2024 was the best year for music since 2020. It was also maybe the most stressful year since 2020, so make of that what you will. It was truly a joy to listen to new music this year — hopefully you either felt that joy too, or you will once you dive into this list.

Spotify Playlist
Spotify Playlist (Countdown, from 50 to 1)
Spotify Playlist (Clean)
YouTube Playlist

Honorable Mentions:

Cordae ft. Anderson Paak: “Summer Drop”; DIIV: “Soul-net”; Future & Metro Boomin ft. The Weeknd: “We Still Don’t Trust You”; Father John Misty: “Josh Tillman and the Accidental Overdose”; Jessica Pratt: “World on a String”; Joan Shelley: “Singing to You”; Brittany Howard: “I Don’t”; Chastity Belt: “I-90 Bridge”; Rosali: “Hopeless”; The Smile: “Friend of a Friend”; Nilüfer Yanya: “Faith’s Late”; Silverbacks: “Giving Away an Inch Of”; Momma: “Ohio All the Time”; JPEGMAFIA: “either on or off the drugs”; That Mexican OT ft. Moneybagg Yo: “Twisting Fingers”

50. Empress Of: Lorelei
49. Bad Bad Hats: My Heart Your Heart
48. Sheer Mag: Eat It and Beat It
47. Nicholas Craven & Boldy James: No Pun Intended
46. SZA: Saturn
45. Yard Act: We Make Hits
44. Justice ft. Tame Impala: Neverender
43. girl in red: Girlfriend is Better (Talking Heads cover)
42. Tinashe: Nasty
41. Allegra Krieger: Never Arriving

40. The Staves: The Echo
39. Sabrina Carpenter: Espresso
38. Hamilton Leithauser: This Side of the Island
37. Chappell Roan: Good Luck, Babe!
36. Jessica Pratt: Better Hate
35. MJ Lenderman: Joker Lips
34. Kacey Musgraves: Too Good to Be True
33. Christopher Owens: No Good
32. Tommy Richman: MILLION DOLLAR BABY
31. DIIV: Brown Paper Bag

30. Hovvdy: Forever
29. Dehd: Mood Ring
28. Kendrick Lamar: Not Like Us
27. Being Dead: Firefighters
26. GIFT: Wish Me Away
25. Tems: Love Me JeJe
24. Charli XCX: Von dutch
23. High Vis: Guided Tour
22. Jamie xx ft. Honey Dijon: Baddy on the Floor
21. Kaytranada ft. PinkPantheress: Snap My Finger
 

20. Jack White: “That’s How I’m Feeling”

Jack White used to take up so much space in my brain, but over the last decade, his real estate holdings in my head dried up. It feels good to have him take up residence again. “That’s How I’m Feeling” captures the magic of we all felt during the White Stripes’ heyday – it’s that raw, uncut extension of White’s id that, in the 2000s, we all came to not just want, but need.

 

19. Bon Iver: “S P E Y S I D E”

Justin Vernon wears many hats, and wears them all well, but I’ll always love the stripped-down For Emma, Forever Ago version of him the most. “S P E Y S I D E” is maybe his most direct, unadorned song since those Wisconsin cabin-in-the-woods days, and when in that mode, no one conveys aching beauty better.

 

18. Cloud Nothings: “Running Through the Campus”

Catchy alt-rock lives! Dylan Baldi has been doing his thing for a decade and a half now, vacillating between scuzzy pop rock and thick, heavy hardcore, but he’s at his best when he straddles the line between the two.

 

17. Adrianne Lenker: “Free Treasure”

Adrianne Lenker has a way of making everything sound so natural and lived-in. Nothing is ever forced. “Free Treasure” sounds like a long-lost folk song that has existed forever.

 

16. Kim Gordon: “BYE BYE”

The coolest song on this whole list essentially boils down to this: a septuagenarian recites a packing list over a hard-nosed trap beat. Kim Gordon, formerly of the influential ’80s underground/alternative band Sonic Youth, gives us a concept so absurd on its face, and yet, it slaps so hard. I can’t get over it.

 

15. Joan Shelley: “Mood Ring”

It’s rare to have the privilege of listening to an artist so connected to the elements of time and nature and humanity. Joan Shelley has always been one with these concepts, just letting them emanate from her voice and guitar.

 

14. Father John Misty: “Screamland”

Someone on the Internet said the “Screamland” chorus sounds like an Imagine Dragons song. I wish I hadn’t seen that, because now I can’t unhear the comparison. But when I’m able to ignore that unfortunate observation, I can recognize the chorus for what it is: huge, all-encompassing, hair-raising, epic.

 

13. Beth Gibbons: “Floating on a Moment”

Portishead’s Beth Gibbons, who turns 60 next month, gave us the most gorgeous, immaculately produced song of the year. “Floating on a Moment” has more instruments on it than a Brian Wilson creation, and just like Wilson, she has found a way for every ghostly harmony, every muted drum, every bell and flute to mix perfectly into a lush, psychedelic, pained hymn of aimlessness.

 

12. Kendrick Lamar: “squabble up”

If you watched the beginning of the “Not Like Us” video, you were treated to a snippet of an absolute banger. A banger that I was positive we were never going to hear in full. It would be completely in character for Kendrick to give us a taste and then let it die on the vine, especially with the scarcity of his output over the last half-decade. But the man hates Drake so much that the music coursed through him all year and couldn’t be stopped. The beat on “squabble up” is thick and nasty, buoying up Kendrick’s lithe flow with ease.

 

11. Good Looks: “If It’s Gone”

I was already in the tank for this band and their ability to sound exactly like an open Texas sky at sunset, but then they went and decided to add a dash of War on Drugs to their formula and fully win me over. It’s the sound of cruising down a near-deserted highway, the sound of introspection, the sound of feeling alive again.

 

10. The Weather Station: “Neon Signs”

The flute is the star of the show on “Neon Signs,” but the driving drumbeat, piano lines, and guitar adornments are worthy competitors. The whole thing is lush swirls of color and light.

 

9. Future & Metro Boomin ft. Kendrick Lamar: “Like That”

The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The kidnapping of Helen of Troy. Kendrick Lamar’s verse on “Like That.” Rap’s biggest feud in decades kicked off when Kendrick chose to address J. Cole’s audacious claim that he, Kendrick, and Drake constituted the current Big 3 of the rap world. He hopped onto Future and Metro Boomin’s big synth-trumpet beat on “Like That” to set the record straight: “Mother-f*** the Big 3, n*****, it’s just Big Me.” The rest is history.

 

8. Charli XCX ft. Lorde: “Girl, so confusing featuring lorde”

Usually I’d be completely uninterested in this kind of gimmickry. Calling out another famous singer on your original song, and then tapping that person in for a new version of the track so you can “work it out on the remix”? An artist’s own lore and meta-narratives coming to the forefront and becoming the explicit subject of a song? Hmm, which massive artist and her worst impulses does that remind me of? (TTPD was terrible and I can’t get over it, I’m sorry.) But when I first heard Lorde come in on that second verse, vulnerability and honesty oozing out over the pulsating, strobing beat, it was absolutely fascinating and thrilling.

 

7. MJ Lenderman: “She’s Leaving You”

I don’t know what to tell the haters at this point who say MJ Lenderman is overrated. If you can’t hear the songwriting craft constantly displayed by my guy Jake Lenderman, then that’s on you. He’s the second coming of Neil Young, channeling his guitar riffs, his combination of loud and soft, his ragged voice, and his wisdom, but planting his own flag with his unending wit and ear for catharsis.

 

6. Waxahatchee: “Tigers Blood”

At the end of Waxahatchee’s latest album, Tigers Blood, comes the title track, a song that leaves me in a state of awe every time I hear it. “Tigers Blood” (the song) has made me cry multiple times purely due to how painfully, crushingly good it is. Katie Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman just sound so damn good together. And then when the chorus of Katie’s friends and collaborators hits at the end, I couldn’t stop from choking up.

 

5. Jamie xx: “Treat Each Other Right”

The British electronic dance phenom, Jamie xx, dropped his classic In Colour back in 2015, and has only teased us with one-off singles here and there since then. He finally treated us right again in 2024 with the release of his proper follow-up, In Waves. “Treat Each Other Right” is not a normal dance song – it stops and starts, glitches and switches up throughout – but it brims with that exhilaration that no one captures better than Jamie xx.

 

4. Clairo: “Sexy to Someone”

Claire Cottrill has always been someone whose music I respected more than I ever felt it resonate in my bones – that is, until I first heard “Sexy to Someone.” She tapped Leon Michels, of the funk-soul-jazz outfit El Michels Affair, to produce her 2024 LP Charm, which broke her out of the placid and beautiful but still sleepy sound of her previous work. “Sexy to Someone” is still plenty pretty, with its piano ornamentation, random bouts of flute, and Clairo’s patented airy vocals, but the track has a strong backbeat and funky bassline that make it meaty and substantial, burrowing into your consciousness, as Clairo endearingly details that simple, universal feeling of just wanting someone else to think you look good.

 

3. Vampire Weekend: “Mary Boone”

Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, was like a tour through the band’s back catalog. “Classical” and “Pravda” are Father of the Bride coded; “Gen-X Cops” sounds like their self-titled debut, if it had just a little dash of distortion; “Ice Cream Piano” sounds like a Contra cut. And then there’s “Mary Boone,” which would have fit right in on Modern Vampires of the City. It’s their update to “Hannah Hunt,” and not just because of the similar titles. “Mary Boone” is glassy and pensive and gorgeous, just like “Hannah Hunt,” but where the latter built to a singular goosebump-inducing climax (“If I can’t trust you, then damn it, Hannah!”), the former features multiple climactic cut-ins, when the unexpectedly ‘90s-esque, Moby-like drumbeat comes in. Those cut-ins are transcendent.

 

2. Charli XCX: “Sympathy is a knife”

It’s near impossible to pick the best song on BRAT, but since I have to rank all of these songs from this year, I had to choose one to rule them all. In the end, “Sympathy is a knife” is the one that grabbed hold of me most. It’s a non-stop thrill ride, the gigantic synths making you continuously think you’re careening toward the edge of a cliff. Alan Sparhawk of the band Low, someone who is not a stranger to abrasive yet poignant music, put it best when describing why he liked it: “The one note verse just explodes into the wide-open chorus. The verse about wanting her BFs band to break up is pretty real and hits me in a weird emotional way every time I hear it.”

 

1. Waxahatchee ft. MJ Lenderman: “Right Back to It”

There’s nothing I can say that will even come close to describing how good “Right Back to It” is. It’s not just the best song of the year – it’s the best song of the last 10 years. It’s almost insulting to Katie Crutchfield to put it this way, as if her innate talent and skill weren’t the sole reasons for this song existing, but the song is just so good that it’s almost as if Crutchfield tapped into a power beyond her, transmitting it from the echoes of time.

Everything about “Right Back to It” is perfect. The crystal clearness of how each instrument was recorded. The flawlessness with which those instruments were then mixed together. Crutchfield’s indelible melody, and her Alabama voice delivering that melody, equal parts weary and content. Her lyrics, conveying the ebbs and flows of a long-term relationship, letting us into all the doubt and warm acceptance that commingle in that relationship. Her collaborator MJ Lenderman’s voice, so unique you’d think it would stick out like a sore thumb, but instead blending into the chorus with ease, as if those two voices had existed together for decades.

Songs become great through either innovation or through pure, unmitigated craft. “Right Back to It” fulfills the latter qualification. It’s a new Americana standard, and I hope it gets recognized as such for years to come.