well_2024: NO
END OF YEAR ROUNDUP TIME: IT IS TIME TO PRESENT uhhhh the weaker half of the 191 albums I rated this year enjoy |
92 |  | KILLING JOKE KILLING JOKE
For anyone new to this format, the drill here is that I go over every single album I've rated this year, relisten to at least some of most of them, sort the wheat from the chaff and blurb the whole lot over two lists.
This is obviously the NO list, the chaff list, the not-good-enough-for-the-YES-list list, and it contains *among other things* the most irredeemably trash albums I've heard this year. However, my feelings on around half of these are lukewarm to vaguely positive; the top ten or so here are 3.5s, as are the bottom 50 or so of the 100 albums on the YES list. So, uh, wow, discuss - but don't treat this as a unilateral flamefest plz and thanks. I'll be splitting the list into three tiers (awful/meh/kinda good) for clarity enjoy good luck. |
91 |  | Boundaries Death Is Little More
TIER #3: ABSOLUTELY NO
#191 (Worst Album of the Year)
...and just when you thought this site's death grip on derivative metalcore garbage with dogshit songwriting, a zillion layers of copout vocal distortion and unlistenable production could get no more desperate, let me bring you the worst album of the year. most brutal thing about this trash is the level of brickwalling. delete it and be ashamed of yourselvess. |
90 |  | Jeremy Renner Love and Titanium
#190
yes this may be terrible, but it gets a *slight* pass for not being music |
89 |  | Northlane Mirror's Edge
#189
lol this fucking band are doing themselves absolutely no favours in trying to be creative |
88 |  | Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign Vultures 1
#188
"This is all to say, those wondering if the music at hand could somehow possibly explain or rise above his antisemitic views, the answer is the obvious one: no, of course not. And that’s kind of a damn shame, because the music in question is mostly quite interesting and good"
why on earth are we still sending out literate writers to play damage control for this sack of shit and his washout clutches at listenable music |
87 |  | Ice Spice Y2K!
#187
the muted wave of apologists for this share a deep spiritual connection with the people still writing comments on yt videos for the pusssycat dolls in 2024, and it breaks my heart that i will not be one of them this time around |
86 |  | Four Stroke Baron Data Diamond
#186
guitar band taking the tiniest of steps out of their comfort zone and immediately faceplanting -moment |
85 |  | Counterparts Heaven Let Them Die
#185
counterparts get tired of their music being mid for the reasons all counterparts is mid and start playing it actively awful for the reasons all other edgecred jankwriting core is awful |
84 |  | Vampire Weekend Only God Was Above Us
#184
most punchable record of 2024 |
83 |  | Bladee Cold Visions
#183
looking forward to darwinism doing away with this entire online subculture |
82 |  | Bleachers Bleachers
#182
second most punchable record of 2024 |
81 |  | Camila Cabello C, XOXO
#181
I'm not remotely secure enough in my braincell count to risk relistening to this |
80 |  | Cigarettes After Sex X's
#180
recycled cocktail of festering teenage horninesss and bloodflow-prohibitive levels of depresssion makes for a slam dunk and a half for hipster impotence |
79 |  | Indigo De Souza Wholesome Evil Fantasy
#179
please stop this halfarsed lofi downward spiral, sharpen your songwriting back up and go back to making killer indie pop as on Any Shape You Take, I beg |
78 |  | Bring Me The Horizon POST HUMAN: NeX GEn
#178
my first thought is "well if the kids are happy"
my second thought is to burn this band of fuckhead shills at the stake for their endless piss-thin fetishisation of mental illness and see if it teaches them to write a decent chorus |
77 |  | Balance and Composure with you in spirit
#177
i refuse to believe a single person on earth has ever sung like this naturally |
76 |  | meth. Shame
#176
rare for a record this heavy to be this inoffensively brain-erasingly boring above all else, but |
75 |  | A Place For Owls how we dig in the earth
#175
the 10000th band of its kind this site would better serve by sponsoring for a box of tissues and a damien rice CD instead of mirthlessly enabling |
74 |  | Fennesz Mosaic
#174
ambient/drone's most frustrating guitar rat lays down a handful of overdriven farts over deeply tired chord progressions — anyone who eats this kind of unimaginative dreck up, go wild |
73 |  | Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department
#173
one step closer to heaven for her career, one giant leap into the waste paper bin of your nearest diarist karen for her artistry |
72 |  | Taylor Swift The Tortured Poets Department (Anthology)
#172
this one being twice as long and precisely one place higher on this list tells you everything else that's wrong about taylor swift in 2024 |
71 |  | Zach Bryan The Great American Bar Scene
#171
has enough blood in its veins to raise the bar on his chore of a s/t, but this guy is still an interminable cornball |
70 |  | NAILS Every Bridge Burning
#170
stale sweatstain. the longest quarter of an hr you could spend on anything this year |
69 |  | Tomato Flower No
#169
thank you robertsona for recommending me this charmless hipster swill? |
68 |  | Home Counties Exactly As It Seems
#168
insufferable but admittedly catchy Windmill pop from a duo who desperately need to find something more worthwhile to sing about than the gentrification of Hackney. similar cloying sense of meticulously engineered pop to Magdalena Bay with the addition of punchable guy vox |
67 |  | Casey How to Disappear
#167
(comparatively) competent lyricism for this style of music wasted on the year's most forgettable alt rock songwriting |
66 |  | Parannoul Sky Hundred
#166
one climactic pity party too many for this patron saint of slowly disappearing e-boys |
65 |  | The Smile Wall of Eyes
not quite the retirement party anyone had planned for this gang of paranoid uncles |
64 |  | Lightning Bug No Paradise
#164
most forgettable album of the album of the year in every sense other than being one of its biggest disappointments |
63 |  | Wild Pink Strawberry Eraser
#163
the Wild Pink full-length LP this year was actually pretty solid, easily enough to explain why this EP sits as such a throwaway |
62 |  | Kacey Musgraves Deeper Well
#162
pastoral folk for people who like their pastures to sound like their grandparents' back yard |
61 |  | Infant Island Obsidian Wreath
#161
There is only so much homogenous 'cinematic' blasting of minor thirds over breakneck rhythms, baby skramz and shit-tier production I can handle, and this right fucking here is the limit. One of the year's great false starts in terms of hype trains |
60 |  | Ulver Liminal Animals
#160
Huge RIP to Tore Ylvisaker, but this is some washed hookless shite from a great band that once would have known better. Really no into how stagnant they sound all over this or how they've totally lost whatever command they once had of the ear candy pop music exists for. Fuck ye off and evolve, nerds |
59 |  | Japandroids Fate and Alcohol
#159
espousing every conceivable ideal of mediocre guitar music throughout your career inevitably comess with a washed-out perfunctory breakup record, i guess |
58 |  | Better Lovers Highly Irresponsible
#158
ETID's engine room proves again that the worst producer in metalcore + a king-sized testosterone crash were far from the best solutions to the demise of their mothership. the core ingredients are all there (along with a handful of heinously bad melodic forays), but the energy just does not translate and this style of seethe-til-I-die lyricism has become tiresome as anything. Get over yourselves! |
57 |  | Dua Lipa Radical Optimism
#157
bland and thin on personality as all Dua Lipa's material, but Training Season really was one of her finer moments. missed opportunity of an album conceptually, baffling to think of how many unused songs and forensic production back and forths went into this |
56 |  | JPEGMAFIA I Lay Down My Life For You
#156
some neat backend highlights on this, sadly self-sabotaged by performatively trash guitar rap bullshit and however much other jank jpeg apparently needed to get out of his system. StH was apparently too widely loved, so here he goes to war with himself and uses his production wizardry as an excuse for some of his (one thinks wilfully) worst prod to date(?). immature braincrash of an album |
55 |  | Green Day Saviors
#155
two bangers and shameless recycling of a career peak from two decades ago = the latest excuse from a canned ass pop punk hypewave, brought by the same people who told you last year's Blink-182 embarrassment was worth your ears. inoffensive album, has its moments |
54 |  | Phuyu y la Fantasma B| Décimas de Phuyu y la Fantasma
TIER #2: INOFENSIVE / MEH / WHATEVER
#154
experimental folk for those whose definition of experimental starts and ends with the incorporation of abrasive rock instrumentals |
53 |  | Fontaines D.C. Romance
#153
get your MTV nostalgia goggles off and throw this thing back to the bargain bin where it belongs |
52 |  | Soumbalgwang ???? 불과 빛 (Fire & Light)
#152
This band seemed to have cracked the code for what makes heart-on-sleeve yell-happy post punk revival vitalising and hooky, but jfc this album's descent into one tuneless howl-along after another was not the one |
51 |  | Alcest Les Chants de L'Aurore
#151
Even by Alcest's standards, the opening pair on this are nothing short of vomitously corny, but the rest does a passable job of business as usual. The callback to his Shelter era on Flamme Jumelle would have been a much stronger anchor for this thing's direction |
50 |  | Waxahatchee Tigers Blood
#150
give me one more dreary yeehaw I dare you |
49 |  | Derek Michael Tunnels
#149
86 minutes of the year's most forgettable techno = a true January listen |
48 |  | Shinichi Atobe Peace of Mind
#148
Atobe inessential bleep boop not his best maybe his worst |
47 |  | Big|Brave A Chaos of Flowers
#147
does this band get more tedious and charmless with every successive album I stg, their doom/drone metal fix is still good on paper *but* |
46 |  | Nailah Hunter Lovegaze
#146
not my go-to crystal healing bullshit -- put some respect on that niche |
45 |  | Bonny Light Horseman Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free
#145
oh hey you like your sappy old world country musics for current-year indie-beanie peoples uh huh uh huh well how about you take a full twenty of those uh huh |
44 |  | MJ Lenderman Manning Fireworks
#144
hey it's that slacker snore-country indie album that sings about boredom cumstains what a coincidence |
43 |  | The Smashing Pumpkins Aghori Mhori Mei
#143
Billy Corgan quit huffing his own DAW fartspace long enough to get his band to rock again, and the results are endearing at best |
42 |  | Marika Hackman Big Sigh
#142
it would be unfair to say Marika Hackman lost her edge, but she most certainly jettisoned most of the mystique that made her such an engaging songwriter on her earlier material |
41 |  | Litosth Cesariana
#141
black metal more like beige metal, uh |
40 |  | STAYC Metamorphic
#140
strictly o-K-pop |
39 |  | Porter Robinson SMILE! :D
#139
This dorky dorkball of an album may play like scene rehab for those who like such things to be brutally frontloaded and thereafter stuffed with fluff, but it's a cute raise on the corn that made Nurture such a chore and almost holds up as a guilty pleasure |
38 |  | Jlin Akoma
#138
bandcamp art installation music, hard to get much more or less out of this |
37 |  | Ill Considered Infrared
#137
hey now who put my junkyard in the jazzyard |
36 |  | Normal Bias LP3
#136
normalise this bias bitch |
35 |  | Mary Halvorson Cloudward
#135
If there was one fart-heavy jazz album for people who take their jazz too seriously this year, it was uhh probably this one. Has its moments (Collapsing Mouth) and its mishaps (Ultramarine) and its guitar atrocites (Desiderata jfc). Eh. |
34 |  | Night Verses Every Sound Has a Color...: Part II
#134
I enjoyed Part 1 of this! It was an imaginative, entertaining record that by and large avoided the junzy slew of cheap thrills this thing repeatedly throws itself into -- alas. these guys' bass parts are still too good to fail, but the vocal features are unnecessary and really bog things down |
33 |  | Melissa Aldana Echoes of the Inner Prophet
#133
"hmmm yes okay wait what are you talking about never mind is there any wine left mmm" -type jazz |
32 |  | Allie X Girl With No Face
#132
how many lucky stars do I have to thank that I no longer need to cash in on qUiRkY retro-happy edge-girl pop like this to keep my personality afloat um |
31 |  | Godspeed You! Black Emperor No Title as of 13 Feb 2024 28,340 Dead
#131
GYBE partially redeem *another* of their most boring albums to date with one of their least brimstone-y, most melodious post-hiatus stunners. Hooray for Babys in a Thundercloud! Song shows signs of aging gracefully that the rest of this very much lacks. |
30 |  | Tinashe Quantum Baby
#131
Tinashe's quest to make it smoother than smooth and succincter than succinct continues to be much more satisfying on paper than it is in songform. BB/ANG3L was too vibes-heavy, this is too sleight. Oh well -- she knows what she's about, looking forward to her nailing it in future |
29 |  | Khamai Leon IHATOV
#129
Lovely vibrant sound palette (so lush, many instruments, acoustics and jazzes), but I couldn't get a handle on this thing's flow -- one lush thing after another, and there is also Japanese rap because I don't have enough things to fail to pay attention to otherwise? Will watch this artist, but not this album |
28 |  | Burial Dreamfear / Boy Sent From Above
#128
Washed GOAT alert. Following in the footsteps of 2021's Chemz, Burial continues his slow, slow journey to almost making good music again by means of unapologetic ravers, now with 200% more breakbeat hardcore. You'd bloody well better hope you do hear it in a rave setting, because this thing drags its feet with a vengence otherwise |
27 |  | Kelly Lee Owens Dreamstate
#127
couple of upbeat winners here that almost get the party started, and many that don't. thin on substance + peaks very early on -- had potential, but ends up somewhere around Floating Points for vapid trendtronica dance music for people who don't go out |
26 |  | Magdalena Bay Imaginal Disk
#126
dig beyond the daydream melodies and half-arsed world building, and there's some meat to a few of these songs (Cry for Me and Killing Time yes plz), but this duo is still an unappetising combo of overcooked and undercharacterised. credit where it's due to those neo-psych and disco-friendly instrumentals though - can see why this landed as pop AOTY for everyone illiterate to the rest of the pop landscape |
25 |  | Beyonce Cowboy Carter
#125
Beyonce's self-righteous country crusade was, uh, full of loose ends, and overall highly entertaining. It plays things haphazard and bold enough to demonstrate her claim to the pop throne, and although it's light years away from perfection, I do enjoy how it wilfully eschews being a "good" album in favour of just laying it down. I haven't seen a single piece of analysis on this site that approaches this aspect (or tbqh any other) with real insight, and am not surprised by this EDIT: ashcrash finally got there in his end of year list, the rest of you are slipping. There is a 50% chance that this is either better than your favourite album of the year or worse than your least favourite. For many of you, why not both. |
24 |  | Foxing Foxing
#124
every year has a litmus test for those whose musical journey peaked when Brand New dropped the Devil and God and have been treading water ever since, and this is certainly an album |
23 |  | Bvdub Leaving
#123
this ambient dub veteran dropped over five albums this year, but this was the only one I got round to. four tracks over 80 minutes, huh! it's entirely unobjectionable as far as a Vibes package goes, but not exactly the most memorable outing I've heard from this style this year, or this artist in general. Probably one of the albums on this list I'm most likely to have underrated, but idk it really does put a lot of its weight on vocal samples that don't quite carry |
22 |  | Arab Strap I'm Totally Fine With It Don't Give a Fuck Anymore
#122
From dropping my 2021 AOTY to just about scraping into the top bracket of the NO-list, this album was a personal disappointment and a half, but still respectable in some departments -- mainly in that Adrian Moffat still has his edge as a lyricist (even if this album's themes of tech and isolation aren't quite as versatile or deftly handled as those on As Days Grow Dark). I found this a huge step down musically though, its rock and electronic elements feel crudely stitched together, and each is a lot more kitsch individually than the arrangements on ADGD. A shame. |
21 |  | Julia-Sophie Forgive Too Slow
#121
i could never be a24 enough for this album if i tried |
20 |  | Floating Points Cascade
#120
Floating Points' foray into tech house dance fury is almost energetic enough to camouflage how dull the bulk of his creative input is. Put this guy in your engineering department and make sure he goes nowhere else |
19 |  | Naemi Dust Devil
#119
for the drippy zoomer ambient bedroom pop experience it serves up without apology, this thing's runtime should come with a parental advisory certificate |
18 |  | St. Vincent All Born Screaming
#118
continues St. Vincent's trajectory of making strictly okay music for an audience that has largely moved on from her, but at least she has enough of her mojo together to dish out some credible rock performances here. Not a fan of how the record drags its feet through two and a half tracks before it comes anywhere close to hitting its stride though |
17 |  | Melvins Tarantula Heart
#117
doesn't exactly fire on all four cylinders, but the Melvins still dish out enough gruff might to hold their own against this slew of artists who, uh, largely do not. closer alone could riff its way out of any tight spot |
16 |  | Gidge Tundra
#116
Gidge's moody brand of microhouse is still a winner, but this EP is pretty lightweight compared to their LP material. Decent but inessential outing |
15 |  | Zazen Boys Rando
#115
Shutoku Mukai's funko fuck prang rock superproject is back with its first album in years and, uh, the funk is there the jitter is there, but the songs this time around don't leave much of a mark. Will be sticking with Zazen Boys 2 and 4 |
14 |  | Patricia Taxxon Bicycle
#114
Zoomer furry cult classic blooper dropped an IDM grab bag for us all on New Year's Day and uh yes it was moderately neat - might have made the YESlist if it weren't for the vocals on the punishingly overlong Big Wheel. Good closer! |
13 |  | MoritaSaki in the pool Love is Over!
#113
These guys dish out the same upbeat ear sugar that a hundred other bands are fixing, and hmmm it took a decently fun handful of spins before I realised that they are strictly Pretty Okay |
12 |  | Coaltar of the Deepers/Boris Hello There
#113
This split is a waste of two big names in both concept and execution, plus the Coaltar rerecordings are trash, but Boris doing justice to two of their best 2010s tracks is enough to keep it afloat on this list. Deeply inessential to all except those who wanted a beefier version of Luna or fancied hearing Quicksilver outside of Noise's polished production |
11 |  | Knocked Loose You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To
#111
You've already made your mind up about this band one way or the other. My spare change is that for they embody the usual tropes of this uniquely brain-erasingly stupid strain of contemporary hardcore, their songwriting chops and relatively novel (+ refreshingly undistorted!) high-range vocals give them the edge they need, and their devotion to big dumb brutality has aged relatively well for how they've broken into the mainstream without (yet) selling out on it. Did this godawful style of music deserve a commercial breakthrough? Absolutely not, but if someone had to go there, it might as well have been these guys. Slow clapping intensifies. |
10 |  | Total Blue Total Blue
#110
Plenty of potential for wasted time with this kind of ambient spa-ready new age, but an album highlight as instantly playlistable as Chaparral gives it the good grace it needs to dodge any flack it'd otherwise incur from the, uh, diffuse flow of several of these cuts |
9 |  | tripleS ASSEMBLE24
TIER #1: HONOURABLE MENTIONS
#109
K-Pop
TripleS' full-length, full-member debut is uhhh okay. Pretty good. Very palatable. As garage-heavy as you'd expect from the (mostly) superior sub-unit EPs. I enjoyed it. And that's it. |
8 |  | Akini Jing Villain
#108
Mandopop / Hip hop drone strike music
Uneven, disarmingly short (sub-30!) for how elaborately it sets it self up, confusingly occupied with instrumental cuts for a pop album, and destined to leave its audience non-plussed with left turns as incongruous as TeeZandos' nuclear strike of a rap verse on the unsuspecting title track, but we live for those oddities. This isn't nearly solid enough to convince me she's stepped into her potential, but it still marks her out as one to watch. |
7 |  | Kinoteki Faith and the Vessel
#107
Footwork jungle
My favourite cracked out zinger of 2023 drops a decidedly un-cracked out mmhmmer and it is okay and reliable and unextraordinary and fine and I am very excited for their next album |
6 |  | Tokyo Shoki Shodo Pink
#106
Snotty girl seishun punk
Does exactly one loud catchy thing with pep and cheer, and is short enough not to burn me out in the way their (very good!) full lengths do. We stan an EP we love our seishun |
5 |  | Skee Mask C
#105
Techno / Breaks / Ambient
With a standout LP and a solid EP under his belt this year, it's easy to see this leftovers release from everyone's favourite German techno/ambient breaks kingpin as comparatively inessential, and... well! It do be that way, but C is still a viable (if understated) fix of his usual goodness. |
4 |  | Kenya Grace The After Taste
#104
Alt-pop / liquid DnB
Excepting the single and obvious highlight Strangers, these feathery bops are forgettable as all hell, but they do tickle my ears about right when they're on |
3 |  | Leifur James Magic Seeds
#103
Downtempo / Indietronica
"ja ja ja what if Kid A but they came out of the bunker and found the other humans were gone and there were only plants, like, everywhere, and Tommo Yorkus put on his gardening gloves forever while the rest of the band laid down smooth downtempo beats and it was wholesome but vaguely lonely" calm DOWN kid, that's only the title track. Thank you Jesper, this album was pretty solid! Great closer! |
2 |  | Papangu Lampião Rei
#102
Procko rogressivo
Okay okay okay before I come off as even more of an entitled prick than I already am, the avant metal zeuhl extravaganza these guys flexed on their very awesome debut Holoceno did not necessarily needed a wholesale follow-up! The amount of creativity that (and tbf this) record flexed suggested any number of alternative directions they might have plunged into, and yet! I refuse to hide my disappointment at how placidly this perfectly-fine sometimes-fun volley of Latin-infused uncle prog plays by comparison! It *is* quirky, but it lacks the momentum to see its oddball moments off to Holoceno-tier heights. I will not get over myself! This record is still at least decent and I will probably feel awful about underrating it by the time their third LP drops and I inevitably revisit it, but for now let me cope in peace! |
1 |  | The Jesus Lizard Rack
#101
Noise rock
Rocks harder than many have given it credit for, lands in the Welcome Return bracket of comeback but falls short of a Triumphant Return. Solid Jesus Lizard album all round though, can sit comfortably alongside Down (and a fair margin below Shot) within their discog — the rock n roll barnstormers are still there, just needs more defined songwriting and a pinch more energy |
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