The best Philly music of 2024, picked by our pop music critic

The best Philly music of 2024 ranged from joyously jangly power-pop to free jazz rap revelations, to a break out album from a rising South Jersey rock star.

Most of the music on this alphabetized Top 20 best Philly albums (and a few singles) of 2024 list was made by artists currently living and working in Philadelphia, with a handful from creators who found their voice here before moving on, while retaining connection to the city.

Notably absent form the list is formidable Philly rock band Mannequin Pussy, because the Marisa Dabice- fronted quartet made my overall best albums list, as did Philly-connected singers Waxahatchee and Sabrina Carpenter.

Here’s to a very good year, with a Spotify playlist embedded below that also features 2024 songs from Philly connected acts including Mondo Cozmo, John Faye, Sharing Contest, Friend, the Tisburys, and Zinadelphia.

Catchy melodies and power-pop pleasures fly by quickly on Scheduled Explosions, the third album by Peter Gill and his band 2nd Grade. Twenty three songs with titles like “Triple Bypass in B-Flat” grab you and then move on, a fresh idea always just around the corner. Also: a power-pop shout to Buzz Zeemer’s Lost and Found, recorded in the 1990s but released this year.

Transfixing instrumental rock that takes cues from the late guitarist Robert Quine, and never grows repetitive or stagnant. From a trio led by Philly guitar antihero Chris Forsyth, who also had fun this year with the Neil Young tribute band Coca Leaves & Pearls.

Philly’s somehow still under appreciated nimble, elastic voiced soul singer Bilal Oliver released his first studio album in nine years, Adjust Brightness, which is full of tiny revelations. His concert album, Live at Glasshaus put the spotlight on the singer’s standout songs, with help from collaborators including Questlove, Robert Glasper, and Common.

The second album by the collective led by singer-guitarist James Everhart is inspired by a Vineland, N.J. roadside attraction made out of scrap metal and mud. But the music is sturdy built-to-last psychedelic folk rock that blends a laid-back Laurel Canyon sound with Fairport Convention style folk.

» READ MORE: Best pop music albums of 2024, according to our pop music critic

A comeback of sorts from the long standing Philly band fronted by Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman who quit touring after 2021. Was it a hiatus, or was Dr. Dog gone for good? Thankfully the former, and the band put a fine point on it with a joyous summer show at the Mann Center in July. Hopefully, it will become an annual tradition.

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Jones is a longtime key player in the Philly scene, with Buried Beds and others, and since 2022, also a member of The War On Drugs. (She’s also a Philly Special who the singing Eagles refer to as “Coach E.”) Pickpocket is a gleaming indie folk pop album RIYL Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell. The grief stricken “This is the Year” is a stunner.

Dr. Dog drummer Slick landed his first song on Dr. Dog with the heartfelt “Tell Your Friends,” and stepped into his own as a solo artist with this dance rock platter, which is a cautionary tale about A.I. and in which the now Nashville based songwriter reveals how much he misses those “Philadelphia Nights.”

The third album from the Philly jazz saxophonist is a meditative tour de force coproduced by Meshell Ndegeocello that features Wilkins’ fluid, expressive playing backed by a quartet featuring pianist Micah Thomas. Collaborations include Theater Gates, ands vocalist June McDoom and Cecile McLorin Salvant. For extra points, Wilkins plays sax on A Philly Special Christmas Party.

Prolific indie underground songwriter Karl Blau makes so much music that it’s hard to keep track. Here, his knack for rock solid songcraft — and resonant vocals that recall Smog’s Bill Callahan — come together with his experimental bent. “23 and Me” is not about DNA testing but riding the SEPTA bus from Germantown to Center City.

Adam Weiner’s sweaty, ripped T-shirt rock and soul revival meetings from the Art Dealers documentary and this live album put a bow around the lineup of the band that’s backed Weiner in recent years. Three members are going solo after a New Year’s Eve blowout at West Art in Lancaster. Good news: Weiner has announced he’s reviving LCC’s Tough Cookies virtual variety show in January.

Singer-guitarist Michael Gordon, whose stage name is Mk.Gee, makes music that echoes the Police and Prince, and he’s been cosigned by the unlikely trio of Frank Ocean, Justin Bieber, and Eric Clapton. Yes, he now lives in Los Angeles, but grew up in Somers Point so that makes him a bona fide South Jersey rock star.

The Great Bailout is self-described as “low fi/dark rap/chill step/blk girl blues/witch rap/coffee shop riot gurl songs/southern girl dittys/black ghost songs” from Philadelphia free jazz rap poet Camae Ayewa whose stage name is Moor Mother. She shines light on the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which compensated former slave owners. Beautifully mournful, with help from soprano Alya Al-Sultani, folk artist Lonnie Holley, and harpist Mary Lattimore.

Singer-songwriter Tiffany Majette, who was raised in Mount Laurel in South Jersey and now lives in Los Angeles, has found a wide audience for the gentle heartbreak and healing alt-R&B and jazz inflected songs on her second full-length album.

Jazz pianist Evans’ swaggering Big Band album pulls off the neat trick of making deeply personal music that spotlights his collaborators, including singers Bilal, Joanna Pascale, and Paul Jost, whose vocal on Chris Whitley’s “Dislocation Blues” is the show stopper.

Marshall Allen turned 100 in May, and the amazingly vital Sun Ra Arkestra leading saxophonist celebrated by heading into a New York studio with his 24-piece Germantown-based band to let loose on a host of Duke Ellington- and Fletcher Henderson-inspired intergalactic excursions. This year also saw the release of Live at the Left Bank, a 1978 recording of the band with Ra, who died in 1995.

Rosali Middleman was a key player in the Fishtown rock scene in the 2010′s, frequently collaborating with Philly musicians in bands like The War On Drugs and Purling Hiss before moving to North Carolina during the pandemic. This ruminative, entrancing Neil Young-adjacent record, true to its name, sinks its teeth into life.

The first album in five years by ferocious Philly hard rock quartet fronted by Tina Halladay is the band’s first for Jack White’s Third Man records. It refines the band’s gut-punch sound that takes inspiration from 1970′s bands like AC/DC and Thin Lizzy.

Adam Granduciel has always been a master at creating meticulously layered guitars and keyboards in The War On Drugs’ studio recordings. But the band has slowly evolved as a live unit that brings that sounds to life on stage as a living organism. Evidence of just how dazzling the Drugs are these days can be found in this album, on recordings from 2022 and 2023.

The Philly rapper, singer, and visual conceptualist finally released her full length debut album, which went Philly proud with an Alex Da Corte video that depicted her as a giant dirigible floating above Center City and another on a date with the Phillie Phanatic.

“So many years living in a lie, I didn’t cry, I didn’t smile,” Shane Morgan sings while the Philly quartet rocks out with reckless abandon. “Tell me why I should suffer, for your ignorance and comfort?” A single from earlier this year, “Attitude,” is also terrific. A full length is due in 2025 on Born Losers Records. Punk rock lives!