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.
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.
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.
In a year full of industry shakeups and unexpected controversies, 2024’s best K-pop tracks provides a surprising degree of relief in a panoply of styles.
The 50 best albums of 2024 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.
