Here are the Concordian’s staff picks for album of the year.
With numerous superstars returning with new albums in the same year and other up-and-coming or well-established acts finally getting their big mainstream break, 2024 was exciting and a gift that kept on giving across all genres.
Here are our staff picks for the best albums of 2024.
BRAT — Charli XCX
By Stefano Rebuli — Music Editor
BRAT was undeniably the album of 2024, catapulting a singular word and shade of green into a cultural movement that captured the current pop culture landscape. None of this would have been possible without its standout music, a blend of club and dance music influences with the experimental flair and versatility of XCX’s recent work in pop. Its lyrics range from blunt meditations about life, stardom (“Sympathy is a knife”), and girlhood (“Girl, so confusing”), to simple phrases that feel ready-made for pop culture virality (“360”).
From thoughtful ballads to acid house bangers and pop bops, BRAT has something for everyone to relate to. TikTok dances, viral marketing, meta-commentary about stardom, and techno — only an album like BRAT can create a dominant cultural moment that intertwines them all.
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT — Billie Eilish
By Kailee Krentz — Copy Editor
I was a bit skeptical of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT at first, and it took me a couple of months to get into it. Once I did, I began to hear the layers and details in the music that, to the blind eye, would simply go over one’s head. These details enthralled me and kept me wanting more, not to mention Billie Eilish’s angelically hypnotizing voice. In her albums, you really notice the time and passion that is put into each and every song, and this one is no different. I truly love all the songs on the album, but my favourites would have to be “CHIHIRO,” “BLUE,” and “L’AMOUR DE MA VIE.” This is an album that I now listen to all the time on repeat.
COWBOY CARTER — Beyoncé
By Jia Marguerite Schofer — Assistant News Editor
While I wholeheartedly understand the hostile stance towards country music, nothing Beyoncé has and will ever produce will be short of a transcendent masterpiece sung with unparalleled vocal prowess. Tracks like “II HANDS II HEAVEN” and “DAUGTHER” capture her blend of warmth and edge through the cadence of her country roots. Vocally, she commands her listeners into a rhythmic trance, with songs like “YA YA” provoking a giddy feeling in me that produces those dopamine things everyone talks about. Entering into a music genre that historically resists artists like her, she renders the scene’s racist gatekeepers irrelevant and remasters the stage with songs like “SPAGHETTI.”
Only God Was Above Us — Vampire Weekend
By Marieke Glorieux-Stryckman — Editor-in-Chief
Vampire Weekend simply never misses. Five years after releasing Father of the Bride, they returned this year with a brand new album that feels true to the band’s sound while bringing in new elements and vibes and exploring new ideas and topics. I listened to it on repeat for months and then got to see Vampire Weekend perform in Laval — a concert I had given up hope of ever seeing before this new album came out. It’s hard to even choose a few standout songs, but “Prep-School Gangsters” and “Mary Boone” are some of my favourites.
2093 — Yeat
By Diego Cervantes — Assistant Video Editor
Yeat, with his best album in his discography, manages to blend rap and industrial hip-hop to create a product that feels futuristic. The reason I consider it the best album is because of its vibes. I always enjoy albums that are thematically consistent, and this one offers an experience that is moody and hard-hitting at the same time.
BLUE LIPS — ScHoolboy Q
By Jeremy Cox — News Editor
It’s hard for ScHoolboy Q to miss, let alone the entire TDE label. His sixth career album shows his maturity and his reflections. Life isn’t what it used to be for Hanley; he’s a family man now, and he shows it in songs like “Cooties” and in his efforts to avenge his rough upbringing, which he talks about in “Foux.” In “Germany ‘86,” he speaks about the difficulties his mother faced while raising him. These are all softer melodic songs.
The album alternates between smoother jazz-soul ballad chops and grungy, dense 808-ridden headbangers. There are abrupt in-your-face changes in tones between tracks on the album, like with “Funny Guy” and “Pop (feat. Rico Nasty).” The same switches in polar opposite tones occur within songs like “THank god 4 me.” “OHio (feat. Freddie Gibbs),” with its two different beat switches, is my personal favourite song on the album.
Short n’ Sweet — Sabrina Carpenter
By Mathilde Colls — Assistant Sports Editor
Short n’ Sweet is everything that makes pop so great: a simple album that uses all the codes of pop music together, with great radio hits like “Please Please Please.” There are some more “daring” songs like “Juno,” which makes great use of the guitar, or “Slim Pickins” with its country vibes. Overall, it is a solid album with great replay value and some diversity despite its simple nature.
Songs of a Lost World — The Cure
By Ryan Pyke — Assistant Music Editor
The Cure’s most recent album is emotionally raw and cutting in its sincerity. There has been a lot of focus on irony in recent music — think of the likes of Girly Girl Productions and their viral song “10 Drunk Cigarettes,” which parodies the hyperspeed at which youth culture moves. In this environment, which is not negative in and of itself but can be exhausting, it is painful and relieving to hear a guy wailing about his problems.
