The 50 best albums of 2024: No 1 – Charli xcx: Brat (and Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat)

Smart, funny, moving and full of big tunes, the in-your-face masterpiece was the right album at the right time, striking a cultural nerve and defining a change in mindset

The 50 best albums of 2024

Topped with Charli xcx’s swaggering yet vulnerable Brat, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 26 Guardian music writers

Aphex Twin: Music from the Merch Desk (2016-2023) review – Santa’s sack overspills with AFX bounty

Compiling the highly sought-after limited vinyl releases sold at recent festival sets, this surprise 38-track release filled with bangers and beauty is a trove for fans

The 10 best contemporary albums of 2024

Astrid Sonne’s sonic odyssey led her to Auto-Tune experiments, Caroline Shaw took Emily Dickinson into junkyard hip-hop and Nala Sinephro went space-age

‘Like Depeche Mode, but evil’: the sweaty, sexual music of 80s EBM

As documented in a new book, electronic body music swept Belgium and Germany as its artists strove to make something entirely new – but their militaristic look became controversial

Bubble Love: Bubble Love review – Ross From Friends’ high-energy pop-club side project

Producer Felix Weatherall adopts another guise, swapping lo-fi analogue for a disorienting burst of alternative dance music

The 10 best global albums of 2024

DJ Love celebrated car horns, Kenyan metalhead Lord Spikeheart traversed trap and doom, while 82-year-old Milton Nascimento joined forces with Esperanza Spalding

‘Blokes who would normally fight would get off their boxes and dance’: Sanctuary, the club that made Milton Keynes massive

It eventually got turned into an Ikea, but for over a decade this warehouse unit galvanised hard dance, grime and more. At a big reunion, former ravers recall the magic

‘A road trip like no other’: my epic drive on Kraftwerk’s Autobahn

Fifty years ago, the electronic pioneers released a 23-minute song about a road – and changed pop music for ever. Our writer hits the speed-limit-free highways of Düsseldorf and Hamburg in search of its futuristic brilliance

Poppy: Negative Spaces review – screams and sweetness as metalcore meets loungecore

On her sixth album, the multi-genre star seems to be having an identity crisis – but amid the industrial guitars and synthpop, she clearly trusts her own instincts

Actress: Дарен Дж Каннінгем review – elegant mixtape leans into abstraction

British producer Darren J Cunningham mixes electronics, found sounds and fleeting vocals that both sooth and disrupt

‘It’s shocking no-one’s done this before’: the 13-hour gig digging up the African roots of global pop

With a marathon performance and album, the wildly ambitious Chromesthesia charts centuries of intercontinental music. Its creator explains why she’s asking big questions about the true owners of culture

Ekleido review – Floating Points’ brilliant beats propel duo’s dazzling dance

Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser’s double bill pairs precise poses with a compelling electronic score

Delicate ballads, bold brass and the thrill of Thriller: 10 of Quincy Jones’s greatest productions

From his sumptuous vocal jazz with Sarah Vaughan and Helen Merrill to funk with Donna Summer and George Benson, the late producer had astonishing versatility

Fishing lines, mobile phones and Wirral wind: the oddly harmonious music of Ex-Easter Island Head

For 15 years, the Liverpool band have been making some of the boldest experiments in British music (around their day jobs). They explain why quietness and community are so important in a chaotic world