Like every year, the list of the best albums arrives. On this sound route I never tire of repeating it every season: this is a classification that is not at all scientific and very much personal. In this way, this list does not seek to set a lecture or set any trend. It responds, solely and exclusively, to my personal tastes, trying to organize what I consider to be the albums that I liked the most in 2024.
It should be noted that I tend to be very messy when it comes to this type of review and I always leave some disc along the way. Records that I couldn’t listen to despite the intention, or that I listened to, but, when making the selections, I end up forgetting to include them. But I don’t think it’s something tragic. At the end of the day, the end of the year list is, honestly, a simple guideline and, above all, a mere diversion that allows us to set an annual tone. It also allows us to discover things or relisten to albums that perhaps were listened to without much attention. And, above all, it allows us to continue sharing music, which is, in my opinion, the most important thing.
Like other years, this La Ruta Norteamericana list is made up of the 20 albums that stole the most from me, without needing to be better or worse than others. There have to be 20, the number of other courses, and, in this sense, several have to be left out that could be included without problems. I think now, for example, of the albums of Nick Lowe, Beth Gibbons, Hermanos Gutiérrez, Khruangbin, St. Vicent, Amy & The Sniffers, Richard Hawley, Brittany Howard, Michael Head, David Gilmour, Richard Thompson, Laura Marling, Leyla McCalla , Kamasi Washington, Mercury Rev, Paul Weller, Jessica Pratt or Peter Perret.
That said, this list of the best of the year for La Ruta Norteamericana is not scientific at all. Simply, it is a personal list, from the author of this column, with the sole objective of helping you get to know records and artists or revisit those chords that filled us in this last year, that accompanied us on our trips, our sleepless nights or our moments more alive.
Discs from The North American Route 2024
1. Nick Cave – Wild God
2. Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive
3. John Moreland – Visitor
4. Phosphorescent – revealing
5. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes
6. T Bone Burnett – The Other Side
7. White Denim – 12
8. Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer
9. Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
10. Bonny Light Horseman – Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free
11. Marcus King – Mood Swings
12. The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
13. The Lemon Twigs – A Dream is All We Know
14. Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us
15. Ray Lamontagne – Long Way Home
16. The Black Crowes – Happiness Bastards
17. Jack White – No Name
18. Jesper Lindell – Before the Sun
19. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood
20. Chuck Prophet – Wake the Dead
Click here if you don’t see the list.
Lists from previous years