zero vu

I had two or three 2024 alternative albums in mind all year and I was SURE one of them was going to be my #1. But no! I ultimately surprised myself with my top choice this year. Still, I’ve never been more persuaded in my favorite record of 2024.

Every year it seems I can inevitably conjure just one or two records that I think will be worth writing about. Then I spend two weeks in rapturous review — oh that was so good! and wow that one was amazing! Canonizing my favorite 2024 alternative albums is really more for me than for you.

It’s good to be reminded what a terrific year it was in music. And I am a believer that, for the most part, independent music gets better every year.

It’s not a straight line of course. But each year new subgenres emerge, bedroom pop artists demonstrate remarkable creativity and veterans roar back with albums worthy of their youth. I have a low-key phobia that music will eventually run out of combinations of notes; instead rock and roll continually reinvents itself.

How I came up with 20 of the best 2024 alternative albums

Quickly, how this works.

Over the course of 2024, I sampled 200-300 albums. I bought something like 70 or 80 of those releases and then created my shortlist in December.

When ranking the best 2024 alternative albums, I prioritize full album statements…records that you need to listen all the way through to appreciate their full artistic sound. And my north star are records that I’ll want to return to. I have no interest in “Important with a Capital I” music and I’m not intentionally obscure.

In short, I love every album on this list.

I’ve been doing a lot of jotting and erasing so let’s get this done before I change my mind again! (Edit: Too late, I am moving these albums around like furniture before locking in their ranks. I even inverted a couple of my Top 5 choices just before publishing. I need an intervention.)

20. Marina Allen (Eight Pointed Star)

Marina Allen — wow what a voice! Her preternatural, crystal clear vibrato on Eight Pointed Star accompanies nine unfussy arrangements. Some of her sweetly flat intonations remind me of Kathleen Edwards.

This is the third record by the Los Angles transplant and it has me keenly interested in her first two releases.

The first Allen track, “I’m the Same” is a quintessential album opener, with a broad, eye-level melody. Her vocals on “Swinging Doors” are more assertive and you can hear a bit of the Liz Phair reference in her Bandcamp bio (I think?) when she sings, “I eat the meat/I eat the bones.”

Get one of the best alt country albums of 2024, Eight Pointed Star by Marina Allen from the Fire Records website.

19. Marinita Precaria (Un Vaso de Agua)

For some time this year, I wasn’t sure if I would have a Spanish-language release on my list of best 2024 alternative albums. For whatever weird reason for someone who only speaks American lol…Spanish and South American music has become a thing for me.

Thankfully, Marinita Precaria arrived at my house in November and immediately vaulted to the top of my list of favorites! A bit of synth pop, a bit of jangle pop, Un Vaso de Agua (A Glass of Water) defies easy categorization.

The second track here by Marina Gómez of Madrid, “Canción Alegre” includes the youthful, effusive lyrics that translate, “Not a single sad song/my heart is open/I’m not lying, just look at it.” I keep whistling along with the organ on this one and I hate whistling!

No matter your Spanish literacy, you will fall in love with Marinita Precaria.

Order Un Vaso de Agua from Elefant Records website. If you struggle a bit with the Spanish language, you can order from Bandcamp. Bonus points if you follow the Elefant label while you’re there!

18. Sam Morton (Daffodils & Dirt)

Sam Morton is the musical venture of actress Samantha Morton and producer Richard Russell.

With Daffodils & Dirt we get a little bit (but not a lot) esoteric. The trippy little numbers are punctuated by Morton’s spoken word interludes and storytelling. But this collection of songs is super memorable. I find myself humming one of the best, “Purple Yellow,” at random times like I did 2022’s self-titled debut by Jockstrap.

Based in Nottingham in the UK, Morton isn’t just an actress trying her hand at music to satisfy her need for creative expression. She and Russell have collaborated on arrangements that are complex and grow on me with each listen.

Buy a copy of Daffodils & Dirt from XL Recordings website.

They can name the crater we make after you
And sell little statues of us
Though there isn’t an artist alive
Who could get your eyes

17. Hero No Hero (Pacific Standard Time)

The redoubtable Subjangle label gives us our #17 record among my 20 essential 2024 alternative albums, Pacific Standard Time by Hero No Hero. The LA band gives us some of the best jangle vibes of the year. Most songs like opening track, “Just To Be With You” clock in at 2:30 to 3:30. Stick with that one until the delightful refrain at 90 seconds.

Gretchen DeVault of The Blue Herons handles most of the vocals and shares songwriting with Ken Aki. The HNH debut has the infectious, jangly guitar and breezy backing “aaahs” you expect from Subjangle. Pacific Standard Time also runs a little harder at times, with power pop like “Rabbit Hole.” Possibly the best song here is the extra, “Unseemly Dreaming.” Holy moly how is this a bonus track?!

Pacific Standard Time was one of my first purchases of the year, and a decided favorite among the best 2024 alternative albums!

Get your CD or digital copy of Hero No Hero’s Pacific Standard Time with four bonus tracks at Subjangle’s Bandcamp page.

16. Elbow (Audio Vertigo)

Audio Vertigo took some time to grow on me. I’m not great with change, I guess. But the more I listened to Elbow’s tenth studio album, the more I came to enjoy Guy Garvey’s newest creation.

My favorite crooner sounds as amazing as ever. And walking Elbow’s sound from guitar rock into synth pop territory turned into something pretty brilliant. The brass and beats on early single “Lover’s Leap” perfectly complement Garvey’s textured delivery. And it’s not like Elbow hasn’t used more emphatic brass in the past (see: “Starlings,” performed at deafening levels at The Depot in 2008).

There is no epic opening number on Audio Vertigo, a staple of Elbow records. Songs are a bit (not a lot) shorter and the range, broader. The closest you’ll hear to a more traditional Elbow arrangement is “Her to the Earth,” with the hushed chorus juxtaposed with swaggering Stevie Wonder verses.

What doesn’t fail are Garvey’s renowned, ribald lyrics and his lifelong gift for poetry.

By some oddity, I believe I own more Elbow records than any other band. Possibly XTC, I’ve never honestly counted. But I do loves me some Elbow.

I recommend adding Audio Vertigo to your collection from Elbow’s website.

15. Klaus Johann Grobe (Io tu il loro)

I find lo tu il loro quite Bavarian, though I honestly have no concrete idea of what southeast German chillwave actually sounds like. The Bandcamp bio for Klaus Johann Grobe describes them as timeless, and that’s a great way to hear them. At the same time, part of my brain wants to imagine Fred Armisen playing drums and doing voiceover for a Klaus Johann Grobe mockumentary.

There is something so uncontrived about the way Daniel Bachmann and Sevi Landolt compose these deceptively simple arrangements. The Basel and Zurich duo are six years out from 2018’s “Du bist so symmetrisch” and I’m fully eleven years late to the party since their debut. So let me describe in halting detail what I love about the new release, one of the best 2024 alternative albums.

Bachmann’s desultory vocals play with Landolt’s organ as the two primary instruments here. Landolt plays guitar, too, but voice and e-piano (?) are the stars. It is especially true of the bouncing, childlike organ on “Getting Down to Adria” and “Try” and on the soft 70’s sheen of “When You Leave.”

Still, odes like “Bay of Love” and “lo Simpre Si Tu” are so earnest, I have returned to this album over and over again this year.

You can download or order Klaus Johann Grobe’s latest at Bandcamp.

14. Kim Deal (Nobody Loves You More)

Kim Deal’s solo debut has been a source of constant joy! Nobody Loves You More has so many gears and it WAS NOT the record I was expecting from Deal. At times it is a wholly fresh sound marrying bits of sophisti-pop (a term I kind of hate) with crunchy post rock.

We have a lot happening here in just the first three songs. The strings and big band crescendo on lounge-y title track “Nobody Loves You More,” not a little bit of ska on “Coast” and the idiosyncratic Breeder riffs of “Crystal Breath.”

I intended to drop the outrageous rocker “Big Ben Beat” here but it isn’t available on Bandcamp. I encourage you to seek it out on YouTube or your streaming platform of choice. Play it super loud. I’m honestly a bit taken aback how much I love Nobody Loves You More. I guess I shouldn’t be.

Buy Nobody Loves You More or a T-shirt depicting Kim Deal holding a flamingo at her website.

13. The Caraway (Our Brilliant Weekend)

The Caraway released their second album of pop perfection 17 years after their 2006 debut. I’m not going to pretend I’ve been following the Japanese artist Osamu Shimada for nearly two decades but I ordered Our Brilliant Weekend shortly after hearing it.

Everything on this record is sun, shimmering guitars and bubblegum pop. You can’t help but sing along to the saccharine “Fall In Love Again,” the pinball mania on “Venus In Motion” and “Love Is a Miracle,” which sounds like the closing theme for a lost 70’s TV dramedy.

That said, most of Our Brilliant Weekend is made of the perfectly arranged pop confections like “Sunday Morning Biking” and “All Up To You.” We even have what I can only describe as a Cindy Lauper tribute on “Long Tailed Sally.”

Save this one for warmer weather and blast it from open car windows in the spring!

Go to Blue-very’s Bandcamp page to buy The Caraway’s sophomore album.

12. Font (Strange Burden)

How is this Font spectacle coming out of the People’s Republic of Texas and not Oslo or Berlin?!

One of the wildest and most refreshing discoveries of my 2024, Austin’s Font intertwine angular guitar, motorik rhythms and disco in ways that shouldn’t work, but do. Perhaps the best part of listening to Font is imaging how loud and filthy this would sound live.

We have a definite LCD Soundsystem foundation here, if James Murphy were a convicted felon with anger management problems. It gets messy enough on songs like “Hey Kekulé” that Thom Waddill’s spasms of growled lyrics nearly shift into hardcore. Then, as quickly as it’s over, we have the arena power pop of “Looking at Engines.”

Strange Burden is wrapped in less than 30 minutes, so strap yourself in. The amalgam of synth pop, krautrock and noise are tough to beat.

Let’s find a way to get Font to the 801. They’ve dropped one of the most surprising 2024 alternative albums. In the meantime, order Strange Burden from Acrophase Records.

11. Kate Bollinger (Songs From a Thousand Frames of Mind)

Music can be a long game. Kate Bollinger has been dropping singles and EP’s since 2017 but only in 2024 put it all together for her full length debut. Boy was it worth it!

Songs From a Thousand Frames of Mind boasts so many sublime moments it is difficult to tease them out. More importantly, the Charlottesville native spools them together into an effortless listen. The allusion to Feist in Bollinger’s Bandcamp bio is an apt reference point.

You have the light Americana of “Any Day Now” alongside pop gems like “To Your Own Devices” and the hushed, lo-fi ballad “Lonely.” And it is bananas how “God Interlude” sounds like at least two separate Paul Simon phases. The album is a culmination of collaborations that Bollinger says lead her to perfect these arrangements.

We’re near my Top 10 now, so every record is essential IMO. Truthfully I can’t recommend many 2024 alternative albums higher than Songs From a Thousand Frames of Mind.

Buy Songs From a Thousand Frames of Mind from Bollinger’s website. The interactive site includes a super amount of background about the record, song lyrics and photos.

10. Cindy Lee (Diamond Jubilee)

I managed to make it to this date in January without reading a single 2024 Best Of list. Sometimes I’ll look to see what I’m missing before publishing but this year I didn’t. I’m sure Diamond Jubilee topped a few lists, and I get it. Its brilliant. But it wasn’t my favorite this year and honestly started to represent a bit of an albatross.

I have a take here.

I haven’t downgraded Cindy Lee’s magnum opus to be contrarian. The vision and scope are just awesome. It is just too, too, tooooo long. I’m not sure I have listened to any of the songs in the right order. My phone’s local player sequences them weird and they’re 100% random on Spotify. I told a friend at work I had to break Diamond Jubilee into thirds to consume it and THAT STILL WASN’T ENOUGH.

To this day I haven’t listened to the record all the way through. My God who has that kind of time? Or attention? Even as I quickly scrubbed through the album last weekend I was getting bored. That is partly because two hours of Patrick Flegel’s falsetto is about 1.5 hours too much.

The truth is the back half of this record is kind of a slog. There are six or eight cuts of the last 16 that scream “B-side.” Or they are very B-side-y. At some point did anyone sit Flegel down over coffee and say, “Hey Patrick, just thinking here. Spitballing really, there are no bad ideas right? It’s just that you’ve got 32 songs here. I mean goddamn that’s like SO MUCH. Maybe we winnow this down to like 20 or 25 my guy?”

The rollout of Diamond Lee has been confusing inspiring. At first it was a digital-only free download and then there were paid digital copies from a website in like…Regina, Saskatchewan. You can finally preorder the CD and vinyl at Bandcamp.

9. Dana Gavanski (LATE SLAP)

Dana Gavanski’s LATE SLAP is one of those albums I thought might end up being my favorite of the year. Some 90’s OG’s muscled into my Top 10 but Gavanski’s record still set me back on my heels in a huge way.

Gavanski is an acolyte of the Naima Bock school of vocals.

She creates wildly esoteric song structures featuring her heady, bellowed vocals. Check out the jaunty “Ears Were Growing” and you hear not just her new wave appeal but the slithering baseline that propels the melody. “Eye on Love” is more of a pure pop song, but always with Gavanski’s signature vocals deflating at the end of each bar. Her vocals are everything to the album.

“Dark Side” is a more straightforward rocker. It hints at where she may lay tracks in the future. As on the light disco of “Singular Coincidence,” we hear the Canada native inhabiting more muscular song structures.

LATE SLAP is full of playful moments and winks at expectation. I feel like I’m having special trouble describing the album properly other than Gavanski’s voice, so please check out a couple of these songs. It is first rate indie.

Buy LATE SLAP at Full Time Records.

8. Beak> (>>>>)

For a minute I thought it would be amusing to write this entire review in right carrots to replicate the signature Beak> band name and album titles. It might look like this:

>>
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>>>>>
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In Carrot, that translates to “holy moly this is an addictive album!” I won’t kid you, I started listening to >>>> with the cynical belief that Beak> is one of those bands only music critics listen to. It is not. It is one of those bands music lovers listen to.

The dank psychedelics have a Syd Barrett aesthetic I can’t not hear. I say that in a good way. Beak> also sport moments of sludgy metal on “Denim” and dystopian folk on “Hungry Are We.” A friend of mine who writes about music professionally notes the album has a “fungal, peat moss vibe,” and that’s why he writes professionally and I don’t.

Beak> are at an inflection point with drummer and Portishead founder Geoff Barrow retiring. I am still holding out faint hope they will be the last remaining booking for the 2025 Kilby Block Party. However it appears Barrow’s farewell tour with Beak> will clock out a month early, if not far from SLC.

It looks like it may be simplest right now to buy >>>> by Beak> at Bandcamp>.

7. Camille Bénâtre (Dommage)

Dommage is the third album with lyrics not in English on my list of best 2024 alternative albums and I’m starting to feel not a little pretentious. But this one is so golden you have to try it!

If you box out the vocals for just a moment — it is easy to hear Dommage by Camille Bénâtre not just as a pop masterpiece but also as a spotlight on Bénâtre’s honeyed vocals. I don’t understand the French language or French people just generally. But if I did, I would want to sound like Bénâtre.

Dommage is an album full of world-beating melodies like “Stupidémocratie” and “L’Homme est capable de marcher sur la lune.” What do those words even mean?! I have no idea! Exclamation point! But even without the benefit of translation…with a little patience…you too can drift to sleep enjoying these sublime compositions.

Order Dommage by Camille Bénâtre at his Bandcamp page.

6. The Smile (Cutouts)

Not-Radiohead offshoot The Smile have been turning out sometimes-remarkable music the last 2+ years. Cutouts is not-by-a-little my favorite Smile record of their three released so far.

Jazzy and proggy in a way A Light for Attracting Attention and Wall of Eyes were not, Cutouts is the album where Tom Skinner’s syncopations are finally set loose and ho boy…does he ever do his thing. Witness the wood blocks, high hat and anything else he can get his sticks near on “Zero Sum.” Also on the military precision of “Colours Fly” and on the breakneck “Eyes & Mouth.” We even get a callback to the loping OK Computer outtake “I Promise” on “Instant Psalm.”

And what are those things you’re hearing all over these Thom Yorke records? They’re called guitars. He used to be super into them. More than anything, I hear a reinvigorated band excited about rock and roll again, and Cutouts is where I appreciated it all coming together.

Buy all three of The Smile’s albums at the bands website.

5. Waxahatchee (Tigers Blood)

We’re at a point here in the Top 5 where everything is so good and I want to basically recognize it all as life-changing! Witness Tigers Blood by indie workhorse Katie Crutchfield performing as the alt country Waxahatchee.

The assured Crutchfield has written a career-defining album in a career already filled with them. The album has killer southern rock tracks like “Evil Spawn” and “Bored,” a classic alt country duet on “Burns Out at Midnight” and of course strummy ballads like original single “Right Back To It.”

Crutchfield writes to mood and metaphor with such insight. There’s an ordinariness to the lyrics on “Right Back To It” that make them easy to look past. She captures the anxiety of her long distance relationship with longtime boyfriend Kevin Morby in the pithy lines, “I get ahead of myself/bracing for a bombshell…I let my mind run wild/I don’t know why I do it…if I can keep up/We’ll get right back to it.”

The metaphor of the tigers blood snow cone is a hugely potent rendering of childhood in the South. The treat is a mix of strawberry and coconut syrup. Crutchfield notes the silly tigers blood moniker is both innocent while hinting at danger.

The gang lyrics on the refrain of “Tigers Blood” that close the album still give me chills. They were the lights out highlight of her show last year in Salt Lake City.

I held it like a penny I found
It might bring me something,
It might weigh me down.
You got every excuse
But it’s an eerie sound.
Oh when that siren blows,
Rings out all over town.

Buy Crutchfield’s Tigers Blood at the Waxahatchee website and add one of the top 2024 alternative albums to your collection.

4. Bill Ryder-Jones (lechyd Da)

lechyd Da is one of those stirring albums that makes me wish I had a better lexicon to describe it for you. Intimate and mysterious. Sweeping, psychedelic and heart-rending. Bill Ryder-Jones whispers some of these lyrics with such pathos that even the sweetest songs feel tinged with heart sickness.

An example is the delightful “If Tomorrow Starts Without Me.” The plucky strings could be scoring a Volkswagen Tiguan commercial as he begins, “If tomorrow starts without me, I’m with you.” He then continues in some replayed trauma, “If today begins a day too soon/I’ve a sense of shame when it feels alright/So I’ve played some games but it ends tonight.” Then allusions to monsters and more shame.

At times the light 60’s psychedelia seems to track Sergeant Peppers, for instance on the very Beatlesesque “We Don’t Need Them.” But the album refuses to play like a retro tribute. The very next track, “I Hold Something in My Hand” is a dustier California number while “This Can’t Go On” would be a triumphant complement to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Each time I think I’m capturing what Ryder-Jones has done with the album he frustrates any effort to place lechyd Da in a vertical.

There’s a virtual album in each track. “Nothing to Be Done” is so richly produced, with a child choir and keyboard. And below the melody, nearly hidden, are Ryder-Jones’ vocals. Similarly, on “Today Again,” we have the shimmering organ of a new age anthem towering over the child choir (held over for one more track) and Ryder-Jones whimpering the Lyric of the Year:

There’s something great about life.
There’s something great about life.
But there’s something. Not. Quite. Right.

lechyd Da is a confounding, rewarding listen — one to pump with really good headphones.

Buy lechyd Da by Bill Ryder-Jones at his website. Or see him play this spring with Portishead founder Beth Gibbons.

3. Pom Poko (Champion)

Opinions sometimes vary on the quintessential moment of Breaking Bad.

It is hard to argue against the Season 1, Episode 1, cold open sequence with Walter White wrecking the 1986 Fleetwood Bounder meth trailer in his tighty whities. Or when White asks, “Who is it you think you see?” in Season 4 and anoints himself as The One Who Knocks. For me the series’ climactic moment comes in Oxymandias, during the show’s final season. Skylar is swinging a knife at Walter to keep him from baby Holly before Walter Jr. tackles his father and Walter screams, “What the hell is wrong with you?!?!! We’re a FAMILY. We’re a family.” Just devastating.

The theme of family winds its way throughout the pop masterpiece Champion, by Norway’s Pom Poko. It starts with Ragnhild Fangel’s life-affirming lyric on “My Family” when she declares of her band mates, “This is my familyyyyyy!” and on closing track “Fumble” as Fangel so sweetly concludes, “You’re the one that feels like wherever you are/You’re the one that feels like family.”

The first seven songs on Pom Poko’s third album are objectively perfect, presenting the band’s disparate parts in delirious unison. Angular and impossibly mathy numbers like those on “My Family” are balanced by arena choruses on “Growing Story” and “You’re Not Helping.” We get a distinctly ABBA Moment on “Champion” and a jam worthy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on “Go.” If the shimmering walkaway on “Druid, Fox and Dragon” indulged another 4-5 minutes, it would belong on a Stone Roses album.

One more note about Fangel here. Her voice modulates so perfectly. A great example is near the open of the jangly “Pile of Wood.” Her vocals lilt delicately like a butterfly, “I want to scream do you want to..” and then hammer when the guitars pounce and she repeats, “I WANT TO SCREAM do you want to…” On Champions’ highlight “Bell,” Flagel’s voice is layered in the delicate backing vocal, “You know/I’m here/Don’t stress.”

Champion is unapologetically pop punk, new wave and disco at moments, very math rock at nearly all times and endlessly exciting.

Buy Champion at Pom Poko’s website. It is without a doubt one of the two or three best 2024 alternative albums. Get your tickets now for their show March 26 at Kilby Court!

2. The WAEVE (City Lights)

Wow did anyone see this album coming?! Legendary Blur founder and guitarist Graham Coxon is having quite the career renaissance with bae Rose Dougall, former of The Pipettes. But after the relatively mellow chamber pop of their self-titled debut, City Lights is a traditional, bangin’ surprise!

The album’s title track squeals to a discordant open that could have been an isolated attention-getter. It is really just a shot across the bow. City Lights gets even louder on “Broken Boys” and a soul-gaze closer on the moving “Sunrise.” A ton of this rocks and it is just so awesome to hear the polymath Coxon shredding these riffs. The gothy “Moth to the Flame” is a triple-threat: Coxon opens on saxophone, before his new wavey vocals and radio static guitar underneath worthy of OK Computer.

I think what The WAEVE have done especially well here is marry their several styles.

They’re still rolling out gorgeous chamber pop numbers like the album’s standout, “Song for Eliza May.” But it swells with a string arrangement and eventually Mr. Coxon’s guitar. And Dougall is still the heartbeat, sweetly serenading their young daughter. “Eliza May” is followed by the basically epic “Druantia” which puts the elements all together again…saxophone, a wild chugging base and Coxon’s soaring vocals. He sounds so good!

Bottom line, these are terrific songs — far superior to The WAEVE’s debut. They’re stitched together in remarkable arrangements in a knockout album.

Here is The WAEVE’s website, where you can check up on tour dates and buy the band’s debut or City Lights, on the short list among the best 2024 alternative albums.

1. Adrianne Lenker (Bright Future)

I can’t recall a year when my three favorite albums felt this locked in, or when I felt more certain of my pick for my top record. Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future is a release of such choking authenticity it is sometimes hard to relate to this kind of transparency.

The songs and lyrics here each resonate on deep levels. Some are pop musings; others are traumatized renderings from Lenker’s memory. Like the opening freestyle keyboard lament, “Real House.”

Do you remember coming to the hospital when I was 14?
My friends all left me there spinning, Dad was angry…
And you made me laugh as the nurses undressed me
You held my hand as they put the needle in me

I never saw you cry, not until our dog died…
We held her body as they put the needle in her
And then I saw you cry
And then I saw you cry

“Sadness as a Gift” and the celestial “Ruined” were the first two singles from the record and heralded the breadth of musicianship to expect from Big Thief’s principal songwriter. “Sadness as a Gift” is the more traditional country ballad, and even then Lenker’s weathered vibrato brings added richness and depth to the duet with Nick Hakim.

Remember when Jeff Tweedy was fangirling about Lenker, and noted of her brilliance that she comes at her songs so sideways that it “subverts the form?” He meant ballads like “No Machine,” “Free Treasure” and the ghostly “Evol.” If that’s not enough, Lenker sequences the album with changes in cadence and tone like “Vampire Empire” and “Already Lost.”

Lenker has been dropping albums since she was a teenager. The volume of her output and scope of style are awesome. How many musicians rival Lenker as a songwriter in the last 20 years? How many times can we say, “She’s written the album of the decade?”

Buy your copy of Bright Future at Adrianne Lenker’s website.

Also Super Great: More essential 2024 alternative albums

An acquaintance included me in a group e-mail blast of his top 2024 alternative albums. I haven’t read up on his favorites yet — I’m trying to publish this epistle blind first. But I saw how many he ranked — 100 records! That is a super impressive effort.

I have to admit, I probably didn’t like 100 records this year. Or more correctly I didn’t LOVE 100 records this year. But I probably loved another eight or ten releases that didn’t make my Top 20 list.

Rosali (Bite Down)

I thought for sure Rosali Middleman was going to make the top of this list. There were so. many. great. records in 2024 and I want to make sure Bite Down is included. Is this the year’s worst album cover? It may be. But Rosali’s pastoral folk more than makes up for it.

Buy Rosali’s Bite Down from Bandcamp.

Fontaines D.C. (Romance)

Fontaines D.C. put out another fantastic record after 2022’s Skinty Fia and Grian Chatten’s 2023 solo debut Chaos For the Fly. Romance is an elevated, more melodic affair than those two records. And that Waterboys-like organ on “Favourite” has to be the best riff of 2024.

Get a copy of Romance or “Favourite” white T-shirt at the Fontaines D.C. website.

Mannequin Pussy (I Got Heaven)

I considered up until the moment of publication subbing in Mannequin’s record for an undisclosed album in my Top 20. They were both amazing and, in the end, I didn’t feel like writing another record review other than this meta description of my thinking. Mannequin is super.

Purchase a copy of Mannequin’s new record or an I Got Heaven thong at the band’s website.

The Death of Pop (FLOG)

This is a seriously good release by our friends at Discos De Kirlian and Hidden Bay Records, a couple favorite labels. The dream pop hits some of the highest highs of the year. With a little more consistency, Death of Pop will be making my Top 10 next time!

Buy FLOG from Discos De Kirlian’s Bandcamp page and follow the label while you’re there!

Ducks Ltd (Harm’s Way)

A couple of the jangle pop numbers on Harm’s Way by Ducks Ltd are as good or better than the jangliest stuff on my Top 20 list. The guitar line and chorus of “Hollowed Out,” especially, sound distinctly Close Lobsters-like, worthy of any fan of C86 pop.

You can buy Harms Way, some of the best jangle pop among this year’s 2024 alternative albums, at the Bandcamp page for Ducks Ltd.

IDLES (TANGK)

I just loved TANGK, and am not invested in the political debate over whether IDLES, Sleaford Mods, Radiohead et al have been vocal enough about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. IDLES played in Salt Lake City last year and I regret missing them. TANGK freaking rocks.

You can buy a copy of TANGK or a pair of Idles athletic socks at the band’s website.

Corridor (Mimi)

I wish I had spent more time with Mimi at the end of the year. I really got into the record last year, if i was a little late to the Corridor party. The Quebec outfit have been releasing music for more than a decade. I love this kind of sweeping head music.

Buy a copy of Mimi, at Corridor’s Bandcamp page.

Mandy (Lawn Girl)

This year Kim Deal released her first solo record after 40 years of music since founding The Pixies. Meanwhile Miranda Winters, aka Mandy, was recording a really outstanding album, the best of which sounds like Breeders outtakes. I’m especially in love with the shouts on “High School Boyfriend.”

Relive your favorite part of the 80’s or 90’s with Mandy by purchasing a copy of Lawn Girl.

Parannoul (Sky Hundred)

Is it my responsibility to evangelize about South Korea’s Parannoul? My privilege? I’m not sure which, but I do hope one day the mysterious musician who released my favorite record of 2023 comes to America and shreds eardrums with his brand of brilliant emo shoegaze.

No one knows who Parannoul is, so the only way to get him a check is buying his records from the band’s page at Bandcamp.