My Favorite Songs of 2024
2024 has been an incredible year for music. Almost every big name dropped an album, and almost all of them were good. So many new artists broke through, and a handful of up-and-comers ascended to the A-List. For all my knowledge and love of music, I am no Anthony Fantano. My taste is wide, but not wide enough that you’ll find the next big thing in this list. Nor will you find anything brand new that you wouldn’t find from a major publication. What I hope to bring to you is something you couldn’t get from anyone else. Me. I hope that my voice, my enthusiasm, and my connection to you brings you a willingness to check out some of these songs, bands and albums. Maybe they’ll become a new favorite.
BILLIE EILISH - LUNCH
Compared to her first two albums, Hit Me Hard and Soft was a subtler moment for Billie. Part of this was Eilish’s decision to not release any singles before the album, letting it exist as a full statement. While the album is a great one, it doesn’t surprise me that fans adopted songs like “CHIHIRO” and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” as the hits. They (and most songs on the album) work outside of the album’s context. They’re as powerful and catchy as the hits off her previous albums. They’re something new, but nothing from her album was quite as new as “LUNCH”. Eilish gave it the attention as a sort of single, with the fantastic video where she revealed she’d be dressing like Fred Durst for the foreseeable future and would ROCK it. Most importantly, it’s her embracing a queer identity, and what an embrace she gives.
On “LUNCH”, Eilish discovers that her iconic whisper-singing can not only fit sorrow or menace, but also a coy, sexy quality. She makes the transition seamlessly. With every line she embodies playfulness, the butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling of new love, and a sexy confidence in the chorus. Finneas’ work is equally spectacular. The bouncy beat gives fantastic support for Eilish’s performance, and the heavily reverberated guitars provide great accents. Lunch, like many of 2024’s hits, is a celebration of horny nonsense, and I could never get enough of that.
If you like “LUNCH”, check out “CHIHIRO” and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”.
BEYONCE - YA YA
Cowboy Carter was the first time in ages where Beyonce felt the need to prove herself. The album is bogged down by this need to prove that Beyonce, a megastar and Black woman who theoretically has no connection to Country music belongs in Nashville. This bothers me in part because nobody should need to prove themself in these ways (Black artists being broadly unwelcome in the Country establishment is such horseshit) and that Beyonce’s country music is broadly light, respectable fare. The best song on the album prefaces itself with an interlude about how it blends various genres and how that’s good, but “YA YA” needed no permission to go as hard as it does.
The song opens with Beyonce introducing herself to a sample of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” where she flexes just how much character she can bring. After that, she comes in rocking, singing broad proclamations about America, about how her family has bled a, “whole lotta red in that white and blue”, and frames herself as a working class hero. While Beyonce’s grandiosity holds her back from Country’s humble, straightforward demeanor, it works fantastically to give her real grit. Her full-force singing evokes Tina Turner, and what makes this song work as a populist statement is that force. It makes the album’s rockstar arrogance work, that she has the audacity to interpolate “Good Vibrations” on the chorus then move on because Beyonce’s ideas easily match that masterpiece. It’s a song so bold, and so audacious that only Beyonce could make it work. And boy, does she make it work.
If you like “YA YA”, you might like “American Requiem” or “II Most Wanted”.
Megan thee Stallion - HISS
“Hiss” is barely a song. It is three straight minutes of Megan Thee Stallion talking her shit. I debated not putting it on this list because of that, but for everything it lacks in straightforward hooks, it makes up for in bars. How could anyone deny the first major shot at Drake this year, “Cosplay gangstas, fake-ass accents/ Posted in another n**** hood like a bad bitch”, or the one line it took to end Nicki Minaj’s career, “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s law!”. Megan’s career has been wracked with so much controversy that I think people have forgotten that Megan can RAP. Combine her skills with a beat trembling with menace, and you have a moment in hip-hop history.
If you like “HISS”, check out “Otaku Hot Girl” and “Cobra”.
Kendrick Lamar - Squabble Up
I have issues with GNX, but “Squabble Up” is an unrefusable song. Little else this year compared to the excitement I felt hearing the “Broccoli” snippet in a full song. Especially because the day GNX came out I was home alone and could properly lose my mind to it. The futuristic beat which makes incredible use of Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music” could force the firmest wallflower onto the dance floor. When Kendrick returned from his lengthy hiatus after DAMN and the Black Panther soundtrack, he came back rapping like a man possessed, with strange beats and crazier flows. This year he proved he didn’t need wild innovations, pomp or high brow conceptual ideas (however much I miss all of those) to be the greatest rapper of this era.
Kendrick’s flows are straightforward and rock solid. You don’t need a Youtube video explaining the minutiae of every lyric, Lamar lets himself be straightforward, carrying himself with such charisma and swagger that nobody could deny his skills. Where he does let himself get weird is in delivery. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way he says “faaaaaaaace” and “taaaaaaaaste” in the chorus, and the specific way he says “What the fuck?” at the start of the second verse has lingered in my head since I first heard it. Every “Uh UH” after he says “squabble up” is so punchy. When I was hearing this song for the first time, losing my mind and dancing like my legs were jelly, I took the chorus as an invitation to put up my dukes like I was an old-timey boxer. But this song isn’t just for the dance floors, and in a broader sense this song is Kendrick standing atop the Canadian’s mutilated body, asking any other rappers “who’s next?”. I doubt anybody will squabble up with Kendrick ever again. Kendrick Lamar wears his crown uncontested.
If you like “Squabble Up”, you might like most songs on the album. The man won a Pulitzer for a reason.
Darling, I - Tyler, the Creator
Tyler, the Creator listed Pharell’s “Frontin’” as a song that changed his life. “Frontin’” is some of Pharell’s best work, a gorgeous, love song about letting a tough facade fade away into genuine adoration. “Darling, I” is an equally beautiful song for this era, one defined by Pharell’s legacy. While “Frontin’” evokes the flashing lights of the bling era’s dance clubs, “Darling, I” reminds me of a sunny California day. But Tyler’s evolution of Pharell’s work goes beyond aesthetics. While Pharell lets a mask fall off, Tyler opts not to wear one in the first place.
The chorus of “Darling I keep falling love” could have been a statement about the singer being a playboy, but instead Tyler uses the concept to explore polyamory. He sees no reason to play around with his partners’ feelings, and it takes real maturity to defy expectations when it comes to “finding the one”. Tyler’s persona as a brash jokester contrasts this vulnerability, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tyler proves this wonderfully when he raps, “ya see monogamy/ that shit is not for me”. Tyler’s production and flow are silky-smooth, and Teezo Touchdown’s guest vocal is wonderful. With this song and all his great work on Chromakopia, Tyler, the Creator proves that he’s lived up to Pharell’s great legacy.
If you like “Darling, I”, you might like “Sticky” or “Like Him”.
So I - Charli XCX
“So I” is a sober reflection on the death of transgender music icon and Charli XCX’s friend, SOPHIE. So much of brat is loud and brash songs filled with attitude, which makes this spare, contemplative song stand out all the more. Charli sings about their work together, with the lines “When I make songs, I remember / things you’d suggest, ‘Make it faster!’ would you like this one?” and reflects on her music with the lines “And I know you always said it’s okay to cry/ So I know I can cry, I can cry, so I cry.” It’s a song that can bring me to tears if I let it. It’s a powerful, personal statement on an album (broadly correctly) marketed as vapidii party music. It’s a piece that proves Charli XCX’s depth and versatility. It’s one of the many reasons brat is the best album of 2024.
If you like “So I”, listen to brat. It’s so damn good.
Like That - Metro Boomin, Future, and Kendrick Lamar
“Like That” earns its place on this list within its first five seconds. Garish synths blast away, then the beat kicks in with a menacing bass. Future sounds cooler than over on his fantastic hook, and his verses are solid. His misogyny has never been funnier with the lines “All my hoes do shrooms, n****, all my hoes do coke/ 20-carat ring, I put my fingers down her throat / If I lose a carat, she might choke / I know she gon' swallow, she a G.O.A.T.“. He even sounds fantastic on simpler lines like “ And the motto’s still the same / Ball like I won a championship game”. Future and Metro Boomin are both in peak form on this song, but the element that takes it over the edge is Kendrick.
So much of a stink has been made over “Mother fuck the big three, n**** it’s just big me” that I worry people forget how great Kendrick’s entire verse is. His menacing rasp only enhances killer lines like “If he walk around with that stick it ain’t Andre 3K”, and “ ‘fore all your dogs getting buried / that’s a K with all these nines, he’s gon’ see pet cemetery”. And once again, his wild inflections with his “ahhh”s and the immediately iconic “BUM!” are out there in the best, catchiest way. After Kendrick delivers a verse that immediately changed hip-hop history, Metro gets a chance to flex with his “verse” and the song fades over Future’s rapping. What a moment, and what a song.
If you like “Like That”, you might like “Type Shit” or “We Don’t Trust You”.
Baethoven - Ekko Astral
It takes a rare mind to combine “Beethoven” and “bae”. Anyone who thinks to rhyme “Baethoven” and “Frank Ocean” is really smart. Making those connections and then refusing to go much of anywhere with them because “baethoven” is a nonsense word and should be in a nonsense song makes Jael Zolzman, frontwoman of D.C. Punk band Ekko Astral, a genius. Dadaism fits the band’s peppy garage-punk they call “mascara mosh pit” perfectly.
The chorus’ repeated shout of “the pain of being myself” is clearly related to Holzman’s trans identity, but beyond that it’s a release. Holzman doesn’t just shout that line, she shouts it as the band delivers a cavalcade of guitar, drums, and noise. I can only imagine how powerful this song is live. Like many of punk’s best songs, it’s angry and silly. It’s righteous and nonsensical. Most importantly though, it rocks.
If you like “Baethoven”, you might like “head empty blues” or “on brand”.
Pink Skies - Zach Bryan
“Pink Skies” is a difficult song for me to write about. The song’s story is straightforward. A family member has died, so now the narrator, a nonspecific “you” (probably a sibling) and “the kids” are in town for the funeral. What makes this song difficult for me to write about is that I distance myself from grief, and Bryan’s song of mourning places loss right in front of the listener. Bryan’s song is about the real adult process of grief.
He physicalizes the grieving, first with drying eyes and then with cleaning the relative’s house. His low, speak-sung delivery reads as someone holding their grief back because otherwise it would all pour out. The physical process continues with Bryan and another cleaning the deceased’s house, the lyrics synergizing with the delivery as Bryan sings about cleaning, “Like no one’s ever been here before, or at all”. But the song wouldn’t be such a powerful, realistic depiction of grief if it were only sober, grounded depictions of mourning.
Bryan adds little jokes, a small anecdote, and most powerfully, a vision of the future. The title is “Pink Skies” because as much as this story is about the relative and their memory, it’s about the future, and the pink skies they taught the kids to enjoy. The album version of the song advances this with a line about the relative’s knife being missing, but everyone knows who it went to because they’d let one of the kids use the knife to cut open presents, saying, “It made me nervous, but now I see we’re just taught different lessons”. But for all this song's lines about memory and lessons that outlive the dead, Bryan only lets loose with the chorus’ ending “I bet God heard you coming”. “Pink Skies” is a song so specific it becomes universal, and the talent to write a song like that is a rare one.
If you like “Pink Skies”, you might also enjoy “I Remember Everything” and “28”.
Vampire Weekend - Classical
Only God was Above Us is a conflicted album. It wants to be hopeful and romantic, but it has the deep weariness we all carry with us from the past decade. With the way the year ended, my favorite song from the album was its most cynical, the lead single “Classical”. Ezra Koenig’s boyish vocals still have all his charm, but here they’re over lyrics like, “four hundred million animals competing for the zoo, it’s such a bleak sunrise.” The lyrics really do meet the moment, that big changes are coming for all of us, and that in this time where hopeful futures have been stopped before they could happen, the question of 2024 was which “normal” we would return to. And of course, that no matter what, it’d be a cruel world, because with time the cruel has become classical.
However bleak the lyrics are, they are contrasted by the instrumental. The stable rhythm guitars and drums set a solid foundation for distorted guitars, clanging piano, and a dissonant, squawking horn solo. The piano and horns recall classic Bowie to me, especially the Alladdin Sane era, and the electric drums recall Primal Scream’s Screamadelia (although that might just be because most times I hear a rock song with a drum machine I think of that album), but with it all together it’s thoroughly unique. The performances, mood, and lyrics meet the moment perfectly. If you’re someone decrying the death of rock’n’roll and a lack of political messaging in music, this is the song for you.
If you like “Classical” you might also enjoy “Mary Boone” and “Capricorn”.
And now, a shortlist of songs that probably should be on this list, but that I left out for various reasons.
Geordie Greep - Holy Holy
I’m too much of a scrub to be into Black Midi, but Geordie Greep’s genre-bending disco is far more accessible. Greep sells the sex god fantasy so well it makes the reveal that it’s fake all the more shocking.
The song didn’t make the list because I only listened to the album in December.
Doechii - Denial is a River
Doechii oozes with charm on this quirky, conceptual check-in. “Nissan Altima” is great too.
The song didn’t make the list because I was late to the party.
Sabrina Carpenter - Juno
Sabrina Carpenter is in a very small group of cis-het-straight white women who serve cunt.
The song didn’t make the list because deep down I feel like she has better songs in her. That being said, this song only grows more and more on me. I think the songs relentless horniness scared me off at first. Her Tiny Desk Concert is fantastic.
Denzel Curry, LAZER DIM 700 & Bktherula - Still in the Paint
King of the Mischievous South goes as hard as anything I’ve ever heard, consider this placement an endorsement of that whole album. Curry and Future both raised the bar on Southern Hip-hop. How the fuck is Denzel Curry not a bigger deal, he’s been killing it for a whole decade.
The song didn’t make the list because I only listened to the album in December.
Chappell Roan - Red Wine Supernova
Is this song here because I’m down bad for Chappell Roan? Yes. Is this song also catchy, hilarious, and perfect in tone? Yes.
The song didn’t make the list because it didn’t come out in 2024.
Hozier - Too Sweet
This song really should prove that rock music has a place in the mainstream. I wish the verses did more, but the chorus is dynamite.
The song didn’t make the list (mainly) because it’s a bit generic and straightforward.
Shaboozey - A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Repurposing a crunk song about getting drunk at a club for a country song getting drunk at a bar is perhaps the best way to combine country and hip-hop. I’m rooting for Shaboozey.
The song didn’t make the list because I like the song a lot more on paper than in practice. though It’s definitely better than any other country song that uses hip-hop elements.
Something off Magdalena Bay’s album “Imaginal Disk”
I remember liking the album but I don’t remember a specific standout
The song didn’t make this list because of… that.
Brittany Howard - I Don’t
A great, light psychedelic rock track
The song didn’t make the list because I prefer my psych-rock heavier. I really hope Brittany Howard has another “Hold On” or “Stay High” in her.
Any of Kendrick Lamar’s diss tracks
I had to put them here at least
The songs didn’t make the list because we all know how good these songs are.
Charli XCX feat. Billie Eilish, Charli XCX feat. Lorde - Guess, and Girl, So Confusing
Brat is really fucking good. Any song off the album could’ve made the list.
The songs didn’t make the list because So I drove me to tears and Lunch was a fantastic moment for Billie. Sorry Lorde.
Kali Uchis, Peso Pluma - Igual Que Un Angel
Kali Uchis’ serene latin R&B is as gorgeous as ever.
The song didn’t make the list because I’m too monolingual to have this on heavy rotation. Sorry my Puerto Rican godmother.
Please feel free to tell me any great tracks I missed, or any songs you’d like me to talk about in the future! I’m going to attempt to post every two weeks this year, and I hope y’all will enjoy my articles as much as I enjoy writing them.
