A Partridge In A Pear Tree (Christmas Cheer is Everywhere)
The Top 120 Songs of 2024 (Part 1 of 12)
This is gonna be fun.
After my 2023 Year End lists were slapdash due to a lack of planning, work travel, and issues in my personal life, I made a resolution to move all of my Year End writing to Substack. No matter what happened from January to November, I would be here for List Season talking about my favorite songs and albums of the year. It helps that this was easily the most fun list I’ve built since 2020.
As I said in my Top 10 EPs of 2024 piece, 2024 has been a banner year for music. I listened to 260 projects this year (and may sneak a couple more new releases in before my Best Albums of 2024 list) and nearly all of them had at least one song that I would call great. Earlier this year, I started throwing all of these top-tier, great songs into a Spotify playlist and ended up with a collection of 525 tracks from projects released in 2024. Typically, I run through this playlist in December and compile a list of my Top 100 Songs of the year; however, the competition was far too stacked in 2024. For reference, I would consider my 175th favorite song of 2024 (whatever that means) an absolutely painful cut. So here’s what we’re gonna do:
This will be a Top 120 Songs of 2024 List spread out across 12 days.
10 songs from the list will be announced per day until December 24th when I’ll reveal my Top 10 songs of 2024.
Unlike previous years, I added a limit of 3 songs per lead artist for this list. It only resulted in five cuts from my unfiltered Top 120, but each of those were painful. There are 83 albums represented in this list across hundreds of artists, and any further cuts (i.e. a maximum of 1/2 songs per lead artist) would have impacted my Top 40. It means some great albums won’t be represented here, but I probably will be talking about them in my Best Albums of 2024 list.
I also kept up my rule from past years about not including loose singles or tracks that were released on promotional EPs on this list. It gets dicey because songs may sound better in the context of a full-length record; and said context does influence how much I like a given track. So no, “Euphoria” and “Meet The Grahams” by Kendrick Lamar will not be on this list even though they’re amazing. Also, by this logic, “Cobra” by Megan Thee Stallion was eligible for this list and was one of the final cuts, amazing song though.
Since I’ll be writing 120 short-form pieces about songs, don’t expect the length that I used in my Top EPs list to discuss each of these projects. You will get a couple of sentences about each track though (with the higher entries being somewhat longer).
Also, don’t take the actual ranking THAT seriously. When you’re working with so much great music, the difference in quality between #112 and #113 (and honestly #13 and #113) is negligible and positions here are almost arbitrary. I’m gonna regret the order by tomorrow, but I won’t regret which songs I picked!
So without further ado, let’s get started with Part 1 of the Top! 120! Songs! Of! 2024!
#120: “Black&Blue” by Vince Staples (from Dark Times)
Dark Times was so damn good. On “Black&Blue”, Vince laments over the loss of loved ones in the pursuit of fame, money, and social capital. While being infatuated with folklore of gang violence and capitalist greed he feel devoid of the friends, family, and loves that could give his life more meaning. With the enticing backdrop of piano flutters, fuzzy guitars, and choir samples, “Black&Blue” is one of Vince’s strongest tracks this year. Great stuff.
#119: “Impossible Light / Golden Flower” by Uboa ft. Otay:onii (from Impossible Light)
Uboa creates some of the harshest and most moving soundscapes in music. Her 2024 record Impossible Light may lack the immediacy of her monumental 2019 release The Origin of My Depression, but the title track of this new project reaches similar highs in her wholly unique brand of industrial post-metal. As a ten-minute ambient piece, “Impossible Light / Golden Flower” is a harrowing story of grief. Between spoken-word excerpts from Otay:onii’s book that read I open all the wounds / I comfort them / Comfort them / I comfort them / Oh, how I long for you and Uboa’s cries of I saw the ghost of the boy I was / I mourned the corpse of the girl I loved on the outro, this is a heartbreaking love letter to the trans people we’ve lost far too soon, but a rallying cry to keep living and fighting for that Impossible Light at the end of the tunnel.
#118: “Love Is Everywhere” by Magdalena Bay (from Imaginal Disk)
That last entry was really heavy so let’s transition to one of the grooviest tracks of 2024. You don’t need me to tell you that Imaginal Disk was amazing: everyone reading this, including my mom, knows that Magdalena Bay is great. On this psychedelic disco number, Matt and Mica create a track that sounds like the calming ecstasy of falling in love for the first time, which is ingenious when juxtaposed with the writing. This narrator has had a bad time with love, she’s fucked up a few times and is feeling pessimist about the prospect of ever finding love again; however, by the chorus, she’s reminded that tomorrow is another day, she shouldn’t overthink, and it’s never too late to find love. After all: Love Is Everywhere.
#117: “California” by Beabadoobee (from This Is How Tomorrow Moves)
Three years ago, Lorde created a masterpiece satirically dissecting the melancholy behind the trend of over-glamorized, Californicated self-help. Going to California—even to get away from the harsh winters of New Zealand or stormy days in London—will not heal you: Lorde knew that with Solar Power, and Beabadoobee is showing us that yet again on this fantastic single from This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Bea has grown distant from her partner and is left brokenhearted yet again, so she does what she does best: picks up her electric guitar and writes a downbeat alt rock anthem with an excellent fuzzy guitar line. She did it in 2020 with “Care”, she followed it up in 2022 with “Talk”, and she continues to top herself with “California”. Great song.
#116: “Open Canvas” by Jlin (from Akoma)
IDM! Footwork! Grooves! Percussion! Jlin is an auteur operating on her own plane of acclaim, being nominated for a Pulitzer for her 2023 EP Perspective. Her follow-up, the excellent 2024 album Akoma, continues exploring electronica while incorporating footwork into her vast repertoire. This instrumental piece will have you dancing along for its five-minute runtime, but also keep you on your toes with innovative beat switches and key changes. “Open Canvas” is equal parts danceable, enjoyable, and intricate. Check it out!
#115: “Get Numb To It!” by Friko (from Where we’ve been, we go from here)
Friko’s Where we’ve been, we go from here is easily one of my favorite debut projects of the year, and this rollicking indie rock track is the highlight. The fantastic guitar work carries the track for the first two verses and choruses until a scuzzier guitar solo transitions the song into the studio chatter-filled outro, which works perfectly in the context of the ramshackle record. Lyrically, this song centers depression with the inspired affirmation on the chorus to get numb to it because it doesn’t get better, it just gets twice as bad because you let it. If you’ve lived with depression or burnout long enough, Friko is touching on the freeing moment when you realize that it’s more important to manage what you can control versus waiting for the external conditions causing your pain to “get better” because they—more often than not—won’t. It’s an inspired moment, carried by lead singer Niko Kapetan’s strident vocals, emblematic of the greatness of this new indie rock outfit.
#114: “COPY COLD” by Mach-Hommy ft. Black Thought (from #RICHAXXHAITIAN)
Am I allowed to quote Mach-Hommy on this? Will I get copyright claimed and have to censor any of his lyrics from this piece? Would he let me if I took out a loan to buy a physical copy of one of his records? All jokes aside, “COPY COLD” is a fantastic jazz rap cut from the absolutely stacked #RICHAXXHAITIAN. Mach-Hommy is one of the best rappers working today and he proves it on the first verse. The affirming sung chorus provides a sense of calm before Black Thought’s devastating verse about the inevitability of Black Death and the will to survive in the face of it. And in a year of heightened destabilization, imperial intervention, and cultural hostility toward Haiti, the sampled outro is devastating. Again, Mach-Hommy is one of the best artists out right now: check him out.
#113: “Weekness” by Baby Rose & BADBADNOTGOOD (from Slow Burn)
I talked about this one in my Top 10 EPs of 2024 List, but “Weekness” is the strongest track from Baby Rose and BADBADNOTGOOD’s great EP Slow Burn, and it’s all in that bassline. Of course, Baby Rose is going to coo in her gorgeous mezzo soprano, detailing the anger and heartbreak that she feels for this lost love; however, that bassline on the opener and choruses provides an absolutely menacing touch that puts this song over the top. Wonderful song; I’m really excited to hear more.
#112: “公然の秘密 (Open Secret)” by Sheena Ringo (from 放生会 (Carnival))
In 2024, I finally became too Rate Your Music-core for my own good and got really into Sheena Ringo. And even though I hate to admit that I don’t have the most unique taste in the room, I have no shame in agreeing with the consensus that 2000’s Winning Strip and 2003’s Kalk Samen Chestnut Flower are classics. 2024’s Carnival, however, is her best album since Kalk Samen Chestnut Flower and it’s not particularly close. On Carnival, Ringo tapped into frenetic, jazz-inflected art pop to make one of her most unconventional records to date; and there’s no better example of this than the single “Open Secret.” This track feels like you’re in an old-school Scooby Doo chase, sprinting through doors just to end up on the other side of the same hallway. As the brass blares, the staccato strings wail, and the drums thrash, Sheena Ringo cuts through the mix with her gorgeous belting that hasn’t aged a day since Winning Strip. It’s exhilarating, it’s zany, that hook is monstrous, and it’s a career highlight in the legend’s catalog.
#111: “MiKeToMlIn” by TisaKorean ft. TiaCorine (from In Silly We Trust)
I want to say that this made the list because Mike Tomlin just made headlines by praising Saquon Barkley, but none of my readers care about football, let alone the Philadelphia Eagles. Instead, this made the list because not a day has gone by where I haven’t said Like Donuts, I Be Dunkin’ / I’m swaggin’ like Mike Tomlin to myself. “MikeToMlIn” is a Silly highlight for three reasons: TisaKorean is at his best with quotable bars, that recorder-led melody is painfully catchy, and TiaCorine actually matches Tisa’s memetic energy and ethereal weirdness (something I wish the other collaborator on In Silly We Trust did). And in these first nine songs, we’ve already touched on death, grief, heartbreak, and depression—and trust me, it’s going to get way darker from here: you’ve been warned—why not end out Day 1 of this series with a lightweight trap banger? Great song.
See you tomorrow,
e