The best albums of 2024 challenged orthodoxies, blended and created new genres, and spanned a vast range of musical styles and traditions, while looking forward.
As always, rock was a guitar-led extravaganza in 2024 with artists drawing from an ever-widening musical well. These are the 25 best rock albums of the year.
This was another year of riches in the best jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away.
Thematically, much of this year’s best punk and hardcore music addressed mental health and working through the past while striving for a more peaceful present.
PopMatters’ 24 Best Video Games of 2024 highlight achievements in game design and the risks creators take to lure gamers into the magic circle.
Americana has never been better with the quality of music, diversity of styles, and the artists’ demographics in terms of race, gender, and wealth.
The year’s best folk albums transcend genre boundaries, yet each entry remains firmly grounded in the folk ethos of connection and storytelling.
Hard rock band Shinedown are never quiet about their struggles and never will be as they assure fans that being “slightly awkward, kinda weird” is perfectly normal.
Hollywood franchise films may not have started as theme parks, but the drive to eliminate risk will quickly turn them into the very thing their detractors fear.
In 2024’s best global music, celebrations of culture abound, with performers playing with sounds of home and family from the Caribbean to Tanzania and beyond.
André 3000’s surprise Album of the Year nod at the Grammys was only one of the many ambient/experimental highlights to happen in a wild year like 2024.
This has proved a fantastic year for heavy music and metal, with masters impressing and newer artists shining. These are the best metal albums of 2024.
