My Top Songs of 2024

One of the most rewarding things about the holiday season is the opportunity to reflect. Throughout the year, we are constantly on the go, eager to fill up our already busy schedules, often times failing to allow ourselves a moment to breathe. But right at the end, with Christmas and New Year’s Eve a week apart, we are forced to a halt as we recognize the year’s finality. Some people reflect with year-end recaps on Instagram. Others reflect with lists for the best songs they heard that year. I’ll let you guess which one I am.

I’ve always looked forward to my year-end reviews, often preplanning where songs will land as the year progresses. Each song on this list serves as a spot on the calendar, and with each play, it’s almost like transporting back to that time. Maybe that’s why your favorite songs are from your college years, or why your favorite artist’s best songs are always their old stuff. When a song can capture that nostalgic connection, you can almost feel something special occurring. 

So as I sit here and comb through my Spotify’s liked songs, I’m transported back to a weekend in August, or maybe a random Tuesday in March when I discovered a new album. There’s plenty of songs to build connections with, and with the new year comes both new experiences to find with new songs, and reflection.

Enough sentimental writing. Now time to vomit-write my top 20 songs of 2024, with some of the worst jokes you’ve ever read weaved in-between them.  (Side note, if you'd like a cheat sheet, click here for secret access to the playlist)

20. “Is This How It Ends?” – Wage War

Ironically, no, this is how it begins. This year’s teeth-shattering STIGMA is ten tracks of Wage War at their purest, remorseless form. Plus, they start the album off with a song telling you it’s starting, then end the album with a song asking if it’s ending. Thank you for the clarification, Wage War.

19. “What About The Children” – Gary Clark Jr., Stevie Wonder

Take a trip with me back to ’77, as Gary Clark Jr.’s funky, yeehaw guitar riffs mesh well with both harmonicas and Stevie Wonder’s ancient (yet somehow still amazing) vocals.

18. “can u see me in the dark?” – Halestorm, I Prevail

We are 3/3 with song titles on this list being questions. Here’s another question for you: is this the best piece of music Halestorm has put out in their 16-year existence?

17. “blind” – Clubhouse

When I initially had “blind” on this list, I thought I’d make a comment about this unknown band Clubhouse with an ensnaring, cozy aura. However, a week after their album what a view! was released in October, their lead singer died after a six-year battle with a rare bone cancer. This band’s entire discography was recorded with their frontman in between chemo treatments. Making this an even more intense, emotional, and all-around beautiful song.

16. “DEVIL IS A LIE” – Tommy Richman

If I told you to name your favorite Tommy Richman song, chances are you’d give one of two answers: the most overplayed song in TikTok history, or the correct answer, which is this song. "DEVIL IS A LIE" is the much better, more attractive, smarter, and more promising younger sibling that will unfortunately always live under its big brother’s shadow.

15. “Ain’t How It Ends” – Post Malone

Post Malone’s transition into country this year couldn’t have been more well-received and welcomed, but no one’s talking about those nine bonus tracks on F-1 Trillion: Long Bed. And ya know what, I must do something about that.

14. “bad habit” – Four Year Strong

Four Year Strong’s analysis paralysis is kind of like a traveling carnival in how it’s a fever-dream of fun, really good considering how old the parts are, a little dangerous if you don’t keep your arms by your side, and that cracked-out dog should not be around all these children.

13.  “Time :: Fate :: Karma :: God” – Nothing But Thieves

There’s nothing I can say about Conor Mason’s vocals and Nothing But Thieves musicianship that I haven’t said in previous year-end reviews. However, I did see them live in 2024 for the first time, and not even joking, it might have been the best concert I’ve ever witnessed.

12. “Beautiful People (Stay High)” – The Black Keys

If The Black Keys are one thing, they’re consistent. No matter how many unnecessary and shitty decisions they make on their albums (I’m looking at you, Lil Noid and Juicy J features), they’re still going to give us a lead single that's a rock-anthem banger.  

11. “misses” – Dominic Fike

Dominic Fike never really misses (pun intended) with his music, but his fourteen-minute EP14 minutes would've been great if the production was just... normal. But Fike's music is not normal, which is what sets him apart and makes songs like "misses" shine when they do land.

10. “Madman” – Hippo Campus

It’s both refreshing and kinda weird to see Hippo Campus hit their stride while also maturing their sound. Almost like seeing that the middle school classmate of yours that used to snort chocolate milk at lunch now has a job as a real estate agent.

9. “You’ve Got The Nerve” – Bad Nerves

There’s something unique about the punishing yet melodic punk that Bad Nerves has put out in their young career. Listening to “You’ve Got The Nerve” for the first time is what it must feel like to be a naïve yet hungry little fish, innocently biting that juicy looking hook, and then getting snatched out of the water and made to waterski by a speedboat now going 110mph.

Illustration, for those struggling to visualize

8. “360” – Charli xcx

Nobody had a grip on 2024’s throat quite like Charli xcx did. And boy, did BRAT clamp down and make you use the safe word. “360”, the introductory kiss on the forehead that for some reason has a little tongue, left everyone wanting to be “so Julia.” Whatever the hell that means.

7. “Midwest Indigo” – Twenty One Pilots

Hey there, 2013 TØP, nice to see you again. “Midwest Indigo” visually and lyrically tells us about a cold relationship in a cold setting, while sonically giving us a catchy summer song to surf and sunburn to. Leaving us all seasonally confused.

6. “Gardens III” – Logic

Logic being on my list is a given. Yeah, so what. But Logic’s entire career has been hinting and leading up to Ultra 85, which he released in 2024 as both an album and novel. In a career with high highs and canyon-level lows, he hit Ultra 85 into orbit, with the most creative narrative and the most vulnerable song of his career found on the album. However, "Gardens III," with its phenomenal production and kinky bassline, may be Logic and his producer 6ix’s best creation yet.

5. “Undecided” – Christian Kuria, Cautious Clay

There seems to always be at least one random synthpop banger that makes my list, and this little-known gem climbs all the way to #5. Cautious Clay had some making up to do after releasing his head-scratching jazz album KARPEH in 2023, but his feature with Kuria here is a perfect vocal blend over an addicting melody.

4. “uncooked” – Four Year Strong

Honey, that Four Year Strong cracked-out dog from ten spots ago is still following us. Grab the kids, we’re going home.

3. “Afterimage” – Northlane, Karnivool

There may not be a metal frontman that adds more distinction and variety to his band than Northlane lead singer Marcus Bridge. Funny enough, he’s lead singer only because he won a YouTube contest a decade ago when Northlane turned to their fans to find their next lead singer. Today, his ability to switch from angelic harmonies to smooth yet dominant screams delivers a range to Northlane’s sound that is truly incomparable, and his skills are shown front-and-center in “Afterimage,” with Ian Kenny of Karnivool tagging along and shoving our face in the dirt.

2. “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE/ SOUND” – Nothing More

Alright, #2 technically has two songs sharing the spot, but hear me out: these two combined together creates storytelling simply with their unified sound. We start with “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE,” which is a seesaw between a quiet tiptoe down the hallway and an urgent sprint away from the monster chasing you. However, for the last minute of the song, we’re given an electronic/hip-hop instrumental that seems like a hiding spot to catch our breath. Before we know it, the song bleeds directly into the epilogue "SOUND," with Alan Watts serving as both the narrator and voice in our head. And once he concludes his monologue, just like that, we’ve been found and are forced to sprint from our hiding spot and to our demise.

As you can tell by this in-depth interpretation, I feel passionately that the two songs must be consumed as one entity, as the sense of adrenaline that the combined songs gives is something that cannot be replicated in less than five minutes.

1.    “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” – Bring Me The Horizon

Long-awaited by fans (songs released in 2021 finally found their forever home on this album), the amount of lore hiding in Bring Me The Horizon’s 2024’s project, POST HUMAN: Nex GEn is enough to queue the Charlie Day pinboard meme. Let’s tackle the lore elements together, starting mild and ending in another dimension:

• Damn, the epileptic caps lock gets pretty annoying pretty fast on the album

• Granted, the rollercoaster of capital letters does distract you from the fact that this is the worst song title of all time, being named after... this? Either way, it's earned #1 on our list of the "top 10 worst song titles that cried blood."

• It seems each song has odd screams from hell at the end, right? Actually, those are audio snippets in the form of spectrograms, with the visual audio waves creating hidden messages and a QR code.

• Where does that QR code take you? Well, to this website, which requires a desktop and a passcode (Reddit has already taken care of the passcode for you). Once inside, you can unlock unreleased instrumentals, anime wallpapers of the band, and additional lore about this cyberpunk-gone-dystopia story.

 ANYWAY… all of that to say, BMTH put a lot of effort in this project, and “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” is fresh yet nostalgic, with a crisp mid-2000’s pop punk sound that’ll make you want to chug a Monster and binge watch Rob & Big on MTV.

And we're done. Thanks for making it this far. Now, I want to know what your top songs of 2024 are!