With 2024 recently coming to a close I feel the immense need to tell everyone about albums released in 2024 that I think were the best. From genres like Electronic to Korean R&B, here are the albums that were my favorites from 2024 and some honorable mentions

For me, 2024 was the year of venturing out, trying new things, but also going backwards. Whether it was listening to the radio, the ¨New Releases¨ playlist from Spotify, or just listening to songs or albums people recommended to me. I also feel as if 2024 was the year that I went back in time with the music I was listening to. Listening to playlists that I was making during quarantine, albums that used to be my favorites, watching rap shows I used to rewatch all the time, and overall just a blast from the past.

Now that there’s a little bit of an explanation of why some of these albums are on my list, let’s get on with the music!

3: Rad Milli- Rad Museum & Kid Milli

Starting off strong with the unusual but amazing collab of  ¨Rad Milli¨ by Rad Museum and Kid Milli, the mixture of late 2010s Korean rap, Rad Museum´s unusual R&B sound, and Kid Millis´s signature rap sound all in one album, pure bliss. Released on August 20. Rad Milli showcases Rad Museum and Kid Milli´s sound coming into one. 12 songs, three features, and 30 minutes of pure greatness. When listening to the album in order it starts off pretty slow and mellow with the first two tracks but as soon as the second track starts playing, the vibe of the rest of the albums is decided. Greatness.

Call me basic, but the best song on this album is S/S. Hearing Kid Milli, and Dean on one track is just beautiful and something I’ve been wanting to hear ever since Dean followed Kid Milli on Instagram in 2018. Hearing Kid Milli´s fast and unique rap on the mid paced beat right after Dean sang the hook just sounded like chugging a freezing cold glass of water after being out in the heat all day, just amazing and something you’ve been looking forward to for a while. Also not to mention but S/S is nominated for the ¨Best Collab Song¨ for the 2025 Korean Hip-Hop Awards.

My runner-up for best song is definitely Alcohol.  Alcohol reminds me of a Mafia movie. Like every time I listen to it I imagine Tony Soprano from ¨The Sopranos¨ in a dark room with a glass of whiskey. Besides that the overall song is just really good. My personal favorite part of the song is definitely the trumpet in the beat. You don’t usually hear a trumpet in a Korean Hip-Hop Song, so hearing it is kind of refreshing.

I wouldn’t say that there’s any song on this album that i particlery hate, but there are some songs that could have had more potential. For example, ¨Summer Time¨, the second track on the albums. I personally think Summer Time is a really good song, but do albums with only 12 need 3-4 songs that are basically just interludes? Like what’s really the point of adding all of them? Apart from that I think that Summer Time just has more potential, like I would love to hear it as a full song, with lyrics, a beat drop, and maybe a feature. But no, there just has to be three songs on this album  that are basically just beats, but I still do enjoy them even if they are just beats.

Overall i´d rate this album a 8/10. I really love both Kid Milli and Rad Museum´s music and them making collaboration albums is just perfect. Obviously there’s some stuff i´d tweak to make the album to my personal preference but it’s still an amazing album.

2: AAA- HYUKOH & 落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster 

I’d consider this album my comfort album if I’m completely honest. AAA by HYUKOH and 落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster is one of the best albums i’ve heard this year (hence why its on this list). The forestry, lively, and overall just a masterpiece. 

I’ve been a fan of HYUKOH since around 2018 when I first heard their song ¨Comes and Goes¨ from their 2017 album ¨22¨, and I’ve been a fan ever since.. As for 落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster the first time I heard them was in 2020 when 落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster and HYUKOH released a collab song called Candlelight. When I first heard Candlelight I thought it was astonishing, while listening to it I heard all the instruments being played and didn’t even get me started on the beat drop, the slight electronic little drop was just fantastic. 

Compared to ¨Candlelight¨ and ¨Comes and Goes¨ AAA is very different from them. Not saying that it’s completely different but it’s just not really similar, still amazing though. Even though AAA is a short album with only 38 minutes and 6 songs, the quality of the music makes up for it. I’m not saying that every album has to exceed a certain time but most albums are longer than that. There’s no features from other artists on this album like there is with some collab albums but honestly i’m not complaining. Like in Rad Milli there were a few features and they kind of made the album come together. In AAA the album feels complete even with no features. 

My favorite song on this album is definitely Glue. Glue reminds me of early HYUKOH. Even though I didn’t even know either of them when they had just started music, listening to their older albums and singles then listening to Glue, it’s like that song was supposed to be in their older albums. Even though this song reminds me a lot of older HYUKOH music, I can also hear what 落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster brang to the song. Hearing trumpets and saxophone, which is kind of signature with their music. Hearing both of their sounds coming together is just perfect for that song and honestly the whole album.

My runner-up for second favorite song on AAA is definitely Kite War. With complete honesty I really have no idea why its my second favorite, I just feel a sense of comfort every time I listen to it. Some of my favorite qualities of this song are definitely the guitar and the bass. You hear both all throughout the song but at the end the bass has a solo and it’s just phenomenal. I’d never heard a bass solo sound so clear and smooth like that before, it was just perfect.

Again like the last album I rated there’s no song on AAA that I hate. Is there stuff in certain songs I would change? Yes, but i feel like that with every album I listen to. For example, in the song ¨Aaaannnnteeeeennnaaaaaa¨ I would add like a little twinkle sound ad the beginning until the vocals come in because every time I listen to it I imagine looking a forestry mountain while its raining with a rainbow over the mountain. Or in ¨Do Nothing¨ where I’d add a more in depth guitar or even a banjo.

AAA is just one of those albums you need to play either on a speaker or in your headphones at full blast when it’s raining. It’s an album that once you listen to it once, you want to listen to it over and over again because you wish to get the same feeling you got when you first listened to it. In my books AAA is a 10/10. You might be thinking that ¨well you can’t give two albums a score of 10/10¨, well guess what? I just did.

Honorable Mentions!

Obviously there were so many good albums that were released in 2024 and there was some that were so good in my book but weren’t good enough to make the official Malina´s elite albums of 2024 list, but still good enough to make a little sneak-peak into this article though. These albums are SLOWMO By YANGHONGWON, Charm By Clario, and This Is How Tomorrow Moves By beabadoobee.

Starting off strong with SLOWMO by YANGHONGWON, an album that I would consider a Afro-Beat and kind of disco Korean Hip-Hop album. SLOWMO is a eight song album that is a whopping 19 minutes and 23 seconds long. SLOWMO is very different from YANGHONGWON´s last album ¨3 STEPS FORWARD, 2 STEPS BACK¨. YANGHONGWON´s last album was kind of an alternative rap album, and as for SLOWMO, well I already explained that. 

My favorite song on SLOWMO is ¨근데¨ or more known as its english spelling ¨Well…?¨ This song is personally my favorite because of the beat alone. Yes the lyrics and vocals are really good but the beat just has my heart. Whenever I listen to this song, I imagine YANGHONGWON is in an old school disco roller rink with his headphones, a computer and microphone in his hand, and in rollerblades. 

I’d give SLOWMO a 7.5/10. I’ve been listening to YANGHONGWON´s music since 2017 when his stage name was Young B and he was like a full on rapper. Seeing him go this far in his music career and overall his life is really amazing. I would say SLOWMO is his best album he’s ever made but it’s definitely up there.

Next is Charm by Clairo, a bedroom pop, 60s and 70s jazz folk album with 11 songs, 38 minutes, and no features, not that it needed them anyways Similar but still different from her past album Sling, Charm to me is a early teens, bedroom pop, last minute sleepover, first love type of vibe. Every time I listen to this album I imagine a last minute sleepover with a bunch of baking cookies, watching old movies, and gossiping about people.

On to the music, my favorite song on this album is ¨Sexy to Someone¨. From the lyrics, vocals, to the vibe, everything about this song is amazing. Hearing Clairo´s smooth vocals in the chorus alone could cure a broken heart. Sexy to Someone is the peak love song in 2024, it just covers all the boxes in my book and my heart. There’s nothing about this song that is bad.

The overall album on the other hand, could’ve been better. I honestly expected more from Clairo after her last album. Like I love Charm, its an amazing album, but I think because I was expecting more I just wasn’t as satisfied with the album as I thought I was going to be. Still an amazing album though 7/10.

And lastly but not the least, This is How Tomorrow Moves By beabadoobee, my favorite brit. This is How Tomorrow Moves is a ¨by the seaside, toes in sand, eating cold pizza with my favorite people¨ type of vibe, or more commonly known as indie-pop music. With 43 minutes, 14 songs, and no features. 

The song I thought was the best on this album was ¨Beaches¨, the sappy love song that reminds me of a hot night walking around Los Angeles, with all honestly I found out about this song from a Franco Colapinto edit on TikTok and i’ve been in love ever since. I mean I could listen to the song over and over and over until my ears fall off and id still want to listen to it. The little twinkles spreaded through the song, the bass, and beabadoobee´s vocals are just amazing.

This is How Tomorrow Moves is an A+ album in my books. The only reason it’s not on Malina´s elite albums of 2024 list is because I found out about it way too late. Like ive been a fan of beabadoobee for a while but I have like fazes of music so I wasn’t informed about it, which breaks my heart. I’d give This is How Tomorrow Moves a 8/10, but I just feel like I needed to hear it for a longer time in order to really love it like I do the others.

1: Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat By Charli XCX

And the number one album on my list is none other than Brat but It’s Completely Different but It’s Also Still Brat By Charli XCX! Obviously the original Brat is an amazing album but this remix album is just way better. It’s 50 minutes long, there’s 34 songs and 19 features.  Some of the notable features are Billie Eilish, Lorde, Bladee, Yung Lean, Addison Rae, Bon Iver, and so many others.  This album also has all of the original songs, without the features. To me, this album is one of the albums that you just need to tell everyone about. Whether it be my mom, your mom, siblings, friends, teachers, random people on the bus, honestly everyone. 

I feel as if Charli XCX put electronic music back onto mainstream media and listeners. Like okay yea some of her songs aren’t even considered “electronic” but electronic-pop  but they’re kind of like a subgenre of the electronic and electronic-pop  music. Beside that fact that this album is in the electronic genre, I kind of feel it’d also fit into the ¨rave¨ genre. Like when I picture a rave i imagine a bunch of people in Sherk costumes and ¨Talk Talk¨ From this album comes on.

Okay getting to the point on my opinion of the songs, my favorite is ¨Girl, So Confusing Featuring Lorde¨ which as it says in the title, its featuring Lorde. Honestly just the storyline alone is absolutely amazing, like knowing about the drama between Charli XCX and Lorde then listening to ¨Girl, So Confusing¨ knowing that it’s about Lorde, and then she comes out with a remix featuring Lorde is just insane. Besides that the song it’s just beautiful, I love that I can hear the autotune in Lorde’s voice when it’s her part. I also love the beat, hearing the super electronic beat and her adding in the lazer sound. Just beautiful. 

My Second favorite song is ¨Talk Talk¨, yes I know that it’s not the remix one, the first one is just too iconic. The remix with Troye Savian was amazing, but it’s just not as good as the first one. Talk Talk is like if i went to a Bowling alley and got lost, yes that sounds a little confusing but let me explain. Imagine you’re in a Bowling alley and you’re bowling as you do when you’re bowling. Then you decide that you need to use the restroom so you find it, open the door, and you just teleport into a different dimension. That’s what the whole song is like for me. The bass-boom in the song is repetitive in your ears, Charli XCX´s voice saying ¨And we should Talk Talk, we should Talk Talk¨ over and over just puts be in a trance. 

There’s nothing I would change about Brat but It’s Completely Different but It’s Also Still Brat, it’s a perfect 10/10 album. And if i even thought if any of the songs needed anything Charli XCX probably already released another remix album. All 32 songs on this album are beautiful. Hearing the original songs then the remixes, the odd but amazing featuring, it all just comes together.