The Best Music of 2024

Zach Scott Jaffe

11 Dec 2024 — 7 min read

Time seemed to dilate more than usual this year. It was January, and then, rather abruptly, it was December again. I prepare to make this list all year long, starting on January 1, and take it quite seriously, probably too seriously, as I enter my tenth year making it. But the process of creating a "Best Of" list is more for me than it is for anyone else, even though I know some people definitely look forward to receiving it. This list helps make sense of a year of dilated time and the space between a beginning and an end, marked by music. These sounds both quickened and slowed individual moments in the overall expediency of the year if nothing else.

Transparently, 2024 was a tough nut to crack. I am someone who vacillates his taste across genres quite frequently, like sudden microclimates changing the weather-like abstractions storming across my consciousness. I might go weeks without listening to a single electronic track. I might only listen to rap and hip-hop for a month straight. I might decide I'm way too wired up and only listen to classical before 10 am on weekdays (which is my current state of mind, FYI.) I might only listen to GNX for days on end because it slaps real hard.

So, deciding what was the best of a given year usually depends on how I felt when I first listened to something, which might be vastly different from how I feel now. As I started doing last year, it's often easier to look at what I listened to the most in conjunction with what I felt was the best. (Apple Music is actually quite good for this as you can get breakdowns of your listening habits by month, although very few people seem to be aware of this feature.)

But 2024 fired out of the gates with some overwhelmingly good music in the first few months of the year alone. I remember thinking back in March, "Well, I guess the rest of the year is going to be pretty mid." That is to say, musically mid, not politically or economically - this is not that type of newsletter this week.

But the hits kept coming, both literally and metaphorically. I genuinely can't remember a year in music that was so objectively good in quality for everyone in every genre of music. Hell, there's even a pop album on the list this year because, my God in heaven, there was actually good pop music this year, and if you know me, I have a pretty hard time admitting there is such a thing as good pop music at all.

And so, I leave you with the "Best of 2024" presented alphabetically, a list of the 50 (something-ish) releases for you to free your earballs along and warm your tortured winter soul as you bob your head in mutual recognition of some of the truly great Art we received this year.

As always, please use the playlists found at both Apple Music and Spotify as a "map" where you can find one song from each release on this list. Put it on shuffle and as you find something that speaks to your personally unbearable lightness of being, navigate to the full album and give it your full attention. I promise everything on this list is worth it's merit regardless of genre.

I encourage you to scroll through the list and enjoy the album artwork because we so seldom appreciate the visual medium of audible art these days.