.
However, just like the album’s title suggested, he retracted the song, a move that was probably the best move he could have made. Besides that, this project features some of the worst material in the respected rapper’s career, with the most significant moment on the album calling Lamar a “trans fella.” This backfired and Cole did nothing significant for the rest of the year.
In 2024, rock music saw an utterly incredible year, highlighted by future classics, returns from legends, and great debuts.
There were a load of great rock albums that were released this year; so many in fact that if I were to go into detail about each one, it would take me until 2026 to do them justice. So, with that being said, here’s a list of great rock albums that I don’t have much to say about, but are deserving of praise:
- samlrc – A Lonely Sinner
- Maruja – Connla’s Well
- Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us
- Parannoul – Sky Hundred
- Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
- Chat Pile – Cool World
- SENTRIES – Snow as a Metaphor for Death
- The Smile – Wall of Eyes
Even though this year was amazing for rock music, there was one artist who really owned the year, and that was Geordie Greep. Greep is the former frontman for the now broken-up Black Midi, a band that myself and many others thought was one of the best bands in the world before their break up.
In 2024, Greep released his first solo album, The New Sound. This album pushed lots of boundaries, and its magical sound made for one of the most delightful listens I’ve ever had. While it’s not perfect, songs like “Holy, Holy,” and “The Magician” make The New Sound my favorite album of the year.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor returned in 2024, with their magnificent No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead, an instant classic and politically charged post-rock masterpiece, the title referring to the (at the time) number of reported Palestinian deaths. This album is my pick for the most beautiful album of the year, complete with the band’s signature hypnotizing sound, highlighted by the incredible track “BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD.”
Mount Eerie released one of his greatest works this year as well. His album, Night Palace, complete with his signature soft-spoken vocals and gorgeous lyricism, made for one of the biggest statements of the year.
The former Microphones lead singer is no stranger to making fantastic albums, led by 2001’s The Glow, pt. 2 & A Crow Looked at Me. Specifically the songs “I Walk” and “Non-Metaphorical Colonization” are stunning tracks, easily song of the year contenders each.
The Cure came back this year with their first album in sixteen years, and easily the best material they’ve released in at least thirty years with their newest release Songs of a Lost World, a slow yet delightful album that added upon what everybody loved about The Cure in the first place. “Endsong” and “Alone” are both tracks that I come back to frequently, but the rest of the album is great too.
Rock music had a fantastic year, and while it may be hard to follow up, it makes me very excited for next year.
Pop is a genre that I did not listen to a lot of this year, but I think it is still important to mention a pop album that I thought was great upon listening, that being Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Disk. This is a hypnotizing record that’s easily one of the catchiest albums of the year, with most of the songs to this day occasionally getting stuck in my head.
By no means do I view it as a pop masterpiece as many people do, but it’s definitely mention-worthy for being my favorite pop album of the year.
Also released this year was the very bloated TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT by Taylor Swift.
I applaud the people who actually managed to listen to over an hour of this, especially for the even longer anthology version. Taylor Swift is at her most money-hungry here, with what I would say is her worst lyricism to date over extremely boring instrumentals. Other than the collaboration with Florence + The Machine, every single song, and I seriously mean every song, sounds the same as the last. Not to mention the thirty-six separate releases of the album with the sole intent of keeping it at the top of the charts. I have enjoyed Swift’s past works such as Folklore and Red, but this is undefendable.
Charli XCX released the year’s most famous album, BRAT, an energetic and accessible project that gave her the most publicity she’s ever received. To me, BRAT is just alright. I think BRAT is refreshing, and as a movement is interesting, but musically the album isn’t really for me.
Now, what I’m about to do is highlight the greatest songs of the year. I’ve already gone over all the albums that I feel define the year, but what about the individual tracks? Firstly, these are all singles, so no song whose first release is from an album will be included here.
To begin, British post-punk band Maruja released their best song to date, “The Invisible Man,” an astounding song that has one of the most mind-bending instrumentals I’ve heard this year.
Kendrick Lamar’s “meet the grahams” was without a doubt the greatest moment in music all year, with Lamar digging into Drake and his family members a mere half hour following Drake’s diss “Family Matters.”
“Holy, Holy” by Geordie Greep, upon first listen, was good-not great to me, but it quickly grew on me, enough for me to claim it to be one of the greatest songs of the year due to its incredible instrumentation and story.
As for the worst songs of the year, Kanye West’s “BOMB” is complete garbage. One listen of the song will surely make you agree.
Nicki Minaj’s “Big Foot” is a heartless and hard-to-listen-to diss track targeted at Megan Thee Stallion that fails in just about every aspect.
Finally, Lil Mabu, the rich child drill rapper from Manhattan released a dumpster fire of an album this year in YOUNG GENIUS, so I am nominating every song on this album as a contender for worst song of the year.
2024 was an amazing year for music, as well as an amazing year for me. I have had a great time reviewing all this music over the past 366 days, and I can not wait to review even more in 2025.
