The 30 Finest Pop Albums of 2024
30. Alison Moyet – Key (Cooking Vinyl)
As an alternative of abandoning the synthpop of her earlier work, Alison Moyet merely revisits the sounds on Key. A lot of present dance-pop is influenced by New Wave, so she doesn’t should stretch too far when re-recording the tunes. There may be a sublime sleekness to the remakes. “When Cover Sleeps” feels streamlined, eschewing a number of the excesses of the unique and remodeling the tune right into a darkish, lean synth-torch ballad. “All Cried Out” advantages equally with its related tighter association. Moyet’s voice – free from the gauze of the Eighties manufacturing from the earlier incarnations of the songs – is much extra in focus.
What a voice! It stays remarkably highly effective and supple. The husk in Moyet’s singing gave it a barely androgynous tone, which continues to be there. Growing old has given her a vibrato and a slight tremble that provides poignance. In “Such Small Ale”, one of many new songs recorded for this set, Moyet’s slight vocal put on provides a beautiful vulnerability. – Peter Piatkowski
29. Vanessa Williams – Survivor (Mellian Music)
After listening to Survivor, one factor that continues to be clear is that Vanessa Williams thrives on being an old-school Entertainer with a capital E. She’s the type of triple-threat who excels in many various types of music, and when returning to recording music after such a prolonged hiatus, she cements her wide-ranging talent set. It’s a document that emphasizes what a hard-working professional she is. Williams might not essentially be remembered as probably the most progressive artist, however she’s supremely gifted and wildly gifted, and it’s a terrific privilege to listen to her make music once more. – Peter Piatkowski
28. Soccer Mommy – Evergreen (Loma Vista)
On Evergreen, Soccer Mommy stays earnest, however listeners will discover a mature artist choosing a extra natural sound. She wrestles with profound loss however does so in a manner that’s grander than something she’s beforehand launched.
The album, produced by Ben H. Allen III (Washed Out, Bombay Bicycle Membership, Deerhunter), doesn’t stray removed from the largely recognizable influences of Nineteen Nineties people and acoustic artists. That was apparently a high quality that appealed to the producer within the first place. Evergreen grapples with some advanced themes that stem from the interval throughout her final document, Generally, Endlessly (2022). Nonetheless, this launch trades within the brooding, experimental, and infrequently cacophonous excursions for susceptible melodies adorned with orchestral preparations. – Patrick Gill
27. JW Francis – SUNSHINE (Born Losers)
JW Francis has all the time embodied the spirit of a nomad. His 2021 album, WANDERKID, was primarily based on a personality in search of refuge from fashionable life’s complexities. Francis did simply that shortly after its launch—embarking on a 2,000-mile hike by the Appalachian Mountains. On his fourth and newest album, SUNSHINE, he displays on the journey: “I needed to stand up; I needed to get out of my thoughts. Adjustments all the time get me aligned, and I all the time wanna shake it up.” The lo-fi legend emerges from the wilderness with a brand new batch of songs that function a excessive watermark in his rising oeuvre.
Francis layers guitar motifs and builds colourful harmonies that give his songs their trademark brightness. On SUNSHINE, he executes the instrumentals with extra intention and class. The sound high quality has improved markedly however continues to be anchored within the lo-fi attraction with a compressed and warbly guitar tone that sounds prefer it’s enjoying on a worn cassette. His vocal supply, slacker-like and kissed with distortion, has additionally remained regular, emulating the dopey drawl of rock poets Lou Reed and Kurt Vile. – Brandon Miller
26. Rosie Tucker – Utopia Now! (Sentimental)
Recorded at residence and self-produced with their inventive accomplice, Wolfy, Rosie Tucker’s Utopia Now! is an alchemistic mixture of post-pandemic mall punk and dream pop. Like “Barbara Ann”, it possesses a real, charming style elusiveness.
From the beginning, “Lightbulb” shows Tucker’s unbelievable potential to render songs from thought experiments. Fiona Apple’s model of melancholia is throughout this one (“I get jealous when somebody I do know’s on TV”), and Tucker questions the worthiness of pursuing music and artwork making anymore. “What number of songwriters does it take to screw a tune?” they ask. By the top, Tucker finds themselves alone with a piano, singing seemingly within the subsequent room over.
Utopia Now! effortlessly counterbalances its pop tendencies with broader cultural critique, wry intellectualism, and many melancholic humor. It’s a utopia they’re demanding, and Rosie Tucker has crammed theirs with some good and actually unbelievable pop songs. – Avery Gregurich
25. Alex Winston – Bingo! (Rat Rizzo)
After an virtually 20-year odyssey within the music business, it might be a terrific transfer to make a giant, outspoken, hour-long conceptual album about all of the triumphs and setbacks I’ve written about above. Nonetheless, Alex Winston selected to go together with a extra compact and intimate document centered on her development and previous relationships, which places her on par with the most effective people albums of this 12 months, like these by Madi Diaz, Marina Allen, Waxahatchee, and Maya Hawke. Other than her love for the sport Bingo, the album’s identify signifies her sense of an upcoming breakthrough in her life, and I imagine she scored a bingo by managing to bounce again after failing from the pop Olympus. Given the large interval since her final launch, we are able to simply take into account her follow-up full-length a second debut; for that, it’s an incredible begin. – Igor Bannikov
24. Alec Benjamin – 12 Notes (Elektra)
Alec Benjamin writes anthologies, and his fourth full-length launch, 12 Notes, isn’t any completely different. This fashion of album writing fits Benjamin’s propensity for parables. Writing is an act that preserves one’s youthful emotional self, or “inside little one”, as wellness tradition calls it. As a result of writing requires objectivity when evaluating subjective feelings, by its nature, it strips away grownup compromises that stifle intuition and lends itself to child-like considering, which honors impulsivity. By means of his nature as a author, Alec Benjamin preserves this facet of himself and presents it to the world in bite-sized pop packages. He doesn’t market these ideas as an overarching storyline however as 12 little ones. Nonetheless, the by line between them is that they had been in all probability therapeutic to put in writing. – Matthew Dwyer
23. Kylie Minogue – Pressure II (Darenote / BMG)
With Pressure II, pop diva Kylie Minogue extends her startingly long term of great-to-brilliant studio albums that began with 2018’s country-flecked Golden. Final 12 months’s Pressure is arguably one of many singer’s finest efforts, and even when its sequel doesn’t match up, it’s nonetheless a wonderful assortment of high-energy electropop tunes. It fails to achieve the emotional highs of its predecessor, however Pressure II nonetheless presents listeners frothy, catchy tunes. It’s a credit score to Minogue’s knack for pop ebullience (in addition to the abilities of her collaborators of songwriters, musicians, and producers) that even when Pressure II can typically really feel like outtakes, the document nonetheless sounds contemporary and thrilling. – Peter Piatkowski
22. Yemi Alade – Insurgent Queen (Effyzzie Music Group / IDOL)
Phrases like Afropop and Afrobeats deserve the critique they typically get; at finest, they’re nonspecific and dismissive of the enormity of the African continent and diaspora. There may be, although, a robust contingent of creators who know how you can make such classes significant. Yemi Alade is one such performer, a succesful and gifted Nigerian artist whose physique of labor attracts on a broad spectrum of types to have fun her identification as an African lady. Insurgent Queen exemplifies this.
Over the course of her new album, she hops from style to style, exploring inventive flows throughout the continent, state borders however. “Welcome to my Africa,” sings Alade within the quick introductory monitor “Karibu”, and it’s onerous to think about a hotter or extra well-polished welcome than Insurgent Queen. – Adriane Pontecorvo
21. Kali Uchis – Orquisideas (Geffen)
On Orquisideas, Kali Uchis once more proves she is the Queen of Idea, delivering a intelligent, considerate album impressed by the “timeless, eerie, mystic, putting, sleek, and sensual attract of the orchid”. If there’s one factor that turns into clear on Orquisideas, it’s that there’s no such factor as Latin music. Extra particularly, there are many sorts of music made by Latinas. The orchid is the nationwide flower of Columbia, the place Uchis spent numerous time rising up. It’s a poignant picture, in all its vibrant fragility, begging the query: what’s potential in a supportive setting? Orchids are a number of the most stunning, putting organisms on Earth.
The query Kali Uchis implies appears express – what would the world be like if Latinas had been supported? She makes use of the candy, aromatic delicacy of the orchid as a launchpad to discover her roots and, extra broadly, the huge affect and affect Latinas have had on music. Orquisideas is a spotlight in a profession with zero misses. Uchis is clearly an artist on the ascent, coming in sizzling with two nearly-perfect pop information in lower than a 12 months. To see such a younger artist – rising from the underground, no much less – couldn’t be extra thrilling. – J. Simpson