What a year, huh? Sometimes it seems like almost everything on earth is getting worse every single day, but we’ve also had an outrageous abundance of truly dazzling music, more than any of us could ever hear in a lifetime. The news sure looks bad most days, but you know who’s got our back? All the hardworking artists who create incredible work every single year, all while living in the same conditions that are making all of our lives collectively tougher. It’s a miracle, really, that despite everything going on, I can confidently state once again:

Every year is a great year for music.

In 2025, it’s easier than ever to just coast on whatever some corporation decides to put into your feed, consume the music that they paid to put in your ears, stay comfortably inside those guardrails that always seem to get narrower every year. So I applaud anyone going out of their way to discover something truly new, take a recommendation from a friend or even a stranger, roll the dice on an artist they never would’ve otherwise encountered. For some folks, I am that stranger. But I’m not special. I’m just a regular guy who spends a lot of time talking with artists and labels, scouring Bandcamp and reading music journalism, and mostly just spending time with great people who fill my life with magic every day. I’m forever grateful that I’ve found a community online where I can share it all and spread the love. I wouldn’t be here without all the great recommendations that have been shared with me all year long.

So, here we are with my ever-growing annual album list. Twenty five of them are singled out at the end as the best of the best – especially masterful, poignant, mindmelting pieces of music that affected me more deeply than anything else I heard this year. Every album below is listed with its full title, record label, cover art, and a link to listen and buy.

As always, I know that I missed loads of incredible music. I’m just one guy with only so much time on my hands, so please share your own recommendations in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno or bluesky. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my best of the best TOP 25 at the end:

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Like every year, 2024 was a great year for music, for anyone willing to look and listen. There are more people releasing more music than ever before, and I could feel despair over the fact that I’ll never have the time to hear all the incredible music that I might love. But I think it’s a good problem to have. I’m exposed to so much magic so frequently that I have to share the best of it just to keep track. That’s why I’m here, and why I’m always posting on twitter and now bluesky too. Algorithms have been nice for finding stuff that’s similar to what you already like, but lately they seem as broken as everything else that seemed so futuristically convenient a decade ago. All these services we’ve begun to rely on have eroded, often in line with mass layoffs at the companies that provide them. The human element is leaking entirely out of the corporate music infrastructure. So I think it’s more important than ever that regular people who are tuned in spread the word about the best new (and old) music they encounter.

So, here I am with the annual big album list. I couldn’t settle on just fifty again, or even sixty, so I’m dropping eighty great albums made in 2024 that I think you should really hear. Twenty of them are singled out at the end as the best of the best – especially masterful, poignant, mindbending pieces of music that touched me deeper than anything else I heard this year. Every album is listed with its record label and a link to check it out.

As always, I know I missed a ton of killer music. I’m only one guy with so much time on my hands, so please let me know about stuff you’d recommend in the comments or on twitter @funkentechno or bluesky. I’ll never catch up, but it’s always fun to try. Here we go, in the order I heard them, plus my best of the best top twenty at the end:

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