Best of 2024, pt. 4 - Songs
The best(ish) songs of the year via the #Top24of24 challenge
I take December off from playlist slop-sorting, which gives me oodles of time to, say, review three albums with the mental effort of writing four newsletters. But what about the mindless song admin?
Lucky for me, this month there was a best songs of 2024 challenge running on Bluesky—#Top24of24—and I took on the job of collecting all of the tracks. Because the Internet Music Blob is real, the raw list of about 1,600 songs is much heavier on indie and alt rock than the sorts of lists I tend to cull from for my mixes (some of the indie/alt is good, but there’s a lot of it).
If you wanted to pare things down to <250 songs that have at least two votes, the shortlist — still heavy on alt and indie but more varied and easier to navigate — is here.
I also sifted through the whole batch of mentioned songs for my final 2024 mix (next week’s post), and I pulled out all of the songs that I thought fit my Golden Beatology system of music that might appeal to the People’s Pop electorate on golden beat grounds (i.e., favorite song that’s new to you). Lots of songs that are not in English, from non-rock genres, and just plain weird.
Since I also participated in this challenge myself, I ended up making a Top 24 songs list. I’m going to bump that up to a Top 25, to include the one YouTube-only track—and only Brazilian funk track—that would have made my list if it were streaming.1 I didn’t assemble the list in a strict ranking order, but found that the best playlist order was reverse alphabetical order by artist, which just so happened to help my #1 song of the year actually wind up in the #1 spot.
Here’s my full 24 of 24 playlist:
25. Os Gemeos da Puteria, DJ Ws da Igrejinha, MC Pânico: Você Me Dá Água na Boca
My favorite Brazilian funk of the year features almost nothing that I like about any of the other funk on my lists, and in fact pares things down almost entirely to a Rita Lee sample that I’m assuming is what got this thing stripped from streaming services all over the map. But I can’t stop listening to it, so here you go. (If you need more of an overview of the genre, try my funk shortlist or a large portion of Frank Kogan’s ongoing 2024 playlist.)
24. YENA: NEMONEMO
YENA of IZ*ONE. Previous hit was “Hate Rodrigo.” Has officially done better than O-Rod has on one of my year-end lists (not sure how “Deja Vu” would have done if I’d done a proper list). Favorite K-pop song of the year.
23. Brennan Wedl: Fake Cowboy
An exquisitely written alt-country song from a songwriter I’ve heard almost nothing about this year. Has the cutting clarity of Aimee Mann, a great punchline denouement, and for a bonus, a melodic quote from “Odorono.”
22. Rosie Tucker: All My Exes Live in Vortexes
A fun little puzzle box of a song grappling with late stage capitalism etc. & heartbreak. I’m confident John Linnell never mentioned squeezing pores; I wonder if he ever landed on “middle-sized fish”? (Wrote about for the Singles Jukebox here.)
21. Tems: Love Me Jeje
Took a little while for this one to insinuate itself, but I was desperate for an alternative song of the summer and this filled the spot nicely. Warm, coaxing, lovely.
20. Shakes & Les f. Lee McKrazy: Funk 99
One strand of amapiano ever-mutating into fecund new territory in its 5th(ish) straight year, minimal where 3-step pushes its lockstep lush. Not just “back to basics,” sketchier still. Beguiling in its economy.2
19. RAYE: Genesis.
Have reviewed this epic-song-suite-of-the-year multiple times (newsletter, Singles Jukebox) but if you’re going to read one thing about it I’ll direct you to the Marcello Carlin write-up.
18. Quavo f. Lenny Kravitz: FLY
A dumb behemoth of a song that should be played in every movie trailer and televised sporting event. I want to bring back malls just to hear this in one. The worst possible song on my mix to follow RAYE. Sounds great!
17. Barbara Pravi: Exister
Existential taunt from the perspective of someone clinging to power about to experience a great fall. Fingers crossed!
16. Zee Nxumalo, Pabi Cooper & 031Choppa f. Shakes & Les: Thula Mabota
Contender for my amapiano track of the year, from two of my favorite South African artists in 2024 — check out Zee Nxumalo’s album Inja Ye Game and Shakes & Les’s Funk Series.
15. NLE Choppa & Whethan f. Carey Washington: Slut Me Out 3
Accept no substitutes (i.e. previous installments)! And be sure to read the Singles Jukebox post on this song in its entirety.
14. MORGENSHTERN: Последняя Любовь [Poslednyaya Lyubov / "Last Love"]
Favorite Russian rapper switches things up and decides to make the best Damon Albarn song of the year as a goof.
13. Angelina Mango: La Noia
Italian pop broke through to me this year, and not just because I saw the set-up for an Angelina Mango concert at the Duomo in Milan on vacation before falling asleep from jet lag too early to see it. (Bummer!)
12. Kryssy: Anlé en jet
Jonathan Bogart once again inspired me to take a look at some of the year’s Caribbean pop and mentioned Kryssy specifically. She’s fantastic, and this was my favorite when the dust settled, a minimalist masterpiece.
11. Kesha: JOYRIDE
Get in, loser.
10. Kabin Crew & Lisdoonvarna Crew: The Spark
Gotta rep youth media bangers when they go global!
9. Gen1es: Lucky Bell
T-pop is having an underdog pop ascendancy moment, situated between Japan and Korea in their ongoing industry development but landing on a style hard to pin down, less polished, hungrier-sounding. This one was my favorite.
8. Alice Longyu Gao: Little Piggy 豚
[CW for ED content in song and strobe in the video.] A sickening but compulsively listenable bit of exorcism, finally getting back at bullies on the bus after a lifetime of lashing in.
7. Camila Cabello f. Playboi Carti: I LUV IT
The bad one is good actually!
6. Bruses: I’m So Happy
If you haven’t kept up with the amazing hyperpop-influenced alt-pop reggaeton coming out of Latin America this year, here’s Bruses with a song so thoroughly drenched in sarcasm that very little seems lost in translation.
5. Baby Kia: OD CRASHIN
Atlanta rapper zig-zags between raw-throat screaming and muttering asides. Pauses to remind you, with no little indignation, that he doesn’t fuck with crack. Can’t a guy just be a little weird sometimes?
4. Atmos Blaq: Mfana Wase Dobsi
Immaculate South African 3-step from a strong contender for my producer of the year.
3. Verito Asprilla & Li Saumet: Apoteósica
Amapiano traveled outside of South Africa this year, beyond the mutually beneficial Afrobeats pipeline. This Colombian song, featuring a Bomba Estéreo member, takes on the promise and party of my 2023 SOTY “Chale.”
2. Ano: 許婚っきゅん [Iinazukkyun/“Fiancée”]
Ano might be the best pop star in the world, and this is the best music video of the year (watch it!). Glad the song keeps pace. The color scheme gives Senegalese pop's bold primary colors a run for their money.
1. Arooj Aftab: Raat Ki Rani
The most nakedly beautiful song I heard this year—was a balm and a gentle catalyst to feeling in tough times. Smoky, sinuous, elusive, moves me intermittently but insistently, and never in the same place twice.
***
That’s it! See you next week with music that is not new, but might be new to you (and certainly was to me).
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Only 15 songs listed by 85 participants in the #Top24of24 challenge were not available on Spotify. Two of those were by SAULT, who had a limited time online release, two were by anti-streaming Cindy Lee, and one is a benefit compilation track by MJ Lenderman that I’m sure will show up eventually.
Shout out to someone named Charlotte on Bluesky, who has provided another blurb for my dust jacket: “I don’t exactly know what you said but yes.”