As we wrap up our coverage of the year in music, we are publishing lists of the music loved best by individual members of NPR Music's team. For more, check out the full team's picks for the 124 best songs and 50 best albums of 2024.
I might be known as NPR's "classical guy," but that doesn't mean I only listen to Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. A generalist at heart, I thrive on my catholic tastes with ears wide open. And in 2024, a year of zigzagging emotional highs and lows, I needed all the musical sustenance I could get to bolster my hope and drown my sorrows, whether in concert halls or just in my headphones.
For jolts of joy, I turned to songs like "Lift You Up," an ecstatic club track by Romy and Jessie Ware that works exactly as advertised, and Jlin's "The Precision of Infinity," with its hyperbeat shuffle and cascading Philip Glass samples. Serene spaces to chill in were essential this year, as well. Nala Sinephro's jazz-ish floater Endlessness proved to be a balm, as were Christopher Rountree's ambient-leaning 3 BPM and a set of Baroque lute pieces played in delicious detail on a five-foot-long theorbo by Jakob Lindberg.
Meanwhile, emerging opera stars Aigul Akhmetshina and Emily D'Angelo assured me that my beloved genre is still in good voice, while Residente's "313," featuring Penelope Cruz and Silvia Pérez Cruz, unfolded as its own mini-opera. For sensuousness, Clairo and the sweet-voiced Greg Gonzalez of Cigarettes After Sex struck the right mood.
And then there's the peculiar singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt, who resides in some alternate multiverse where time is meaningless. Here in the Pitch is an ethereal collection of chamber-pop songs that hang in the air, scented with nostalgia. It might have been the album I listened to most this year were it not for a symphonic supernova from the Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, whose dazzling music, in technicolor performances by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is finally getting its long overdue recognition.
Here, in no particular order, are the albums, songs and performances I loved the most in 2024. Dig in and discover something new to you.
Top 10 albums of 2024
- Nala Sinephro, Endlessness
- Gabriela Ortiz, Revolución Diamantina (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
- Maya Beiser, Maya Beiser x Terry Riley: In C
- Angélica Garcia, Gemelo
- Jessica Pratt, Here in the Pitch
- Christopher Rountree, 3 BPM
- Immanuel Wilkins, Blues Blood
- Cigarettes After Sex, X's
- Jakob Lindberg, Robert de Visée: Theorbo Solos
- Silvestrov: Postludium & Dedication (Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra)
Top 10 songs of 2024
- Baby Rose, BADBADNOTGOOD, "One Last Dance"
- Jessie Ware and Romy, "Lift You Up"
- Waxahatchee, "Right Back to It"
- Jlin, "The Precision of Infinity"
- Clairo, "Sexy to Someone"
- Danish String Quartet, "Once a Shoemaker"
- Residente, "313"
- Gabriela Ortiz, Kauyumari
- Colin Stetson, "Green and grey and fading light"
- Aigul Akhmetshina, "The Nightingale"
Top 10 concerts of 2024
- Julia Bullock (Jan. 14, Baltimore)
- Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Feb. 6, Washington D.C.)
- Lise Davidsen (March 14, Tiny Desk)
- Marc-André Hamelin (April 26, Library of Congress)
- John Adams: El Niño (May 17, Metropolitan Opera)
- Jessica Pratt (July 29, Washington, D.C.)
- Sigur Rós (Sept. 25, Washington, D.C.)
- Meredith Monk: Indra's Net (Sept. 28, Park Avenue Armory)
- Verdi: Macbeth (Nov. 13, Kennedy Center)
- Berlin Philharmonic (Nov. 15, Kennedy Center)
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