The end of 2024 is nigh — and it’s been a hell of a year for music, hasn’t it?
From longtime leaders to a crop of rising noisemakers, a whole bunch of artists from the worlds of metal, hardcore, punk and more blasted their way into our ears and hearts. But some, quite naturally, managed to grab our attention more so than others.
2024 was the year where certain acts were given the platform to perform on some of the biggest and unlikeliest of stages, spreading awareness of heavy music to millions of people like never before. All told, it was a resounding year for the genre.
With that in mind, we asked Revolver readers to vote on what artist had the most momentous 2024, and here are the top five vote-getters.
Linkin Park
Linkin Park started the year celebrating their grand history via the Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023) compilation, a cool look back on the beloved, hits-loaded catalog of the nu-metal trailblazers. But then something especially unexpected happened in September: The band officially relaunched with a new vocalist in tow to announce their comeback album, FROM ZERO.
Emily Armstrong had already established herself as a powerhouse in her band Dead Sara, but stepping into the impossible-to-replace role of the late, great Chester Bennington, the impassioned singer-screamer quickly proved to be a star. She helped craft a new dynamic as the band explored the wide swathe of sounds on FROM ZERO, from poppy punk to rock ballads to punchy nu-metal.
By all measures, it’s been a huge success — Linkin Park returned to packed arenas, tallied a billion streams with FROM ZERO, collab’d with League of Legends, and more. The crown may be heavy, but they wear it well.
Poppy
Perhaps more than anyone else on this list, it felt like Poppy was everywhere this year. 2024 saw the ever-evolving, always-ambitious artist hop on tracks from the likes of Bad Omens and Knocked Loose — her ferocious guest spot on the latter’s “Suffocate” also yielding a Grammy nomination and the year’s most memorable late night performance. She also sang onstage with Spiritbox.
Her bonkers Improbably Poppy variety program threw back to her avant-garde YouTube days while simultaneously pushing her visual art to bizarre new heights.
Most of all, though, 2024 marked the release of Poppy’s hella eclectic masterstroke Negative Spaces, a metalcore-meets-industrial-meets-new-wave splatter-shock of inspiration that suggests her approach is only getting wilder each passing year.
No wonder Poppy was Revolver’s pick for 2024 Artist of the Year. She ranked high among our readers, as well.
Knocked Loose
Speaking of Poppy — 2024 was pretty massive for her collaborators in Knocked Loose, too. The spring-delivered You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To leveled up the band’s already mega-heavy hardcore presence via a relentless barrage of speedy assaults, mosh-erupting grooves and other noise-spiked pleasantries. The album sent Knocked Loose touring with Slipknot and on their own headlining runs.
It was different performance that defined their year, however. Knocked Loose’s viral Coachella moment in 2023 already started to push the Kentucky crushers into the mainstream consciousness, but their game-changing “Suffocate” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last month — featuring Poppy and the pig squeal heard ’round the world — truly thrust them into household-name territory.
Indeed, it’s possible that this staggering TV moment converted fans to Knocked Loose’s hardcore mission and caused concerned parents to flip the fuck out in equal measure.
Sleep Token
Sure, Sleep Token haven’t released any new music since delivering their breakthrough Take Me Back to Eden album in the spring of 2023, but the anonymous alt-metal adventurists’ 2024 was nevertheless a towering achievement and one that got out the fan vote.
The band’s “The Teeth of God” tour — the group’s biggest North American headline run to date — was a massive success that found the devoted showing up en masse each night to take in the rituals Vessel and the rest of the masked collective performed for them each night. The band also hit Paris to open up for Linkin Park, and just wrapped another U.K. headline run of their own at the front of December.
Considering the group semi-recently signed to RCA Records — not to mention that the U.K.’s Download Festival just teased that next year’s installment will be the place to “witness the next chapter” of Sleep Token — 2025 will surely include a few more sacred moments.
Gojira
Gojira got the entire world talking last July when they popped up right smack in the middle of the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony to slash and burn their way through “Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça Ira),” a metallic revamp of a French Revolutionary protest song that they performed on the walls of a damn castle. While a beheaded Marie Antoinette lookalike started the song off, it wasn’t long before vocalist-guitarist Joe Duplantier started howling out his parts on the spirited rally anthem. The performance also involved opera singer Marina Viotti and a whole lot of pyro.
An estimated 28.6 million people watched this live, while bootlegged vids hit socials countless times over in the months since. It was a most memorable production from one of metal’s most respected forces — and now the first-ever metal band to perform at the Olympics — and one that spread heavy-metal awareness literally all over the world.
Long story short: With that single history-making performance, Gojira staked their claim on 2024.