In our age of algorithmically-tailored listening habits, it’s difficult to hail any particular year as a unifying, culture-wide classic. One listener’s brilliant Brat summer might be another’s Oasis-entrenched ticket gouging nightmare and, bar the odd brief trending hashtag, one might barely hear about the other. Nonetheless, in music, 2024 gave us everything we could’ve hoped for.
Bright, new, often female-led bands (English Teacher, The Last Dinner Party) raced from social media hype to Mercury Prize glory at a hearteningly breakneck pace. Pop queens (Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Beyoncé) continued to stretch the boundaries of mainstream structures and sonics. The revered old school (Nick Cave, The Cure, The Smile, Kim Deal) released career-high albums that reasserted their roles as restless pioneers. Rap’s leading lights, both conscious and confrontational – (Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator) kept pushing the boundaries of beat to a Drake-riling degree. And enduring alternative names (Vampire Weekend, Bright Eyes, Fontaines DC) pressed ever forward, the firing pistons of the cultural engine.
