Best pop songs of 2024
Music critics — myself included — have spent much of the past several years bemoaning the decline of the capital “E.” Events in music: There are no new stars to crown, no more albums to unite us, and no more hit songs that can hold our attention forever. More than a day or two. In many ways, 2024 offered a course correction for this narrative: Taylor Swift continued to dominate the charts and culture; Charli XCX has become a global star by…brat“, and the months-long feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar resulted not only in the smash hit “Not Like Us,” but also a pop culture epic whose ramifications will surely extend into the coming year.
I had a baby earlier this year, which means I’ve found myself feeling grateful for one shift in the industry that has continued: the dominance of singles. There were albums that caught me — Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet” — but during a year when my attention span was particularly frayed, I was consuming new music one song at a time. Here are some of my favorites.
“I love her”
Camila Cabello, starring as Playboy Carti
Women in pop music had a historic amount of fun this year. Camila Cabello’s last album, “C, XOXO,” was one of the most underrated albums. The centerpiece of the record is “I LUV IT,” a strange, trance-inducing track that lives somewhere in the long tail of the Hyperpop wave. (Many have speculated that some of Cabello’s stylistic nods, such as the frenzied chorus of “I love it, love it, love it, love it,” may be indebted to, or at least in conversation with, Charli XCX.)brat”) The song features a clever interpolation of Gucci Mane’s “Lemonade,” a confused and incomprehensible guest appearance from Playboi Carti, and a sudden shift in tempo befitting a night at Berghain.
“Million Dollar Baby”
Tommy Richman
Sometimes, songs explode very quickly due to some nefarious industry marketing scheme. But sometimes, as in “Million Dollar Baby” — which became ubiquitous overnight — the song just can’t be resisted. Richman, a twenty-four-year-old from Virginia, has been releasing music independently since 2016, but there’s a reason why “Million Dollar Baby” has become such a success. It’s a clever reimagining of Southern hip-hop, filled with the rhythms and vocal inflections of R.&B. and soul, and delivered with the quintessential blind swagger of a young white man walking the line between partying and appropriating. The low, crushing funk tone of the beat and Richman’s high falsetto were set to such a uniquely perfect frequency that everyone was happy to hear them over and over again.
“United”
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Luca Guadagnino wouldn’t have been able to pull off “Challengers” — a sports drama with serious comedy and a juicy love triangle — without the work of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who provided the film’s epic, driving score. The film opens on the tennis court during a high-stakes match between the two champions, and after a quiet first minute of action, Reznor and Ross’s claustrophobic, tech-savvy title track kicks in perfectly in sync with the camera work. It provides a strong, memorable introduction, and sets up a duo that is ultimately more successful than any romance in the film: the union of techno and tennis.
“Plutosky”
future
Before I had my daughter, in January, my husband and I promised each other that we would be the kind of people who played a lot of music. We had good intentions, but in reality, baby’s nap schedule doesn’t provide many opportunities to listen to music. My daughter has a penchant for jingles, and her favorite “song” is the two-second noise of Netflix starting up. So when, seven months later, she seemed to connect with Future’s “Plutoski,” a highlight from his September release, “Mixtape Pluto,” it felt like a triumph. The song is a future ideal, stubbornly anchored in the moody mode he knows best: dark and unfazed by the sinister, moody beat. My daughter responded the way I imagine the recipient would like it: with a faint little bounce and a shake of her hands, a gesture that proudly shamed me for not caring.
“Not like us”
Kendrick Lamar
This beef-ending smash hit was an unexpected marvel: a defiant West Coast track turned into a national anthem, a slam dunk scored by an angry intellectual, and an angry tirade thick with an indelible hook. Produced by DJ Mustard, one of L.A.’s most influential rap producers, the finger tap — a West Coast signature — telegraphs regional pride and identity and implicitly probes the constant back-and-forth of Drake’s style. It is no exaggeration to say that this song changed the course of music history. Moreover, it’s still fun to listen to.
“The Tortured Poets Section”
Taylor Swift