Music recommendations, 2024 edition

My favourite albums, EPs, and singles from 2024, with minimal editorialising

Dec 14, 2024

I recall being frustrated during car rides in the late ‘00s. Radio stations strictly limited what music I could find. As a fossil with overlong memories but no awareness of the present, I was not very plugged in to the Internet.

On the pop stations, I could occasionally vibe with a Katy Perry or Ke$ha track (this was the era of “Cannibal,” so, of course). Between the songs I liked, or could stand, were a flood of songs I hated.

Rock stations were even deader to me. Occasionally, on the contemporary rock stations, I’d hear some Evanescence, probably just one hit or another from Fallen. On classic rock stations, I’d have to wait for one of few Heart songs or the Quarterflash hits (?) that for some reason played once in a while.

At least they never played “Valerie,” Quarterflash’s equivalent to Katy Perry’s “Ur So Gay,” but without the interesting music to back the homophobia.

All that’s to say, iTunes and YouTube, and later, music streaming services brought my Luddite self a whole new world of music. My taste is far from obscure, for the most part, but still, it’s far more sonically diverse than radio would ever have allowed.

If it weren’t obvious from the above, part of my issue with finding music has always been that I only tend like women’s vocals. We’re talking 999 times out of 1,000, I won’t like a song with male vocals, including duets with a man and a woman. To this day, algorithms can’t figure out that I’m going to skip any track with male vocals. Oh well.

Anyway, to the point: I’m going to highlight some favourite releases from 2024 with albums/EPs and singles as separate lists. Of course, I’m going to put my absolute favourite release at the top. Other than that, I’m only going to organise the lists according to preference in a very loose way.

My favourite release of 2024:

Liraz - Enerjy EP

If you, hypothetical reader, have talked about music with me for longer than a minute and seven seconds or so, you may have heard me refer to Liraz’s “Zaman” as the only perfect pop song. This remains my opinion (even if Chappell Roan comes close at times), and “Zaman” is off Enerjy EP, along with several other greats. And if you care about supporting artists who do good things for the world, give Liraz a listen, or two, or two thousand.