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Where do you even start describing the music of 2024? For one, the pop girls moved to the front: Sabrina Carpenter moved from the B-list to the A-list, Taylor Swift outsold herself several times over, Charli XCX 's uncompromising vision rewrote the rulebook, and Chappell Roan had the sharpest ascent to fame of recent memory. Many K-pop girl groups ended up disbanding, country music re-claimed its title as a mainstream chart heavyweight (and roped in Beyoncé), and Kendrick Lamar's beef with Drake resulted in a Super Bowl Halftime-scoring victory lap that also birthed a new album. The world's political environment got so heated that even The Cure made a point to come back, and we have never been more happy to see them. 2024 was properly unpredictable, and these 50 albums made it all the more worthwhile. #50: Billie Eilish • "Hit Me Hard and Soft" "Twenty-one took a lifetime," Billie Eilish coos on "Skinny", the opening track to her third opus, "Hit Me Hard and Soft", and we get it. Still so young despite having completely shifted the sound of pop music as we know it (to say nothing of having already won two Oscars), "Hit Me Hard and Soft" has a looseness and levity that we haven't seen from her before. Backed by any number of tremolo guitar strums from producing brother Finneas, this album is more lovelorn and romantic than what we've seen from her before, at times brazenly sexy (lead single "Lunch" is a hell of a coming out party) as well as deeply contemplative (as on the lo-fi thump of "Chihiro", named after the lead character in "Spirited Away"). While Eilish is always in search of new sounds – as the shifting suite-like nature of "L'amour de Ma Vie" demonstrates – it's the contemplative moments that have hit fans the most, as tracks like "Wildflower" and sleeper of a single "Birds of a Feather" have had the most resonance. At a tight ten tracks, "Hit Me Hard and Soft" distills Billie's essence to its purest form – and some are already arguing it's the best way to experience her art. #49: Cakes da Killa • "Black Sheep" Cakes da Killa has always been one of the best MCs of the emerging queer hip-hop movement, but even after Lil Nas X became a mainstream star, Cakes still felt trapped with little more than a cult audience. While his discography is dotted with stellar releases, his third studio full-length, "Black Sheep", manages to be the perfect kind of breakout record, where some of his best songs are also some of his most commercial (and having a guest spot by Dawn Richard certainly doesn't hurt). Over thumping and jazzy production by Sam Katz, Cakes makes no bones about trying not to fall for the thug type ("Crushing in Da Club"), finding the joys and pains in hooking up ("Mind Reader", "Do Dat Baby"), and falling back into bad habits ("Cakewalk"). Cakes lines are always next-level dexterous ("Look, I don't share and I don't sublease / Better leave him on the grill 'cos that's my meat"), and his continuing collaboration with Katz has resulted in the snappiest, most immediate music of his career. At this point, Cakes is operating on a different level, and he's just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. #48: Tems • "Born in the Wild" He may have lost the biggest beef of 2024 to Kendrick Lamar , but it is worth shouting out how Drake has always been willing to put new talent front and center on his songs. While the Nigerian-born Tems has been dropping singles since 2018, a majority of people likely first caught wind of her after featuring on a Drake/Future chart-topper called "Wait for U" in 2022. Yet "Born in the Wild", Tems' debut full-length, barely needs any assistance to make an impact (outside of a J. Cole feature). Effortlessly bending contemporary Afrobeat dynamics into forms that R&B radio stations would like, there's an effortless joy to "Born in the Wild" that almost blinds you from its rhythmic complexity. Songs like "Love Me JeJe" would've gotten massive VH1 play in the late '90s, but the way she is able to move from bedroom bangers like "Hold On" to the heady lover's romp "Ready" is the sign of an artist at the peak of her powers. In collaboration with Italian/Ghanan producer GuiltyBeatz, the sound of "Born in the Wild" is fully self-contained, as '80s keypads bounce off of West African percussion to create something fresh. The album is called "Born in the Wild", but after one listen, it's clear she was born to be making music all her life. #47: d'Eon • "Leviathan" d'Eon's discography is one of the wildest in existence, as the Canadian keyboardist has released everything from an EP of covers songs by the gnarly experimental outfit Swans to a full-bore split album with Grimes that came out right before she shot into stardom. "Leviathan", his 11th full-length, is a curious record, sounding like the canny baroque song suite that you'd hear as background music when visiting a village on a PlayStation RPG. Yet don't let the tinny top-end fool you: the melodies here have a strange and mysterious pull to them. "Figurine" contextualizes the programmed guitar lines from mid-'90s R&B records and loops it into a fascinating pop moment, while the slower "Heat Wave" has the kind of groove you find your mind absolutely luxuriating in. Each song announces its primary melody very early on, but the small instrumental additions and details he tacks on are what keeps the listener intrigued. To the uninitiated, d'Eon's music might be strange and deceptively simple, but this "Leviathan" has a gravitational force all its own, its melodies so accessible but so deep that it's nearly impossible to tear yourself away from them. #46: Gilligan Moss • "Speaking Across Time" For their second full-length, the duo that is Gilligan Moss (Benjamin Cronin & Evan Dorfman) felt a deep kinship with the funky plunderphonics sound of The Avalanches as well as '90s dancefloor kingpins like Fatboy Slim and Basement Jaxx. Synthesizing these influences together, "Speaking Across Time" is the kind of dance record that feels impossible to hate on. Opener "Radio GilMo" uses beautifully filtered tape-phase synths to get your body shaking right out the door, while the Charlie Houston feature "Still Wonder" has crashing breakbeat drums that wouldn't sound out of place in a '90s Tom Tykwer film. While tracks like "The Destroyer" could've been made by Moby at his most pop-leaning, "Speaking Across Time" is reverent to the dance titans who have come before them while fully embracing a throwback aesthetic. It's true that this album has been produced with the latest cutting-edge techniques, but its heart is as old school as it gets, making you want to blow the dust off your Saint Etienne vinyl to go for a nostalgic spin. #45: The Smile • "Cutouts" In a recent interview with the Australian radio program Double J, Thom Yorke indicated that he was not beholden to any fans clamoring for a new Radiohead album because he was having too much fun being in The Smile. While some have noted the band feels like "Radiohead-lite" given it consists of Yorke, his bandmate Johnny Greenwood, and the dexterous drummer Tom Skinner, Yorke clearly enjoys not having the burden of expectations that comes with being in a band as lionized as Radiohead. "Cutouts" is the band's third album in 18 months and second in 2024 alone, and just as Yorke sings on opening track "Foreign Spies": "It's a beautiful world." Rife with the arpeggiated synth-lines and the nervy guitar work the band is best known for, "Cutouts" belies its title as being more than just a "odds and sods" collection of tracks that didn't make the year's earlier release "Wall of Eyes". "Cutouts" has its own distinct identity, as a plodding, curious number "Don't Get Me Started" feels so outside the realm of what Radiohead was known for that you can truly start referring to these songs as Smile-styled. Yes, Yorke's voice remains a prominent carry-through, as does his lyrical themes of isolation, but when the acoustic guitars come out for the strummy almost-ballad "Bodies Laughing", it's clear that it's time to stop comparing The Smile to anything else and let them do their own thing, as they just dropped one of the best art-rock albums the year has to offer. #44: LL Cool J • "The Force" The last time LL Cool J released an album, it didn't go too well. 2013's "Authentic" was clearly a record made by a guy who spent multiple years hosting the Grammys, looping in a strange cadre of guests, including Eddie Van Halen, Brad Paisley, and Fitz & The Tantrums. It was eviscerated by critics and forgotten by fans; it would have been no surprise if he never bothered touching the mic again. So leave it to "The Force", an old-school, angry, and surprisingly focused album to rewrite his narrative completely. Primarily produced by Q-Tip, "The Force" is a loving ode to hip-hop's storied past, focusing on colorful samples, sharp flows, and with a raw energy throughout. "When the bullets get to whizzing / Where is all the moralism?" he asks on the funky "Basquiat Energy", before jumping on a hypnotically wobbly beat for his dexterous Eminem collaboration "Murdergram Deux". Even with a stacked guest list (Nas, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg , Rick Ross), it's LL who often holds focus, sounding young and hungry in a way he hasn't in years. It's totally understood if you had written of LL Cool J years ago due to his burgeoning television acting career, but with "The Force", he's proven that he's still got that fire in him—the biggest surprise of 2024. #43: Bodysync • "NUTTY" Electronic producers Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage have linked up before, dropping a fun and breezy dance record under their shared Bodysync moniker in 2022. While that album was aided by guest spots from the likes of Tinashe and Nite Jewel, their sophomore effort "NUTTY" asks a very simple question: "Wasn't dance music supposed to be fun?" Embracing the overt melodies and sometimes downright stupidity of the late-'90s/early-2000s Big Beat sound, "NUTTY" is as silly as it is fun, a guaranteed party-starter of a record that just so happens to be made by two guys who know how much craft is needed to make those pop moments as sticky as they are. "I Want It To Be Real" sounds like it just stepped off of the Vengabus, "Rock It" is just waiting to be picked up by sports arena DJs, and "Babies" is in the running for the most so-stupid-it-might-be-brilliant club track of the year. Clocking in a hair under 30 minutes, "NUTTY" is one of the most unabashedly fun records you'll hear this decade. Truly impossible to hate on. #42: The Black Keys • "Ohio Players" 2024 was the year where it all fell apart for The Black Keys, starting with the release of their 12th studio full-length, "Ohio Players". It underperformed on the charts, which led to a painful domino effect: their arena tour undersold and got canceled, they fired their entire management team and were reduced to playing a show for crypto bros by year's end, erasing so much of the goodwill they had built up over the past several years. While the album was highlighted for not doing as well as their last several – did anyone actually listen to it? If they did, they'd realize the Ohio duo were more victims of timing than anything else, as this is one of the brightest, poppiest records of their career, holding their sharp guitar edge while diving even further into the sound that made them rock radio chart stars, to begin with. "Only Love Matters" has one of the best choruses they've come up with in recent memory, opener "This is Nowhere" has a throwback vibe that easily could've slotted it on "El Camino", and string-accented '70s soul workout "I Forgot To Be Your Lover" is genuinely effective. While so many of their poor financial decisions could've like been avoided, what with hindsight being 20/24 and all, let's make sure the narrative doesn't overwhelm the fundamental fact that the record they put out during one of their lowest years was a genuine banger. #41: Ibibio Sound Machine • "Pull the Rope" England's Ibibio Sound Machine have now been together for over a decade, and in that time their electronic/Afrobeat sound has broken surprising commercial barriers, as great dance songs get your body moving no matter what style they're in. While 2022's "Electricity" had them working on some more autre-ideas thanks to hiring Hot Chip as producers, this year's "Pull the Rope" saw vocalist Eno Williams, producer Max Grunhard, and the rest of the team work with Ross Orton, who garnered acclaim for working with acts as eclectic as Arctic Monkeys and M.I.A. On "Pull the Rope", Orton aims for the group's sound to be as impactful as possible, as that hard-hitting snare that pumps "Mama Say" is something you can feel in your chest. Even without Hot Chip here, tracks like the rubbery "Dance in the Rain" could've easily fit into that last collaboration. Then take "Them Say", which rides along a groove that Talking Heads could've easily worked on. While Ibibio Sound Machine loves tossing its influences up in the air, "Pull the Rope" is another solid entry in a discography already full of club-ready classics. #40: Kolumbo • "Sandy Legs" When Frank LoCrasto's bossa-nova/lounge-indebted Kolumbo project landed their debut album on our Best Records of 2022 list , it was due to the evolving, gorgeous, and unexpected melodic combinations his band was able to run through while evoking a very specific type of '50s/'60s American nostalgia. For "Sandy Legs", Kolumbo's long-awaited follow-up, the intention this time was to brighten the vibe up to "Hawaiian shirt" levels. Tiki drink in hand, LoCrasto dives deep into his love of all things Mancini, Lyman, and Equivel to create a time capsule of a full-length filled with melodies that feel close to timeless. "Water Bear" adds woodwinds to its hypnotic organ loop, while the title track feels like the spirit of Palm Springs distilled into a single composition. By the time "Riviera" comes in with its stop-start keyboard melody and festival whistle blows, it's you, the listener, who wants to start a conga line, proving that no matter what your demographic is, everyone could always use a little bit of laid-back boogie in their life. #39: Doechii • "Alligator Bites Never Heal" Doechii doesn't care what you think, and that's part of her charm. The Florida-born rapper has been open about her personal life – ranging from her recent journey with sobriety to her bisexuality – but she wears every part of her personality as a piece of armor, unafraid of any judgment or challenge. While technically a mixtape, "Alligator Bites Never Heal" remains a dynamite introduction to a blinding new talent, one who's as dexterous and confident as she is knowledgeable. Yes, she is absolutely copping a Missy Elliot flow on "Boiled Peanuts", but it's coming from a place of reverence and love, even as she spits out lines like "Label always up my a** like anal beads." She's comically self-referential on "Denial is a River", brazenly funny on breakout song "Nissan Altima" (who else would declare "I'm the new hip-hop Madonna / I'm the trap Grace Jones"?), and romantically vulgar on the wry "Fireflies". Since the record's release, she's been tapped for a Katy Perry duet and found kinship with a feature on Tyler, The Creator's latest, but that's all because the industry recognizes a unique voice when they see it – and it doesn't get more unique than Doechii. #38: bad tuner • "look at me but through me" In the late '90s, electronica was big, fun, and ready to crossover onto the pop charts. Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, Fatboy Slim, the Chemical Brothers, and others knew there was no melody too overt that couldn't be embellished with enough interesting detail for it to turn into a hit. Brooklyn's bad tuner (yes, all lower-case) knows this all too well, but found great interest in cross-pollinating the vibes of the genre's heyday with the brisk immediacy of U.K. garage. His resulting EP, "look at me but through me", is a fresh, fun take that feels indebted to dance music history but so outside of the current club moment that one can't but help but be drawn to it. Tracks like "jade" use simple layered vocal loops to create an absolutely hypnotic effect, while opener "caught up" with Hailes feels like an audition tape for the next Dua Lipa album in the best way. Even at six songs in length, this EP doesn't have a moment out of place, as bad turner knows what a good time sounds like and is aiming to give us nothing but in the years to come. #37: Ayra Starr • "The Year I Turned 21" The past few years have seen an unprecedented blending of African music into Western pop, with artists like Burna Boy, Rema, and Fireboy DML making major headway with A-list guest features as well as solo songs that have broken continental barriers. Almost all of these artists hail from Nigeria, a populous pop culture mecca from which the young Ayra Starr ended up scoring a global hit with her 2022 song "Rush". For her sophomore album, "The Year I Turned 21", the Afrobeat ambassador extends her influence even further, scoring collaborative tracks with the likes of Anitta, Coco Jones, Rauw Alejandro, and Giveon. Yet as fun as her cultural cross-pollinations are, her record's best songs are the ones when it's just Ayra front and center. The romantic "Rhythm & Blues" rides a wispy synth loop to cathartic release, while the boastful "Commas", with its sawing violins and emotional chorus, shows that even in her short discography, Starr is pushing her sound into lovely new directions. "Energy wrong, I log off," she declares, showing a patience and self-care mentality that so many lack. While this album may signify the year that she turned 21, we also think this is the year when she moved from a promising upstart into a true and proper superstar. #36: Adrianne Lenker • "Bright Future" Adrianne Lenker is your favorite singer-songwriter's favorite singer-songwriter. The Big Thief leader has already developed a deep discography both with her main band as well as under her own name, but her sixth solo album "Bright Future" is folk songcraft at its most distilled interest. "Real House" is a soft, exacting tale that digs into the pain of her personal life, having never had a permanent residence and understanding the power of what a "real home" means. "Free Treasure" is the embodiment of the phrase "there are cathedrals all around for those with eyes to see," but Lenker fights off the devil on her shoulder in ways only she could describe ("There's a guy on the nape of my neck / And he hangs out there all day / He quantifies my every thought / And tells me not to play"). Built primarily on soft piano presses and the lightest of finger-picked guitar, Lenker's songs are tender odes stripped to the bare essence – just voice and melody – to get impactful and personal stories across. Cathartic doesn't even begin to describe it; "Bright Future" does nothing but reaffirm the narrative that she's a once-in-a-generation songwriter. #35: JLin • "Akoma" Gary, Indiana's Jlin has never been afraid to chart her own course with electronic music, taking IDM, footwork, and Chicago Juke styles and reworking them into darker, stranger, and more compelling forms. While her 2017 sophomore album "Black Origami" saw her sampling the "Resident Evil" video game series and writing with William Basinski, "Akoma" is the record that feels like a coronation. Yes, that's Björk collaborating on album opener "Borealis", which – with its chopped-up woodwind sample and sharp digital snare – sounds more like a classic Björk track than anything Björk has put out in the past decade. The Kronos Quartet is willing to let their strings be disseminated and reassembled by Jlin on the dynamic highlight "Sodalite", and none other than the legendary Philip Glass shows up on the closer "The Precision of Infinity" to have his piano composition be transformed into a ghostly new form. Yet even without the big-name guests, "Akoma" still would have garnered praise for tracks like the dynamic "Grannie's Cherry Pie", the thumping "Eye Am" with its tribal percussion, and the multi-layered "Open Canvas". Some tracks contain entire universes into themselves as if compressing an entire album's worth of musical ideas into a single song and repeating the process eleven times over. While it may have been almost seven years since her last proper full-length, "Akoma" was more than worth the wait. #34: ionnalee • "CLOSE YOUR EYES" / "BLUND" Jonna Lee has lived several artist's careers at once. There were her early singer-songwriter days under her own name in her native Sweden, a global breakout under the audiovisual moniker iamamiwhoami, which resulted in several records of beautifully damaged art-pop, and her era under the semi-combined name of ionnalee, which merged her styles together. While her discography is almost entirely in English, Lee recognized that there were some phrasings that just worked emotionally in Swedish, so for her next batch of songs, she had her kroppkakor and ate it too: "CLOSE YOUR EYES" and "BLUND" is the same album twice over, once in English and once in Swedish. Hearing the lyrical flows between them is fascinating, but no matter what your preferred version is, this is some of the most relaxed, confident songwriting Lee has ushered in since her early iamamiwhoami days. She tackles themes of isolation, grief, and familial love over some of the most romantic, hypnotic, and lush synthpop creations she's ever rendered. "Not My Cherry" hooks us in again and again with its many reverb-heavy keypads, "Innocence of Sound" is the poppiest pop song she's dropped since her legendary full-length "Blue", and "Darkness is a Real Place" loops in a choir of her closest friends to send off a loved one who recently passed. While it's fun to note the differences, it doesn't matter which language you listen to this opus in because songs this great feel universal. #33: Daryl Johns • "Daryl Johns" Daryl Johns is the son of jazz musician parents, eventually becoming a hired gun and playing drums and bass for artists like The Lemon Twigs and Macy Gray. Yet when he fell into Mac DeMarco's orbit, things clicked into place, and Johns' self-titled debut – released on DeMarco's own record label, naturally – feels like some describing an '80s pop-rock record from memory. With washed-out plastic guitar tones, thin drums, and some jazzy piano chords running into some crisply strummed melody lines, "Daryl Johns" takes textural inspiration from the likes of DeMarco and Ariel Pink but coalesces it into his own brand of vintage cool. "I'm So Serious", for example, is the sound of aliens picking up a broadcast of "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield and trying to recreate it after a single listen. It's all purposeful, all hazy, all as casual and tossed-off as it is genuinely brilliant. The delirious time signature changes of "Crash", the overcaffeinated piano that gives "Palermo" its shape, the curious vein of earnestness that runs through "Maggie and Me" – these songs are all wild and memorable for different reasons, and even more colorful when taken in during a straight-through listen. It's hard to even know what decade "Daryl Johns" the album is trying to pull inspiration from, but it kind of doesn't matter, 'cos in its own strange way, it's fully displaced out of any known pop culture timeline. #32: Anitta • "Funk Generation" "Funk Generation" has been a long-standing dream of Anitta's, as she's always wanted to release an album of nothing but straight-up Brazilian funk, and amazingly, she pulled it off. With 15 tracks that barely clock over 35 minutes, she spits out new song ideas at a rapid-fire pace, keeping the tempo up and the grooves fresh. The dark twerky electro of "Funk Rave" gives way to the horn-driven stutter of "Meme" which bumps next to the hard Phonk sound of "Sabana" with ease. It's the feeling of a non-stop party, and while all of her albums have been dance records to varying degrees, this feels like the moment when Anitta went in the paint, rounding up a VIP section of production talent (Diplo, Stargate, the great Tropkillaz) to bring her vision to life. Virtually every idea is tried out, including a duet with Sam Smith that infuses the English singer's melodramatic voice with a sharp groove that they match with surprising ease. An an artist who laces her lyrics in English, Spanish, and Portuguese to try and get reach the largest audience possible, "Funk Generation" sometimes feels like her thesis statement – but rarely is a thesis statement this genuinely danceable. #31: Denzel Curry • "King of the Mischievous South" Denzel Curry seems like the kind of rapper who gets bored easily. He is never content with repeating the same sound or flow, which is why his sonic worldview shifts from album to album. After flirting with mainstream acceptance on 2022's excellent "Melt My Eyez See Your Future", he takes "King of the Mischievous South" to the streets, keeping the beats hard while embracing the noted eclecticism of late-'90s Southern rap outfits like Goodie Mob and UGK. A luxurious string section during "Cole Pimp"? You got it. Creepy cacophonous synths backing "Hot One" (with the stellar opening line "I can make money from the comfort of my sofa / So much drive, now I gotta get a chauffeur")? Absolutely. Trunk-rattling bass on "Hit the Floor"? More likely than you think. While the record features a stellar guest list (A$AP Ferg, Maxo Kream, 2 Chainz, Juicy J, Ty Dolla Sign, to name a few), Curry remains the star of the show, sounding dexterous and hungry as if he was trying to prove something to himself. Prove he did, because few would dare take a shot at this "King". #30: The Decemberists • "'As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again'" The last Decemberists full-length proper was 2018's "I'll Be Your Girl", which saw the famously ornate folk-rock outfit experiment with synthpop. It was a perfectly fine record, but the Colin Meloy-fronted outfit had been performing so long that they transformed into sleek professionals, putting a stream of solid records that left little to be embraced by anyone outside of their ever-whittling core fanbase. While an attempted 20th-anniversary tour was delayed and later canceled due to the pandemic, few knew if the band would ever come back. "'As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again'", the group's ninth studio album, feels like a record made by people with something to prove. Fresh, lively, and filled with so many crisply executed ideas that it almost feels like a greatest hits compilation, this hour-plus opus moves from country-affected anthems ("Never Satisfied"), slinky bass-driven lounge numbers ("Tell Me What's On Your Mind"), to a plucky apocalyptic story-song ("Oh No!") that may well qualify as the most Decemberists-sounding Decemberists song ever made. While it didn't chart as well as their 2010s run of records, it is still slowly being discovered by fans both new and old, all of whom are slowly realizing that after years in the wilderness, this might be one of their best efforts in over a decade. #29: Original Broadway Cast • "Stereophonic" In case you hadn't kept your eye on the Tony Awards this year, the big winner for Best Play was a new work called "Stereophonic", which was a fictional story about a band in the '70s where some of the members were married to each other and saw their romantic turmoils spill out into the recording process. If this sounds like a certain gigantic band who created an iconic record based on a lot of "Rumors" about their interpersonal life, you're not the only one, but since the rights to the original music of said band likely were cost-prohibitive, this "play" featured a bevy of original songs written by former Arcade Fire member Will Butler. The songs of "Stereophonic" aren't parodies or knockoffs of any Fleetwood Mac classics, but they remain intensely evocative of the sound of the era. Thankfully the cast of the play knows how to harmonize well together (catch the "BVs" interlude), but songs like the sidewinding "Masquerade" , the lilting piano pop of "Bright (Fast)", and the simmering "Domino" sound like they've existed for decades and have gone multi-platinum several times over. It would be easy for some to dismiss this as mere audio cosplay, but songs this meticulously composed, lovingly executed, and perfectly performed aren't hindered by their idol worship but instead enhanced by it. Don't sleep on "Stereophonic": it's the best new '70s AM rock album you'll hear in 2024. #28: RM • "Right Place, Wrong Person" When BTS started blowing up in the U.S. with overly pop mega-hits like "Dynamite" and "Butter", something got lost in the sauce, which group leader RM all but admitted in a fan broadcast, noting that after the Ed Sheeran-penned "Permission to Dance", he "didn't know what kind of group we were anymore." While RM's 2022 album "Indigo" made some big mainstream moves, it's this year's "Right Place, Wrong Person" that feels like the album he's always wanted to make. Featuring jazzy instrumentals, hard beats that wouldn't sound out of place on a Tyler, The Creator record, and an extremely select but expertly-picked group of collaborators (Moses Sumney, Domi and JD Beck, the always-great Little Simz), "Right Place, Wrong Person" would get critical notices even if it wasn't connected to one of the biggest K-pop groups of all time. It's a remarkably diverse and rewarding listen, but the indie rock detour "Heaven" and beautifully manic "Domodachi" are some of the best songs RM has ever penned (getting an assist from San Yawn of the wacky hip-hop collective Balming Tiger certainly helps give all these songs some real character). While V luxuriates in the slowest grooves known to man just as Jung Kook went full mainstream pop star, hats off to RM for creating some of the most interesting, challenging, and compelling music to exist under the BTS umbrella. #27: Nubiyan Twist • "Find Your Flame" Nubiyan Twist is always in the mood to challenge themselves with how many genres they can cram into a single album. "Find Your Flame" just might one-up 2021's "Freedom Fables" with a running throughline of joyful soul, pop, and R&B but with enough deviations from the formula that you can't help but be engaged. Yes, that's Nile Rogers' signature guitar on the bouncy "Lights Out", Seun Kuti on the rapid-paced jazz number "Carry Me", and a Jill Scott-indebted vibe laced within "You Don't Know Me". While guitarist Tom Excell drives most of the complex arrangements and singer Aziza Jaye holds her own against any number of colorful guests, it truly is the horn section that helps give Nubiyan Twist its urgency, popping up just as often in the mix as guitar or piano, bending their style to fit whatever genre the current song is riding with. While Nubiyan Twist has been doing this for over a decade, "Find Your Flame" feels like their defining record, radiating sunshine out of every sonic corner. Easily the most feel-good album of the year. #26: Blood Incantation • "Absolute Elsewhere" Denver's Blood Incantation has always been built different. While they proudly declare themselves as a death metal band, every member of this quartet is a genuine music nerd obsessed with production, melody, analog recording, and subverting expectations. Unafraid to go down a psychedelic rabbit hole whenever they deem fit, "Absolute Elsewhere" shows just how creative metal can be properly pressed to its limits. (This isn't surprising, given that the band's last full-length was a surprising detour into darkwave ambient.) Legendary German electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream swing by to drop some dreamy synths on the second suite in "The Stargate" saga, while the second suite, "The Message", wakes you up with its '80s-indebted stacked metal riffs and thundering hurricane of tom hits, which are later broken up by a bongo breakdown that works against the odds. Multi-layered, unexpected, and unafraid to look for moments of levity in what is still one of the year's heaviest full-lengths this side of Knocked Loose, Blood Incantation shows no signs of slowing down or running out of ideas anytime soon. They may have called the album "Absolute Elsewhere", but when it's playing, our ears don't want to be anywhere else. #25: Los Campesinos! • "All Hell" When the Welsh rock outfit Los Campesinos! unleashed their debut album "Hold on Now, Youngster..." in 2008, their sugar-rush tempos and rapid-fire hooks made them instant twee-pop stars. Yet the group didn't like being pigeonholed, and each subsequent record was slower and darker than the last. They're still a pop-rock group, make no mistake, but given their last album came out in 2017, few were banking on Gareth Paisey and friends to reunite all these years later, much less deliver the most considered album of their career. The "All Hell" lead single "Feast of Tongues" features the group at their most anthemic and melodramatic, knocking out a singalong chorus like its nothing while casually dropping lines like "If laughter's the medicine we need / Then this misery is therapy." (It's also very easy to get obsessed with the way Paisey says "American Water"). Tracks like "Clown Blood" and "Holy Smoke (2005)" shows that the band can still rock just as hard as their contemporaries, but their quieter moments like closer "Adult Acne Stigmata" – with its theme of forcing a smile through times of unprecedented hardship – that tug the most at your heartstrings. It may be "All Hell", but this record might be an all-timer. #24: Kali Uchis • "Orquideas" If the rumors on the street are to be believed, Kali Uchis' label wasn't too keen on her sophomore album, 2022's " Sin Miedo (Del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞", being a mixed-language affair, and did little to promote it. When "Telepatía" ended up being a bilingual crossover smash, they were eating crow. While her 2023 English-language follow-up "Red Moon in Venus" was sultry albeit somewhat monochromatic, her Spanish-language "Orquideas" finds Uchis firing on all cylinders, effortlessly roping in numerous styles into her orbit as her voice and eclectic tastes expand to heretofore unseen new levels. Even with a guest list featuring a Who's Who of those leading the contemporary Latin music space (Peso Pluma, Karol G, Rauw Alejandro), it's still Uchis's show, and her songwriting has never been more confident. No matter if she's trying out mid-tempo R&B ("Me Pongo Loca"), funky club bangers ("¿Cómo Así?"), or reggaeton (the downright flirty "Labios Mordidos"), she sounds at home, every song working together in the context of the album. When the multi-faceted merengue rave-up "Dame Beso / Muévete" starts ramping up the tempo and brings in the accordions, you realize that you're not just listening to a new Kali Uchis album but instead a modern classic unfolding before your ears. Love live Kali Uchis. #23: Sabrina Carpenter • "Short n' Sweet" It didn't take long for Sabrina Carpenter to realize that she wasn't a mere product. While tracks like 2017's "Thumbs" racked up hundreds of millions of YouTube views, she didn't write it and would often get lumped into the anonymous glom of Gen Z pop starlets. Her 2022 album "Emails I Can't Send" was a minor breakthrough, as she was co-writing every track and slowly building up an audience who was finally clued into her smart, sassy writing. Yet with 2024's "Short n' Sweet", a mix of excellent timing and unclockable radio classics allowed her to break through the pop mainstream in a big way. Yes, "Espresso" was the Song of the Summer, the country-affected "Please Please Please" topped the charts, and "Taste" exemplified the finest type of guitar-driven pop-rock, but throughout it all, her lyrics were unflinchingly honest, dangerously witty, and unapologetically horny. If "Bed Chem" was the slinky come-on, then "Juno" – where Carpenter asks her partner to make her the main plot point of the Oscar-winning film of the same name – is the logical conclusion. "Slim Pickins" has some heartbreak under the jokes, but the astoundingly affecting "Lie to Girls" sees her eyeing gendered roles through a weary, fickle lens ("You don't have to lie to girls / If they like you, they'll just lie to themselves / Don't I know it better than anyone else?"). Come for the pinnacle of pop production and effortless charm, but stay for the surprising amount of heart, wit, and insight. #22: Beyoncé • "Cowboy Carter" Beyoncé was quick to shut down the idea that "Cowboy Carter" was merely the pop star's country record. She noted in a pre-release statement that it was, at its core, "a Beyoncé album," when the opening track "Ameriican Requiem" kicks in with its stars, you know you're in for something truly unexpected. While Beyoncé gives tributes to many country legends – ranging from the first female Black country breakthrough Linda Martell to the likes of Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson – she uses country music as a jumping-off point for a journey through the whole of pop music, highlighting the power of Black musicians over the years while copping a Beach Boys chorus at one point and jumping on a buckin' Pharrell beat the next. While her cover of The Beatles' "Blackbird" is lovely and her update of "Jolene" is nothing short of expected, the album's best moments come from surprising detours: a remarkable duet with Miley Cyrus that's destined to become a karaoke go-to, a slinky little piano number called "Bodyguard" which garnered her first music video in years, and lithe pop moment called "II Hands II Heaven" that still somehow works in the context of an album that features chart-toppers like "Texas Hold 'Em" and introduced Shaboozey to the world. Sprawling, messy, and overambitious, it may not be a perfect Beyoncé album, but who cares about perfection when you can get lost in this music for days on end? #21: Trauma Ray • "Chameleon" Every year, some band comes along that grew up on the CDs of the likes of Deftones and Summercamp and realized that resurrecting hard-charging melodic alternative rock was their calling. In 2024, the band is Texas quintet Trauma Ray, and they capture that gritty aesthetic better than anyone else. On "Chameleon", their debut album, they conjure the fuzzed-out drama and mournful vocals of acts like Incubus, Thursday, and A Perfect Circle while still looping these influences into their own sound. The sullen longing of "Bardo" feels beamed straight out of a broadcast of MTV's "120 Minutes" while the moody seven-minute closer "U.S.D.D.O.S." evokes the saddest corners of the Britpop spectrum with its measured, glacial pace as songwriters Avila and Jonathan Perez sing in canyons of reverb, their lyrics more "picked up on" than properly heard. Even if a band like this emerges on an annual basis, there is something special about musicians so committed to finding the emotional core of a readily dismissed subgenre. Some may doubt the merits of a one-popular act like KoRn, but for a generation, those songs and lyrics may have changed and even saved some lives. The audience for alt-rock may be smaller in these modern times, but Trauma Ray would be happy if they could offer even a fragment of that kind of multi-platinum catharsis. #20: Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham • "Cunningham Bird" In 1973, aspiring singer-songwriters Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham released their debut album "Buckingham Nicks", featuring the duo sharing, trading off, and celebrating each other's original works. Shortly after its release, the two joined Fleetwood Mac, forever altering the trajectory of the band and all of pop music along with it. You'd think that over 50 years later, a few interested parties would want to re-release the record, but it has never been (legally) etched on CD or shared over streamers, making it a true pop music curio. Frustrated by this, superfans Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird – each celebrated indie-folk artists in their own right – decided to preserve its legacy by putting out their own track-for-track iteration of the LP. Instead of being mere hero worship, this new edition works because it is a true interpretation, not a recreation. Unafraid to slightly change the arrangements on a few songs to fit the stripped-down vibe they're going for, everything about "Cunningham Bird" works in spades. Replacing the guitars in "Don't Let Me Down Again" with stuttering violins? It's even better than you think. The stately ornateness of opener "Crying in the Night"? Beautifully affected. While the duo clearly has reverence for the original recording, "Cunningham Bird" succeeds due to the way these songs are filtered through the eyes of two artists who give the songs proper reverence. In an offering of pure sacrilege, we'd go as far as to say some of the versions here improve upon the originals. Now, where's their supergroup to join? #19: Arooj Aftab • "Night Reign" At the 2022 Grammy Awards, Pakistani-American jazz artist Arooj Aftab found herself competing in the Best New Artist category against the likes of The Kid Laroi, Baby Keem, and eventual winner Olivia Rodrigo . Her nomination was a most welcome surprise for an artist who was carving out a distinct lane by combining elements of contemporary jazz, Hindustani classical, and the poetic neo-Sufi movement into a bold new sound. "Night Reign", her fourth solo full-length, is perhaps her strongest work to date, alternating between moments of levity like the blissful "Saaqi" to the slow-burn dramatic sizzle of her Moor Mother collaboration "Bolo Na". Jazz keys plink and echo, upright bass notes squeal and thump, and Aftab's voice lifts above all these elements, a gorgeous siren song that ties all these moods together into a unifying whole. There are few artists out there like Arooj Aftab, and"Night Reign" features an undeniable sense of poetry that opens their sound up to new possibilities. She's not just bridging genres together so much as rewriting the possibilities of what jazz can do. #18: • "Awe" K-pop, as a genre, knows no barriers. It's such a commercial force in so many countries that the definition of what a K-pop group is grows more and more nebulous every day. A recent Netflix series debuted Katseye, a global girl group who practiced under "the K-pop model" but were aimed for the U.S. charts and features songs performed entirely in English. On the great Apple TV docuseries "K-Pop Idols", the outfit Blackswan goes through enough lineup changes that they end up in an iteration with no Korean members, and they question their place in the industry. XG, a Japanese seven-piece outfit who sing exclusively in English, has all but been dismissed in some K-pop circles, but the group's counter-narrative is compelling: what if they just had the best songs? Having doled out eye-popping singles for years, "Awe", their second EP, almost feels like a greatest-hits package. Moody empowerment anthems ("Howling")? You got it. Cheeky tales of confirming your suspicions in a relationship ("Something Ain't Right")? No one does it better. There isn't a song out of place on this record, and after releasing their breakthrough rap opus "Woke Up" earlier in the year, this album contains an extended remix where the girls don't even show up but instead has multiple Japanese and Korean rappers hop on the beat to give the definitive co-sign. Maybe XG isn't K-pop after all; maybe they're something better. #17: Mount Eerie • "Night Palace" Phil Elverum's muses can take many shapes. When he was in The Microphones, their legendary 2001 album "The Glow, Pt. 2" featured a fictional narrative that contained multiple characters, stories, and twisted archetypes. As Mount Errie, his landmark 2017 full-length "A Crow Looked At Me" painfully and pointedly interrogated the death of his wife due to cancer as he laid his soul bare for all to see. On "Night Palace", it's the elements of the earth that catch his eye, watching his emotions change and alter as planetary textures cross his way. "Breaths" explores mortality over an instrumental that's more feedback than actual guitar strums, while "Wind & Fog" captures the fury of a hurricane in a near metal-like caterwaul of guitar and drums increasing in intensity. The achingly sad "Non-Metaphorical Decolonization" tricks you with a powerful wordless opening half before breaking down into church organs as Elverum rejects the more unsavory parts of his home country's history. "Night Palace" is – as with the best of Elverum's work – overambitious, but its interludes, curious musical side quests, and earnest lyrics are what gives it such a hypnotic pull. It may not always be the easiest of albums to listen to, but it's hard not to get swept up in its beautifully constructed sonic world. #16: Fabiano do Nascimento & Sam Gendel • "The Room" Sam Gendel can do this with you or without you. The L.A.-based saxophonist has spent so much time mastering his craft that he's developed a distinct sound for himself, running his sax through digital filters to produce a tone that's all his own. He perpetuates this across any number of albums, including 2021's "Fresh Bread", which clocked in at a staggering 52 tracks. He can also serve as a pro session musician or a beautifully indulgent experimentalist, but when he's in the room with a guitarist like Brazilian wunderkind Fabiano do Nascimento, he is locked in. "The Room" is an extraordinary record of instrumental duets – primarily guitar and sax with only the occasional bass or percussion element brought in – that moves well past any known jazz idiom and into something much more distinct. The duo trade lines, support each other's unique solo style and move from quiet sambas to Spanish ballads to quick-step numbers that flirt with flamenco affectations without fully crossing over. "The Room" sees its magic stem from the duo's innate chemistry, each so clearly excited to work with and challenge each other into greater realms of melodic complexity. Fair warning: once you enter this "Room", you may never want to leave. #15: All Under Heaven • "What Lies Ahead of Me" While groups like Duster are keeping the genre alive, the movement that is "slowcore" (and its close cousin, "sadcore") just doesn't have the same momentum these days. While genre stalwarts like Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon are unlikely to recover from cancellation, leave it to an upstart group like All Under Heaven to put out one of the year's most dynamic, emotional rock records. While this New Jersey quartet at times evokes the ghosts of their idols like Pinback and Low with eerie accuracy (the gorgeous acoustic number "Rolling" feels like the ghost of Mark Kozelek is running through singer Nick DeFab), songs like "Believing" shows that a love of all things The Cure can take you far, as ghostly guitar lines merge with charging bass rhythms that paint dark eyeliner on you as you listen. DeFab's lyrics are cryptic but universal, which the goth-drenched lament "September" exemplifies with its themes of loneliness and lack of identity: "I've been feeling like someone that I don't know anymore." It all hits, and track-for-track, "What Lies Ahead of Me" remains one of the year's most dynamic rock releases. #14: Hannah Frances • "Keeper of the Shepherd" "The brilliance of the day waits for you to wake again / Patient in the way I waited for you to love me again." Sung over lush finger-picked guitar, the first line from Hannah Frances' gorgeous sophomore full-length is a great indication of the beauty, heartbreak, and brilliance that is contained within. With the tracklisting done in almost chronological order of when the songs were finished, "Keeper of the Shepherd" is one of the year's best breakout performances, as every inch of this album feels meticulously composed and freshly presented. The title track shuffles along a light country beat, but her presentation is cutting, as a line like "I cannot live without me" seems simple on paper but is stunningly effective when rendered by her expressive voice. Clocking in at over 37 minutes with only seven songs, "Keeper of the Shepherd" feels displaced out of time, as if these songs have existed for centuries. There are hints of Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, and even Joanna Newsom in her approach to songcraft, but the more you listen to "Keeper of the Shepherd", the more you realize that Hannah Frances isn't the second coming of someone like Sharon Van Etten but instead the first-ever Hannah Frances, and for that alone, we should be grateful. #13: Sleater-Kinney • "Little Rope" Despite a discography filled with unquestioned indie-rock classics, some will never forgive Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker for moving on following the unceremonious exit of drummer Janet Weiss in 2019. While 2021's "Path to Wellness" was a genuinely lovely record, it failed to chart, showing that their goodwill had all but dried up. Enter in 2024's "Little Rope", which is one of the year's most shocking comebacks. Partway through the recording process, a car crash killed Brownstein's mother and stepfather, and while processing such a tragedy, she navigated through the grief with music. "Little Rope" rages with a fury the band hasn't pumped out in years, and tracks like "Hunt You Down" writhe with the acid-tinged guitar-pop fury that marked the outfit's early days. "Hell don't have no future / Hell don't have no doubt / Hell is just a place that / We can't seem to live without," they sing on opener "Hell", and while the vibe may be an instilled sense of defiance to one's self, the music spurns and burns while also inviting the listener in. While "Untidy Creature" and "Small Finds" reiterate that Sleater-Kinney can go heavy when they want to, tracks like "Dress Yourself" are stuttering, strange, and beautifully opaque. Even as they were working through some deep personal struggles, "Little Rope" is the sound of a band that has something to prove, and they absolutely prove it. #12: Geordie Greep • "The New Sound" One of the year's most surprising albums was an English jazz-fusion album that felt like Steely Dan had evolved into a more aggressive form. Geordie Greep's voice gets compared to Steely Dan's Donald Fagen a lot, as his exact vocal phrasings are so dramatic and distinct, which, when accented by driving rock rhythms, jazz pianos, and layers of backing vocals, makes for a record that is damn near close to unclassifiable. While a couple of songs were written while with his band Black Midi before they broke up, "The New Sound" is chaotically cohesive, as too many ideas are crammed into each song but are all articulated so well you can't help but be drawn in. Lead single "Holy, Holy" is a six-minute story song that careens between '70s AOR rock with Latin elements to a Vegas-ready xylophone finale, itself indicative of the purposeful madness contained within. Lyrically confrontational in its sexual politics, as Greep intended to fill the album with love songs about the worst people he could dream up, you will remember exactly where you were the first time you heard it. All the elements he weaves together are things we've heard before, but not in this order, nor presented with this level of intensity. When he called it "The New Sound", he really meant it. #11: Tyler, The Creator • "CHROMAKOPIA" Tyler, The Creator never likes releasing the same album twice, which is why his records have veered between horrorcore shock-rap to psychedelic neo-soul, and few people have batted an eye. With "CHROMAKOPIA", he sounds settled into the colorful expanse that is the "Tyler sound" he's been refining since 2017's "Flower Boy". With '70s synth lines, layered vocal harmonies, military drum lines, and the occasional feel-it-in-your-chest snare thwomp, "CHROMAKOPIA" spreads an intimate narrative on a widescreen canvas, discussing the ups and downs of his growing up, including a pregnancy scare during "Hey Jane" ("You gotta deal with all the mental and the physical change / All the heaviest emotions, and the physical pain / Just to give the kid the man last name?"). While the record is stacked with guests (Schoolboy Q, GloRilla, Lil Wayne ), he finds a kinship with bisexual rising star Doechii, who is unafraid to match Tyler's speed and wit on the madcap "Balloon". It's a record full of surprises and is buoyed by tighter song structures than his sometimes-meandering 2021 best-seller "Call Me If You Get Lost". "CHROMAKOPIA" was preceded by only a few teasers and singles, but that's all that he needed, as the album's off-cycle release gave him three instant Top 10 hits and became yet another smash. At this point, Tyler doesn't even need radio hits to keep his career because he's built up a fanbase by just being Tyler. #10: Friko • "Where we've been, Where we go from here" Where do you even start describing Friko? The Chicago outfit, made up of vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger, loves the same alternative and indie-rock records that you do but have managed to bend their passions into shapes that are entirely their own. At any given moment, they can imbue the melodic pop complexity of peak-era Flaming Lips, the emotional catharsis of Sunny Day Real Estate or Cursive, and even the whistling whimsy of Andrew Bird. The nine tracks that make up their years-in-the-making debut bare hallmarks of great records you already own, whether it be an obvious Bright Eyes influence on the spectacular opener "Where We've Been" or an almost Wilco-esque dryness on "Until I'm With You Again", but the band's innate sense of melody and gorgeous lyrics push it beyond mere idol worship. After one listen, Friko will soon be your new favorite band, too. #9: The Cure • "Songs Of a Lost World" Throughout the past two decades, Robert Smith of The Cure has mentioned, hinted at, and teased the idea of a new record from The Cure coming out, but it always felt like an unfulfilled promise. Heck, even their 2022/2023 tour "Shows of a Lost World" failed to breathe the promise of a new album to light. Much to everyone's surprise, The Cure finally re-emerged the day after Halloween 2024 to unveil a slow, sad, and all-around gorgeous record; their first full-length of new material in 16 years. With guitar, piano, and dramatic synth all around, "Songs Of a Lost World" reverberates with a doomerism sense of sadness but is rendered with expert precision. The unquestioned album highlight, "I Can Never Say Goodbye", finds Smith confronting the passing of his brother in frank and emotional terms: "I can't wake this dreamless sleep / However hard I try / I'm down on my knees / And empty inside." While opening track and lead single "Alone" reminded people just how good a peak-era Cure song can sound like, it's the album's ten-minute closer that digs its hypnotic hooks in deep. Subverting the title of their classic hit "Lovesong", the mournful "Endsong" opens with six minutes of crashing drums and lively guitar before finally breaking into its first verse, where Smith, whose voice is in surprisingly strong form, openly notes that "I'm outside in the dark wondering how I got so old." We're all doing the same, witnessing the fall of empires all around us, but just as his music helped us out through any number of decades, we stand tall knowing that The Cure is right there with us. #8: Knocked Loose • "You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To" Blending the brutal impact of hardcore punk with the melodic rage of metalcore, Kentucky's Knocked Loose has quickly ascended to a revered spot in the metal hierarchy, opening for acts like Slipknot while also netting major spots in festivals like Coachella for actual crossover exposure. Their pure squall of sound is visceral, but the fact the group can change tempo so frequently and so effectively is a testament to the artistry behind their thunder. "You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To", their third full-length and 2024's most lauded metal release, shows them in fearless mode. As lyrically death-obsessed as ever, "You Won't Go..." surges with static, smart guitar riff interjections, and singer Bryan Garris discovers new ways to bend and flex his caterwaul voice. The group has never been afraid of collaborations, but even getting popstar-turned-metalcore singer Poppy on a track feels like the kind of bold move that could only come from a band willing to trust their audience. Each new record of theirs is more dynamic than the last, and it's pretty clear that at this clip, they won't be leaving their perch atop the hard rock food chain before they're supposed to. #7: Kendrick Lamar • "GNX" Even if Kendrick Lamar didn't surprise-drop his sixth full-length "GNX" in late November with only a few hours warning, he still would've been the top music story of the year. His feud with Drake – which at times was funny, nasty, questionable, and memorable – launched his career to new levels, as the already-dexterous Drake saw every one of his lyrical jabs get blocked by Kendrick's surprise releases, lightning-fast turnarounds, and in the case of "Not Like Us", a Grammy-nominated chart-topper. Yet none of the diss tracks show up on "GNX", a personal record the likes we have never seen from Kendrick before. Sure, 2022's "Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers" was a dark and introverted listen, but "GNX" feels less like a purging of demons and more like the album he wanted to make for himself. While he fires back on Lil Wayne expressing disappointment for Kendrick landing the Super Bowl halftime show, so much of "GNX" relies on steady throwback beats and a love of the music he had growing up, best exemplified by his Luther Vandross-sampling duet with SZA, "Luther". "GNX" is a record about humble dreams and quiet aspirations, one that's nostalgic (catch that top-down driving vibe of "Dodger Blue") as it is boisterous ("TV Off" giving us one of the year's most enduring memes with Kendrick simply shouting out DJ Mustard's name). "F--- a double entendre / I want y'all to feel this," he notes on opener "Wacced Out Murals", and rest assured, this album is felt. #6: Brittany Howard • "What Now" Brittany Howard's 2019 debut solo outing "Jamie" was a muted, personal affair, different but not too far removed from her work in her band Alabama Shakes. Yet following a remix LP that netted her a fluke hit and support from artists across all genres, "What Now" feels like the album she's always wanted to make. Indebted to hard funk, psychedelic rock, dance music, and both throwback- and neo-soul, "What Now" finds Howard dressed in full "Raspberry Beret" cosplay, charging forward with a new vision and sound that suits her remarkably well. "I Don't" uses sped-up vocal samples and languid guitar lines to paint a tale of happiness once remembered, while "Prove It To You" charges like it's aiming straight for the dance clubs (or at least the festival rave tent). Her guitar can be furious (check out the sizzling lines on the deeply Prince-indebted "Power to Undo"), and her voice can be gritty and grounded when backed by trumpets and violins on the beautifully frenetic closer "Every Color in Blue". That rare record where every song works on its own but sounds even better when played together in full context, Brittany Howard has one-upped herself while somehow failing to make a chart impact. It's an absolute shame, but of no worry: this is going to be recognized as a classic in time. #5: Cindy Lee • "Diamond Jubilee" While the post-punk sounds of the Calgary band Women made some waves in the late 2000s, a fractured relationship and the death of guitarist Christopher Reimer forced the remaining members to go their separate ways. Member Patrick Flegel created Cindy Lee, an indie-rock outfit with a deep obsession with the dry production and unvarnished garage-pop sounds of the late '50s and early '60s rock songbook. While their horror-themed 2020 album "What's Tonight to Eternity?" won them accolades if not fans, it was the out-of-nowhere 2024 double-album "Diamond Jubilee" that took the world by storm. Initially unavailable on streaming services or even Bandcamp (there are now moderately priced vinyl editions), the record was a free-to-download/tip-if-you-feel-like-it experience whose scope and broad melodic stylings sounded like nothing else out in the world. The band started touring the album before abruptly canceling their jaunt, but the songs and ambition of "Diamond Jubilee" remained: "Wild Rose" is playing in a sock hop jukebox in another dimension, "Dallas" is soundtracking a slow dance at a poodle skirt prom, and the brooding landscape of "Til Polarity's End" is making Khruangbin jealous. Lo-fi but joyous, like a rainbow trapped under a dirty windshield, there's surprising joy, depth, and emotion to "Diamond Jubilee", a musical epic that exists in its own self-contained universe—a beauty. #4: Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day • "Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day" Los Angeles bassist Sam Wilkes, known for his genre-bending experimental pieces, topped our Best Albums of 2023 survey for his brisk pivot to indie-rock with the fantastic full-length "Driving". In 2024, he went back to his instrumental wheelhouse, churning out no less than three albums: another duet album with saxophonist Sam Gendel, a live album recorded in Japan where he reinvented some of his older works, and the simply-titled "Sam Wilkes, Craig Weinrib, and Dylan Day", wherein Wilkes and two buddies together one evening to just jam, creating deeply emotional instrumentals that were so good they added on a few days of studio work to flesh the songs out. These unadorned compositions are light, graceful, and full of passionate intent, as tracks like "I'll Find a Way (To Carry It All)" hold a quiet weight in its casual pace, while the slightly dub-y "Snow" serves as a slight respite from the watching-the-sunset vibes the rest of the album conjures up. Zero words are said on this gorgeous full-length, where three musicians develop a unique hivemind and use bass, guitar, and a light trap kit to deliver some of the most swooning, gorgeous numbers we've heard all year. While your first listen might be casual, this simply titled album contains worlds of beauty for those who truly take space with it. A remarkable achievement. #3: Magdalena Bay • "Imaginal Disk" You know you're listening to one of the year's best synthpop albums when even the interludes slap. For Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin of Magdalena Bay, their vein of maximalist synthpop has become even more refined on "Imaginal Disk", their sophomore record. Having moved out of a tiny Covid-era apartment on their debut to a place with no neighbors so vocalist Mica can let out some truly great screams, every track feels expertly composed: string sections work their way into "Cry for Me", the rock guitars crash in to "That's My Floor", and the funky bass-driven backing instrumental they gave Lil Yachty for his last album is stolen back and turned into a hippie-dippie trip called "Love is Everywhere". Featuring themes of identity and losing one's sense of self, the meaning of the band's obtuse lyrics are best divined by the listener, which is a boon when tracks like "Image" give us the single best pop chorus of the year; "Death & Romance" 2024's most dramatic. It is a mesmerizing, multi-layered celebration of the sheer possibilities of pop music, proving that Magdalena Bay aren't just innovators, but the torchbearer for the genre's future (co-signs by everyone from Grimes to Rosalía only confirm that fact). #2: Charli XCX • "Brat" Charli XCX designed her 2022 album "Crash" to be the record that pushed her into the pop mainstream. It had some great tracks, but her fans, who stuck with her since the early underground days, felt that it was close to selling out. Leave it to this year's "Brat", wherein Charli was her most naturalist and unguarded, to be the record that changed the culture. Abrasive-but-accessible, intimate-yet-clubby, "Brat" ended up having multi-quadrant appeal as it contained everything from fluffy dance-pop ("Apple") to intensely personal ballads ("So I") to classic PC Music-era songwriting experiments (catch that wild piano breakdown during "Mean Girls"). The album would still be high on this list if the original 15-track edition were all she put out, but as 2024 rolled on, we got bonus tracks, bonus track remixes, and eventually a remix album so powerful that every major player in the pop star galaxy ( Ariana Grande , Kesha, Robyn, Billie Eilish, a ready-to-respond Lorde) jumped on to elevate every tune to a different level. "Brat summer" became a thing because while none of these songs were radio staples, they were memorable, viral, and meme-able. They radiated enough authenticity that before long, they mutated into a version of cool previously unseen, one that was painted ugly green to the point of being unmissable. Rest assured, once it started evolving, no one wanted to miss out on whatever form "Brat" was (is?) going to take next. #1: Various Artists • "TRAИƧA" Unfortunately cursed with a release date that Kendrick Laamar used to surprise-drop his latest opus, the Red Hot Organization, known for great charity compilations like "Dark Was The Night", released the year's most ambitious, breathtaking musical opus as a celebration of all things trans. "TRAИƧA" is an eight-disc compilation that comes in at nearly four hours in run time, featuring brand new tracks from a gigantic variety of artists across the musical spectrum: superstars (Sam Smith), legends (Wendy & Lisa, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Sade in a rare appearance), indie-rockers (Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Fleet Foxes, Dirty Projectors), rising critical darlings (Clario), the new voices of modern ambient (Green-House, Time Wharp, Yaeji), actors (Hunter Schafer), jazz greats (Pharoah Sanders), folk artists (Adrienne Lenker, Devendra Banhart, Bill Callahan ), and too many more to count. This panoply of innovators engage in spoken word pieces, expertly chosen covers (the opening lines from Prince's "I Would Die 4 U" take on a whole new meaning here), and breathtaking originals aplenty. Nearly every track features either a trans or non-binary performer, and the moods, genres, and vibes encased throughout celebrate the fact that trans people can be rockers, pop icons, and balladeers just like anyone else. Yet their perspective so unique, and their journeys so specific, that the art featured in "TRAИƧA" at times feels overwhelming. These songs simmer with rage, overflow with forgiveness, and embrace the listener with a deeply felt sense of acceptance. You can point to highlights at any level (why is André 3000's 26-minute instrumental contribution better than anything on "New Blue Sun"?), but this album is best experienced when you realize these diverse tracks are in conversation with each other, giving any listener an authentic glimpse into the many stages of the trans journey. No album that came out this year had more emotional weight, gave us more payoff, or had greater importance. "TRAИƧA" isn't just an album; it's an experience. Evan Sawdey is the Interviews Editor at PopMatters and is the host of The Chartographers , a music-ranking podcast for pop music nerds. He lives in Chicago with his wonderful husband and can be found on Twitter at @SawdEye .North Yorkshire Police have launched their Christmas drink and drug driving campaign with a hard-hitting short film viewers are calling "powerful." The short film showcases the harrowing impact of driving under the influence, and how it can shatter people’s lives forever. The annual campaign launches on Sunday, December 1, with officers increasing proactive drink and drunk driving patrols throughout the month of December. The heart-breaking film highlights how mindless actions can leave others with an empty chair at the Christmas table with real life cases. The film, produced by North Yorkshire Police ’s corporate communications team, starts by asking three individuals what they like about Christmas. One of those people is Angie - the sister of late Carol Jones. Eight years ago Carol was driving to work at Harrogate Police Station, when Simeon Denny crashed into her at the junction of Otley Road and Cold Bath Road. Denny drove through a red light at 60mph, hitting Carol's car and killing her instantly. The 29-year-old was jailed at York Crown Court for five years, nine months. He was also banned from driving for six and a half years. Investigations found that Denny was over the limit for both alcohol and cannabis. In the film, Carol's sister Angie says: “It doesn’t get any easier. And every year now, there’s an empty chair at my Christmas table.” The two-minute film was shared to the official Facebook page of North Yorkshire Police and has already resonated with many. One social media user Richard Martin penned: "Very powerful, so sorry for the loss of your family members", while Jimmy Wyatt said: "These should be put back on the TV, however shocking they maybe but if it saves lives then?" And Pat Mather responded with: "The sentences do not fit the crime. Five years for a life is no deterrent to these perpetual drinks drivers. My thoughts go out to everyone who has lost someone to a drink or drugged drivers." While Mandy Riley agreed, writing: "Drink and drug driving needs a bigger sentence!! 5 years for killing innocent people is not enough! A life for a life. Thoughts go out to carols family." Throughout the Christmas period, officers will be using marked and unmarked vehicles along with a range of specialist tactics to target those driving under the influence. Officers hope to intervene and bring drunk and drug drivers to justice, before they have a chance to bring misery to families. Patrols will be taking place around the clock and static patrols will also be in place on various key routes around the country. A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “Remember, it isn’t just about having an alcoholic drink or taking drugs and getting straight into the car – you can also be over the limit or under the influence the morning after.” During last year’s campaign, North Yorkshire officers conducted 731 roadside tests with 18.6 per cent of those testing positive to being over the limit for drink or drug driving. This was a 6.9 per cent increase from the same period in 2022. Get all the latest crime and court stories in Yorkshire news straight to your mobile via WhatsApp by clicking here . Whether it's breaking news straight from a crime scene, live updates from big court cases happening in our region or police appeals, you'll get it all. If you don’t like our community, you can leave any time. We also treat members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. Read our privacy notice here . Superintendent Andrew Berriman from NYP Specialist Operations Unit said: “Every year, police officers have to deliver the devastating news to people that their loved one has been killed in a collision relating to drink or drugs. “The video which we have released today shows how the loss of one person can cause a lifetime of devastation. If you drink or drug drive, you are putting your own life and those of others in danger.” Officers have urged individuals to report drunk and drug driving by disclosing the vehicle, registration, and location to police on 999. Crimestoppers can also be contacted anonymously on 0800 555 111. This year’s campaign is a joint project between North Yorkshire Police and colleagues from the York and North Yorkshire Road Safety Partnership. Get all the latest and breaking news in Yorkshire by signing up to our newsletter here. Get all the latest big and breaking Yorkshire news straight to your mobile via WhatsApp by clicking here . If you don’t like our community, you can leave any time. We also treat members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. Read our privacy notice here .
WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) — Namibia elected its first female leader as Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was declared the winner Tuesday of a presidential election last week that was tarnished by technical glitches that caused a three-day extension to allow votes to be cast, and rejected as illegal by opposition parties. The 72-year-old Nandi-Ndaitwah won with 57% of the vote, defying predictions that she might be forced into a runoff. Her ruling SWAPO party also retained its parliamentary majority, although by a very thin margin, and extended its 34-year hold on power since the southern African country gained independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990. Namibia, a sparsely populated country of around 3 million on the southwestern coast of Africa, has a reputation for being one of the continent's more stable democracies and the problems around the election have caused consternation. Last Wednesday's vote was marred by shortages of ballot papers and other problems that led election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Opposition parties have said the extension is unconstitutional, and some have pledged to join together in a legal appeal to have the election invalidated. The Electoral Commission of Namibia, which ran the election, rejected opposition calls for a redo of the vote. It has undermined Nandi-Ndaitwah's place in history. She is set to become her country's fifth president since independence and a rare female leader in Africa. She was a member of Namibia's underground independence movement in the 1970s and received part of her higher education in the then-Soviet Union. She was promoted to vice president in February after President Hage Geingob died while in office . Nangolo Mbumba, who became president after Geingob's death, didn't run in the election. The ruling SWAPO party won 51 seats in the parliamentary vote, only just passing the 49 it needed to keep its majority and narrowly avoiding becoming another long-ruling party to be rejected in southern Africa this year. It was SWAPO's worst parliamentary election result. A mood of change has swept across the region, with parties that led their countries out of white minority or colonial rule in neighboring South Africa and Botswana both losing their long-held political dominance. South Africa's African National Congress, which freed the country from the racist system of apartheid, lost its 30-year majority in an election in May and had to form a coalition. Botswana's ruling party was stunningly removed in a landslide in October after governing for 58 years since independence from Britain. Mozambique's long-ruling Frelimo has been accused of rigging an October election and has faced weeks of violent protests against its rule. SWAPO faced similar challenges as those countries, with frustration at high unemployment and economic hardship, especially among young people, driving a desire for era-ending change. In a brief speech after the results were announced late Tuesday night, Nandi-Ndaitwah said Namibians had voted for peace, stability and youth empowerment. “We are going to do what we promised you during the campaigns. Thank you for your confidence and trust in us," she said. Nandi-Ndaitwah was also due to address the nation on Wednesday morning. “SWAPO Wins. Netumbo Wins. Namibia Wins. Now Hard Work,” the ruling party posted on its official account on social media site X. Some opposition parties boycotted the announcement by the Electoral Commission of Namibia at its results center in the capital, Windhoek. The commission has been roundly criticized for its running of the vote, with many angry Namibians complaining they had to wait hours and sometimes over multiple days for the chance to vote. Just over 1 million votes were cast out of 1.4 million registered voters, according to the electoral commission. Panduleni Itula, the leading opposition candidate from the Independent Patriots for Change party, was second in the presidential election with 25% of the vote. His party won the second-largest number of seats in Parliament behind SWAPO. Itula and his party have led the criticism of the vote and said they will lodge their appeal against the election this week. Other opposition parties said they will join that legal challenge. Itula has said that thousands of voters may have been prevented from voting as only some polling stations allowed an extension. "This election has violated the very tenets of our Electoral Act. Namibians deserve the right to choose their leaders freely and fairly, not through a rigged process,” he said. Namibia is a former German colony that came under South African control after World War I and its Black majority was later subjected to some of South Africa’s apartheid policies. SWAPO was at the forefront of the battle for independence from South Africa. While the country has swaths of desert running through it, it has diamond and uranium resources and untapped oil and gas off its coast that is being explored by international companies and could make it a major producer of both. AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africaECB suspends Bangladesh's Shakib for 'illegal bowling'