YEAR-END READER POLL: Our Readers’ Favorite Roots Albums of 2024
No Depression
Posted On December 23, 2024
No Depression readers have spoken once again and the results of our annual Readers’ Poll are in! It’s no easy task to narrow down your favorite albums, and we asked you to select just 10 from more than 600 options this year.
Several albums were neck-and-neck, and in honor of that, we’ve selected the top 25 albums, listed and ranked below, with our reviews of the albums linked, and a few words from our reviewers, too. Although the top albums are perhaps no big surprise, and several were favorites for our Critic’s Poll, too, many smaller albums won readers’ hearts this year, too.
No Depression readers have also been coming through for us in our year-end fund drive, which will ensure we can continue our roots music coverage into 2025 and beyond. If you haven’t yet contributed, we hope you’ll consider it. Any amount — large or small — is greatly appreciated, and goes directly toward the reviews, columns, and stories we produce online and in print. Donations can be made here, and all are appreciated. Happy New Year!
NO DEPRESSION READERS’ FAVORITE ROOTS ALBUMS OF 2024
1. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Woodland
On Woodland, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings maintain the same mix of contemplation, despair, and transcendence that listeners have loved for decades, in which the occasional mention of hashtags doesn’t change the sense that you’re moseying through a landscape as old as music or mortality. — Noah Berlatsky
With her latest, Tigers Blood, Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield) has her feet firmly planted in this sonic universe, and she doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Crutchfield is utterly present on Tigers Blood, at ease even when she’s mining the prickly stuff of relationships, insecurities, and self-acceptance. — Maeri Ferguson
3. Sierra Ferrell – Trail of Flowers
Though Sierra Ferrell is a long way from her days of roughing it, hitchhiking, and train-hopping, that scrappy drive to survive remains fully intact, ever-searching, always running toward something. Sometimes on her latest, Trail of Flowers, Ferrell is wistful about it, as with album opener “American Dreaming,” an anthem to soundtrack that unglamorous rise to the top. In other moments, it’s coded in something less heady, but more gritty and real. — Maeri Ferguson
4. Hurray for the Riff Raff – The Past is Still Alive
Under the Hurray for the Riff Raff moniker, Alynda Segarra’s latest album, The Past Is Still Alive, finds them looking inward, exploring their own life and processing loss and the passage of time. Segarra lays out their vulnerabilities and the experiences that have shaped who they are. Full of vivid lyrical imagery and taut, direct arrangements, the 11 tracks on The Past Is Still Alive make for a compelling and emotionally affecting listening experience. — Jim Shahen
5. Johnny Blue Skies (Sturgill Simpson) – Passage du Desir
Sturgill Simpson’s Johnny Blue Skies’ “debut” longplayer, Passage du Desir, is a harrowing account of terminal loneliness and romantic disaster. Should this rebranding raise fears of an unwelcome tangent — hold the synths, please! — don’t worry. The music is instantly recognizable as pure, brilliant Sturgill, a bracing blend of country, pop, and bluegrass that shows off his expressive voice to commanding effect. Nobody mixes anguish and determination better. — Jon Young
6. Charley Crockett – $10 Cowboy
Throughout $10 Cowboy, Crockett proves himself an exemplary melodist and unmistakable singer, projecting a persona — down-home yet worldly-wise, no-frills yet poetic, stoic yet sincere — that eludes simple categorization. Drawing from broad sources, Crockett seamlessly integrates various atmospheres, tones, timbres, and poses, all the while remaining loyal to the country genre. – John Amen
7. M.J. Lenderman –Manning Fireworks
M.J. Lenderman’s new album Manning Fireworks strikes the right balance between returning to the foundations of Boat Songs and tugging his sonics and songwriting forward. Again, recording most of the instruments himself and with an arguably even stronger set of songs, Lenderman proves that the depth people saw in his songwriting, with all of its quirky references to sports and Bob Dylan lyrics intact, was quite real. – Kyle Petersen
8. Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
Kacey Musgraves excels at producing cinematic albums that track the vagaries of human existence in kaleidoscopic colors. On Deeper Well, her fifth album and the follow-up to her 2021 chart topper star-crossed, Musgraves produces another stunning masterpiece that explores every chamber of the human heart. — Henry Carrigan
9. Billy Strings – Highway Prayer
On the high-octane Highway Prayers, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Billy Strings flies down bluegrass straightaways, careening around curves with blind speed. These songs pay tribute to the backroads and byways Strings barreled down in his youth, and some of them pay tribute to his high-speed heroes (“Richard Petty”). Still others send up prayers that the road won’t age him before his time, or that it might provide some clear direction — if it’s not closed. – Henry Carrigan
10. Loose Cattle – Someone’s Monster
Loose Cattle’s latest album, Someone’s Monster, offers a set of beautiful, painful stories about the kinds of small tragedies that happen to no-name people and often go unnoticed and unreported—abuse, addiction, generational poverty, racism—which presented together in lovely country music-tinged songs amount to a weighty consideration of human ills. – Meredith Lawrence
11. Sarah Jarosz – Polaroid Lovers
Polaroid Lovers, the seventh studio album from the prolific songwriter with a voice of gold, is Nashville through and through. It has the buoyancy and spirit of the best ’90s country confections, more a vibe than anything technical. Whether or not Jarosz meant to pay tribute to the Martinas, the Trishas, and the Pattys, Polaroid Lovers listens like a love letter to the sound they mastered. — Maeri Ferguson
12. Bonny Light Horseman – Keep Me on Your Mind / See You Free
Double albums traditionally signal a newly ambitious and confident band, be it historical landmarks like The Beatles’ White Album and The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street or a more modern example like Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. Usually bands take many years, even decades, to reach this landmark. But it’s taken just four years for Bonny Light Horseman — the supergroup made up of Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman — to get here. But with decades of experience between the three as soloists and in other bands, it’s a task the trio are clearly up to. The 20 songs of Keep Me on Your Mind/See You Free radiate the quiet confidence of three expert musicians clearly attuned to their group dynamics. – Tom Williams.
13. Lucinda Williams – Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road
Country-rock, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams is no stranger to courageous moves in the music industry. Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road, the seventh installment of her celebrated “Lu’s Jukebox” cover series (which also included tributes to Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and more), pays faithful homage to the Fab Four. Williams interprets 12 Beatles songs, across five records and a single (A Hard Day’s Night, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album, and Let It Be), and includes songs originally sung by Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. – Hilary Saunders
14. American Aquarium – The Fear of Standing Still
For the last two decades, American Aquarium frontman BJ Barham has seemingly willed his band to survive. Armed with an incisive pen and a love for Whiskeytown and Drive-by Truckers on one hand and Springsteen and Petty on the other, he gradually steered the rotating cast of his outfit from twentysomething dive bar revelry and heartbreak toward a more thoughtful, albeit scarred, maturity. In many ways, The Fear of Standing Still, the band’s 10th album of originals, feels like it stands on the mountain of the last 20 years and surveys the field. – Kyle Petersen
15. Adrianne Lenker – Bright Future
On the heels of Big Thief’s opus, 2022’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (ND review) and her mercurial solo diptych, 2020’s Songs and Instrumentals, Adrianne Lenker releases her latest non-band venture, Bright Future. Throughout the set, Lenker works with loose song structures, laid-back instrumentation, and minimal production reminiscent of her earlier work, notably 2018’s Abysskiss. In this way, she backburners her edgier leanings, revisiting a more pure-folk styling. Her soulful voicings and lyrical acumen, however, remain on full display. – John Amen
16. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore – TexiCali
Not that they needed any introduction to roots music fans, but on the title song of their first collaboration, 2018’s Downey to Lubbock (ND review), Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore succinctly laid out their long-established musical personas and points of origin. The guitar-slinging Alvin: “I’m a wild blues Blaster from a Southern California town.” “Hippie country singer” Gilmore: “I’m an old Flatlander from the great high plains … West Texas wind blows through my veins.” The title of their new album, TexiCali, again plays up their geographical roots, and like the combination of words in that title, their individual styles continue to mesh smoothly. – Nick Cristiano
17. Chuck Prophet and ¿Qiensave? – Wake the Dead
Sidelined from touring and most everything else after a 2022 cancer diagnosis and then treatment, San Francisco singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet had a lot of time to listen. Really listen. In interviews, Prophet has credited listening deeply to music with helping him through such a scary time, and the music that resonated most strongly was cumbia, a Latin dance genre with a long history of absorbing sounds as it spread. Prophet became not just a fan but an acolyte of the music, studying its history, hunting down recordings, and talking it up with friends. When he was back on his feet, he started jamming with cumbia brother group and fellow Californians ¿Qiensave?. Their informal collaboration coalesced into joint live performances and finally an album, Wake the Dead, a delightful pairing of Prophet’s laconic, lyrically rich style and a rhythmic blast of energy from ¿Qiensave?. — Stacy Chandler
18. Dwight Yoakam – Brighter Days
Staying true to yourself amid a changing world and evolving technology is no easy feat, but if anyone can do it, it’s Dwight Yoakam. Nearly 40 years into his recording career, the legendary Yoakam is still finding new ways to explore his signature sound—a kind of California punk rock country he helped pioneer. Made over the course of the pandemic and then some, his 21st studio album, Brighter Days, is pure Yoakam with a few behind-the-scenes twists. Just to name a few, Yoakam got married and welcomed a son, did some virtual co-writes (a staple for so many artists in lockdown, but a new experience for him), and even collaborated with Post Malone. – Maeri Ferguson
19. Jack White – No Name
No Name is the sixth solo studio album from American alt-rocker Jack White, who is a founding member of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, and The Dead Weather. Freer than on previous solo work, White’s No Name is a far-ranging blend of blues and punk. – Meredith Lawrence
There’s no happy ending to be found on Visitor, but John Moreland was never here to please the audience. Musically, the gentle fingerpicking that grounds each song on Visitor is low-key and lovely. Such musical gaps allow what few flourishes that come along to truly stand out. “Blue Dream Carolina” is the ideal example and the album’s strongest moment — a true Moreland gem. It’s an artist asking vulnerable questions of his muse while admitting the sorrow of his current state. “I don’t have to tell you this life is pretty painful / Here comes my fallen angel, falling down on me.” When the harmonica hits, it’s akin to the most beautiful moments on Springsteen’s Nebraska. – Matt Conner
21. The Mavericks – The Moon and Stars
The Mavericks just keep getting better. There’s an intimate, organic quality to their music that pulls listeners in immediately, allowing them to dwell in the luscious harmonies, the sumptuous instrumentation, and the ingenious songwriting of the band. Moon & Stars launches these qualities into the sonic stratosphere. – Henry Carrigan
22. Old 97’s – American Primitive
The 13th album, American Primitive, the Dallas-born band The Old ’97s is raucous and both surprising and not. The band walks the same alt-country, barroom rock, and power-pop paths found on previous releases, and they do so with tight compositions that get in and out — sub-three-minute numbers that could flex, linger, or blossom if they wanted. Yet Old 97’s have always known that white space is as important as the design elements themselves, a veteran band willing to restrain its own work. The shock is that they sound as inspired as ever: Three decades in, they’re still very much alive and kicking. – Matt Conner
23. India Ramey – Baptized by the Blaze
On her new album Baptized by the Blaze, India Ramey is here to kick ass, play honky-tonk, and chew bubblegum — and she’s all out of gum. She’s also out of Klonopin; this album details Ramey’s life-affirming experience of working through childhood trauma to end her reliance on the anxiety drug. Ramey presents a fascinating portrait of a honky-tonk queen who shows the way to having a good time even while expressing her vulnerability. – Rachel Cholst
24. Zach Bryan The Great American Bar Scene
Because of the combination of his abundant skill, emotional vulnerability, earnest reverence for his artistic predecessors, and generally self-effacing style, it’s tempting to ignore, or at least downplay, the essential Gen Z bro-ness at the heart of Zach Bryan’s songcraft. But it is, to paraphrase the words of featured artist John Moreland on “Memphis; the Blues,” one of the standout cuts on Bryan’s new album The Great American Bar Scene, the skeleton key to the chain around his chest. – Kyle Petersen
25. Red Clay Strays – Made By These Moments
Opening with the dull sting of rhythm and steel of “Disaster,” Made by These Moments is immediately compelling, all at once fiery and forgiving, hellbent and heavenly, as the band muses on life’s complexities. Throughout the record, the Strays turn over themes of faith and salvation, love and longing, loneliness and desperation, closely examining what it means to be human. – Alli Patton
