In my decade at Stereogum, I’ve helped make a lot of lists. The first time I was asked to contribute to one back in 2014, I was so excited to stuff the proverbial ballot box with personal favorites from that year. (Mitski, LVL UP, Chumped — impeccable taste!) It felt surreal to have some say in a site that I had been reading since I was a teenager. I’ve participated in countless lists since then: biannual album ones, decade-spanning ones, Best New Bands ones, even my beleaguered attempts to codify the year’s best EPs. Throughout all that time, I’ve wavered on how much I value the whole endeavor of list-making, but I could never not vote.
As you might have heard, I have left this site and this is the last Stereogum list I will be directly involved in, at least as a regular staff member. (Who knows if they’ll invite me back?!) The process has become familiar, but I’ve never taken it for granted. Twice a year, we gather together and put forth our favorite albums. We discuss what should or should not be included, try to decide exactly where it should go. I’ve never paid too much attention to the ranking of it all; in my mind, lists have always been more a celebration than a competition, despite the numerical component.
I feel like, as time has gone on, our individual listening habits have become more disparate. But I also feel like, at least in this day and age, that’s the sign of a healthy music publication. Where’s the fun if we’re all listening to exactly the same thing? We do gravitate toward some consensus, which you will see reflected in this list, but I love that there are albums on here that I simply do not care about. That’s OK! We can’t like everything.
The attention economy is brutal. Even the world’s biggest stars are lucky if they’re in the conversation for more than a day. There’s more music than ever — it’s all over there, waiting for you to listen! It’s easy to get overwhelmed and tune out completely. That’s what we’re here for: to help you help you find the best of it. Or, at least I was. For a while.
For this survey, we considered albums from 2024 with release dates no later than May 31. (In past Stereogum midyear lists, June releases were eligible, but not this time.) The most important thing that you can do is champion what you love, and I think that we here at Stereogum have been doing that for a long time. You might disagree with some of our picks, but they’re ours. And we’re eager to hear yours! Please, share your own lists in the comments — I hope they look nothing like this one. That’s exciting.
That’s enough from me, thanks for reading. Dig into Stereogum’s list of The 50 Best Albums Of 2024 So Far below. —James Rettig
