'Tis The Season (For Ranking Stuff)

Let's take a look at the first batch of Best Album Of 2024 lists, including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Vulture and Stereogum.

I’m always baffled by this time of year - every major media outlet rushes to get out their Best of The Year lists in the first few days of the month of December, even though there is still a twelfth of the year left, and even though we have a very recent example - SZA’s magnificent SOS in 2022 - of an album that released in December and should have been on everyone’s lists, leading to a caveat a year later (“this is technically from last year but we missed it in our attempt to do the listicle version of a Reddit comment that only says ‘FIRST’”).

My own list of the Best of 2024 will be out on December 21, and will be my final post before I take a few weeks off from posting regularly. I’ll be back January 13.

All of that said, it is still fun to have a read and a react - some shocks, some shrugs, some shakes of the head - so here are six outlets I am always interested to hear from at this time of year. And a few thoughts from yours truly, of course, as I try to make sense of my own list.

Also, next week will be a catch-up week: albums that cracked these Top 10s which I hadn’t listened to in 2024. While you’re here, hit the comments below with your picks for album of the year - and what you make of these Top 10s.

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Rolling Stone

1. Charli XCX - brat

2. Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

3. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

4. Sabrina Carpenter - Short n’ Sweet

5. Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft

6. Tyla - Tyla

7. Future and Metro Boomin - We Don’t Trust You

8. Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine

9. Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal

10. Waxahatchee - Tiger’s Blood

Rolling Stone usually have the most mainstream list of the bunch and that continues here with the highest placing I’ve seen for Beyoncé, and a couple of albums - Future & Metro Boomin, Ariana Grande - that haven’t appeared in anyone else’s Top 10. And probably shouldn’t have.

Also, of the six I looked at, RS was (unsurprisingly, really) one of only two outlets with Billie Eilish’s third album in the Top 10. It appeared a lot. But I think people might be sleeping on Hit Me Hard And Soft.

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Pitchfork

1. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

2. Charli XCX - brat

3. Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch

4. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

5. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

6. Waxahatchee - Tiger’s Blood

7. Mount Eerie - Night Palace

8. Bladee - Cold Visions

9. Astrid Sonne - Great Doubt

10. Kim Gordon - The Collective

I’ll be honest: I stopped reading Pitchfork music reviews a while ago because it felt like they were being purposely iconoclastic when it came to some of the big name artists. Case in point: Kendrick Lamar’s universally acclaimed GNX was scored a 6.6/10 and didn’t even crack their Top 50.

In saying that, I don’t have a lot to quibble with here. I’m surprised MJ Lenderman dropped to 4. I’ve not heard Cindy Lee yet, but Charli XCX and Jessica Pratt both put out great records. And it was nice to see Kim Gordon get a shout-out; I don’t think it is one of the best of the year personally, but I do think it was one of the most surprisingly good albums of 2024.

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Vulture

1. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World

2. Mach-Hommy - #RichAxxHaitian

3. Ka - The Thief Next to Jesus

4. Bilal - Adjust Brightness

5. Mustafa - Dunya

6. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

7. Rachel Chinouriri - What a Devastating Turn of Events

8. Fontaines D.C. - Romance

9. Various Artists - TRA​И​Ƨ​A

10. mediopicky - Bexaco y rico

Vulture are always the black sheep of the family when it comes to these lists - in fact, beyond MJ Lenderman, there isn’t an album in their Top 10 that appears in anybody elses Top 10 list. Hell, I only heard of Mk.gee like a week ago.

And yet, I’m fairly confident that all of these albums will be bloody good listens. I’m endeared by the fact that Fontaines DC get some love; I’ve been tossing up how high to place it on my list. Same goes for The Cure, who land at #1 (its good but is it #1 good? I don’t think it is.). I loved that Rachel Chinouriri record too. The rest though? A mystery.

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The New Yorker

1. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

2. Mk.gee - Two Star & the Dream Police

3. Sabrina Carpenter - Short n’ Sweet

4. Bon Iver - SABLE, EP

5. Waxahatchee - Tiger’s Blood

6. Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

7. Charli XCX - brat

8. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice

9. Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us

10. Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft

The New Yorker Top 10 made me yell at my screen three times: 1) there is no way that Sabrina Carpenter should be higher than Charli XCX; 2) Bon Iver’s SABLE, EP is literally three tracks long, and those three tracks aren’t collectively better than all but three albums; 3) Vampire Weekend. Ugh..

MJ Lenderman at #1 is a nice pick though. Good work.

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Stereogum

1. Charli XCX - brat & brat and it's completely different but also still brat

2. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

3. Kendrick Lamar - GNX

4. Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood

5. Magdalena Bay - Imaginal Disk

6. Jessica Pratt - Here In The Pitch

7. Mount Eerie - Night Palace

8. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

9. Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal

10. Los Campesinos! - All Hell

I think I mostly feel annoyed because I thought I might have been able to get away with being the only person to put Brat and its remix album together on the list but alas, beaten to the punch by Stereogum.

I might be wrong, but I think this is the highest placing for GNX so far, and it feels a little too high to me. Same for Waxahatchee; I can see it somewhere in the 6-10 range if you really like it (I didn’t) but not #4. Probably the same for Magdalena Bay too, if we’re being totally honest. But also, so stoked to see Los Campesinos crack a Top 10 from one of the big outlets.

Honestly, I think this might be the most interesting Top 10 among those mentioned here: it hits the consensus records, but digresses just enough to make you go ‘hmm’ and look into the albums you haven’t heard yet.

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Paste

1. Jessica Pratt - Here in the Pitch

2. Waxahatchee - Tiger’s Blood

3. Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

4. Friko - Where we’ve been, Where we go from here

5. Johnny Blue Skies - Passage Du Desir

6. Charli XCX - brat

7. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks

8. Vince Staples - Dark Times

9. Wild Pink - Dulling the Horns

10. Nala Sinephro - Endlessness

MJ Lenderman falls all the way down to #7 while Waxahatchee (again too high) and Jessica Pratt reach their highest points; that Jessica Pratt album is a technical and compositional work of art, but I don’t believe its accessible or entertaining enough for the top spot. Entertainment is a must for me.

A couple of interesting inclusions here: Johnny Blue Skies (aka Sturgill Simpson) hasn’t cracked any of the other Top 10s but I think its a worthy addition (though #5 might be too high). And Vince Staples’ Dark Times didn’t really hold public interest for long enough to warrant a #8 placing, even though it is a bloody good album.

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Ngā mihi e te whanau - thanks for reading today.
I’ll be back tomorrow with My Week In Music.
Cheers, Chris