The Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)
We’re halfway through 2024 and right in the middle of Pop Girl Summer. As the temperatures soared, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Charli XCX took the wheel and gave the season a TikTok-fueled, sassy-to-sleazy tone. And they’ll probably hold that spot until Post Malone releases his new album, F-1 Trillion, in August. The dude is on an unbelievable hot streak—so far this year, he’s appeared in duets with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Morgan Wallen (“I Had Some Help,” which has held Billboard’s Number One slot for five weeks as of this writing), so expect that momentum to continue.
Meantime, the last few weeks have seen some impressive, ambitious songs from artists in their mid-twenties (Clairo, Raye) to their mid-eighties (the miraculous Mavis Staples). It’s halftime, so catch your breath, drink some water, and stay sharp for whatever the rest of the year throws at us.
RAYE, “Genesis”
She’s a sensation in her native England—after writing for the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Ellie Goulding, she recently broke the record for most Brit Award nominations and won Album of the Year for her debut, My 21st Century Blues—but Raye hasn’t fully hit in the States, despite a show-stopping SNL performance in April. This three-part single/EP/suite is gloriously bonkers; a spoken-word intro leads into a soulful R&B section, climaxing in a full-on jazz bit, with horns and a scat break. But “Genesis” also looks hard at anxiety and insecurity (“if you’re thirsty like me/Mix some pity with some self-hate”) before landing on the refrain “Let there be light.”
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Charli XCX, “360”
A decade or so ago, Charli XCX exploded out of the gate with her contributions to IconaPop’s “I Love It,” Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” and her own “Boom Clap.” Since then, she leaned into more experimental dance-pop, head-faking whether she wanted to be bigger or cooler or both or neither. The Brat album delivers on all of the above, and while I’m nowhere near cool enough to parse the French-disco-hyper-glitch subgenres here, it all slaps, careening from self-doubt to ridiculous boasts. The opener, “360,” lays it all out there, as Charli bounces across a spare, sing-songy beat with hip hop-style delivery, landing on “If you love it, if you hate it/I don’t fucking care what you think.”
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WILCO, “Annihilation”
Just in time for their annual Solid Sound Festival—and for the new season of The Bear, on which they were practically the house band for the first two seasons—America’s favorite Dad Rock band is back with Hot Sun Cool Shroud, a six-song EP of holdovers from last year’s Cousins album that Jeff Tweedy says has “all the pieces of summer.” This propulsive rocker recalls Wilco’s finest: an irresistible chugging rhythm with a super weird, dissonant, intentionally fumbling guitar solo. Thank you, chef.
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Mavis Staples, “Worthy”
Next month, the American institution known as Mavis Staples turns 85 years old. “Worthy,” which she says was inspired by her work with Prince in the ‘80s and ‘90s (he wrote for and produced two of her albums), and it’s plenty funkdafied regardless of her age. The song, full of percolating bass and punchy horns, was produced by Mark Ronson protegee MNDR (Amanda Warner), and Staples still brings it full force. She says the song is “so sassy and fire,” and who the hell are we to argue?
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Clairo, “Sexy to Someone”
The first single from her upcoming album Charm (as in, third time’s the...), “Sexy to Someone” expands Clairo’s bedroom pop with a more soulful and breezy feel. Inspired, she says, by pop polymath Harry Nilsson and jazz singer Blossom Dearie and produced live to tape by Leon Michaels (who’s worked with R&B throwback all-stars the Dap Kings), the horn-and piano-driven track juices the lyrics about loving the idea of being in love: “Sexy to somebody, it would help me out/Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house.”
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Shelby Lynne, “Over and Over”
Twenty-five years after I Am Shelby Lynne won her the Best New Artist Award at the Grammys (which she wasn’t; it was her sixth album), this remarkable and distinctive singer returns to Nashville for a new album produced by Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town, scheduled for a July release. “Over and Over” is a strange and haunting song, a meditation on a lost love (“It burns, it rages/It tears the pages”) over a tense electronic beat and rising-and-falling background vocals interwoven with almost funereal horns, held together by the pleading catch in Lynne’s voice, which still recalls Dusty Springfield after all these years.
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Olivia Rodrigo, “Obsessed”
She only recently turned 21, but Olivia Rodrigo keeps making all the right moves. Her terrific second album, Guts, leaned more into her singer-songwriter side, but for the deluxe edition, retitled Guts (Spilled), she added five new songs that steered back into the pop-punk lane. Cowritten by St. Vincent, “Obsessed” is a snarling rave-up about stalking her boyfriend’s ex, and it’s just the right mix of funny, desperate, and cathartic—a territory Rodrigo is making her own.
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Iron & Wine (feat. Fiona Apple), “All in Good Time”
Look, at this point I will take whatever Fiona Apple I can get. She wasn’t part of the writing on this gently swaying track, but she sounds fantastic alternating verses and lines with Sam Beam (who records as Iron & Wine). A spare but intricate arrangement of strings and acoustic instruments backs the pair up as they sing with humor and bite, and Apple’s voice—as Beam put it—“sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time.”
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Blondshell (feat. Bully), “Docket”
Grunge lives! Last year, L.A.-based Blondshell (Sabrina Teitelbaum) released her acclaimed self-titled debut, which had a heavy ’90s feel, while Nashville’s Bully (Alicia Bognanno) put out her fourth album, Lucky for You, proudly flying similar influences. Teaming up was natural and delivers just as it should on this ode to hooking up with guys on the road. “It’s about wanting to cope with distance and change,” said Blondshell, “but it’s also just a bit about being reckless.”
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Fabiana Palladino, “Can You Look in the Mirror?”
Fabiana Palladino is the daughter of bass god Pino Palladino, who’s held down the bottom for everyone from D’Angelo to the Who. Her debut has been a damn long time coming; she’s been releasing songs online for 13 years, and seven years ago she was the first artist signed to Jai Paul’s label. But the self-titled album was worth the wait—it’s a gem, with exactingly crafted ballads and ’80s-flavored funk sometimes revealing a Prince-like edge. The slinky, tense “Can You Look in the Mirror?” could be a lost track from Control-era Janet Jackson.
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Vampire Weekend, “Gen-X Cops”
On their fifth album, Only God Was Above Us, Vampire Weekend spend a lot of time looking back, across their own history and the passage of time that all of us face. The refrain on this propulsive, slightly raggedy track—with a wild slide guitar line that was initially recorded a dozen years ago—is “Each generation makes its own apology.” Rocking until it’s not, upbeat but introspective, named for a cult classic Hong Kong action movie, “Gen-X Cops” encapsulates the complexities of VW at their best.
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Arooj Aftab, “Raat Ki Rani”
Pakistani singer/composer Arooj Aftab was an unlikely nominee for Best New Artist at the 2022 Grammys, where she won the Best Global Music Performance trophy. A Berklee grad who’s adjacent to the NYC jazz community, she’s performed at Coachella and Glastonbury. “Raat Ki Rani” is the first single from Aftab’s upcoming Night Reign album—and no, I don’t know what she’s singing about, but it’s gorgeous and evocative, highly reminiscent of Sade at a time when we could all use that kind of calming, romantic beauty.
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Chris Stapleton, “I Should Have Known It”/Slash (feat. Chris Stapleton), ”Oh Well”
Even the best tribute albums are kind of silly. If we like an artist enough to listen to an album’s worth of their songs, do we really want to hear a bunch of covers? But Chris Stapleton is in such command right now that I’m happy for a couple of songs well-matched to his voice and blazing guitar. “I Should Have Known It” was a raucous late-career highlight for Tom Petty, and Stapleton’s version from the Petty Country collection stays pretty much note-for-note but still kills. The early, Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac hit “Oh Well” comes from Slash’s upcoming all-star blues tribute and tees up a monster riff for these two hairy dudes to burn down.
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SZA, “Saturn”
More than five years passed between SZA’s debut album, Ctrl, and 2022’s juggernaut SOS. But in December, she announced a new project called Lana, which she has alternately described as a deluxe version of SOS and a standalone record. Either way, it was good news when she previewed a song in a Grammy commercial; it’s now out in multiple mixes as the shimmering, soulful “Saturn.” With vague traces of Stevie Wonder’s paean to the ringed planet on Songs in the Key of Life, SZA yearns for a better place (“There’s got to be more,” she sings) over a track both futuristic and classic.
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Pearl Jam, “Dark Matter”
Well, they weren’t lying. The members of Pearl Jam indicated that their forthcoming album would be hard, loud, and guitar-heavy, and the crunching first single (the LP’s title track) delivers the goods. Opening with drummer Matt Cameron’s thunderous thwack and building to a ripping guitar solo, “Dark Matter” was produced by the hot hand of Andrew Watt (who handled the recent Rolling Stones album and plays in Eddie Vedder’s solo band). “Everybody else pays for someone else’s mistakes,” yowls Vedder, as the Last Classic Rock Band returns to form in a tight, head-spinning three and a half minutes.
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Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ’Em”/ “16 Carriages”
The biggest surprise of the Super Bowl (Taylor’s Version) turned out to be the announcement of new music from Queen Bey—during a Verizon ad, of all things. But then things got even more interesting when it emerged that, at least judging from the first two songs, Act II of the Renaissance trilogy would be country-flavored. Anchored by Pulitzer Prize winner Rhiannon Giddens’s banjo, the irresistible stomp “Texas Hold ’Em” made history as Houston gal Beyoncé became the first Black woman to top the country singles chart, while the dramatic, elegant “16 Carriages” is more personal (“I saw Mama cryin’/I saw Daddy lyin’”) and potentially more rewarding over time.
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Khruangbin, “A Love International”
One of the oddest stories in recent years has been the ascension of Khruangbin—a mostly instrumental, largely uncategorizable Texas trio that draws from such far-flung influences as 1960s Thai funk, dub reggae, surf rock, and Middle Eastern soul—to arena headliner status. It’s hard to think of the group in terms of songs rather than the aggregation of vibes, but “A Love International” is the first sample of their upcoming album, A LA SALA (their first in four years, following collaborations with Leon Bridges and Malian musician Vieux Farka Toure), and its swirling, gradually building propulsion is a fine representation of Khruangbin’s atmospheric, mesmerizing sonic universe.
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Brittany Howard, “Power to Undo”
After she shelved her Grammy-winning band Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard’s 2019 solo debut, Jaime, was a declaration of independence; named after her late sister, it was an expansive and personal exploration of race and love and life. The new follow-up, What Now, is more abstract and experimental, adding electronic textures and club rhythms. “Power to Undo” is infused with the spirit of Prince (who once brought the Shakes to Paisley Park to jam), all stuttery, stop-and-start funk, a slinky beat never quite settling in behind Howard’s tense, spiky guitar.
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Sarah Jarosz, “Runaway Train”
A Grammy-winning bluegrass prodigy and graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz is an Americana superhero. But for Polaroid Lovers, her seventh album (not counting the acclaimed group project I’m With Her), she tapped into the Nashville machinery for the first time, with results that are more poppy and conventional sounding, but no less impressive. The record is produced by Daniel Tashian (best known for his work with Kacey Musgraves), and contributing songwriters include some of the biggest guns in Music City, like Jon Randall on the breezy, hook-heavy lead single, “Runaway Train.”
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