3 Americana Albums From 2024 I Know You’ll Love

If you are an Americana music fan, 2024 was a good year for you.

MJ Lenderman, Maggie Rose, Sierra Ferrell, and others released albums combining warm folk and country (or country-adjacent) songs with an indie-rock ethos. What was once called alt-country now goes by Americana, though each artist here is far more complex and interesting than any genre can contain.

Neither the list above nor below is anything like complete. But here’s a brief look back at three Americana albums from 2024. And trust me here, you will no doubt fall in love with them.

It falls apart, we all got work to do.

Here in the Pitch by Jessica Pratt

The vintage glow of Jessica Pratt’s fourth album brings to mind old vinyl, vintage cars, the smell of old leather. But this isn’t pastiche. Pratt sounds most comfortable reporting from not just another time but another dimension. With minimalist production, she searches for hope amidst despair inside hazy reverb and gently strummed guitars. The beauty of Here in the Pitch is how it merges familiar ’60s nostalgia with some kind of cosmic realm. “World on a String” is gorgeous.

I used to want for what your desolation
Hadn’t come by
And as your seconds spark
Our turning off and turning up now, child

Bright Future by Adrianne Lenker

If you wanted to translate the word “escape” into music, it might sound like Adrianne Lenker’s sixth solo album. She recorded this wintry collection without her excellent band Big Thief. But that wasn’t enough distance. Lenker holed up in the remote woods with co-producer Philip Weinrobe to record Bright Future. Though remoteness may have been the spirit, Lenker and a small group of musicians came together to create an intimate album just as fragile, beautiful, and reliably heartbreaking as life. Highlight track: “Sadness as a Gift.”

You and I both know
There is nothing more to say
Chance has shut her shining eyes
And turned her face away

Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee

If you were the type of person who cared about the Grammys, you might wonder how a song as good as “Right Back to It” isn’t up for Song of the Year. Still, Katie Crutchfield’s duet with MJ Lenderman is just one of 13 moving tracks on Tigers Blood—nominated this year for Best Americana Album. The album is a long way from Crutchfield’s early (and superb) lo-fi distorted efforts. Her new sound exists in wider spaces. It’s big, warm, and makes room for the wide-eyed outlook on Tigers Blood. “Bored” unifies Crutchfield’s blown-speaker guitars with something closer to earthy Americana.

I can get along
My spine’s a rotted two-by-four
Barely hanging on
My benevolence just hits the floor
I get bored

Photo by Jordi Vidal/Redferns