ACL 2024

The Year In Review

Where would we be without the arts? 2024 was another tumultuous year for the world, with no respite in sight. In a climate of destruction, artists continue to create life-affirming works, a reminder that there is still goodness in the world. We turn to music for comfort, for energy, for inspiration, and it has never been more essential to our well-being.

Today we’ll highlight current trends while attempting to predict the future. Over the next three weeks, we’ll share our specialty lists, followed by top tens in seven categories and an overall Top 20. We hope that you’ll enjoy A Closer Listen‘s largest ever Year in Review!

Our cover image is taken from Lia Kohl’s Normal Sounds on Moon Glyph.

Politics and the Future of Music
A wave of despair hit the world this fall as a certain demagogue returned to power, echoing an all-too familiar story that has already been told in other nations: increased prejudice, declining freedoms, political polarization, the rise of the right. Suddenly there seemed to be less global hope for racial justice, environmental healing, the rights of the poor. How might this affect the music we enjoy? Our prediction is that music will head in two directions at once. We expect an increase in aggressive music (post-metal, hard electronics, pointed commentary) and soothing music (the softer side of ambient). Some days we will seek music that expresses our frustration; on other days we will turn inward to gather our strength. Through it all, field recordings will continue to grow in importance, as more ecosystems are endangered and regional voices beg to be heard. We expect the cross-cultural, collaborative trend to continue as artists huddle together for warmth and inspiration. Even in the pop field, we expect global influences to expand, expressing a vision of the world as it could be while inspiring others to social action.

The Influence of A.I.
Over the past couple years, we’ve seen A.I. albums beginning to sneak in as artists experiment with the possibilities of human/A.I. collaboration. Some are admittedly terrible, bordering on the random; others celebrate the ghost within the machine. In 2024, we began to hear tracks that intrigued us. In 2025, we may be hard-pressed to identify the dividing line. Composers will retain their primary importance, but for the first time, we can hear some possibility in the programming. The first great A.I. album has yet to be released, but we wouldn’t be surprised if a thoughtful A.I./human collaboration made waves in 2025.

The Paralysis of Choice
Thirteen years ago, we introduced our site with this question: If music is recorded and nobody listens, does it still make a sound? Few words have ever seemed so prescient. Over the course of the past decade, the global music output has exploded, as chronicled here and elsewhere. Even in the instrumental field, even if one never slept, no human being would be able to listen to all of the music being released. For the first time in our history, we tracked over a hundred instrumental albums being released on the same day ~ and those are only the ones we knew about!. The art of curation has grown in importance as the number of review sites has dropped. Even the mighty Pitchfork was purchased by Condé Nast and folded into GQ, while staff cuts decimated the amount of reviewers and some even left in protest to found their own online service, which we appreciate because ACL‘s founders left another site in December 2011 to start this one!

In Conclusion
Music itself is in no trouble at all; some might say it is experiencing a banner century. If we have too much of what we love, it’s a challenge, not a complaint. Every new album that is released, and every track, no matter how experimental or avant-garde, is an expression of hope that if music can move forward, then humanity can as well. This is the hope that gets us through the darkest nights and years. To all the musicians and sound artists out there: thank you for shining your light.

(Richard Allen)