The 25 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)
If Oasis can get back together, if DJ Cassidy can light up the Democratic National Convention with a roll-call playlist that hit everything from DJ Kool to the B-52’s to Dropkick Murphys, if a hip-hop Deadhead with Nigerian roots can have the year’s biggest hit with a country bop…well, maybe summer 2024 really has been all about the joy.
As we hit Labor Day, Shaboozey can make a strong case for Song of the Summer, but so can Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Kendrick Lamar, and Charli XCX. In the last few weeks, though, the rockers came on strong, and now we wait for Lana Del Rey to be the next outsider to go country. With the Eras Tour returning to the US just in time for the start of the NFL season, here's a few songs to take your mind off the 24-7 coverage of America’s Sweethearts—and maybe provide some alternatives to and/or perspectives on election season, too.
Father John Misty, “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”
Josh Tillman had been playing this song off and on for about five years before finally releasing it as a bonus track on his Greatish Hits collection; it’s probably safe to assume that the line about the “himbo Ken doll” is a more recent addition. Clocking in at eight-and-a-half minutes, “I Guess Time” belongs to a subgenre that includes Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” and Leonard Cohen’s “The Future”—torrents of words from a crabby old guy, warning of apocalypse while reminding us that the whole thing is a cosmic joke. With a title borrowed from a 1937 history of mathematics, references to Allen Ginsberg and Allen Watts, and a talking snake, all over a disco-lite beat with a jazzy, Steely Dan-ish gloss (complete with sax solo and conga drum solo), the whole thing is absurdly excessive, and I love every ridiculous second of it.
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Sabrina Carpenter, “Juno”
The surprise of the month is definitely Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet album. For those of us who kinda sorta knew her as a one-time Disney star and as the other woman in Olivia Rodrigo’s masterpiece “Driver’s License,” the range, humor, and sophistication of these twelve songs is a revelation. Simultaneously evoking ‘60s and ‘80s pop and taking its title from the 2007 teen pregnancy comedy, “Juno” is built like a tank, stuffed with hooks and one-liners (“God bless your dad’s genetics,” “I showed my friends and we high-fived/Sorry if you feel objectified”) and somehow makes getting knocked up into an irresistibly flirty metaphor.
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Muni Long, “Ruined Me”
After starting her career as a singer, Priscilla Renea settled in as an A-List songwriter, responsible for hits from Rihanna, Ariana Grande, H.E.R., and even Carrie Underwood. When she returned to performing, now under the name Muni Long, she broke through with the 2021 hit “Hrs & Hrs,” which brought in Usher for a smash remix and won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance. Last year’s “Made for Me” (with Mariah Carey amping up the remix this time) was an R&B number one, and now Long is back with this spare, dramatic heartbreak ballad, delivered with both power and restraint. “Ruined Me” tees up her new album, Revenge, offering classic soul with a modern edge.
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Jack White, “Bless Yourself”
One day in July, an unlabeled vinyl album was quietly slipped into the bags of all purchases made at Third Man Records’ stores in Nashville, Detroit, and London. It turned out to be Jack White’s sixth solo album, and online instructions to “Rip it!” and share soon followed. The album got a more proper release a few weeks later and rather than a toss-off, it was an unexpected triumph. White’s last few records have had their moments, but they’ve also suffered from trying a bit too hard; No Name places him firmly back in the scorching, sparse garage-blues territory he staked out with the White Stripes. On “Bless Yourself,” he rages like a street-corner preacher—“God on command, God on demand/If God’s too busy, I’ll bless myself”—over a grinding, minimal riff that digs in like equal parts scuzz-metal and old-school hip-hop DJ, tenaciously squeezing out every ounce of groove like a dog clamped onto a bone.
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Post Malone, “Killed a Man”
It’s impressive that Post Malone pulled off the F-1 Trillion album as successfully as he did. Not only does he slot in effectively on duets with a roster of country artists ranging from Hank Williams Jr, to bluegrass phenom Billy Strings, but he also doesn’t get lost amid all the hoopla. The all-star line-up is what will get all the attention and likely all the radio play, but don’t sleep on the nine Posty solo tracks added for the album’s “Long Bed” edition. In some ways, he sounds looser and stronger on these more traditional songs, like he’s playing with house money. The introspection of the clever psychodrama “Killed a Man” points the way toward a more long-term presence in the genre without needing to recruit a fleet of superstars as a megawatt co-sign.
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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, “Field of Vision”
No, I can’t explain this gang of Australian freakazoids. Usually considered to be adjacent to the jam band world, King Gizzard put out albums like other people change their sheets; they released five LPs in 2017 and then did it again in 2022. And their sound is constantly shifting lanes, from prog to metal, jazz fusion to synth-pop, with lyrics often relating to a fictional world that fans know as the “Gizzverse.” Flight b741, their 26th and latest album (unless there’s a new one later this afternoon), is an exploration of ‘70s rock—lots of Stones riffs, Band-style Americana, and this track, a deliriously stupid glam-rock stomp recalling the glory days of T.Rex, Slade, and “Rebel Rebel.”
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Raye, “Genesis”
She’s a sensation in her native England—after writing for the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Ellie Goulding, she recently broke the record for the most Brit Award nominations and won Album of the Year for her debut, My 21st Century Blues—but Raye hasn’t fully hit in the States, despite a show-stopping SNL performance in April. This three-part single/EP/suite is gloriously bonkers; a spoken-word intro leads into a soulful R&B section, climaxing in a full-on jazz bit, with horns and a scat break. But “Genesis” also looks hard at anxiety and insecurity (“if you’re thirsty like me / Mix some pity with some self-hate”) before landing on the refrain “Let there be light.”
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Charli XCX, “360”
A decade or so ago, Charli XCX exploded out of the gate with her contributions to Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” and her own “Boom Clap.” Since then, she’s leaned into more experimental dance-pop, head-faking whether she wanted to be bigger or cooler or both or neither. The Brat album delivers on all of the above, and while I’m nowhere near cool enough to parse the French-disco-hyper-glitch subgenres here, it all slaps, careening from self-doubt to ridiculous boasts. The opener, “360,” lays it all out there, as Charli bounces across a spare, singsongy beat with hip-hop-style delivery, landing on “If you love it, if you hate it / I don’t fucking care what you think.”
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Wilco, “Annihilation”
Just in time for their annual Solid Sound Festival—and for the new season of The Bear, on which they were practically the house band for the first two seasons—America’s favorite dad-rock band has returned with Hot Sun Cool Shroud, a six-song EP of holdovers from last year’s Cousins album, which Jeff Tweedy says has “all the pieces of summer.” This propulsive rocker recalls Wilco’s finest: an irresistible chugging rhythm with a super-weird, dissonant, intentionally fumbling guitar solo. Thank you, Chef.
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Mavis Staples, “Worthy”
Next month, the American institution known as Mavis Staples turns eighty-five years old. “Worthy,” which she says was inspired by her work with Prince in the eighties and nineties (he wrote for and produced two of her albums), is plenty funkdafied regardless of her age. The song, full of percolating bass and punchy horns, was produced by Mark Ronson protégée MNDR (Amanda Warner), and Staples still brings it full force. She says the song is “so sassy and fire,” and who the hell are we to argue?
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Clairo, “Sexy to Someone”
The first single from her upcoming album, Charm (as in, third time’s the...), “Sexy to Someone” expands Clairo’s bedroom pop with a more soulful and breezy feel. Inspired, she says, by pop polymath Harry Nilsson and jazz singer Blossom Dearie and produced live to tape by Leon Michaels (who’s worked with R&B throwback all-stars the Dap Kings), the horn-and piano-driven track juices the lyrics about loving the idea of being in love: “Sexy to somebody, it would help me out / Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house.”
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Shelby Lynne, “Over and Over”
Twenty-five years after I Am Shelby Lynne won her the Best New Artist Award at the Grammys (which she wasn’t; it was her sixth album), this remarkable and distinctive singer returns to Nashville for a new album produced by Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town, scheduled for a July release. “Over and Over” is a strange and haunting song, a meditation on a lost love (“It burns, it rages / It tears the pages”) over a tense electronic beat and rising-and-falling background vocals interwoven with almost funereal horns. It’s held together by the pleading catch in Lynne’s voice, which still recalls Dusty Springfield after all these years.
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Olivia Rodrigo, “Obsessed”
She only recently turned twenty-one, but Olivia Rodrigo keeps making all the right moves. Her terrific second album, Guts, leaned more into her singer-songwriter side, but for the deluxe edition, retitled Guts (Spilled), she added five new songs that steered back into the pop-punk lane. Cowritten by St. Vincent, “Obsessed” is a snarling rave-up about stalking her boyfriend’s ex, and it’s just the right mix of funny, desperate, and cathartic—a territory Rodrigo is making her own.
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Iron & Wine (feat. Fiona Apple), “All in Good Time”
Look, at this point I will take whatever Fiona Apple I can get. She wasn’t part of the writing on this gently swaying track, but she sounds fantastic alternating verses and lines with Sam Beam (who records as Iron & Wine). A spare but intricate arrangement of strings and acoustic instruments backs the pair up as they sing with humor and bite, and Apple’s voice—as Beam puts it—“sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time.”
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Blondshell (feat. Bully), “Docket”
Grunge lives! Last year, L.A.-based Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) released her acclaimed self-titled debut, which had a heavy nineties feel, while Nashville’s Bully (Alicia Bognanno) put out her fourth album, Lucky for You, proudly flying similar influences. Teaming up was natural and delivers just as it should on this ode to hooking up with guys on the road. “It’s about wanting to cope with distance and change,” said Teitelbaum, “but it’s also just a bit about being reckless.”
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Fabiana Palladino, “Can You Look in the Mirror?”
Fabiana Palladino is the daughter of bass god Pino Palladino, who’s held down the bottom for everyone from D’Angelo to the Who. Her debut has been a damn long time coming; she’s been releasing songs online for thirteen years, and seven years ago she was the first artist signed to Jai Paul’s label. But the self-titled album was worth the wait—it’s a gem, with exactingly crafted ballads and eighties-flavored funk sometimes revealing a Prince-like edge. The slinky, tense “Can You Look in the Mirror?” could be a lost track from Control-era Janet Jackson.
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Vampire Weekend, “Gen-X Cops”
On their fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, Vampire Weekend spend a lot of time looking back, across their own history and the passage of time that all of us face. The refrain on this propulsive, slightly raggedy track—with a wild slide-guitar line that was initially recorded a dozen years ago—is “Each generation makes its own apology.” Rocking until it’s not, upbeat but introspective, named for a cult-classic Hong Kong action movie, “Gen-X Cops” encapsulates the complexities of VW at their best.
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Arooj Aftab, “Raat Ki Rani”
Pakistani singer-composer Arooj Aftab was an unlikely nominee for Best New Artist at the 2022 Grammys, where she won the Best Global Music Performance trophy. A Berklee grad who’s adjacent to the N.Y.C. jazz community, she’s performed at Coachella and Glastonbury. “Raat Ki Rani” is the first single from Aftab’s upcoming Night Reign album—and no, I don’t know what she’s singing about. But it’s gorgeous and evocative, highly reminiscent of Sade at a time when we could all use that kind of calming, romantic beauty.
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Chris Stapleton, “I Should Have Known It”/Slash (feat. Chris Stapleton), ”Oh Well”
Even the best tribute albums are kind of silly. If we like an artist enough to listen to an album’s worth of their songs, do we really want to hear a bunch of covers? But Chris Stapleton is in such command right now that I’m happy for a couple songs well-matched to his voice and blazing guitar. “I Should Have Known It” was a raucous late-career highlight for Tom Petty, and Stapleton’s version from the Petty Country collection stays pretty much note-for-note but still kills. The early, Peter Green–era Fleetwood Mac hit “Oh Well” comes from Slash’s upcoming all-star blues tribute and tees up a monster riff for these two hairy dudes to burn down.
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SZA, “Saturn”
More than five years passed between SZA’s debut album, Ctrl, and 2022’s juggernaut SOS. But last December, she announced a new project called Lana, which she has alternately described as a deluxe version of SOS and a stand-alone record. Either way, it was good news when she previewed a song in a Grammy commercial; it’s now out in multiple mixes as the shimmering, soulful “Saturn.” With vague traces of Stevie Wonder’s paean to the ringed planet on Songs in the Key of Life, the track is both futuristic and classic, with SZA yearning for a better place. (“There’s got to be more,” she sings.)
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Pearl Jam, “Dark Matter”
Well, they weren’t lying. The members of Pearl Jam indicated that their forthcoming album would be hard, loud, and guitar-heavy, and the crunching first single (the LP’s title track) delivers the goods. Opening with drummer Matt Cameron’s thunderous thwack and building to a ripping guitar solo, “Dark Matter” was produced by the hot hand of Andrew Watt (who handled the recent Rolling Stones album and plays in Eddie Vedder’s solo band). “Everybody else pays for someone else’s mistakes,” yowls Vedder, as the Last Classic Rock Band returns to form in a tight, head-spinning three and a half minutes.
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Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ’Em”/ “16 Carriages”
The biggest surprise of the Super Bowl (Taylor’s Version) turned out to be the announcement of new music from Queen Bey—during a Verizon ad, of all things. But then it all got even more interesting when we learned that, at least judging from the first two songs, Act II of the Renaissance trilogy would be country-flavored. Anchored by Pulitzer Prize winner Rhiannon Giddens’s banjo, the irresistible stomp “Texas Hold ’Em” made history, as Houston gal Beyoncé became the first Black woman to top the country singles chart, while the dramatic, elegant “16 Carriages” is more personal (“I saw Mama cryin’ / I saw Daddy lyin’ ”) and potentially more rewarding over time.
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Khruangbin, “A Love International”
One of the oddest stories in recent years has been the ascension of Khruangbin—a mostly instrumental, largely uncategorizable Texas trio that draw from such far-flung influences as sixties Thai funk, dub reggae, surf rock, and Middle Eastern soul—to arena-headliner status. It’s hard to think of the group in terms of songs rather than the aggregation of vibes, but “A Love International” is the first sample of their upcoming album, A LA SALA (their first in four years, following collaborations with Leon Bridges and Malian musician Vieux Farka Touré). Its swirling, gradually building propulsion is a fine representation of Khruangbin’s atmospheric, mesmerizing sonic universe.
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Brittany Howard, “Power to Undo”
After she shelved her Grammy-winning band Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard’s 2019 solo debut, Jaime, was a declaration of independence. Named after her late sister, it was an expansive and personal exploration of race and love and life. The new follow-up, What Now, is more abstract and experimental, adding electronic textures and club rhythms. “Power to Undo” is infused with the spirit of Prince (who once brought the Shakes to Paisley Park to jam), all stuttery, stop-and-start funk, a slinky beat never quite settling in behind Howard’s tense, spiky guitar.
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Sarah Jarosz, “Runaway Train”
A Grammy-winning bluegrass prodigy and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz is an Americana superhero. But for Polaroid Lovers, her seventh album (not counting the acclaimed group project I’m With Her), she taps into the Nashville machinery for the first time, with results that are more poppy and conventional-sounding but no less impressive. The record was produced by Daniel Tashian (best known for his work with Kacey Musgraves), and contributing songwriters include some of the biggest guns in Music City, like Jon Randall on the breezy, hook-heavy lead single, “Runaway Train.”
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