AARP’s 12 Favorite Music Albums of 2024

Acclaimed critic Jim Farber shares his picks for the year's best records

Jim Farber,

AARP

Comments

Published December 23, 2024

AARP (Courtesy Dennis Keeley; Courtesy John Grant; Courtesy of the Artist; Courtesy V. Haddad, Rohan Rege, Olive Panter; Courtesy Interscope Capitol Labels Group)

Musicians over 50 didn’t just release great new albums this year. Many also marked major milestones in their careers, whether it was through comebacks, finales, or simply the sheer volume of their output. In 2024, the unstoppable Herb Alpert, 89, released his 50th album. At the same time, older stars who’d been missing in action for some time, like The Cure, Sade and country-punk pioneers Lone Justice, made striking returns.

Other seasoned stars wrapped up their careers in rousing form, including L.A. punk legends X, who issued their avowed final album, and the Allman Brothers, who released their epic-length Final Concert from a decade ago. Coupled with stellar collections from other well-traveled stars, this year gave fans of grown-up music a wealth of new sounds to savor. Here are AARP’s 12 favorite albums for 2024.

Courtesy of the Artist

Herb Alpert: 50

Though Herb Alpert will hit 90 in March 2025, the tone of his trumpet has lost none of its purity or distinction. Likewise, his music sounds as clean, robust and joyous as ever. For his 50th work, Alpert emphasizes covers of songs from the 1950s and 60s, such as “Sh-Boom” and the Elvis Presley hit “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” But he also delivers new cuts, such as “Dancing Down 50th Street,” which has all the flirty charm of his ‘60s classics.

Courtesy Smoke & Fiction

X: Smoke & Fiction

Back in 1980, X gave their hometown of L.A. a hard new soundtrack. At the same time, their punky sound had enough variety, through its minor key harmonies and blasts of rockabilly, to have staying power. This year, the foursome — led by Exene Cervenka, 68, and John Doe, 71 — decided to quit while they’re ahead. Understandably, many of their swan-song tracks reference the group’s storied history, especially “Big Black X,” which chronicles their struggling days while also offering sage advice: “Stay awake and don’t get taken.”

Courtesy Falcon Publicity

The Allman Brothers: Final Concert: 10-28-14

Brilliant as their best studio albums may have been, the Allmans always shot the moon live. So it came as a blow when, in 2014, key members decided to move on, leading to their final concert. The show took place at a venue that had hosted them for decades, New York’s Beacon Theatre. Because I was lucky enough to be there, I can report that this recording captures everything I experienced. Although the concert was of Allman-esque length — over three and a half hours — it whipped by in a blur of inspiration and beauty. The nearly 10-minute version of “Blue Sky” featured some of the most ravishing and fleet guitar solos Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes, 64, ever devised. While it’s disappointing that the Allmans didn’t invite back the song’s author (guitarist Dickey Betts, who passed away in April 2024), it’s hard to fault any event as bold and generous as this.

Courtesy V. Haddad, Rohan Rege, Olive Panter

Multiple Artists: Transa

Nearly 35 years ago, the Red Hot organization began releasing brilliantly curated all-star compilations to raise money for the fight against AIDS. This year, the nonprofit created its most purposeful collection in years by focusing on transgender issues and stars. More than 80 artists — trans and not — took part, including names as big as Jeff Tweedy, 57, and Andre 3000. With 46 tracks, it covers a lot of ground, from witty punk anthems like “Surrender Your Gender” by Jayne County, 77, to country-soul pieces like “Any Other Way” by Americana star Allison Russell. But the stand-out comes from Sade, 65, whose “Young Lion,” her first new song in six years, offers an apology to her transgender son for not understanding his identity sooner. The song’s deeply personal nature makes it that much more relatable.

Most Popular

Courtesy of Surfdog Records

Glen Campbell: Duets: Ghosts on the Canvas Sessions

Glen Campbell died seven years ago, which makes any album issued under his name since then suspect. Thankfully, this release proves far too heartfelt to feel like a cash grab. It mostly reworks Campbell’s 2011 album Ghost on the Canvas, which he recorded despite suffering from the Alzheimer’s disease that would later take his life. The new version weaves Campbell’s original vocals with performances by a range of guests, including Carole King and Daryl Hall. Despite the apparent limitations of the vocal-blending process, there’s a surprising depth of communication between the singers. But the stand-out cut goes further: “Strong” pairs Campbell’s boyish voice with that of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, who also has Alzheimer’s. The connection between the two proves not just powerful but oddly comforting.

Courtesy Dennis Keeley

Lone Justice: Viva

Viva may be the first new release from Lone Justice in a staggering 38 years, but the recordings it contains are anything but new. They capture sessions from an aborted reunion in 1993, four years after the band split. Shortly before that, Lone Justice looked to be the next big thing, given both the range of singer Maria McKee, 60, and the band’s role as prime movers of the country-punk trend of the ‘80s. Listening to Viva makes their failure to connect seem even less fathomable. The purity of McKee’s vocal on “You Possess Me” brings chills, while a live cover of George Jones’ “Nothing Can Stop My Loving You” captures the manic power of a great band that got away.

Courtesy Interscope Capitol Labels Group

The Cure: Songs of a Lost World

Despite their super-goth image, The Cure often leavens their sound with bright busts of pop. Not so for their first album in 16 years. On Songs of a Lost World, leader Robert Smith, 65, wrote every track himself, the better to focus on a single weighty subject: the wages of age. The music he penned is purposefully slow and dense, marked by lengthy instrumental stretches that give his vocals a ghostly frame. Heavy as the themes may be, the music has a redemptive grandeur.

Courtesy John Grant

John Grant: The Art of the Lie

You don’t want to get on the bad side of John Grant, 56. Ever since his 2010 solo debut album Queen of Denmark, Grant has mastered the art of the put-down, delivered in his trademark deadpan style. For his latest album, Grant lays waste to everything from the education system to macho bluster to the political deceptions that define our time. The barbs begin with the first couplet: “I lost my patience several decades ago/around the time I was in utero.” Grant matches his withering observations to synth-pop tunes that range from the graceful to the flatulent. He grounds his humor in genuine pain, in the process balancing hard observations with high irony.

Courtesy Oh Boy Records

Swamp Dogg: Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th Street

Swamp Dogg, 82, delivers soul songs with a satirical turn. Since releasing his debut in 1970, Total Destruction to Your Mind, the singer has issued scores of passionate and witty works, but none quite like his latest. Here, he applies his sly humor and barrelhouse vocals to bluegrass and country tunes. From the cleverly lewd “Mess Up Under That Dress” to the dead earnest “Your Best Friend,” Dogg offers a sound and viewpoint you can’t get anywhere else.

Courtesy Warner Records

Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless

Pet Shop Boys have always made grand music, lush with synthesizers and steeped in beats. For their 15th studio album, the art-disco duo of Neil Tennant, 70, and Chris Lowe, 65, add a telling new texture. It’s their first release boasting a full orchestra on every track, lending a new sensitivity and sweep to the sound. It’s the perfect setting for songs that portray people on the run from their past to a future that seems predestined. There’s the small-town kid who comes to the city to find his true self (“New London Boy”), the older man desperate for fresh inspiration (“A New Bohemia”) and the international ballet artist aching to defect from his homeland (“Dancing Star,” about Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev). All the tracks brim with hope, underscored by a sense of longing too deep and sweet to be sated.

Courtesy Domino Recording Company

Beth Gibbons: Lives Outgrown

Beth Gibbons has always sounded haunted. Her vibrato shakes with sadness, loss and dire portent. Her sound came to the fore 30 years ago in the pioneering British trip-hop group Portishead, who last released an album in 2008. In the years since, Gibbons, 59, has collaborated on several projects outside her classic band, but Lives Outgrown is her first billed as a solo work. The personal nature of the lyrics confirms the title by addressing menopause, mortality and the parts of ourselves we learn to leave behind. Despite the spooky instrumentation, wan melodies and Gibbons’ despondent tone, there’s deep beauty in the sheer intensity of it all.

Sean James

Linda Thompson: Proxy Music

Most fans know her as half of the duo Richard and Linda Thompson, whose albums in the ’70s and early ’80s stand as iconic works of British folk-rock. Fewer people know that the 77-year-old singer has long suffered from dysphonia, a progressive disease that made vocalizing difficult for her for years — and impossible now. For her first album in 11 years, Thompson found a brilliant workaround: She had her talented circle of friends and family sing her songs for her, ergo the clever title, Proxy Music. Guest singers range from her gifted kids Teddy and Kami Thompson to Rufus Wainwright and John Grant. Still, it’s the elegance of the music and the care of Thompson’s lyrics that make these songs some of the smartest and most stirring of her career.

%{postComment}%