Much like our process in deciding the Best Albums of 2024, there were just too many songs to choose from. So we overdid it. But that’s fine. Because good songs are worth celebrating and listening to again and again, right? Take a look at some of our top picks below, then keep scrolling to see the songs that just missed the cut. Let us know some of your personal favorites from the year in the replies!

10. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

Kiel graciously let me pick “Espresso” over his choice of “Taste”, but really, any of Sabrina Carpenter’s tracks from Short n’ Sweet could’ve made the cut on our top tracks list. Every song on the album is fun, quirky, and refreshing. I think girl pop was heading in a dangerous direction this past year or so, and it’s really coming back around to, “Man, I Feel Like a Woman!” vibes. Obviously, “Espresso” was everywhere this year, completely inescapable, and for the first time in a while, I wasn’t annoyed by that. It’s a funny song, but at the same time, totally self-aware of how unserious Sabrina’s brand is as a whole. I think that’s what made it one of the best releases of the year, just the ability to hear it for what it is, a summer anthem about being hot. – Nadia Alves

9. Remi Wolf – “Soup”

“I can’t help but make it ‘bout me”. On “Soup”, arguably the headliner from 2024’s Big Ideas, Remi Wolf articulates the confusing moments when a relationship passes the honeymoon phase and both partners have to make hard decisions about what the future holds. On one hand, Remi seems to acknowledge the potential prison she could create for herself in the relationship, singing, “Lay like a dog / As I wait for your arrival / Play fetch in the yard / As a means of my survival”. Yet each chorus brings her back to a place of need: “I don’t wanna leave without you / …/ If you give me the keys, I’ll go and pick up the soup”. Should Remy stay or leave? These are the questions that highlight every such situation of its kind since the dawn of time. In this context, the pulsating beat and soaring melodies invite us to dance as we ponder. – Kiel Hauck

8. Queen of Jeans – “Books in Bed”

I think one of my favorite ways to think of Queen of Jeans is as a musical soup, genre-bending and genre-blending. I think of each track as an ingredient, and for me, “Books In Bed” would be the onion sizzling in the oil starting it all off on a strong note. It’s not the first track on the album, and not the last, but smack in the middle there. Almost overlooked, but like the onion in a soup, the flavor profile wouldn’t be complete without it. It perfectly encompasses both the hope and the despair the album puts forth as a whole, and the sense of yearning throughout really makes it lodge itself into your heart. This track could go both ways, it could tie into “All My Friends”, about the one you love being away temporarily, or it could tie into the end of the relationship, when all you’ll have are the books in your bed and the memories until you have the strength to get up and move on, and I think that duality is not only displayed across the album as a whole, but also what makes this song and album so versatile, and able to be enjoyed whether you’re lucky in your relationships, or not so lucky. – Nadia Alves

7. Dua Lipa – “Training Season”

In early 2020, locked in due to COVID, my nine-month-old daughter began bobbing and “dancing” to music for the first time, thanks in large part to Dua Lipa’s breakthrough album Future Nostalgia. Four years later, my kindergartner has an outsized influence on the music played in our home, and it’s no surprise that Dua Lipa ruled our speakers. “Training Season” is one of Radical Optimism’s many hits, leaning hard into the disco-dance fusion that she has now perfected. The bassline is catchy and unmistakable, but once those synthesizers begin to hit on the back half of the chorus, one has no choice but to arise from their seat and move about. As my daughter would exclaim repeatedly after the song’s hypnotic final moments — “Again!” – Kiel Hauck

6. Billie Eilish – “Birds of a Feather”

This is a favorite that has become very personal to me. Billie Eilish has said that it’s about an abusive relationship where she has a totally one-sided, unconditional love for her partner, evidenced by the video where she’s pulled in every direction. When I first heard the song though, I immediately thought of my sisters. I’m not an overly emotional person, but this song just never fails to make me cry. As an oldest sister, I have seen my siblings go through all kinds of things, good and bad, but even when they haven’t felt it or I haven’t expressed it well, there is an unconditional love there and I’m always rooting for them. Lines like “I want you to see / how you look to me” and “I knew you in another life” just cut me really deeply, in a way a song that hit mainstream hasn’t done for me in a while. It also makes me think of Billie and Finneas as a sibling duo as well as a creative duo, and how that bond is just something that is irreplaceable. It’s a really poignant expression of devotion, whether it’s to someone who doesn’t appreciate you, or someone who does. – Nadia Alves

5. Stand Atlantic ft. Polaris – “CRIMINAL”

On WAS HERE, Stand Atlantic stretch the bounds of expectation with an album that combines genres with ferocity and abandon. The highlight of the experiment comes in the form of “CRIMINAL” which finds the band joining forces with fellow Aussies Polaris in the form of a pop-punk/dance/metalcore mash-up. “Let me be cynical / And self-destruct and sell it, too / It’s such a goddamn shame / But what’s it to you?” a seething Bonnie Fraser delivers on the song’s chorus (perhaps the band’s best to date). Continuing a theme of dissolution with an industry that wants the band to operate within a sonic framework they have no interest in following, “CRIMINAL” is another strong statement from Stand Atlantic. Polaris’ Jamie Hails caps off the message during a brutal breakdown-fueled bridge: “Make sure to take your cut when you’re draining my blood”. – Kiel Hauck

4. Twenty One Pilots – “Routines in the Night”

Since this album was number one for me this year, it’s a shock that a track from that album doesn’t make my number one spot, but decisions had to be made. Unlike my albums, this year I ranked my songs by how stats.fm listed them in my 2024 list. “Routines In the Night” ranks as #13, with 22 streams, which really goes to show how often I don’t listen to the year’s releases, oops. Of course, stats.fm only counts my Spotify listens, and Clancy was in my car’s disc drive for most of the year, only counting toward the stats in my heart. 

“Routines…” is an ode to insomnia, something that I’ve struggled with for years. This song and its accompanying video, is one of the most relatable portrayals of insomnia I’ve seen, and immediately stuck out to me on the first listen through the album when I watched the band’s Youtube livestream. Shockingly, Tyler Joseph didn’t want this banger to make the final tracklist, which is mind-boggling to me. Not only would the album have suffered without it from a cohesive standpoint, I would also not have gotten the experience of listening to what has become one of my favorite Twenty One Pilots tracks of all time. Good on Josh Dun for forcing Tyler to keep “Routines” and one of my other faves (and close contender for the designated TOP spot on this list), “Navigating”. – Nadia Alves

3. Bring Me the Horizon – “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd”

Each era of Bring Me the Horizon’s continual metamorphosis can be highlighted by a specific moment or song that imbues the band’s sonic mood at that given point. Think “Throne” from 2015’s nu metal odyssey That’s the Spirit or the syrupy melodic “Medicine” from 2019’s Amo. “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” will be remembered as the defining song from POST HUMAN: NeX GEn because it encapsulates every part of the craft the band have perfected. Glitchy electronics clash against aggressive drop-D riffs while Oli Sykes soaring anthemic chorus gives way to a flash of guttural screams during the breakdown, cementing his unprecedented evolution as a vocalist. All of this capped by lyrics that encompass the true narrative of a surprisingly hopeful album: “The hardest thing you’ll ever know / Is there’s no love like your own”. – Kiel Hauck

2. Chappell Roan – “Good Luck, Babe!”

Pop gals absolutely swept the floor over almost any other music this year, and all I can say is “Thank youuuuu!” Jam after jam was released, but “Good Luck, Babe!” is one of those songs I just haven’t gotten sick of yet. It’s all around a perfect pop song, cute chorus, emotional bridge, but there’s something about Chappell’s delivery here that keeps it stuck in my head. There’s a desperation there that I’m drawn to. I also love the album art, because as a girl in the 2010s who loved the movie Penelope, I immediately clocked what Chappell did with the presentation for this single. A song about just wanting the person you love to accept their identity, and in turn, your love, and using the symbolism of a movie about that is wild. Her mind, y’all! 

Anyway, combine all that with the final lines being essentially what I can only describe as a music box running out of time is equally as compelling to me as the imagery and lyricism she chose for this track. It’s sad, but it’s glittery – “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling” is just such a hard-hitting line. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and it’s as simple as that. Obviously the VMAs performance only adds to my intense obsession here. Her artistry is unmatched and that’s just so exciting to me. – Nadia Alves

1. Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”

By the time “Not Like Us” arrived on Memorial Day weekend, the Kendrick Lamar/Drake feud had reached a level of intense discomfort. “Meet the Grahams”, which came 20 hours earlier, is one of the most personal diss tracks ever recorded, with Kendrick delivering verses written to Drake’s children and parents, along with the Toronto rapper himself. It could have marked a bleak final chapter to the entire ordeal if not for the Mustard-produced megahit that followed.

“Not Like Us” certainly delivered the finishing punches with some of the most visceral and hilarious jabs from any track released during the feud – or any previous rap battle for that matter. But it also came in the form of Kendrick’s first true club anthem and chart-smashing single, which elevated the track to an uniquely ironic plane of existence given its intended recipient.

But punchlines aside, “Not Like Us” became a rallying cry for almost anyone or any group facing an adversary. Played at countless sporting events, political rallies, and family barbecues, the track took on a life of its own, well outside of the context in which it was created, while spurring fascinating conversations around cultural appropriation and race at an academic level.

“Not Like Us” was everywhere in 2024, even as it existed as a fleeting moment as the final nail in a coffin we could all agree needed to be closed. – Kiel Hauck

More Great Songs from 2024

Stay Inside – “A Backyard”

A fast-paced banger about a friend who moved away and who you don’t keep in touch with anymore. It happens to the best of us, and Stay Inside captures just how heartwrenching it can be, “in a weird weird weird weird way”. The horns add to the bittersweetness of it all, and it’s just an honest track on an honest album about the mundanity of growing up, and those moments that make you stop and think, “Damn, things are so different”. – Nadia Alves

Knocked Loose ft. Poppy – “Suffocate”

“Suffocate” feels not only like the true breakthrough moment for Knocked Loose – a band whose moment in the limelight was only a matter of time – but a wonderful crossover with Poppy, who similarly has been on the tip of every heavy music fan’s tongue for years. The resulting collaboration is wall-rattling perfection. – Kiel Hauck

Wallows – “Bad Dream”

What solidified this track in my top songs was the video. Here you have the sweet song about miscommunication and wanting to help the one you love feel secure in the relationship you share, and it is juxtaposed by a literal serial killer chase. I think it builds such a strong picture of both wanting that security, and the anxiety that comes from wanting it and feeling like you’re never going to get there, or you’ll never live up to the expectations from your partner if you do end having those hard but important discussions. – Nadia Alves

Spiritbox – “Perfect Soul”

We won’t have to wait long for Spiritbox’s long-awaited second full length album (Tsunami Sea drops on March 7), but we’ve been given a two-song preview in 2024, including “Perfect Soul” – one of the band’s most spellbinding tracks to date. Once again, Courtney LaPlante proves herself one of the most versatile vocalists in metal. – Kiel Hauck

Posted by Kiel Hauck