While 2024 ends for many music artists, some others aren’t quite finished yet. Instead, our resident musicians command a tidal wave of fresh projects that continue to push boundaries and reinvent established conventions. From Kendrick Lamar’s nostalgic and unapologetic GNX to Father John Misty’s layered Mahashmashana, 2024 ends strong with instant classics you’ll be looping well into the new year.
Negative Spaces – Poppy
So close feel the days of watching YouTube commentary videos in the mid-2010s discussing how off-kilter and unsettling Poppy’s content is. It’s surprising to be including one of her albums on this list, considering the shock that commanded the internet’s vile attention.
Just like Poppy’s career trajectory, this album surprises in many ways from it’s almost seamless genre switching to the incredible use of vocal styles and clever yet highly accessible instrumentals. Each element weaves together to form an impressive Nu-metal/Dance pop hybrid album that satiates all sorts of metal music cravings I didn’t even know I had.
Best songs: have you had enough?, crystallised, nothing, surviving on defiance
Cover of Poppy’s Album ‘Negative Spaces’. Image credit: @ImPoppy on Instagram.
Heavy Metal – Cameron Winter
Quite the opposite album emerges from the ‘Geese’ frontman’s solo side-project – as much as Heavy Metal may suggest otherwise. Much less energised than Geese’s last LP 3D Country, Winter unravels a uniquely off-kilter vocal style which may turn some listeners away, especially with lyrical content about chickens doing the conga on opening track ‘The Rolling Stones’.
Stick around, though, and you’ll be met with a surprisingly wholesome album with stripped acoustics and soft electronic elements that wrap around Winter’s warbly vocals, enveloping the dissonance in a warm embrace. This one is a must-listen for fans of thought-provoking singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell.
Best songs: Love Takes Miles, Drinking Age, $0, Can’t Keep Anything
GNX – Kendrick Lamar
Whilst we were still reeling from the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef that shocked the hip-hop community (and the Billboard Top 100!), GNX follows as Kendrick’s most consistent and energetic album since To Pimp a Butterfly. From the mellow beauty of ‘luther’ featuring queen of RnB SZA to the now-infamous ‘MUSTAAAARRRDDD!’ on ‘tv off’, GNX delves into Kendrick’s relationship with ego, pride and the demons that follow the meteoric rise as one of hip-hop’s greatest.
Most importantly, GNX feels like a homage to west-coast hip-hop of the 90s, with nostalgic samples dotted across tracks like ‘reincarnated’, not to mention the instantly iconic soundbites that feel immediately at home within K-Dot’s formidable discography.
Best songs: squabble up, luther (with sza), reincarnated
Cover of Kendrick Lamar’s Album ‘GNX’. Image credit: @KendrickLamar on Instagram.
The Top Pick: Mahashmashana – Father John Misty
In keeping with his record of releasing an album on the same date as K-Dot for the 5th time running, Father John Misty’s Josh Tillman doesn’t pull punches with Mahashmashana’s extravagance.
Named after the Sanskrit word for ‘great cremation ground’, Tillman sets the stage with, quite frankly, the best song of this year in its cinematic and elevating eponymous opening track. Across the record, full orchestras, gritty distorted guitars and expressive horns dance between reality and the infinite, and coupled with cryptically witty lyrics, Tillman mounts the challenge of album of the year with iconoclastic grandeur.
Best songs: Mahashmashana, Mental Health, Being You, I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All
Honourable Mentions:
The Crossroads – Cordae
Recommended for rap/hip-hop fans. Best track: Summer Drop (feat. Anderson .Paak)
Monarch of Monsters – Vylet Pony
Recommended for noise rock and punk fans. Best track: Revenge Fantasy
Fauxllenium – TV Girl and George Clanton
Recommended for psychedelia fans. Best track: Everything Blue
Cover of TV Girl and George Clanton’s Album ‘Fauxllenium’. Image credit: @TVGirl on Instagram.
Edited by Freya Harrod.
