Ten albums and ten gigs not to miss in 2024

It will be a year of massive shows. Bruce Springsteen is back and playing GAA HQ. Coldplay will also be playing Croke Park and so too will AC/DC, if you believe the rumours. There are plenty of other shows on a more modest scale to whet the appetite for 2024 too.

On the albums front, we’re getting a new album from the Smile — it’s the closest we’ll get to Radiohead for a while — and new releases from the likes of Future Islands and Sia. The Jesus and Mary Chain will aim to roll back the years with a new album, and much-tipped Galway newcomers NewDad will be hoping to live up to the hype.

10 must-hear albums

Green Day, Saviors (January 19)

Originally set to be named 1972 — the year of birth of all three members — Green Day’s 14th studio album sees them join forces with producer Rob Cavallo for the first time since 2012’s ¡Tré!. Lead single The American Dream is Killing Me is machine-tooled for the sort of vast arenas Billie Joe Armstrong and friends will be playing from May. The album artwork has already proved contentious. It features a 1978 photo of a boy in Belfast during the Troubles, but his expression seems to have been digitally altered.

Future Islands, People Who Aren’t There Anymore (January 26)

The Baltimore band played a cracking set at the Wider Than Pictures series at Collins Barracks, Dublin, in August, and the show featured a pair of songs from this album, including the live debut of Deep in the Night. Samuel T Herring is a mesmeric frontman on stage, and he’s a superlative songwriter too. Each album since their breakthrough, Singles, has been a slow-burner. Hopes are high for this one.

The Smile, Wall of Eyes (January 26)

It’s been almost eight years since Radiohead last gifted us an album, but individual members have been prodigiously busy in that time. In the Smile, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood join forces with Tom Skinner and deliver music that’s as close as you can get to Radiohead without it being a Radiohead release. Debut album A Light for Attracting Attention was near the top of year-end album polls in 2022 and this follow-up comes weighted with expectation. The Smile play the 3Arena, Dublin on March 7.

NewDad, Madra (January 26)

There’s quite a bit of hype about this Galway male-female alt-rock quartet. Signed to Atlantic Records, the band led by Julie Dawson make music that’s clearly indebted to shoegaze bands and the likes of Pixies. NewDad — picked, apparently, by a name generator app — recently relocated to London and they will tour Ireland and the UK in February and March. The first of two dates at Dublin’s Button Factory has already sold out.

Grandaddy, Blu Wav (February 16)

Celebrated for a trio of 2000s alt-rock albums, Under the Western Freeway, The Sophtware Slump and Sumday, all since reissued, the outfit from Modesto, California have largely flown under the radar in recent years. Frontman Jason Lytle says the new album — their first in seven years — boasts “an inordinate amount of pedal-steel”. The title, incidentally, is a mash-up of bluegrass and new wave, so it’s fair to expect an album cut from unusual cloth.

MGMT, Loss of Life (February 23)

The US duo weren’t ready for the astonishing commercial success that greeted their 2007 debut album Oracular Spectacular and there has been an impression that their subsequent work has been a self-sabotaging retreat to obscurity. Departed fans are missing out, however. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser know their way around the quirkier side of indie and six years on from the underrated Little Dark Age, they’re back with this fifth album.

Real Estate, Daniel (February 23)

The New Jersey outfit still feel like something of a secret, their hyper-literate brand of indie failing to enjoy the sort of traction of that of peers such as the National. They have tried something different for their latest album —decamping to Nashville with Grammy-winning producer and songwriter Daniel Tashian for a frenetic nine-day recording binge. The result, apparently, is a return to their freewheeling early days.

The Jesus and Mary Chain, Glasgow Eyes (March 8)

This is only the second album in 26 years from the oft-warring brothers Jim and William Reid. Jim assures devotees that their creative approach remains the same as it did 40 years ago when the band was first formed. They play the 3Olympia, Dublin, on March 25.

The High Llamas, Hey Panda (March 29)

For the best part of four decades, the Cork-raised Sean O’Hagan has been making music to record the dedicated listener, first with the late Cathal Coughlan in Microdisney and then, sporadically, as frontman of the High Llamas. It’s been a journey that has taken some unexpected diversions — including planning a collaboration with the Beach Boys that was eventually aborted. Their new album has been preceded by the wonderfully unorthodox title track. Check out its playful video.

Sia, Reasonable Woman (Second quarter, 2024)

In 2016, Sia seemingly had the world at her feet. Her acclaimed big-selling album This is Acting delivered global hits in Cheap Thrills and The Greatest. But subsequent releases — a Christmas album and a soundtrack album to a little-seen film — failed to excite the critics or general public. This 10th album, then, will be a comeback of sorts. Lead single Gimme Love suggests that her acute pop instincts have returned.

10 must-see gigs and festivals

Depeche Mode, 3Arena, Dublin (February 3)

Just nine months after they played an outdoor summer set at Malahide Castle, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore return to Dublin for the European indoor leg of their global Memento Mori tour. It’s their first since the death of founding member Andy Fletcher and has featured a career-spanning set with their greatest album, Violator, getting an especially strong showing.

Rhiannon Giddens, Vicar Street, Dublin (February 25)

The co-founder of Carolina Chocolate Drops, an old-time string band from North Carolina, has been resident in Ireland for many years and has released a pair of albums with her partner, Francesco Turrisi. Earlier this year, Giddens won the Pulitzer Prize for music and released an album, You’re the One, her first to exclusively feature original material. Her musical influences hail from all over the world, including Ireland.

Rick Astley, 3Arena, Dublin (March 5)

Of the hundreds of acts who played Glastonbury this year, few attracted attention quite as successfully as Rick Astley. His secret? A 16-song Smiths set with the Blossoms as his backing band. While some Smiths hardliners were appalled that the former product of the Stock Aitken Waterman hit factory was covering the songs, others were charmed. Once derided, now largely admired.

Olivia Rodrigo, 3Arena, Dublin (April 30, May 1)

She may be just 20, but the former Disney child actress has been in the public eye for years. After the promise of her 2021 album, Sour, Rodrigo delivered an excellent follow-up this year with Guts. A pop album with rock influences here and there, it drew comparisons with Phoebe Bridgers. A single, Vampire, was inescapable in 2023 — no bad thing.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Various locations (May 9–19)

When the Boss lands in Ireland this May, it will be 50 years to the month since future Rolling Stone journalist — and future Springsteen manager — Jon Landau famously hailed him as the “rock and roll future”, so stunned was he by one of his shows. Half a century on and Springsteen is still delivering epic performances — his 2023 gigs at Dublin’s RDS arena were nothing short of magnificent. As well as a Belfast date, there are shows at three hallowed GAA grounds: Kilkenny’s Nowlan Park, Cork’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Croke Park.

Dionne Warwick, Vicar Street, Dublin (May 22)

The word ‘legend’ is bandied about far too often, but if there’s anyone that’s worthy of the tag it’s Dionne Warwick. Now 83, she first came to prominence in 1955 as a member of first the Drinkard Singers then the Gospelaires, before finding fame as a solo singer of rare distinction from the early 1960s on. Three of her songs, Walk On By, Alfie and Don’t Make Me Over, have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The prospect of seeing a singer of Warwick’s stature in the comparatively intimate Vicar Street is tantalising.

The Meadows, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin (June 8)

Irish folk music is in rude health right now — and it’s getting international attention too. Uncut magazine named Lankum’s False Lankum their album of 2023 and the New York Times was in town to write a profile of a vibrant scene, featuring Lisa O’Neill and Lankum and with shout-outs to John Francis Flynn, Ye Vagabonds and others. This inaugural festival is headlined by Lankum, in what will be their only hometown show of 2024, and international names including Black Country, Old Road. It won’t be entirely folk-heavy though — Scottish post-rockers Mogwai are also on the bill.

Taylor Swift, Aviva Stadium, Dublin (June 28–30)

Taylor Swift conquered 2023: the world’s most streamed artist, her Eras tour became the highest-grossing ever and the first to exceed the billion-dollar mark. Her reworked albums sell in vast quantities. It’s an unstoppable juggernaut. Weighing in at four hours, her career-spanning concerts make even Springsteen’s look short. But if the shorted concert film is anything to go by (it also broke records) Irish fans are in for an extraordinary show.

All Together Now, Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford (August 1-4)

Considered by many to be the very best Irish music festival in what has become a saturated market, next year’s instalment features headliners the National. The Ohio band were in typically fine form when they played the 3Arena a few months back. Jorja Smith and Future Islands have also been announced. More than 100 acts will be named over the coming months.

The The, Collins Barracks, Dublin (August 25)

Wider Than Pictures is a series of Dublin shows that has pulled in some great names in recent years. The 2024 instalment is a mixed bag — headliners include Deacon Blue and James Blunt — but the eye-catching name is the brilliantly singular English band The The. Centred on the idiosyncratic gifts of Matt Johnson, the group were in their pomp in the 1980s. Soul Mining, from 1983, is one of the all-time great debut albums.