Ben’s best albums of 2024

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

Let me begin by stating how ridiculous it is that I’m the one writing this article highlighting the best albums of 2024. New music is like penicillin: It might be useful for some people, but it just gives me hives.

That said, some albums dropped in 2024 that caught my interest. Here are some that didn’t suck.

Helado Negro: Phasor

The electronic artist Roberto Carlos Lange (who performs as Helado Negro) has created a universe of detailed, highly listenable songs in his seven albums, but his eighth drop, Phasor, attains a level that is almost sublime. Leaning into his genre as a groovy pop artist with psych rock tendencies, Phasor starts off with a bang. The first three songs are the best on the album, with “Best For You and Me,” taking the cake as the song I couldn’t stop playing for about a month straight. The synth bass and galloping drum beats are near-perfect and reach a high chamber of groove that doesn’t really exist in popular music. Fans of his 2019 release This Is How You Smile will enjoy Phasor because it holds the listener captive in that liminal space where the beats and synth soundscapes are equal to the narrative storytelling the Ecuadorian-born artist has crafted.

The Cure: Songs of a Lost World

There are those who love The Cure, and there are those who are truly lost. Thankfully, I count myself among the former. Generations of 1980s post-punk or new wave fans have lost themselves in Robert Smith’s songwriting. The band has undergone many lineup changes over the years, but Smith’s dark songs and emotive voice remains a staple that launched the English band to stardom, giving us several great albums in the process. Sixteen years after the band’s last full-length album, The Cure released Songs of a Lost World in 2024 to critical acclaim. The album is a bit of a departure from Smith’s former work, which fans will either love or hate. One thing is certain, though: It’s a meditative masterpiece filled with beautiful imagery — just like most of The Cure’s past work. From the first airy synth track (“Alone”), which nods to the band’s iconic ’80s sound to its last track (“End Song”), a long, emotional dirge that explores the hopes and dreams of youth being erased by time (ouch), The Cure came back with something to say in 2024. Let’s hope the world can still listen.

DIIV: Frog in Boiling Water

Brooklyn indie rock band DIIV (pronounced and formerly known as Dive) is the brainchild of psych rocker Zachary Cole Smith, who formed the group in 2011 as a solo recording project. DIIV’s early sound was likened to a modern Nirvana, incorporating rock elements and antihero tendencies that appealed to an audience tired of the usual drivel churned out by major record labels. The group has gone through some shit the past decade and was on the verge of disbanding a year ago. Bassist Devin Ruben Perez left the band when his antisemitic and racist comments on 4chan were exposed. Other members left due to drug addictions, health issues and broken friendships. In an attempt to find the magic again, DIIV camped out in the Mojave Desert with guitars and books on Zen poetry, humanity’s failures and psychological warfare, determined to come out of the desert with something substantive. They emerged with Frog in Boiling Water, a manifesto of sorts that laments the destructive tendencies of late-stage capitalism and what the band believes is an inevitable societal collapse. While I hope we have a few more years before we begin the Mad Max years of American society, at least we’ll have a few albums like Frog in Boiling Water to listen to if the end comes sooner than expected.