Let’s be honest – trying to sum up a year in music is like attempting to explain Matty Healy to your grandparents or giving a sensible answer when someone asks you, ‘What kind of music do you like?’. It’s messy, it’s subjective and someone is definitely going to disagree with you in the comments.
But here we are again, Dear Reader, doing what we do best: Ranking things and having opinions about them. 2024 has been the kind of year that makes music journalists reach for increasingly elaborate metaphors – a year where artificial intelligence tried to write pop songs (badly), where every other week brought another “unexpected” collaboration, and where pop girlies ruled all.
From bedroom pop breakthroughs to stadium-sized statements, from heartbreak to hyperpop, we’ve listened to it all. Multiple times. Probably while crying in the shower or doing our silly little tasks or commuting to our silly little jobs. These are the albums that made 2024 feel less like a simulation and more like somewhere we actually want to be – ranked meticulously, debated passionately, and served up with a signature side of mild sass. Strap in. Things are about to get opinionated.
50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1
10. TYLER, THE CREATOR – CHROMAKOPIA
Tyler, the Creator’s career divides into two phases, with 2017’s ‘Flower Boy’ as the turning point. His earlier work was raw and controversial, while his later albums showed maturity and enhanced production skills. ‘CHROMAKOPIA’ draws from all these eras, combining spiky tracks reminiscent of ‘Cherry Bomb’ with mellower sounds, while maintaining Tyler’s character work. It’s an album that explores weighty themes like parenthood and fame’s dark side, while delivering the bangers Tyler’s known for.
Top Track: ‘St Chroma’
Fun Fact: Conceptually, ‘Chromakopia’ is narrated by Tyler’s mother, Bonita Smith.
09. ORLA GARTLAND – Everybody Needs A Hero
Some heroes wear capes – others write indie-pop bangers that make you feel like the main character in your own coming-of-age film. Orla’s second album, ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’, is the sound of someone who’s stopped checking the rear-view mirror and started burning rubber towards their own horizon. Sharp as a paper cut but twice as memorable, these thirteen tracks feel like finding the perfect playlist for a life you haven’t lived yet.
Top Track: ‘Little Chaos’
Fun (Spooky?) Fact: Whenever ‘Little Chaos’ comes on, the Dork HQ ‘repeat’ button gets mysteriously stuck…
Grab a copy of the November issue of Dork featuring Orla Gartland on the cover
08. NIA ARCHIVES – Silence Is Loud
Since 2020, Nia Archives’ vibrant club bangers have built massive anticipation for her debut album. ‘Silence Is Loud’ delivers, transforming jungle into a post-rave odyssey. Nia explores every facet of her musicality here. While there are plenty of hyped-up breakbeats, these are beautiful, affecting songs where beats amplify her distinctive, personality-filled vocals. This is a record of expression and freedom, creating something that lives beyond the dancefloor – music you can hold dear while soundtracking the best nights of your life.
Top Track: ‘Forbidden Feelingz’
Fun Fact: Nia is the first jungle artist to receive a nomination for the Mercury Prize since Roni Size in 1997.
07. WUNDERHORSE – Midas
‘Midas’ is the definition of rough and ready. Created in a phone-free studio where Beatles vinyl provided inspiration, the album captures a raw authenticity that few achieve. The opening title-track, a spontaneous first-take, sets the tone perfectly. From ‘Emily’’s infectious riffs to the soaring guitars in ‘Arizona’, each track buzzes with energy. This is Wunderhorse at their most confident and unpretentious.
Top Track: ‘Midas’
Fun Fact: The album was recorded at Pachyderm Studios in rural Cannon Falls, Minnesota, birthplace of Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’.
Read the full cover feature with Wunderhorse from our July issue of Dork
06. BILLIE EILISH – Hit Me Hard and Soft
Billie Eilish’s third album, ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’, proves she’s a singular talent refusing to be defined by expectations. Her signature whisper-soft vocals and bold sonic choices create an intimate yet adventurous experience. Throughout the album, Eilish and brother-producer Finneas weave together eclectic sounds that demand to be heard in full, not cherry-picked for singles. This is Billie’s declaration of autonomy, a reminder that true artistry means forging your own path, even if it means embracing the weird.
Top Track: ‘LUNCH’
Fun Fact: For the album cover, Billie spent six hours submerged in a 10-foot-deep tank, fully clothed and weighted down.
05. SABRINA CARPENTER – Short n’ Sweet
Sabrina Carpenter has been A Big Deal for a long time now, but 2024 has seen her surpass any expectations to become one of the year’s biggest stars. With her wit and ear for a summer banger, ‘Short n’ Sweet’ delivers pure fun and escapism. In a world that can often feel plagued by self-seriousness, she’s here for a good time, and long may it continue.
Top Track: ‘Espresso’
Fun Fact: When international pop star Sabrina Carpenter appeared on the cover of Dork in April 2023, she made a joke about lettuce.
04. ENGLISH TEACHER – This Could Be Texas
‘This Could Be Texas‘ is a love letter to English Teacher frontwoman Lily Fontaine’s cross-Pennine life. Her lyrics strike the heart of urban, working-class living, with her strained voice conveying nostalgia and ambition with effortless beauty. Through abstract metaphor, Fontaine makes you feel included in every detail.
Much of this album is pure cinema. From the stilted ‘Broken Biscuits’ to the swirling experimentalism of ‘Not Everyone Gets To Go To Space’, while ‘R&B’ delivers scathing social commentary on racial bias in indie music.
English Teacher are impossible to pigeonhole, breaking out of post-punk – a bit of a theme this year – to pull from multiple influences with precision. They flow from classic indie-rock to jazz-blues, through college rock and gothic touches. This is an absolute masterpiece.
Top Track: ‘R&B’
Fun Fact: In 2023, English Teacher won a fictional award* for releasing the Best Song Inspired By Washing Up, ‘Song About Love’. It’s described by Lily as “a pop song about doing chores instead of doing someone else”. (*Fictional because we have just made this up. What are you going to do about it?)
Pick up a copy of our May issue of Dork featuring English Teacher on the cover
03. THE LAST DINNER PARTY – Prelude to Ecstasy
In any other year, The Last Dinner Party’s debut may well have topped this here list. Rarely does a band arrive so fully- formed, their mythology preceding their music like a herald trumpeting through indie’s hallowed halls. The band emerged from London’s live circuit trailing whispers and top- spot predictions, their dramatic flair marking them as something special.
‘Prelude to Ecstasy‘ doesn’t just live up to the hype — it rewrites the rulebook on debut albums. Here stands a collection that sparkles with the confidence of seasoned veterans, each track a perfectly polished gem. ‘Burn Alive’ sets an ambitious tone that ‘Caesar On A TV Screen’ and ‘The Feminine Urge’ build upon masterfully. The bold inclusion of an Albanian-language track showcases their keyboardist exploring her mother tongue.
Abigail Morris commands each track with vampiric magnetism, her presence as undeniable on record as it is on stage. When ‘Nothing Matters’ arrives near the album’s close, it feels like another perfectly positioned piece in an elaborate musical puzzle.
If this is merely a prelude, the main event promises to be nothing short of revolutionary.
Top Track: ‘The Feminine Urge’
Fun Fact: The Last Dinner Party performed at Sports Team’s annual Margate bus trip in 2022, before changing their name the following year. Coincidence?
Pick up a copy of our March issue of Dork featuring The Last Dinner Party on the cover
02. FONTAINES D.C. – Romance
Fontaines D.C.’s latest metamorphosis might be their most audacious yet. With the band newly signed to XL Recordings, ‘Romance’ arrived this summer dressed in Y2K aesthetics and bearing gifts from across the musical spectrum — a neon-lit departure that left the band’s post- punk pigeonhole far in the rearview.
The Dublin quintet’s fourth album plays like a feverdream in a late-90s internet café. ‘Starburster’ channels nu-metal’s muscular angst, while ‘Here’s The Thing’ sparkles with power-pop sensibilities that would make Rivers Cuomo raise an approving eyebrow. It’s less a stylistic pivot than a wholesale reinvention.
Grian Chatten’s vocal evolution provides the record’s beating heart, his distinctive brogue exploring previously uncharted territories across these eleven tracks. ‘Death Kink’ emerges as the heaviest artillery in the Fontaines arsenal to date, while ‘Desire’ builds to orchestral heights that feel light-years removed from the band’s ‘Dogrel’ days.
In this bold reimagining, Fontaines D.C. have crafted something akin to a musical Rubik’s Cube – each twist revealing new patterns and possibilities.
Top Track: ’Starburster’
Fun Fact: Liam Gallagher has described Fontaines as “little spunkbubbles”, commenting on Twitter that “they look like a shit EMF”.
01. CHARLI XCX – Brat
It was never going to be anything else, was it? The original, 14-track ‘Brat‘ sounds like a Charli xcx Greatest Hits, bringing together the glitching rebellion of ‘Number 1 Angel’, the pop smarts of ‘Crash’ and the deceptive tenderness that elevated ‘How I’m Feeling Now’ and ‘Charli’. It’s a swaggering party album that giddily veers between all-out euphoria and the spiralling fears that creep in the morning after.
It wasn’t long before the slightly blurry album cover and its unavoidable shade of lime green (#8ACE00) took over the world. ‘Apple’ soundtracked a viral TikTok trend, and instead of stripped-down record store release shows, Charli threw a string of pop-up Partygirl raves. It was all about having as much joy as possible.
And just when it looked like the hedonism of ‘Brat’ summer had started to overstay its welcome, Charli remixed the entire thing. In true xcx XL fashion, ‘Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat’ just amplified everything about the original. The Shygirl-featuring ‘365’ is an aggressively up-for-it party starter, while ‘Guess’ ft. Billie Eilish is a sleek, sexy pop banger that goes hard, then harder. It’s perhaps the most fearless UK Number 1 of the year.
On the flip side of all that decadence, Ariana Grande goes deeper on the tricky subjects of fame and expectations with ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’, the nuanced, delicate ‘Girl, So Confusing’ sees Charli and Lorde work things out on the very public remix, and Bon Iver twists ‘I Think About It All The Time’ into a glitching reflection of love, motherhood, and the future. Then there’s ‘Everything So Romantic’ featuring Caroline Polachek, which is a free-flowing conversation about freedom and joy in a world that’s sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying. It’s these hyper-personal moments that make ‘Brat’ feel so universal. They also add a vicious sense of urgency to the joyous, escapist hunks of dance.
What’s funny about ‘Brat’’s success is that it kinda happened by accident. With ‘Crash’, Charli tried to deconstruct the idea of mainstream pop by making a mainstream pop record. After that concept-heavy album, ‘Brat’ was a return to her more instinctual roots. The music covers everything from delicate, cinematic soundscapes to pulsating dance, and there’s a lot to unpack lyrically as well. A number of friends and collaborators are given first-name shout- outs while complex emotions are picked apart without apology. You either get it, or you don’t.
“I wanted to create this world of that 2000s flip phone, cameras flashing, live fast, die young. I wanted my lyrics to be conversational because that’s what I think pop culture actually is: it’s a 15-second TikTok, a selfie in a cloud, a text to your friends being like ‘Where you at, bitch?’” she told ‘GQ’.
The whole thing was backed by the playful swagger of the ‘Brat’ attitude (Brattitude?). It’s part unshakable confidence, part anxiety that you don’t belong, and finding a way to celebrate that. It can be messy, chaotic, and uncomfortable, but it’s very true to life.
People want that bluntness. “It feels like she’s peeling back the curtain on something we all feel,” said Paramore’s Hayley Williams.
The whole point of this list is about looking back on the past twelve months, but the most exciting thing about ‘Brat’ is where it goes from here. Despite talk about taking a break from music to focus on acting (anyone who saw ‘SNL’ will know that she’ll probably nail that as well), 2025 looks set for ‘Brat’ Summer (2025 version) with Charli set for massive festival slots at Coachella, Parklife, and Primavera Sound, as well as her own Partygirl festival in London.
Then there’s how the record influences other musicians: we’d put money on shape-shifting remix albums quickly becoming the new norm. Acts like Confidence Man and ‘Guess’ producer The Dare already make a lot more sense post-‘Brat’ while buzzy indie artists like Nieve Ella are also looking to Charli’s latest era for inspiration. “It’s like women everywhere collectively remembered that we can be messy, hot, and fun,” she told us earlier this year. We’re not going to bore you with talk of authenticity, but
‘Brat’ is undeniable proof that people want realness, even if it’s delivered via hulking slabs of experimental, euphoric dance. Bratty New Year, anyone?
Top Track: ‘Apple’
Fun Fact: The whole point of this list is about looking back on the past twelve months, but the most exciting thing about ‘Brat’ is where it goes from here.
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