The Best Music of 2024 So Far

Pitchfork’s editors are already thinking about what albums have left the biggest impressions and will land a coveted spot on our year-end list. So we’re spotlighting some of 2024’s most outstanding releases to date by rounding up albums that have earned high scores and Best New Music designations with a quick list of RIYLs (that’s Recommended If You Like) and links to our coverage.

Unlike our year-end lists, this one is organized in reverse chronological order. To help you keep track of the year’s best music, we’ll be updating it periodically throughout the remainder of 2024.

(All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our retail links, however, Pitchfork may earn an affiliate commission.)

August

RIYL: Double entendres; wordplay; foreplay; Quad City DJs’ “My Boo”; Jenny Lewis sort of; himbos; dating woes; “pure pop”; self-recrimination; the kooky emoji

Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Rough Trade | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Quarter-life crises; virtuosic bars; psilocybin on the beach; dreams about drowning; depressing rhymes and twinkly pianos

Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Ungoogleable names; MapQuest nostalgia; y2k-era clicks + cuts; midlife heel turns; the visceral pleasures of synthetic sound; the visceral pleasures of synthetic drugs; outsider techno; the purity of guilelessness

Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify

July

RIYL: Electromagnetic radiation; the whirring of a computer booting up; deep listening; Fennesz; attuning to the sonic underworld of the metropolis; the soundtrack to Blade Runner 2049; wireframe glasses; immersing yourself in the drama of everyday sounds

Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Fretless bass; it’s worth saying fretless bass twice; Jon Hassell; new age; journeying to the center of yourself; Naná Vasconcelos’ 1987 album Bush Dance; deep-sea submersibles; lapis lazuli; listening to a Balearic DJ while underwater

Listen/Buy: Amazon | Apple Music | Bandcamp | Spotify | Tidal

RIYL: Soccer references; indie gang vocals; big-tent emo; Catholic guilt; having a social life that’s mostly just DSA meetings; the lore of the band Los Campesinos!