So much for the end of the monoculture.
After the internet turned pop culture into a choose-your-own-adventure exploration of media, we naturally assumed that people's tastes would diversify, and the rule of corporate music would end.
Instead, 2024 confirms that the opposite is true. This year brought the longest-running No. 1 single of all time and the top-grossing tour of all time, proving that algorithms have simply given the illusion of choice while instead consolidating taste.
This year's best songs do include a few titans of culture — but mostly, the best singles came from slightly outside of the algorithmic epicentre, including challenging conversations about female friendship, anxiety expressed through fuzzed-out grooves, and a literal to-do list from an alternative legend. Oh, and someone accused Drake of being a sex pest.
Below are Exclaim!'s 20 best songs of 2024. Read all of our year-end lists here.
20. Billie Eilish
"BIRDS OF A FEATHER"
(Darkroom / Interscope Records)
Pop music is meant to be for every single person at any given time, which makes it one of the most difficult genres to excel at. And if Billie Eilish's position as a pop music powerhouse wasn't already set in stone, "BIRDS OF A FEATHER" might as well be the proverbial hammer and chisel. Co-written with and produced by her brother Finneas O'Connell, this track feels like it was grown from nature in its simplistic perfection.
Vanessa Tam
19. Mustafa
"Gaza Is Calling"
(Regent Park Songs / Arts & Crafts)
At just 28, Mustafa has experienced immense success and profound pain many times over. This wealth of experience allows "Gaza is Calling" to sound visceral while maintaining its refined, poetic lyricism. Written in 2020 about a childhood friendship with a Palestinian-Canadian from his Toronto housing project, the song traverses from traditional oud to next-gen breakbeats, capturing the timelessness of struggle and humanity's unchanging ability to cause suffering no matter how advanced we believe we've become.
Daniel Sylvester
18. JADE
"Angel of My Dreams"
(RCA Records)
This dizzying debut solo single by girl group breakaway Jade Thirlwall of Little Mix fame is as blistering as it is bizarre. Criminally under-appreciated, it's a desperate and bewildering pop music game-changer built on an unlikely creative foundation. A demonic deconstruction of Sandie Shaw's 1967 Eurovision-winning "Puppet on a String," Thirlwall and her collaborators transform Shaw's dusty ditty into a multi-dimensional intergalactic triumph, taking aim at a Simon Cowell-esque antagonist and the cruel indifference of England's insatiable fame machine.
Josh Korngut
17. Kim Gordon
"BYE BYE"
(Matador Records)
With a narrator whose character is traced by objects and to-dos, the words listed off in "BYE BYE" could have come from anyone in the year 2024. Perhaps that accounts for its virality early in the year, as 70-year-old Kim Gordon's winking experimental trap-meets-industrial noise inventory absurdism assumed contemporary avatar status as it boomed out of TikToks from creators across generations, the simplicity of its cultural critique as much the appeal as its invitation to relate.
Tom Beedham
16. Charli XCX
"Apple"
(Atlantic Records)
This song about inherent vice (parents just don't understand) is the jagged, melodic piece of candy at the bottom of BRAT's handbag. The appeal of "Apple" is elementary, bounding with full sound and Charli XCX's most in-ha-mood cadence. An accessible anomaly on the record, it was the natural choice to soundtrack both Charli's siege of the mainstream and a peyote-button-cute dance trend even your dad can do. Plus, her obligatory automotive dream.
Matthew Teklemariam
15. Mannequin Pussy
"Loud Bark"
(Epitaph Records)
Never have the subjugated genders' experiences been more succinctly summarized than by Marisa Dabice's "Loud Bark" lyrics: "I want to be a danger / I want to be adored / I want to walk around at night while being ignored." For a song that deals in ferocity, it's remarkably agreeable; screams are pinned down by hazy indie rock instrumentation, and John Congelton's production harnesses the band's ample stamina for a new, more balanced dynamic. This one absolutely goes off in a sweaty, packed room — just as it was intended to — but that communion is miraculously present in headphones walks, too.
Allie Gregory
14. Kelly McMichael
"Bomb"
(LMH Records)
Kelly McMichael dropped an emotional "Bomb" with the standout single from her album After the Sting of It — an outraged anthem about the feeling of screaming underwater, being fed with poison, fanning the flames, and trying to hold an explosion inside. But the St. John's songwriter finds her catharsis not by bursting with anger, but rather with the joyful release of bubblegum alt-rock, the giddy arrangement busting with cheery synth hooks and a steady stomp.
Alex Hudson
13. Fcukers
"Bon Bon"
(Technicolour)
It starts with a hype man giving you "five seconds to catch your breath," alluding that you've already missed out, but are about to be filled in. This tracks for Fcukers, who heard that you and your band sold your guitars and bought turntables, and followed suit. Shanny Wise's unaffected vocals pad the D&B-but-slowed drums, letting the swelling synths take the lead on euphoria. In a moment where everyone yearns for a Bushwick DJ set for some reason, "Bon Bon" is more welcome to you than you are to it, and in that forged exclusivity, there's a hit.
Sydney Brasil
12. Addison Rae
"Diet Pepsi"
(Columbia Records)
It's not every day that an internet star transitions to a music career and finds mainstream success. On "Diet Pepsi," TikTok dancer-turned-pop singer Addison Rae captured listeners with her first major label single. While her debut EP, AR, focused on sounds of nostalgic bubblegum, this track signifies a shift in her artistry and a more alternative pop sound. With breathy vocals and gritty production, the track has youthful energy as she coos about wearing ripped jeans and losing her innocence in the backseat of a car. With Charli XCX's stamp of approval, it's only up for Rae.
Heather Taylor-Singh
11. Fontaines D.C.
"Favourite"
(XL Recordings)
In a year that saw "Espresso," "Apple," "Good Luck, Babe!" and that Shaboozey song light up the zeitgeist, I'd put money on "Favourite" as the year's best pop song. Pure cotton candy hiding a curdled core, Fontaines D.C.'s Romance closer lets just enough darkness shadow its luminous jangle pop before hitting on what might be the most romantic chorus of the year, a confession that feels entirely timeless and wholly unforgettable: "You've been my favourite for a long time."
Kaelen Bell
10. Nourished by Time
"Hell of a Ride"
(XL Recordings)
Like Hendrix shredding "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock, choking chords with feedback and distortion to simulate the sounds of warfare, Nourished by Time's "Hell of a Ride" serves as an indictment of America. But instead of unloading a barrage of discordant noise, Marcus Brown— the Baltimore singer-producer behind Nourished by Time — crafts a triumphant anthem of his own, starting "Hell of a Ride" with a buildup whose new wavy layers spark the same neurons as "Don't You (Forget About Me)" in The Breakfast Club. He invokes that rose-tinted American culture then shrewdly subverts its optimism, singing in his usual drawl of "children stuck in the matrix," breathing in toxins, and the disappearance of what sociologist Ray Oldenburg termed the "third place." The US has only gotten bleaker since the release of this song, but within it, Brown bids the country farewell, having already taken its collapse as a foregone conclusion. No wonder the guitar solo throughout the bridge sounds so blissful.
Noah Ciubotaru
9. MJ Lenderman
"Wristwatch"
(ANTI‐)
Outside the toxic echo chamber of pervading "alpha male" bluster, MJ Lenderman is a balm for the soul. "Wristwatch" dismantles their hollow, performative masculinity, perpetually peddled to young men without caution. Images like do-it-all wristwatches and "a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome" are satirized symbols of shallow validation, painted lackadaisically by Lenderman's meek and mild delivery to reveal the loneliness masked beneath gaudy materialism and faux masculinity. In a culture obsessed with obnoxious strength and success, Lenderman dares to ask with usual wit and incisiveness: why be a misogynistic piece of shit grifter if it leaves you isolated?
Kyle Kohner
8. Kesha
"JOYRIDE"
(Independent)
Boldly syphoning off the brashest elements of the widely discredited electroswing movement and melding it with hyperpop for her first independent release since severing ties with that disgraced man, Kesha's comeback went zero to 60 with "JOYRIDE," part banger and part mission statement. Infectious and daring, the song was a welcome change from the megapop status quo, arriving mischievously in time for summer, and no doubt inspiring some pointed clowning of the unworthy. It shows Kesha reasserting herself as a worthy player in the pop arena after the suspiciously lacklustre, label contract-fulfilling 2023 album Gag Order, while also introducing her new aesthetic direction. If the shroomy "JOYRIDE" is a signal of what's to come from her independent era, we're in for one hell of a trip.
Allie Gregory
7. Waxahatchee feat. MJ Lenderman
"Right Back to It"
(ANTI-)
If there's a populist underground hit of 2024, it's this one. Though some say this new brand of twangy indie rock began when Pavement flirted with country decades ago, "Right Back to it" feels closer Mazzy Star's "Fade into You" — stark, distant, lyrically inconsequential and near perfect. Anchored by producer Brad Cook's banjo, it's Waxahatchee and Lenderman's tender vocals that give it its radiant veneer. Has a song about everything being okay ever made you cry? This one just might.
Daniel Sylvester
6. Sabrina Carpenter
"Espresso"
(Island Records)
After years of working late cuz she's a singer, all it took was some semi-sensical lyrics over beachy nu-disco for Sabrina Carpenter to reach main pop girl superstardom. Sleek and sweet on the surface, the manic eccentricity that courses through "Espresso" is what makes it so compelling; its sheer bubblegum silliness, the caffeine jolt necessary to help shift pop out of permanent sad girl autumn.
Isabel Glasgow
5. This Is Lorelei
"I'm All Fucked Up"
(Double Double Whammy Records)
"You little sick thing you had your fun" is up there with the most delicious, lip-smacking openings to a song this year — and it doesn't stop there. This Is Lorelei, the brainchild of Water From Your Eyes' Nate Amos, packs "I'm All Fucked Up" to the brim with snappy verbiage delivered in an unshakeable even-keel tone, reminiscent of Eels' Mark Oliver Everett. Spilling out at a rapid click over four and a half minutes, the song propels itself forward with a voracious momentum of inevitability: "I knew it all along that you might wind up next to me." It's saying the quiet part out loud — a stream of consciousness run amok.
Dylan Barnabe
4. Chappell Roan
"Good Luck, Babe!"
(Island Records)
"I told you so!" belts a love-scorned Chappell Roan. Following the release of her debut album last fall, the Missouri-native shot into superstardom in just a few short months with "Good Luck, Babe!" — a dazzling, synthy, maximalist pop track that packs a true emotional punch. Roan taps into the intricacies of queer romance on "Babe," warning her lover that she'll "have to stop the world just to stop the feeling," a reminder is delivered with a cathartic crescendo from Roan's distinctively transcendent vocals. There's no doubt that this Midwest princess has claimed the title of pop royalty.
Karlie Rogers
3. Nilüfer Yanya
"Like I Say (I runaway)"
(Ninja Tune)
It's all about that tone — no guitar this year sounds quite as alive as Will Archer's on the chorus of "Like I Say (I runaway)," a steel wool serpent that coils around Nilüfer Yanya's frantic chorus, belied by her always-cool delivery. The lead single from My Method Actor is a desperate plea for control and an apology to a lover who can't understand the author's anxious, vice-like grip. Yanya and Archer's white-knuckle arrangement mirrors this tension in a beautiful act of madrigalism — let go for even a second, and everything could fall apart.
Kaelen Bell
2. Kendrick Lamar
"Not Like Us"
(Interscope Records)
After years of slow-boil beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, the former finally finished the war with a swift series of disses delivered like a flurry of punches, getting the KO with the no-holds-barred "Not Like Us." Over Mustard's hyphy-inspired West Coast hip-hop beat, Lamar spits bold, barbed, accusatory bars attacking Drake's public persona, personal character and the supposed dirty deeds of his OVO crew.
"Not Like Us" became a record-breaking, multi-Grammy nominated exposé, lyrical annihilation, history lesson and cultural defence. Performing it five times in a row for a roof-raising crowd at his Juneteenth show, Lamar stoked an electrifying scene that brought rivals together, a message of unity, and this king his crown.
Chris Bryson
1. Charli XCX feat. Lorde
"Girl, so confusing featuring lorde"
(Atlantic Records)
We don't count down the best lyrics of the year, but a one-two punch of a couplet from Lorde ran away with the title: "'Girl, you walk like a bitch' / When I was 10, someone said that / And it's just self-defence / Until you're building a weapon."
She and Charli working it out on the remix was not only revolutionary in illustrating the terse dynamics of women's relationships (usually shrugged off as paranoia by the Georges of the world) with a confrontation we're so often deprived of, but the way Lorde elevates the truism of the original earworm into a reflection of how struggles within ourselves can impact our interpersonal relationships brings so much depth to the maximization of a joint slay. And the internet did, in fact, go crazy.
Megan LaPierre