Top Five Albums of 2024 for Ethereal Weird Girls Feeling Nostalgic

We’re entering a cultural renaissance where ethereal weird girls again hold increasingly valuable social capital, as the trend cycle brings us back to our favorite spooky and nerdy pop culture tropes. Whether you’re one of the ‘90s whimsigoth girls who still calls their squad “the coven,” or if you sat somewhere on the obsessed-with-East-Asian-culture end of the cafeteria in the ‘00s — these 2024 releases are for all the social outsiders feeling nostalgic for their girlhood. Stay weird.

Ha Vay
Baby I’m the Wolf
Self-Released
Street: 06.21
Ha Vay = Caroline Polachek + Sharon Van Etten

Ha Vay’s debut album is grounded in lyrics that reflect her continued love for mythological archetypes and ancient folk-inspired vocals. Her fantasy girl matures into a blood-hungry wolf woman, departing from the doe-eyed and docile manic pixie dream siren she introduced in her 2023 EP, Avalanches and Unfamiliar Ways to Die. Issuing a challenge to male-led feudalism throughout the album’s storytelling, Ha Vay’s standout track presents a female-led relationship fairytale for the (middle) ages. Tongue-in-cheek, she playfully turns “The Huntress” into a double-entendre for her relationship in which she both sexually pursues and provides sustenance for her man. “I howl for you,” she taunts, from a new sonic perspective that feels akin to the nascent neo-medievalism we’ve seen in 2024 pop-girl fashion moments — like Chappell Roan’s Joan of Arc-inspired “Good Luck, Babe!” performance or Julia Fox’s chain mail gala dress from emerging label Catholic Guilt. (Yes, Fox is a pop girl, if you missed her debut single “Down the Drain” this year.)

Etta Marcus
The Death Of Summer & Other Promises
Polydor Records
Street: 01.26
Etta Marcus = Ethel Cain + Mazzy Star

There’s something alluring about a London-based musician writing songs in the Americana genre. And her best single is literally about OUR city. You should expect listening to Etta Marcus’ debut album, The Death Of Summer & Other Promises, to be just as soul-crushing as the first time you listened to Preacher’s Daughter, but as peaceful as your first memory of So Tonight That I Might See. On the track “Fruit Flies,” Marcus’ grotesque lyrics offer a saccharine antithesis to Ethel Cain’s “Sun Bleached Flies.” Slowly decomposing in on herself as the bugs begin to feast on her molding flesh, she unconvincingly sings “I’m just like the other girls / I’m just like the other girls,” like she’s Lana del Rey trying to convince herself she’s a 365 party girl and not 24/7 Sylvia Plath. With moody tracks oozing with melodrama and whimsy, this one’s for the girls that wanna be loved like something right out of an indie movie.

Sarah Kinsley
Escaper
Verve Forecast
Street: 09.06
Sarah Kingsley = Mitski + Lana del Rey

Full-bodied and smooth, Sarah Kinsley’s voice softly cradles an anthology of tender and tragic sad-girl love ballads on her debut album, presenting a relationship that defies our cultural lexicon on her most moving track, “Starling.” Kinsley’s star-crossed soulmates are not lovers, they’re best friends. Fearfully questioning our collective obsession with romance, she pleads for the love of her life to delay finding a lover long enough for their story to continue. Lamenting the fear of losing a soulmate in the face of a new romantic partner, Kinsley elevates her friendship to the same priority. In Escaper’s most haunting lyric, the pair take an oath as their girlhood rapidly approaches its end. “But you and me swear we’ll be fine / If we are still here at 45 / If you don’t marry someone then neither will I / Say you’ll be mine.”

NewDad
MADRA
Atlantic Records
Street: 01.26
NewDad = Slowdive + The Marías

MADRA isn’t necessarily something we haven’t heard before, but it’s refreshing to hear a shoegaze and alt-rock-inspired album featuring a girl vocalist at the front of the group. NewDad’s dreamy soundscapes draw worthy comparisons to industry predecessors with UK heraldry — like Slowdive, The Cure and Depeche Mode — but infused with all the girly angst of contemporaries like The Marías or Beabadoobee. Only time will tell if NewDad’s influence on global music will be as impactful as other female Irish alt darlings like The Cranberries, Sinéad O’Connor or Enya — but I’m rooting for them. In the most respectful way possible, this vampy debut album should’ve been on the Twilight soundtrack (which I think is widely agreed upon as the singular driving influence behind millennial girls and gays developing a half-decent music preference outside the mainstream pop genre). 

KATSEYE
SIS (Soft is Strong)
Hybe UMG, Geffen Records
Street: 08.16
KATSEYE = LE SSERAFIM + Danity Kane

Is it just me, or is the cringe factor associated with liking K-pop slowly dissipating? It’s difficult to say whether that’s because solo artists like LISA or ROSÉ are charting globally, or because we’re finally moving away from boy groups and rightfully placing the emphasis back on the girls — but KATSEYE is set to take the world by storm. Single-handedly reviving my love of the genre after 2NE1 disbanded in 2016 (and I swore off K-pop forever), the group’s first EP SIS (Soft is Strong) subverts more than just the ideas of weakness and strength. Comprised of six pan-ethnic and multi-national members, with identities representing ten countries, the formation of the English-singing sextet challenges the rules of the K-pop genre itself. Reviving the ‘00s pop girl-group niche during peak Y2K nostalgia, and entering the genre with no comparable competing group yet — I hope they can make it to the same stardom as my old favorites Destiny’s Child, Danity Kane and The Pussycat Dolls.

Read more 2024 Year-End Top Fives:
Top Five Albums of 2024 for Thought Daughters
Top Five Electronic Albums of 2024 to Shred Your Amygdala