Songs are very small units of art. There are a lot of them to like! This is why song lists are usually fairly long. Indeed, it would be easy to extend this list into fifty or even one hundred songs.
But I would really like you to listen to and strongly consider all of the songs here. Really, I mean it. This is my first published songs list outside of my annual top tens, and it’s because I noticed that my understanding of the finest of this half-complete decade produces a particularly intriguing smattering of songs.
So this is actually my pitch, my plea to the keepers of the popular music canon that come 2029, perhaps some of these songs should be considered for these sorts of lists, more important ones than mine. I understand that not many of them have broad familiarity among the public, but perhaps they can be to this decade what Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” was to the 2010s, what Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” was to the 2000s, what New Order’s “Blue Monday” was to the 1980s (to Americans, anyhow). I understand this is unlikely. But this is my best attempt.
Much of this writing is directly from my past top songs of the year features, often lightly edited. But there are songs here I hadn’t written about before, and a few for which I decided to rewrite the blurbs.
Spotify playlist at the bottom of the article. You’re really gonna want to listen to that one.
25. “The Window”
by Ratboys
The heart of Ratboys’ breakthrough The Window is its towering title track, a heartbreaking song about how COVID kept frontwoman Julia Steiner’s grandparents just apart in her grandmother’s final moments. Not only was the sixty-year marriage cut short by the pandemic, but they were robbed of the proper dignity that had usually been allowed in those last days. But “The Window” doesn’t linger on this injustice and treats the window as matter-of-fact, no time for worrying about the particulars. Steiner’s affected vocal elevates “The Window,” and it climaxes with “Sue, Sue, you’ll always be my girl” repeated on the bridge. In 2020, I said “marjorie” was a perfect anthem for a year when we lost too many grandparents to COVID. With “The Window,” unfortunately, a fantastic song literally about that actually exists.
24. “Chaise Longue”
by Wet Leg
Is this a novelty song? Wet Leg’s debut single reads like a fairly unremarkable set of inside jokes between friends. It’s not that the Mean Girls reference is actually funny. It’s that Rhian Teasdale’s delivery of the verses makes it sound like Wet Leg actually have access to the bureaucratic processes by which they assign people to butter one’s muffin. Teasdale plays it all so straight, giving this dumb shit the energy of hypertopical British post-punk that’s about concrete blocks or whatever.
Then the chorus is looney tunes, like a theme song you’d hear to introduce your favorite show on the Cartoon Network. It’s the played-straight verses contrasting here that really makes the trick work, that you really appreciate how much fun is being had here. This is how Wet Leg made the dumbest song ever sound like a revolution.
23. “Bad Habit”
by Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy fits right in as “Bad Habit”‘s nervous underdog. Its theme of unrequited like – “I wish I knew you wanted me,” “thought you were too good for me, my dear” – might seem trite, but Lacy really nails that broad experience of preemptive self-rejection. It helps that Lacy doesn’t over-focus on the missed opportunity and instead hones in on the mental trap that will create more of them. It’s also a unique piece of music. “Bad Habit” sounds dreamlike thanks to Lacy’s guitars and backing vocals, and its instrumentation is gentle even when the drum machine is going crazy in the back half. Sometimes a song works so well that the boldly obvious actually wins you dominion over the emotion.
22. “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”
by PinkPantheress & Ice Spice
Around half of “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” was already figured out with, you guessed it, “Boy’s a liar.” That part one actually peaked at #38 on the UK charts but didn’t appear on the Hot 100. You’ll note that the difference between a modest chart success and the out-of-nowhere smash of 2023 (non-country division) is Ice Spice. Her more self-assured verse contrasts PinkPantheress’s more devastated sincerity: “Bet he blowin’ her back/Thinkin’ ’bout me ’cause he know that it’s fat.” It’s just a crazy moment of pop alchemy that hasn’t just worked, but worked wonders. There’s another song still to come on this list that also features two women who finally realize some guy doesn’t care about them. That song’s a blast too, but “Boy’s a liar” sets itself apart through its breezy sound, keeping things light. A guy sucks, but it’s really not that serious. It’s fun to talk about, even.
PS: I might actually like this song better if it was like it sounds, and PP is telling us “that boy’s a Leo,” tapping into the ongoing astrology craze. That said, I have no idea if the song’s subject is actually exhibiting Leo-like behavior.
21. “Not Gonna Die”
by Will Butler
Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire, was outraged at coverage of the 2015 Paris Attacks. From that, he wrote “Not Gonna Die,” which rejects the media-induced feeling that you might meet your end at any moment. “I won’t be killed by a refugee” was a necessary sentiment during the emerging era of anti-immigrant fervor then, and it is now. An immigrant is not going to kill you. Your fear of immigrants is not a real problem. You’re going to die of an average heart attack.
Butler builds the hell out of the song, climaxing with a choir joining him to scream “QUIT SAYING THAT!” The song earns the grand treatment. I find this song very moving while in a city that people tell me I should be afraid to live in. Quit saying that my neighbor’s gonna kill me!
Ironically, he released the song in a year where if he died in the hospital, he absolutely would not have been surrounded by strangers.
This is easily the least popular song on this list. Please listen to it.
20. “Angel Of My Dreams”
by JADE
After intro-ing with that big, bright chorus, “Angel Of My Dreams” quickly descends into Hell. Thirteen years after Little Mix was One-Directioned together on The X Factor, JADE feels cheated, and she expresses her feelings through a chaotic smorgasbord of pop elements. There’s the demonic, driving pulse and the contrasting versions of the chorus, the ones at the bookends hefty and brilliant, the ones between frantic and twisted. Pop songs abound about not getting everything you’re promised in the trade, but “Angel Of My Dreams” has a particularly sharp ire, as it seems specifically targeted. Can’t imagine a more satisfying resolution for Mixers everywhere.
Who needs Simon Le Cowell?
19. “Not Strong Enough”
by boygenius
“Not Strong Enough”‘s first verse (courtesy Phoebe) introduces a pretty standard “running into poor mental health in the standard everyplace” setup but pulls the rug out in the second (courtesy Julien): “I lied! I am/Just lowering your expectations.” It’s a delightful betrayal in the moment, but it raises a pretty knotty question about the possibility of taking space for oneself giving way to lack of accountability in a partner. And while it’s unclear if this thought is turned squarely inward or outward, that epic, repeated bridge line, “Always an angel, never a god,” hints at a gendered dynamic. That bridge and the finale (courtesy Lucy) feel cleansing, like a heightened moment of awareness (“there’s something in the static, I think I’ve been having revelations”). “Go home alone” is framed as a new development, perhaps the manipulator from the second refrain has been dropped.
Or, I dunno. That’s what I got from this song. Thank you for humoring me. You might have gotten something else entirely. It’s a tough one to penetrate. I really just think the guitars and harmonies hit in exactly the perfect way to totally justify the boygenius project, which has somehow massively raised the profile of each individual artist. My favorite moment from their well-deserved banner year.
18. “good 4 u”
by Olivia Rodrigo
SOUR made its bones on Olivia Rodrigo’s hyperspecific details, so it’s funny that its finest song is its broadest. She keeps things as simple as possible here, methodically outlining that her ex’s happiness is not only at her expense but in fact because of her in the first place, Rodrigo finding no consolation that her efforts to find him a therapist will make things smoother for the next girl. Rodrigo’s sour grapes kick tons of ass, her hair-raising backing vocals and “LIKE A DAMN SOCIOPATH!!!” should put the fear of God in this guy, however happy he was before this sucker dropped.
17. “Sad React”
by Emperor X
“Sad React” is a funny observation about how silly the titular Facebook reaction feels when it fits too many things, how insufficient and anodyne the sad react comes off when someone makes a post about some international tragedy. But while the song is a little funny, Chad Matheny is also thinking about some real shit. “One of my friends got a new tattoo/Of the Black Sun and the Fourteen Words in fluorescent blue” is how the song begins, in competition for bleakest opening couplet ever. There are moments of levity (“grandpa gets caught in a thunderstorm,” “somebody just stole my laundry”), but “Sad React” finds Matheny going for the jugular more than he usually does: “They threw our friends in a labor camp,” “they fill a high school with tear gas,” “a smashed up flatscreen on a mass grave of human shields.”
Matheny released this song in January of 2020. One year later, the pandemic made people rely on Facebook for life, community, and –oh god – news more than ever before. Five years later, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be prioritizing more “free speech” at the expense of doing even less to combat misinformation.
“We’ll watch the next holocaust livestreamed on NBC/And we’ll just sad react.”
16. “Super Shy”
by NewJeans
Longtime readers will know that K-pop is not generally something I’ve made myself hip to. So please realize I’m not holding up “Super Shy” as the only K-pop single in years that’s worthy of one of these features, but instead as a come-to-Jesus moment (and no, I’m not given any credit for already loving “Gee”). Anyway! “Super Shy” feels distinct. It’s airy, breezy, lightweight. Its backing track has propulsive little video game sounds. Actually, that all sounds kind of like #22 on this list. But that song comes from an artist who, despite it feeling like she broke through that same year, still has not had much additional resounding chart success. That other song is lightning striking. NewJeans, a recent development in the K-pop hierarchy that you will absolutely need to pay attention to, tries the sound on in a more real-deal pop machine vibe, and the mopey-on-paper “you don’t even know my name, do ya?” hook sounds more like confidence. Is the consequence of shyness that this guy has to wait a minute? A/Bing this with this Steve Lacy, this list’s #23, my belief that NewJeans are authentically super shy is rather shaken. But authenticity is for losers, and “Super Shy” is a fresh context for these enduring concepts.
15. “namesake”
by Noname
Honestly, for much of its runtime, “namesake” is really good but nothing all that special. Then Noname brings up the NFL and Jay-Z. And look, yeah, the NFL’s promotion of the military industrial complex is a pretty fire thing to bring up in a rap song. And yeah, sure, fuck Jay-Z, not really a shocking guy to hate on, he’s pretty content to be a punchline. But Noname brings in Rihanna. She brings in Beyoncé. And she brings in Kendrick. These are three of the most beloved names in music, and it’s not just that she disrespects them. Noname makes them sound small. Unimportant. And she is hypnotically gleeful about it, her smile bouncing around the end of this song like the Cheshire Cat’s. You’ll see “propaganda for the military complex” quoted in a lot of blurbs about this song, but for me it’s more about the way she hits those syllables. And she’s not just out here hating. She takes a brief moment to reflect on her own hypocrisy.
Also, that bit about “the same gun that shot Samir in the West Bank” hits a little harder since release.
14. “Next Girl”
by Carly Pearce
On Valentine’s Day of 2020, Carly Pearce released her second album, partly inspired by her new marriage. Just half a year but many world events later, Pearce dropped this absolute scorcher warning anyone who finds themselves involved with Michael Ray. Key to “Next Girl” is that Pearce confronts that her mistake made sense. The guy was hot. He knew just what to say. It will work on the next girl too, unless she can intervene.
Co-written with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne of “Merry Go ‘Round” fame, to wildly understate their prolificness, “Next Girl” is stacked with sharp lines, and while Pearce’s should-be-classic album 29: Unwritten In Stone largely grapples with her own sadness about the whole situation, this is the one where she lets herself get really spicy. And when it came out, it might have been the best country song released since, well, “Merry Go ‘Round.”
13. “Happy New Year”
by Let’s Eat Grandma
In addition to genius collaborator SOPHIE dying in 2021, co-lead Jenny Hollingworth’s boyfriend Billy Clayton died after a battle with cancer in the spring of 2019, after which the childhood best friends canceled their US tour and found themselves living apart for the first time. Communication between the two broke down, and they struggled to get to the bottom of their rocky period. And despite all that, through multiple deaths and hardship, here we are. Two Ribbons was one of 2022’s most underrated albums, an emotional wallop, and its finest song was its opener by Rosa Walton about how the two found each other again: “I’d wanted the old us back,” “and now we’ve grown in different ways.” Though it’s specifically about Hollingworth and Walton, its journey through simpler times of their friendship and coming to terms with their changing landscape are universally beautiful, and they bring out their usual synthpop for their finest and grandest arrangement yet. “Happy New Year” digs into the tough times and hard conversations, but it is a celebration of making it out on the other end.
“Because you know you’ll always be my best friend, and look at what we made it through.”
12. “Wilder Days”
by Morgan Wade
There’s nothing like a great love song that finds a new angle. Morgan Wade finds a way to inject some additional longing into an already-existing relationship. In “Wilder Days,” Wade is haunted by the young man she didn’t get to meet, even if she has him now. Her fantasies get detailed enough that we learn that in her dreams she’s the same age even though he’s younger. We also learn what they’d do in a hotel lobby.
It’s already a great premise, but it’s sold by Wade’s vocal. Wade’s yowl – which might require you to look up a few lyrics because they’re slurred in an Eddie Vedder sort of way – sells that chorus so well, conveying her ache with power without letting it slip into sadness.
11. “Good Luck, Babe!”
by Chappell Roan
With a backing track sounding like it came out of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” session, “Good Luck, Babe!” is the cherry on top of Chappell Roan’s ascent – the clear music story of 2024. And it isn’t characterized by a sort of magic the way “Pink Pony Club” is and it isn’t laced with pop crack the way “HOT TO GO!” is. It’s just her strongest piece of songwriting yet, bolstered by a skilled and restrained vocal. It’s perhaps the most horrifying sendoff to a failed love you might hear in a pop song (reminiscent of 2024’s cult hit I Saw The TV Glow): if you won’t get with me, what if you’re never yourself?
10. “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake”
by Doechii
Doechii – then going by Iamdoechii – introduced herself to the world in September 2020 with “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake,” and it’s the most arresting breakout rap single since “212.” It’s an explicit introduction to Doechii framed through her childhood neuroses. The classroom teacher (also played by her) asks new kid Doechii to please introduce herself to the class. She gets more than she bargained for.
She’s supremely confident. She’s got jokes (“I’m pulling out my teeth so I wake up to the cash”). Most importantly, she’s versatile. Halfway in, the song switches gears into something smoother and more vivid. She shouts out Barbara Park and Paramore. “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake” is a perfect showcase for this new talent, showing off her technical skill and musical chops while actually showing us how her brain works. It’s a wonder that it took her four whole years for her hype to finally match the promise of this first strike.
9. “American Teenager”
by Ethel Cain
Not since “Merry Go ‘Round” has a great song been so biting about small town USA, but Ethel Cain sets “American Teenager” apart by instead sending things skyward, putting together such an emotionally convincing piece of heartland rock that Obama missed the implications. The point is actually that the hopefulness is the tragedy, the character begging “Jesus, if you’re listening, let me handle my liquor” and fighting off doubt with promises of better things to come: “Just give it one more day, and you’re done,” “It’s just not my year.” Like the next one will be.
8. “DAMN DANIEL”
by Bree Runway (ft. Baby Tate)
For its first two minutes and fourteen seconds, “DAMN DANIEL” might actually sound more at home in the early 2000s, like as an album track or one of the lesser singles from some Missy Elliott album. Characters Keisha and Felicia each get their kicks with Danny before their worst suspicions about their lack of presence on his Instagram materialize.
Then 2:14 hits. Missy never did this.
They find power in their shared knowledge and spread the word to their community: If you fuck with him, he’ll fuck all your friends. Don’t trust the man!
They’re not sad for getting played. They’re finding enough joy in what revenge can be had.
7. “All My Exes Live In Vortexes”
by Rosie Tucker
Did you know:
1. Amazon workers skip bathroom breaks and pee in bottles in order to keep their jobs?
2. Packaging is the world’s largest source of plastic waste, comprising about 40% of all plastic waste?
3. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a mass of plastic in the North Pacific Ocean around the size of Alaska, and apparently a Dutch nonprofit has plans to clean it up within ten years, pending financial support?
4. The plastic industry basically lied to everyone, and very little plastic ever gets recycled?
5. Even in the case of plastic that does get recycled, it degrades with every turnover?
But we’re all just middle-sized fish. So it’s not really on us.
Anyway. This song is about a failing relationship.
6. “Chosen To Deserve”
by Wednesday
Couples aren’t really obligated to report to each other if they, say, were present for a friend overdosing on Benadryl when they were a teenager, but Karly Hartzman clearly holds some shame she’d be relieved to unload in her relationship. But there’s still no doubt in her framing. Her partner was chosen. She’s saying “thank God” in the same breath she’s remembering pissing in the street.
And if this is the extent of Hartzman’s rap sheet, she’s right not to worry. Still, it’s all a little gross, right? The Benadryl, the piss, the…sex underneath the dogwood tree sounds almost romantic without the details about the cul-de-sac and the SUV. And that she teaches at the Sunday school during all of this?
The Benadryl verse is what really stays with me. First of all, it sounds like a pretty pathetic way to get high. Secondly, Hartzman’s voice is scary here. Notice the way she rises into “he had to get his stomach pumped.” But I really linger on the way she sings “they took him,” something about Hartzman’s delivery setting in my mind that her friend was practically a bag of meat before medical intervention.
“Chosen To Deserve” is a modern classic not just because of its novel concept and vivid origin stories, but because Hartzman’s vocal delivery slowly crawls over every detail and, it must be mentioned, that guitar riff is incredible. With music to match Hartzman’s writing and performance, “Chosen To Deserve” was instantly one of the classic indie rock songs of the 2020s.
5. “Not Like Us”
by Kendrick Lamar
It was game two of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Denver Nuggets and our Minnesota Timberwolves, and Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker had just done this to Jamal Murray. I looked at my phone for probably the fiftieth time already that game, and oh god. Oh shit.
Now deep into their beef, Drake and Kendrick had just traded sprawling and nauseatingly messy tracks late the night prior within half an hour of each other. Kendrick planned things so he’d have the last word of the night, but here he was back for more. The single’s “cover” was presumably an image of Drake’s house, lovingly marked in the way a sex offender registry map might be. Yet another thing you react to by widening your eyes, shaking your head, and moving your head slightly back as if you were taking a small amount of psychic damage on Drake’s behalf. We were all getting fairly used to that ritual.
DJ Mustard had taken Monk Higgins’ cover of Ray Charles’ “I Believe To My Soul” and used two samples to fairly opposite ends. The “Not Like Us” intro and pre-chorus sounds like a party. Kendrick Lamar is here to declare and celebrate victory. We are all invited to the party. The sample that runs throughout, meanwhile, sounds evil, like the song that plays when the villain unleashes his henchmen. The gleeful hatred of “Not Like Us” is a feeling that doesn’t leave you.
And Kendrick, giving us his best Drakeo the Ruler flow, expands our minds regarding what we might find in a diss track. You can just flat out call the guy a pedophile. You can deliver a 5/10 joke so well that the entire country will learn it. And most unexpectedly of all, Kendrick could give a brief history lesson before dressing down The Drake Effect – a bump Drake can give to a smaller artist often thought of as an act of benevolence – as an act of colonization.
“Not Like Us” was the song of 2024 not just for its power, although there was certainly that. The last time Drake got destroyed in an exchange of diss tracks, he immediately shrugged it off and spent fourteen of the next seventeen weeks at the top of the Hot 100. This time, you’d hear an apologetic tone in people’s voice whenever anyone said a positive word about his music. Perhaps this will stop after Kendrick ceases his parade of reminders: a livestreamed concert film, a music video, a surprise album, a Super Bowl Halftime performance, a stadium tour…I could say a lot about all of this, but I’ll spare you.
But “Not Like Us” is the landmark it is because it viscerally taps into feelings of revenge, power, and hate. And finding joy therein. It’s pretty disgusting, but for four and a half minutes, it’s a pretty great time.
Not about who the greatest, it’s always been about love and hate.
(This is real.)
4. “Tennessee Orange”
by Megan Moroney
Sometimes a song just has a perfect concept. Megan Moroney replaces the Montagues and the Capulets with the Volunteers and the Bulldogs, and she’s Juliet. The chorus is huge, and Moroney’s vocal just sounds so affected by new love. A few of this guy’s traits – he opens the door, he don’t make her cry – are fairly unimpressive, but it’s enough that these expectations sound new and beautiful to Moroney. And anyway, he feels like home. So she risks the ire of her family by indulging her boyfriend’s college football obsession. She’s wearing Tennessee Orange for him. Hell, she’s learning the words to “Old Rocky Top.” For the finale, Moroney lets us know she hasn’t totally lost herself by adding a line to the chorus: “And I still want the Dawgs to win.”
You don’t have to buy into the idea that a Georgian dating a Tennesseean is all that far-fetched to appreciate “Tennessee Orange,” and you don’t have to have a knowledge of or even tolerance of college football. It’s all just a device to express the ways in which this young woman is in love. And honestly, it probably won’t work out, and that’s fine. Maybe she’ll stop being impressed by held doors. Maybe she’ll ask the next guy if he feels comfortable wearing some Georgia Red. But Moroney so excellently depicts this innocent, naive moment that it is enough.
3. “Want Me”
by Baby Queen
Bella Latham launched her career in 2020, while everyone was stuck at home. Maybe the unfortunate timing is why she still hasn’t caught on, because she is up there with the best pop writers of the last few years. Early singles were largely diagnoses of a rotting society: internet addiction, body dysmorphia and Facetune, and stuffy assholes who deserve to have their party ruined. Then there was “Want Me,” which Latham wrote after a Killing Eve binge sparked an obsession with Jodie Comer.
That’s a fun fact, but the Comer of it all doesn’t change much in “Want Me.” “I’m lying on the floor typing your name into the internet” lands a tad softer when the person in question is a celebrity, but the ultra-intensity of “Want Me” is actually welcome. Wanting someone in this way is absolutely not advisable. But it happens anyway. And Latham gives this feeling, and I am not saying this lightly, one of the best pop songs of all time.
Her verses spill out as if they’re uncontainable, and the severity of the lines never lets up. “My brain is dissipated, and you’re where it used to be.” That sort of thing. Then that chorus just radiates. Latham isn’t just feeling these things, she’s proposing that she’ll go anywhere you want to go. “Why don’t you swap me for your shadow?” And producer King Ed turns that post-chorus “want me, want me, if you want me” into a delirious celebration of this mess. And this all builds to a finale so catchy that it justifiably repeats thrice.
It’s not a love song. It’s something more wrong, more twisted, more cringe. But that’s more fun than a love song.
2. “Expert In A Dying Field”
by The Beths
Sometimes you hear a song and think, okay that’s the best thing they’ll ever write. “Expert in a Dying Field” is such a moment, Elizabeth Stokes absolutely stuffing the thing with heartstabbers: “I can flee the country for the worst of the year, but I’ll come back to it,” “All of my notes in a desolate pile I haven’t touched in an age,” “I can close the door on us but the room still exists,” “Love is learned over time!” And then she repeats that desperate, mocking HOW DOES IT FEEL as rueful and haunting as Bob Dylan’s.
With this, Stokes put herself in the company of today’s greatest songwriters. “Expert in a Dying Field” is the best rock song of the young decade, and it takes its place as one of the all-time great breakup songs.
1. “The Best God Damn Band In Wyoming”
by No-No Boy
Graduate student Julian Saporiti was making his way through a Wyoming museum when he came upon a picture of a band at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, a Japanese internment camp. He was so blown away to find such a thing existed that he tracked down singer Joy Teraoka, struck up a friendship, and wrote this song to help the history endure.
Saporiti’s songwriting and performing approaches are pretty simple, but he gets a lift from the tenderness with which he approaches his topics. Here, he gets into this one like it was the song he was put on this earth to sing. Indeed, the topic is particularly close to him, and set him on the path of writing these songs for his dissertation in American Studies.
And though this is a tale of finding joy in tragedy, it still can’t escape the dark conclusion underneath. The story ends with Yone going to fight for the country that just imprisoned him. Still, the epilogue finishes with the only line that could have ended this song: “Locked up in prison camps for no fucking reason, but they still found a reason to sing.”
Saporiti has a gift for making songs out of untold history, often in a way that fills out our understanding of some well-known event, however slightly. “The Best God Damn Band In Wyoming” is particularly successful in his catalogue, the strongest expression of his ability to turn large-scale events into human stories. I remain in awe of “The Best God Damn Band In Wyoming” as a musical achievement, and would be unsurprised if in five years no other song from the 2020s had moved me more.
Joey Daniewicz 