The best new albums of spring 2024
An insurance of navigating the vast expanse of social media is that The Discourse never stops. It is: death, taxes and endless speeches. Mass consensus is all but gone. More than anything, fandoms dictate much of the conversation today.
Despite this, spring was a particularly fertile time for music releases: Drake released a splinter record featuring an AI 2Pac (it's terrible), Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album, The Department of Tortured Poets (not great either), and Pharrell, the ultimate mathematician, has quietly released an album available exclusively via a promotional website, abandon the route major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music (which is probably why you're hearing about it just now). Oh! Apparently the song lyrics are also become dumber.
Discussions about all of these things – and more – have only intensified in the preceding weeks. There are days when finding common ground feels like a concept from a bygone analog world. Of course, good music is all around us, despite everything a study complaints. Perhaps even more so than in any recent time that I can think of. I'm having a hard time keeping up myself. What cannot be denied is the strange originality of the following seven albums on our Spring Music List. Each project is a showcase of a distinct artistic evolution. Think of them as small steps of invention.
This is what the future is supposed to look like: full potential and unlimited imagination.
When Kendrick Lamar left TDE to start pgLang, a creative agency with his manager Dave Free, there was speculation that TDE's best days were over. Even with an impressive roster – ScHoolboy Q, SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul and Jay Rock – there was no guarantee that the Los Angeles label could maintain its dominance and reputation, a significant part of which was due to the prowess by Lamar: five albums, 17 Grammys and a Pulitzer Prize (the first for a rapper). With Blue lipsan essayistic blend of dark history and brutal reality, Schoolboy Q confirms what we've all been wondering: he's the future of TDE, and he's in good hands.
The second part of a trilogy of musical recovery, Cowboy Carter these are all strong points. Driven by confrontation and rooted in southern tradition, the album unfolds as Beyoncé's best records do: pure sensation, total astonishment. (Have you heard the operatic flex on “Daughter”? Shivers.) Only this time, it’s personal. Years ago, country music's descendants said it had no place in their walled garden. So she blazed her own trail and became the first black woman to top the country album chart. What's not to like?
Maggie Rogers will probably never make a better song than “Say It,” from the 2019 Cosmic film. I heard it in a past life– but its last, Do not forget me, is a nirvana-inducing project, full of transporting earworms. The moving cinema of “It Was Coming All Along”. The serene contemplation of “All the Same”. The blissful regret of “On & On & On”. Do not forget me is the high priestess of indie pop at the height of her powers.
Canadian experimentalist BADBADNOTGOOD never plays it safe. Their music is full of big ideas, near-impossible swings, and feats of imagination that sometimes leave listeners giddy with pleasure. (Go listen Conversation memory right now.) Add Baby Rose into the mix – who are one of the most promising young acts in R&B and who sound like Nina Simone (yes, that Nina Simone) – and the result is Slow burningan opus of six tracks with total and unforgettable sensations.
None of that mattered. Historic placement on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The first Grammy win for Best African Musical Performance. The fact that “Water” was on almost every list of best songs of 2023. Or the rumors that it could be the second coming of Rihanna. There was no album, and because there was no album, many wondered if she was just another one-hit wonder. But we can put this chatter to bed now. Sunny and sensual, the South African singer's self-titled debut album is a slow hybrid of amapiano, R&B and pop that courts themes of love, loss and desire (not to mention its list of impressive guests: Tems, Gunna, Becky G and Travis Scott). Make yourself comfortable, because Tyla isn't going anywhere.
“Earth Sign” is a rocket that starts And now, Brittany Howard's sophomore album, and luckily for us, it just keeps going up, rising higher and braver into a cosmos of astrological tenderness. As lead singer of the Alabama Shakes, Howard was an unwavering force, with a trembling, transcendent voice. As a solo artist, she exploited a new dimension of musicality, a dimension more elementary than artistic. Vulnerable and supernaturally progressive, And now maybe that's also a question, because it doesn't get much better than that.
Hip hop resident trickster The first album is a mixture of sounds, colors and sensations. There's a reason why Tierra Whack's songs feel so lived-in: she wants to build a theater in your mind. The one where you can walk, play or rest at will. Shot of the whole world it is exactly that, a funhouse of swirling fantasy and originality. “Accessible,” “Imaginary Friends,” and “Two Night” are my current favorites, but there are no wrong answers. Go ahead and press play.
And because there's a lot of good music out there right now, seven other albums are worth checking out:
