My Top Albums of 2024

The only music list that matters

For those of you who mark this date on your calendar each year, you might be shocked at how early my Top Ten Albums of 2024 is this year. I’m trying this new thing called “planning ahead.”

We’ll see how it works out for me.

Ok, as always, this is a long post, so let’s just get right to it. If you’ve been following along for the last decade that I’ve done this, there will be very few surprises in this list. Maybe that means I am too old to listen to new artists or maybe that means I’ve found the best and I’m sticking with them.

First off, artists who released good, but not great, albums this year include MJ Lenderman, The Black Keys, Leon Bridges, Kacey Musgraves, Brittany Howard, and Beyoncé, and St. Vincent.

And now, here are the great ones.

10. Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going - Shaboozey

Look if you haven’t heard “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” then you are either deaf or you’re my wife. It’s massive. But there’s a ton of other great songs on this album. He even collaborates with two other people on my list (Paul Cauthen and BigXThaPlug). And yeah, Shaboozey is probably the only person in the world who could collab with those two artists and pull it off. Modern Country music has been trying to fuse with Hip Hop for about 15 years and it’s always come across as cynical and forced. Shaboozey is the first one to pull it off successfully because it comes from a place of authenticity, something modern Country and Hip Hop severely lack.

We ride palominos like they’re SRTs

Once I pick up speed ain’t no catching me

Lookin’ for me, I be out in Tennessee

9. Mood Swings - Marcus King

Marcus King is one of the best blues guitarists of his generation and this album really gets to the heart of the blues. By that I mean, sadness. Like real sad. But it’s a deep exploration of his battles with depression and other demons. 2022’s Young Blood was more fun, but Mood Swings hits harder emotionally.

Who do I give my heart to when I’m alone?

Said she’s leavin’ to find some peace

Not sure if she’s leavin’ me or Tennessee

8. Black on Black - Paul Cauthen

It’s totally unfair to Paul that he’ll probably never top 2019’s Room 41.¹ That album was made at the darkest time of his life, and the result was a record that stands out as one of the most unique and breathtaking in modern country music. His life and career since then have been on a general upward swing, which, while great for him personally, hasn’t produced music that reaches the heights of Room 41. This newest record is the closest he’s come to replicating that effort. Stand outs include the title track, “Angels & Heathens” and “Ridin the Line.”

Standing at the gates of Heaven singing, “Why won’t you let me in?”

It’s a long way from home and we’ll never see home again

We can ride the lightning ‘til the good Lord lets us in

Or we can ride into the sunset and never see home again

7. Nite Owls - JD McPherson

McPherson’s first album since 2017’s excellent UNDIVIDED HEART & SOUL came as quite a surprise to me. His style of music is very specific, leaning heavily on early rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly influence. Innovating and creating something new in a genre that went out of style 60 years ago can be a challenge and I’d kind of assumed he had run out of ideas. But then Nite Owls dropped and he proved once again that he can make something new and fun out of this style. “Just Like Summer” is a great feel-good song, but I really like “Don’t Travel Through the Night Alone” as a change of pace.

You’ve got the world on a string

Golden trinkets and diamond rings

A motion from your graceful hand

Carried you over saharan sands

Moving like a dream

You sang your way over frozen seas

You say you’ll return to me

6. Take Care - BigXThaPlug

I don’t listen to enough Gen Z rap to definitively say this, but I do think BigX might be one of the only people in his generation really rapping. The Dallas rapper has been incredibly prolific the last few years, releasing an album and a mixtape last year and doing the same this year. As previously mentioned, he was also featured on one of the year’s biggest country albums. A true renaissance man.

Just got me a house, watch the price of another

This check off the brain, gotta die if you want it

Came up off of violence, don’t mean I condone it

I’m chillin’, but I keep the Glock if you want it, ayy

5. Tiger’s Blood - Waxahatchee

Katie Crutchfield can do no wrong in my mind. The second the opening note of “Right Back to It” rang in my ears, I knew she’d made another perfect album. Partnering up with MJ Lenderman for that tune was a perfect collaboration that allowed her to showcase her beautiful harmonizing abilities. Her last solo album, 2020’s Saint Cloud was my number one in that year, and her collaboration with Jess Williamson (as the group Plains) was number one in 2022. This one doesn’t reach the same heights, but I think that’s more due to the other albums that were released this year than any regression on her part.

It’s cosmic

A caustic buck knife slicing you

But I’ll sit down at your table

I’ll stand arm in arm with anyone who’s able

To let me

Be the object of their misery

And I’ll whistle like a songbird

And you’ll parse my devotional words so carefully

4. American Stories, Major Chords - Beau Jennings & and the Tigers

Musically, Jennings and his band make pretty straightforward Americana rock. But lyrically and thematically, Beau’s writing stands out for its hyper-specificity and local focus. There are no attempts here to pander to national radio or social media. Almost all of these songs are deeply focused on his life in and around Norman, OK over the last 20+ years.

He’s got a song about a punk band his wife was in two decades ago (“Rubberburn”), one about the house he lived in as a college student (“People’s Porch”), and another about something called the “Sooner Superette” which is so niche I can’t even find any info about it online. Of course, none of those songs are really about those things. Beau uses these hyper-specific places and memories to draw out deep, universal feelings and truths.

“Rubberburn” is more about the people we were before kids and jobs took our edge. “People’s Porch'“ memorializes a friend who died and reflects on the passage of time since the carefree days of college. And “Sooner Superette” is about, well, a lot of things, but mostly the profound moments that can happen in the most quotidian situations, even walking down the aisles of a long-defunct convenience store.

Maybe Beau’s lyrics hit me harder because I know many of the places he name checks in his songs² But I don’t think that’s a prerequisite to enjoying his work. Great storytellers are able to take stories about specific places, people, and situations and turn them into art that makes you feel universal emotions. I think Beau Jennings does that better than anyone else.

Sometimes it takes a minute for me to get it right

I remember this epiphany on a Saturday night

Sometimes it comes in fast, sometimes you gotta wait

Sometimes it’s clear and sometimes it’s strange

I pulled into the parking lot, my windshield all wet

Comin’ down Sunday morning at the Sooner Superette

3. $10 Cowboy Part I and Part II: Visions of Dallas - Charley Crockett

There’s no one in music working harder than Charley Crockett. Not only did he release two albums this year, he also announced another new album out in 2025. I don’t expect that to be his only release next year either. For someone with such a vast catalogue of music, it can be hard to figure out where to start and what’s worth your time. I’ll say this, the two albums he released in 2024 are a great start. Part I has several great examples of Crockett’s songwriting and traditional country stylings (“$10 Cowboy” and “Hard Luck & Circumstances”) as well as some more rock-tinged tunes like “Solitary Road.” It’s also got a song about my hometown of Tyler, TX that might be the best song ever written about the city³ (“City of Roses”).

But it’s Part II that I think really stands out as a shining example of Crockett’s abilities. For reasons that will become clear later to you, my dear readers, Visions of Dallas felt like Crockett was reading my mind this year. The eponymous song as well as “Avoiding Mirrors” delve into Crockett’s love/hate relationship with the city where he made his name. Other tunes are character-driven, taking you across the Old West like a good traditional country artist should.

I was having visions of Dallas

As I passed through Tennessee

Trying to lose familiar feelings

The ones that wash all over me

2. Hood Hymns - Tobe Nwigwe

I wrote about this one when it came out so I will keep it brief here, but I just want to emphasize a point here about what Tobe has done with this album. Tobe was at the height of his popularity as a rapper. He came up from absolutely nothing, built a fanbase as a completely independent artist, and had become the toast of the music and entertainment industry. Huge names were coming to him wanting to collaborate. He even featured on Justin Timberlake’s album and performed on SNL with JT.

His next album could have been a feature-heavy rap album aiming at the top of the charts and radio airplay.

Instead he made Hood Hymns. He doesn’t even rap on this album. He only sings. He does have features, from the likes of Chance the Rapper, Jay Electronica, Anthony Hamilton, Andra Day, and BJ the Chicago Kid, but they’re on songs that Tobe addresses directly to the Lord.

There’s no compromising for radio. There’s no songs for the club. He’s simply beseeching God to heal the hood.

It’s a breathtaking achievement.

Lord, how far does your love come down?

My dog caught a body

Put a man six feet underground

And he just ain’t been the same

But if you touch him he will change

He needs more of you

He needs to feel your presence

He needs to know your name

He needs a touch from heaven

But these demons are all that he knows

And they follow wherever he goes

Who else, in any genre, Christian or not, is writing like that? Who is asking for God to heal a murderer? Who is showcasing the grace of the Lord on that level? I can’t think of anyone.

This is a work of art unparalleled in Hip Hop.

1. Wild God - Nick Cave

I also wrote about this at length when it was released.

I feel even more strongly about it now that I’ve been listening for the last few months. It’s remarkable.

Cave’s lyrics demand exegesis. I could probably write a book’s worth of material about the songs in this album. But, I think the greatest living songwriter summed up Cave’s album perfectly.

“Saw Nick Cave in Paris recently at the Accor Arena and I was really struck by that song Joy where he sings “We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.” I was thinking to myself, yeah that’s about right.” - Bob Dylan.

See, I just wrote a couple thousand words about my favorite albums, but the greats can say so much with so few words.

As He steps from the tomb

In His rags and His wounds

Into the yellow light that streams

Through the window, He brings

Peace and good tidings to the land

Yeah, that’s about right.

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Ok, now that I’ve gotten that big project off my chest, next week I’ll bring you five book recommendations.

All I have to do is read five books between now and then.

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1. For a more detailed breakdown of what Paul was going through while making it you can read my profile of him here.

2. Including The Opolis concert venue in Norman, where I’ll be performing a stand-up comedy show with my buddy Michael Pasvar on January 18.

3. Not that many exist, but the most famous one might be The Toadies “Tyler” which is about a rapist. So…this one is definitely better for the city’s image.