Music

The Best Albums of 2024

Please please please … may we have another year-in-music in 2025 as strong as this one? In coming up with 10 best album lists, each of Variety‘s staff music writers felt 2024 brought an embarrassment of riches from which to choose. You could already see that in how the upcoming 2025 Grammys are easily the most anticipated ceremony in many years. A lot of the top candidates there show up in our lists (albeit not Chappell Roan, whose album came out in late 2023). You’ll also find a lot of love here for a slew of great underdogs who didn’t catch the attention of the Recording Academy but already brought home the gold in our book.

Katy Perry may have been wrong about some things this year, but she was right about it being a woman’s world — in current music, anyway, if not all the other places it would benefit society most. Not coincidentally in keeping with the female dominance of the Grammy noms, all four of our listmakers picked an album by a woman or a female-fronted act for the No. 1 spot. Green meme queen Charli XCX was on top of the pops for executive music editor Jem Aswad (jump to his full list here). Associate music editor Thania Garcia went with a lesser-recognized band of worthies, the Marias (see her full ranking here). Senior music writer Steven J. Horowitz found godliness in the womanhood of Ariana Grande (you can leap to his list here). And reigning pop queen Taylor Swift made the year, if not the era, of chief music critic Chris Willman (jump to his rankings here).

The most-cited artists: Charli and Kendrick Lamar, who each made three of the four top 10s, and Beyoncé, Jamie XX, Jack White and Kali Uchis, who each appeared on two. Scroll through to see where your favorites landed or, better yet, discover a new one.

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