There was a little something for everyone in the best albums of 2024. Looking for a carefree, lowkey pop vibe? Try Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine or Kate Hudson’s Glorious. Something a bit more folksy for a Sunday afternoon drive? Maggie Rogers’ Don’t Forget Me, followed by Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us. Whether you’re looking something with the flair of Broadway like Ben Platt or healing the wounds that come from years of shame like Shawn Mendes, there’s something on this list for every type of listener. Scroll on for my picks for the 10 best albums of the year.
Ariana Grande, Eternal Sunshine
Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine tells something of a straightforward narrative throughout its track listing, a quality that isn’t found in her previous work. Indeed, from the opening lines of “Bye” right through the chorus of “Ordinary Things,” the singer is letting go of expectations from all sources, whether they be that of a romantic partner or those she places on herself. Gone is the Grande who once named a track after an ill-fated engagement to a Saturday Night Live star and in her place is an artist who has come into her own by embracing the parts of her creativity that resonate most with her ardent fanbase. “This is a true story about all the lies,” she sings. “I’ll play whatever part you need me to.” But in fact, she’s only playing herself, and that’s the only part any artist needs to play.
Best songs: “Don’t Wanna Break Up Again,” “Eternal Sunshine,” “Supernatural,” “The Boy is Mine,” “Yes, And?,” and “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)”
Kacey Musgraves, Deeper Well
While Deeper Well can be listened to as a companion to Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves is not necessarily trying to recreate its magic formula. Rather, the singer has grown significantly as both a musician and lyricist over the last six years. Musgraves is doing what she does best, which is seeing herself and the world as constantly being in flux and trying to examine her place within it. Unlike Star-Crossed, every song on Deeper Well is sonically similar while managing to be different from the last. Six albums later, Musgraves is still growing and changing while managing to share the best parts of herself through music. Deeper Well is a dreamy escape from the realities of a capitalistic society that prioritizes profit and output over inner peace and mental health.
Best songs: “Deeper Well,” “Too Good to Be True,” “Moving Out,” “Sway,” “The Architect,” and “Anime Eyes”
Maggie Rogers, Don’t Forget Me
Don’t Forget Me, which was recorded in just five days, is a throwback to a bygone era of popular music, when albums that totaled 10 tracks were considered long and sonic gimmicks were considered selling out. The record is definitely more acoustic than any of Maggie Rogers’ previous work in a way that feels welcome and refreshing rather than an erasure of her first two albums as inauthentic. Here, she proves that opening ourselves up to all feelings and experiences, beautiful or ugly, will always be something worth dreaming about. Rogers’ vocal and performance abilities may recall musicians of decades past, but she is still very much a product of her time.
Best songs: “So Sick of Dreaming,” “The Kill,” “If Now Was Then,” “Never Going Home,” “All the Same,” and “Don’t Forget Me”
Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department
A double album coming in at 31 songs, TTPD is an excessive listen, since Taylor Swift isn’t an artist who will fill space with a minute-long interlude into a quick two-minute track. The songs on her latest album are calculated and complete, and the most experimental and ambitious of all her work to date. Swift tries her hand at crafting new pop hooks and production for herself on the first half of the album, while still staying within her proverbial range as a songwriter. The album’s songwriting is rich with metaphors and literary references and takes a minute to digest, but the artistic value is there. Perhaps the culture’s issue with Swift is their constant expectation for her to be something that she’s not: a multi-talented rich white woman. But that’s who she is, and if TTPD shows us anything, it’s that she’s made a respectable career for herself as a musician because of it.
Best songs: “Fortnight,” “The Tortured Poets Department,” “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” “But Daddy I Love Him,” “Guilty as Sin?,” “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” “Clara Bow,” “So High School,” “Thank You Aimee,” and “Peter”
Kate Hudson, Glorious
While Kate Hudson’s foray into music spent most of the year being dismissed as the “very essence of a vanity project,” the pop and soft rock-focused Glorious flew under the radar as 2024’s most pleasantly surprising debut. Hudson’s ethereal vocals transcend what would otherwise be considered lackluster production, signaling the hidden musical talent she had been so eager to express. From evoking a folk-like Adele on “Fire” to the synthy lovestruck “Talk About Love,” Hudson has finally found an outlet to express the other side of her performance abilities. She also showcases her songwriting ability, co-writing all 12 tracks on Glorious and never eschewing lyrical depth in favor of commercial hooks. While the record’s mixed reception proves that the stigma against women in entertainment trying on different hats is still alive and well, Glorious is too busy basking in its own glory to notice.
Best songs: “Fire,” “The Nineties,” “Talk About Love,” “Romeo,” “Glorious,” and “Touch the Light”
Ben Platt, Honeymind
On Honeymind, Ben Platt is mindful that with sun comes rain, with life comes death, with love comes loss. He’s realizing that we can’t have one without the other, that it’s impossible to live without greed, doubt, and even depression. But the album’s central accomplishment is that it recognizes beautifully this cognitive dissonance: that there’s no use in making ourselves feel sadder since sad days will come either way. Here we start to better understand Platt’s own unique perspective, as no two queer people are the same. By tapping into a sense of wonder that the singer doesn’t want to lose, Platt manages to create songs that are completely his own. Even with the malevolent undertone of “Andrew,” Honeymind maintains a deliberately happy-go-lucky spirit, even in moments of self-doubt.
Best songs: “Right Kind of Reckless,” “All American Queen,” “Andrew,” “Cherry on Top,” “Treehouse,” “Fear of Missing Out,” “Shoe to Drop,” “Home of the Terrified,” “Boy Who Hung the Moon,” and “Monsters”
Gracie Abrams, The Secret of Us
When Gracie Abrams released her debut full-length LP Good Riddance just a year ago, it appeared to solidify her as the Gen Z bedroom pop poster girl of the moment. But after being handpicked by Taylor Swift as one of her opening acts on her record-smashing Eras Tour, Abrams found new inspiration and moved away from the sad girl aesthetic, if just for a moment. But the singer proves herself as a versatile musician by stepping outside of her sonic comfort zone, experimenting with folk-pop and country pop on The Secret of Us. Indeed, Abrams isn’t so much following trends as she is showing off different facets of herself: “Risk,” the LP’s lead single, is another classic riff on the adrenaline of feeling too much all at once, a descriptor that can be applied to most of Abrams’ work at large. While it was her collaboration with Swift on “Us” that landed the record a Grammy nomination, The Secret of Us is proof positive that Abrams is more compelling when left to her own devices.
Best songs: “Risk,” “Blowing Smoke,” “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” “Us,” “Free Now,” and “Close to You”
Joshua Bassett, The Golden Years
Joshua Bassett hits his stride on The Golden Years with the type of soft pop songs that are often typical of young singer/songwriters once associated with the Disney brand, but he manages to stand out by at once speaking to his own personal insecurities and then reminding the listener to be proud of all they’ve gone through to get here. He also plays with The Golden Years as a unique period in youth that disappears before we can even greet it properly, regardless of romance. And it turns out that coming to terms with one’s mortality in the face of life’s grand challenges is one theme in music that never goes out of style.
Best songs: “The Golden Years,” “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes,” “Cherry Blossom,” “Circles,” “Little Rita,” “Mirror,” and “Look How Far You’ve Come”
Kelsea Ballerini, Patterns
For better and for worse, Kelsea Ballerini has spent the better part of the last five years as the face of country music’s progressivism, becoming a crossover star in the process. Where 2020’s Kelsea attempted to move the needle, 2022’s Subject to Change was two steps back towards the box that country music tends to place female artists in. Patterns is something of the antithesis of everything the industry has tried to package her as. Whether she’s making amends with family on “Sorry Mom,” acknowledging the parts of herself she can’t change on the title track, or throwing out the guilt of being too much on “Baggage,” Ballerini has finally tuned into what makes her stand out most as a female country singer in 2024: her refusal to be anybody but herself.
Best songs: “Patterns,” “Sorry Mom,” “Baggage,” “Nothing Really Matters,” “Cowboys Cry Too,” and “This Time Last Year”
Shawn Mendes, Shawn
If Shawn Mendes cancelling his last world tour to focus on his mental health was his wake-up call, Shawn is his salvation. Five albums in, the singer has managed to carve out a sound and niche that perfectly belongs to him on his latest LP. Whether it’s mourning the loss of a childhood friend on the ‘70s-inspired soft rock ballad “Heart of Gold” or closing the album with his gentle cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” the singer sounds fully in his element after taking some time away to rebuild and refocus his priorities. Moreover, Mendes has finally learned what it means to be enough. To discover one’s boundaries is a lifelong process, and Mendes has figured out how to turn it into art.
Best songs: “Who I Am,” “Why Why Why,” “Nobody Knows,” “Isn’t That Enough,” “Heart of Gold,” “In Between,” and “The Mountain”
Check out my picks for the best albums of previous years here.
Jeffrey Reads 