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Stephen Thompson's favorite albums and songs of 2024

By Stephen Thompson
Published December 19, 2024 at 7:00 AM PST
Madi Diaz's Weird Faith, a welcome Grammy nominee in the awards' folk and Americana categories, wrestles with big ideas about love, spirituality and fear.
Muriel Margaret
Madi Diaz's Weird Faith, a welcome Grammy nominee in the awards' folk and Americana categories, wrestles with big ideas about love, spirituality and fear.

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.

So many of 2024's big music stories were about freshly minted stars reaping the benefits of the long game: Sabrina Carpenter got nominated for a best new artist Grammy on the strength of her sixth album, Short n' Sweet. Charli xcx broke through with brat after years of cranking out forward-thinking pop on the margins. Chappell Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess technically came out last year, and is thus ineligible for 2024's year-end lists, but the album followed countless false starts, near-misses and label woes. Overnight success is, as always, a myth.

Amid all that terrific pop music, two rising singer-songwriters put out stunning records that shouldn't get lost: Madi Diaz's Weird Faith, a welcome Grammy nominee in the awards' folk and Americana categories, wrestles with big ideas about love, spirituality and fear. And Omar Apollo filled God Said No with emotionally rich, idiosyncratic R&B that didn't spare the yearning. Oh, and if you want a reason to get excited about 2025, "Kid" — that's Great Grandpa's first single in five years, with promises of more to come — is a wrenching, symphonic epic that wrings stunning beauty out of deep loss.

My top 10 albums of 2024

  1. Madi Diaz, Weird Faith
  2. Omar Apollo, God Said No
  3. Charli xcx, brat
  4. Mount Eerie, Night Palace
  5. Katie Gavin, What a Relief
  6. Sabrina Carpenter, Short n' Sweet
  7. Tierra Whack, World Wide Whack
  8. Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer
  9. Tyler, The Creator, CHROMAKOPIA
  10. Arooj Aftab, Night Reign

My top 10 songs of 2024

  1. 1. Great Grandpa, "Kid"
  2. Omar Apollo, "Plane Trees (feat. Mustafa)"
  3. Charli XCX, "The girl, so confusing version with lorde"
  4. Madi Diaz, "God Person"
  5. Chappell Roan, "Good Luck, Babe!"
  6. Waxahatchee, "Right Back To It"
  7. Cassandra Jenkins, "Petco"
  8. Katie Gavin, "Aftertaste"
  9. Colouring, "Lune"
  10. Post Malone, "I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen)"

Copyright 2024 NPR

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Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)