Year-end lists are tough. I don’t even know how many versions of my top 2024 albums I drafted before settling on this one. It was, originally, a 10 album list. That just wasn’t working, though, so I expanded it to 15 and still ended up cutting a bunch of albums that are fantastic. What I’m getting at is that I’m not going to argue with anyone about what isn’t or isn’t on here. I already spent a few weeks arguing with myself and will probably continue to second-guess every choice until it’s time to make the 2025 list. If you don’t like it, make your own list.
All of these are albums that I like to listen to in full. A few of the picks have songs that turn up in my club sets, but club-friendly music is not a requirement here. I’ll have another list for that and, likely, a mix as well, so keep checking back between now and New Year’s Eve. Until then, read on for my top 15 albums of 2024.
Listen to the Beatique 2024 Year End Mix featuring songs from all these albums and more.
15. Mary Ocher
Your Guide to Revolution
Mary Ocher is a Berlin-based, indie musician whose album delve into big political and societal issues. Your Guide to Revolution is augmented by the essay “A Guide to Radical Living – a no nonsense guide to living comfortably with just enough: Why wealth needs poverty and how to play along.” The essay, which you can download for free on Ocher’s website, resonated with me, so check it out if you have the chance. As for the music, it’s a unconventional and captivating mix of styles. The highlight is “The Rubaiyet Medley,” a three-part psychedelic dance epic that’s a rework of of the composition by jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby, which itself was inspired by the poetry of Omar Khayyam. Ocher plays L.A. in January, so if you’re into the album, click here for show details.
Get Your Guide to Revolution by Mary Ocher
14. Saint Etienne
The Night
You never know quite what to expect with Saint Etienne and I think that’s a reason why I’ve been a fan of this band since I was a young teenager. They’ve made pop songs and house jams and on their 12th album, The Night, the trio offers 14, stunning ambience works made in collaboration with Augustin Bousfield. “Nightingale” is my personal favorite on the album. It’s stripped down, cavernous pop that highlights the melancholy in Sarah Cracknell’s voice. This gem of an album just came out on December 13 and I only heard an advance stream of it a few days prior to that, so it almost didn’t make the list just because of timing and its ranking here is based on only three full listens. I suspect it will be in my regular rotation at home for next year.
Get The Night by Saint Etienne
13. Xeno & Oaklander
Via Negativa (In the Doorway of Light)
Xeno & Oaklander never disappoint. The long-running synth duo dropped Via Negativa (In the Doorway of Light), in mid-November, a time when it’s nearly guaranteed that new music will be buried under the onslaught of year-end lists. But, you only need to listen once to know that Via Negativa is a killer album. It’s an immediate album, where every song is packed with drama and energy. Even its most mellow moments, like album-closer “Strange Fellows” are dynamic.
Get Via Negativa (In the Doorway of Light) by Xeno & Oaklander
12. Geneva Jacuzzi
Triple Fire
I wrote a good amount on Triple Threat, the latest album from Geneva Jacuzzi, when it was released in August, but the tl;dr version is that this is a very L.A. album, both in its sound and its theme, and it slays. If you don’t have Triple Fire in your rotation yet, you should change that asap.
Get Triple Fire by Geneva Jacuzzi
11. Cold Cave
Passion Depression
Back in the day when cars had CD players, I knew that I loved an album because I would just let it lapse as I sat in traffic. A really killer album could easily get three plays on a bad traffic day. Passion Depression, Cold Cave’s latest album, is 2024 equivalent of those albums. I play it repeatedly while doing work-from-home tasks that are as tedious as sitting on the 405 at rush hour and it keeps me from losing my mind to boredom. “Everlasting,” which I’ve already started playing in my DJ sets, and “Hourglass,” which I probably will start playing at clubs soon, are my two favorite songs on the album. Yes, I gravitated to the most New Order-ish songs on the album. That was more or less inevitable.
Get Cold Cave Passion Depression.
10. The KVB
Tremors
Back in April of this year, The KVB released a tremendous new album, Tremors, that seems to have slipped under the radar for a lot of people. It’s really one of the best albums I’ve heard in 2024, but it’s also not an easy-to-categorize release for a duo that’s been tagged “post-punk” for the duration of their career. With the possible exception of “Labyrinths,” Tremors isn’t a post-punk album, at least not in the sense that people use the term now. It’s very much in the Primal Scream rock-meet-electronic, psychedelic-meets-dance niche. IYKYK. And, if you know, you’ll love Tremors. Get it.
9. Daphne Guinness
Sleep
I wrote about Daphne Guinness’ latest album, Sleep, back in July. In the months that have passed, and the more times I have listened to this album, I am convinced that Guinness is a true artist. Sleep doesn’t resonate with me because it’s somehow relatable to my life, but because Guinness’ lyrics are so vivid and her delivery so emotive that it feels like a collection of 3-4 minute movies. She makes me care about the character(s) in her songs, which is not an easy thing to do and— frankly, while I’m on the subject— a whole host of TV and film types could take a few lessons from her too.
8. Ride
Interplay
With little hype, Ride dropped a career best this year. Interplay stands up next to the band’s classics like (my personal favorite) Going Blank Again with an impeccable balance of straight-forward rock songs, like “Peace Sign,” shoegaze jams like “Light in a Quiet Room” and a sublime fusion of both worlds on standouts like “Monaco” and “I Came to See the Wreck.”
7. The Cure
Songs of a Lost World
It’s entirely possible that some people don’t ever recall hearing spooky youth exclaim, “new Cure album out this week!” It’s even more likely that those who once snapped up every new Cure album are now the weird parents of— gasp!— normal kids who can’t even appreciate that Robert Smith is the only bonafide rock star willing to stand up to Ticketmaster. Life moves on, but Smith can still brood better than anyone. On Songs of a Lost World, he drops us in the abyss for 49 minutes and proves that bleak is beautiful.
Get Songs of a Lost World by The Cure
6. Neutrals
New Town Dreams
Today, post-punk is essentially shorthand for bands-who-sound-like-bands-who-sound-like-Joy Division, but, there’s a lot more to it than that. Up in the Bay Area, Neutrals draws from the legacy of late ‘70s and early ‘80s that’s often ignored in the U.S. Neutrals is closer in sound to a band like Josef K, with a sound that’s a little raw around the edges, but not all that dark. I also hear a similarity to The Jam in the way that singer Allan McNaughton is essentially telling stories of the working class. The standout jams on here are “Substitute Teacher” and “Phantom Arcade,” but New Town Dreams is, overall, a real gem. Get it.
Get New Town Dreams by Neutrals
5. Blood Club
lovesick
“No Quiero Bailar” is the Blood Club song that made it into my DJ sets this year and it’s been doing really well at the L.A. clubs. In fact, people have been specifically requesting that song since early last summer. But, I’m here now to tell you that lovesick should be in your regular rotation at home too. Blood Club has a knack for juxtaposing forlorn, distant vocals with energetic new wave-style dance beats. The combo makes for an overall fantastic album with standout tracks including “Pretty When U Cry,” “Kiss and Tell” and “Alone.”
4. La Femme
Rock Machine
The title might throw you off, but “My Generation,” on La Femme’s latest album, Rock Machine, isn’t a cover of The Who. In fact, it’s the inverse of that famed ‘60s jam. Its verses sound like flashbacks, but they aren’t really nostalgic, and, in the chorus, there’s the line, “we are the last generation from the old world.” I feel that lyric deeply. Life is strange when you exist on the cusp of two completely different worlds. You know that the old world wasn’t exactly great, but there were a few things that worked and, for reasons that are too stupid to explain, the stuff that worked was thrown out in the creation of a new world that actually sucks more than the old one. Dudes, I told you it was too stupid to explain. Still, I think La Femme gets that in Rock Machine, with lyrics that are both heavy and tongue-in-cheek, maybe at the same time in songs like “Ciao Paris!,” “I Believe in Rock and Roll” and “Goodbye Tonight.”
3. Molly Nilsson
Un-American Activity
Earlier this year, Molly Nilsson was part of the Via Aurora residency here in Los Angeles. For the program, artists stay at the Pacific Palisades former home of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, who were exiled from Germany during the rise of the Nazis, and then, after World War II, were under surveillance by the FBI and House of Un-American Activities Committee. All that history directly results in Nilsson’s latest album, Un-American Activity, which connects those time periods to today and results in some astounding political indie pop and dance music. Bonus points for the IYKYK L.A. reference in the title of “Point Doom.”
Get Un-American Activity by Molly Nilsson
2. Pet Shop Boys
Nonetheless
I don’t know how the Pet Shop Boys have done it. They’ve been around for over 40 and have a string of 1980s pop hits that now fall into the Forever Banger category and that’s not even their best work. Far from it. Nonetheless, which came out last April, is in the running for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s best work. With producer James Ford at the helm, Pet Shop Boys pull from decades of musical styles— literally everything from mid-20th century lounge music to house— and make sense of it all. Lyrically, Tennant taps into his life story, like on “New London Boy,” gets political on “Love Is the Law” and addresses 21st isolation on “Loneliness.” It might be a little ironic that “Loneliness” is the jam on this album, but that’s the way Pet Shop Boys operate.
Get Nonetheless by Pet Shop Boys
1. Fontaines D.C.
Romance
With Romance, Fontaines D.C. packs a lot of ideas into a 37 minute album and James Ford, who also produced Nonetheless by the Pet Shop Boys, does a stellar job of bringing together so many disparate points of reference throughout these 11 tracks. Plus, there are so many details that pop in and out of each song, from the gasps for breath on “Starbuster” and “Here’s the Thing” to the strings that gently fade in and out on “In the Modern World.”
Truthfully, I can’t stop listening to this album. The flow between the first three songs on Fontaine D.C.’s latest album— “Romance,” “Starburster” and “Here’s the Thing”— is utter perfection. It sucks me in the way a good movie or book does. By the time the final note of “Favorite,” one of the band’s best songs yet, hits, it feels as if no time has passed.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs.
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