Best music (and otherwise) of 2024

My year-end list appears in Slate this weekend

One of my most high-intensity workloads every December is combing back through, and catching up on, the year’s releases to make my year-end lists. They were published on Slate this weekend. There’s a top-dozen albums list, a tier of 20 runners-up (which is really just more of the top), and another dozen-plus of what I called “singularities”—including some actual singles, and loosie songs, but also various socio-musical phenomena that capture some of the essence of this extremely weirdly mixed year. (All the musicians who came out denouncing their own fans, for instance—or Lara Trump’s stomach-turning “inspirational” song.) It’s a fat 5,000-word package in all.

What I especially wanted to share is that I boiled it down to a 50-song playlist I hope you’ll enjoy. The title comes from a line from the Waxahatchee song that starts it off, a critics’ darling for good reason. Here are the links for whichever platform you might use.

Spotify

Apple: https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/slate-music-fifty-2024-bracing-for-a-bombshell/pl.u-V9D77kdF7lEN6

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLduEUgncQcXqe0R84rZSA5O1HlGTLRmIv

Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/96971919-8992-41a0-bb38-b0cbb7476691