The best all-around song of 2024 was Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was the year’s defining crossover hit, while Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!,” and Adrianne Lenker’s “Sadness as a Gift” represent the range of songwriting that made the year memorable.
Since 2024 is complete, this updated title treats the subject as a retrospective rather than a literal midyear list. “Best” here means a blend of critical acclaim, craft, cultural impact, genre innovation, listenability, and measurable reach—not a claim that one ranking can settle every listener’s taste.
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The best all-around song of 2024 was Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” The year’s strongest crossover record was Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” while Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!,” and Adrianne Lenker’s “Sadness as a Gift” show how widely the year’s best songwriting ranged.
Because 2024 is now complete, this is a retrospective rather than a literal “so far” list. The selection below is not presented as an objective or universally agreed ranking. It combines critical recognition, songwriting, cultural impact, innovation, listenability, and audience reach.
#1 Best Overall
How this list defines “best”
No single publication or award determines the definitive songs of a year. Pitchfork’s 100-song survey emphasized the emergence of a new pop class, regional rap, country crossovers, sexy drill, and the year’s biggest cultural smash. The Guardian’s 20-song list was voted on by 26 music writers. TIME selected 10 tracks across rap, country, folk, and R&B, while the Associated Press published a 10-song selection in no particular order.
Those lists do not agree on every track, and that is useful. Chart performance identifies songs that reached enormous audiences; critics often reward unusual structures, detailed writing, or a distinctive sonic world. The selections here try to hold both standards together without pretending they are the same thing.
The 10 essential songs of 2024
1. Kendrick Lamar — “Not Like Us”
“Not Like Us” is the clearest centerpiece of 2024 because it transformed a highly publicized rap feud into a buoyant, instantly memorable West Coast anthem. Its production is bright and propulsive, its hook is impossible to miss, and Lamar delivers each line with the timing of someone turning a complicated public conflict into a communal chant.
That accessibility should not obscure the seriousness of the song’s accusations. They emerged from a contentious public dispute and should not be treated as independently established facts simply because the record became a hit. But as a piece of popular music, “Not Like Us” demonstrated an unusual ability to make a specific moment feel immediate, funny, bombastic, and culturally inescapable.
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2. Shaboozey — “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” was 2024’s most convincing crossover record. Shaboozey borrows the rhythmic and melodic memory of J-Kwon’s “Tipsy,” then places it inside a country framework of guitars, drinking-song familiarity, and communal barroom energy. The result feels recognizable without sounding like a simple genre exercise.
The song’s achievement is partly structural: it gives listeners an immediate refrain, a relaxed vocal performance, and a beat that works equally well at a party, on country radio, or in a pop playlist. It also became a significant genre-crossing marker, reaching No. 1 simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts.
The Associated Press identified it as the biggest song of the year and reported that it tied “Old Town Road” with 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. That record-setting reach does not automatically make a song artistically superior, but here the popularity reflects the record’s central strength: it sounds built for a crowd.
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3. Billie Eilish — “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”
“BIRDS OF A FEATHER” presents Billie Eilish in a softer, more openly romantic mode. Twinkling synths and a clean, polished arrangement give the track the shape of a modern power ballad, but Eilish avoids the inflated vocal drama that often accompanies that format.
Its emotional force comes from the tension between certainty and vulnerability. The song imagines unwavering connection while allowing a trace of doubt to remain in the performance. That apparent uncertainty becomes expressive rather than limiting, giving the track a warmth that feels distinct within Eilish’s catalog.
The song’s 2025 Grammy Song of the Year nomination reinforces its songwriting stature, but its appeal is not dependent on awards. “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” works because the melody is immediate, the production leaves room for the vocal, and the sentiment is direct without becoming generic.
4. Chappell Roan — “Good Luck, Babe!”
“Good Luck, Babe!” is one of the defining songs of 2024’s new pop class. Its theatrical vocal delivery, dramatic synth-pop scale, and sharply drawn emotional premise give it the feeling of a classic pop single while keeping its personality unmistakably contemporary.
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Roan sings from the perspective of someone watching another person deny what they want. That setup could have produced a standard breakup song, but the performance gives it a larger stage: wounded, sarcastic, glamorous, and almost operatic without losing the intimacy of the writing.
The track became an important symbol of Roan’s rapid emergence and was recognized in the 2025 Grammy Song of the Year field. More importantly, it illustrates what made 2024’s pop resurgence so compelling: personality mattered as much as polish, and theatricality could still sound emotionally precise.
5. Beyoncé — “TEXAS HOLD ’EM”
“TEXAS HOLD ’EM” was a defining country-pop crossover and the most accessible doorway into Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter era. The song uses banjo, handclaps, a rolling rhythm, and a welcoming chorus, but it does not treat country as a costume. Beyoncé’s vocal command remains central even as the arrangement opens toward roots music and dance-floor participation.
The track also carried cultural significance beyond its immediate hook. It placed a major Black pop artist at the center of a country conversation that has often narrowed the genre’s history and audience. The song’s success made that expansion difficult to ignore.
“TEXAS HOLD ’EM” received a 2025 Grammy Song of the Year nomination. It belongs on this list not only as a hit, but as a record that made genre boundaries feel unusually visible—and unusually flexible.
6. Sabrina Carpenter — “Espresso”
“Espresso” is one of 2024’s most efficient pop singles. It is compact, hook-heavy, lightly ironic, and built around a vocal persona that sounds amused by its own confidence. Carpenter does not over-sing the song; she lets phrasing, timing, and small changes in emphasis do much of the work.
The production is similarly economical. Every element supports the central hook, and the arrangement moves quickly enough to encourage repeat listens without feeling unfinished. That balance is harder to achieve than it sounds.
“Espresso” represents the commercial side of 2024’s new pop class: a song that became ubiquitous because it was immediately legible, but remained distinctive because Carpenter gave its familiar pop architecture a specific comic and flirtatious voice. For readers who prefer formal songwriting recognition, “Please Please Please”—also discussed below—makes an excellent companion track.
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“360” represents the club-facing, internet-literate side of 2024 pop. Its appeal is less about traditional ballad-style songwriting than about attitude, rhythmic economy, production identity, and cultural vocabulary.
Charli xcx turns a tightly controlled beat into a statement of self-awareness. The song understands the mechanics of image, status, and online repetition, then uses those mechanics as musical material. Its short phrases and clipped momentum make it feel designed for a culture where a line, pose, or visual idea can travel independently of the full song.
The track’s importance is therefore partly sonic and partly contextual. It helped define the year’s club-pop conversation and showed that a pop song could be both highly engineered and knowingly playful about the machinery surrounding it.
8. Waxahatchee featuring MJ Lenderman — “Right Back to It”
“Right Back to It” gives the list a needed roots-rock and Americana center. Waxahatchee brings emotional intimacy and lived-in guitar texture, while MJ Lenderman adds a complementary presence that makes the song feel conversational rather than ceremonially arranged.
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The track’s appeal lies in its balance. It has the looseness of a band playing in a room, but the writing is deliberate; it draws on American folk-rock traditions without sounding like an exercise in nostalgia. The guitars carry as much emotional information as the lyrics, and the vocal blend makes the song’s vulnerability feel shared.
Its appearance in both Associated Press and Guardian year-end coverage supports its place here as a counterweight to the year’s larger pop and rap hits. “Right Back to It” is a reminder that a song can feel expansive without being loud.
9. Adrianne Lenker — “Sadness as a Gift”
“Sadness as a Gift” is a quietly powerful folk song built from detail, vocal grain, and emotional ambivalence. Lenker does not force sadness into a single dramatic conclusion. Instead, the song considers how memory can hold grief and happiness at the same time.
The fiddle gives the arrangement a lilting movement, keeping the track from becoming static even as its subject matter remains reflective. That tension—melancholy carried by a gentle forward motion—is one of the song’s defining pleasures.
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10. Fontaines D.C. — “Favourite”
“Favourite” broadens the picture beyond the pop and rap conversation. The Guardian’s year-end coverage placed Fontaines D.C. in the same broad musical landscape as Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, and the comparison is useful: 2024’s major songs were not confined to one commercial center.
The track has the band’s characteristic rock tension, but it also carries a melodic openness that makes it unusually inviting. Its emotional charge comes from the friction between beauty and unease, with the arrangement gradually turning repetition into momentum.
“Favourite” is an important inclusion for listeners who want a year-end playlist with guitars, atmosphere, and band chemistry alongside the dominant pop singles. It also confirms that rock’s place in the year’s critical conversation did not depend on imitating the chart.
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More 2024 songs worth hearing
These tracks widen the list’s genre range and show why no 10-song ranking can contain the year. The first entry is a deliberate exception: it was a 2023 release that remained part of the awards conversation in 2024.
Lana Del Rey — “A&W”
“A&W” is not technically a 2024 release, but it is a useful comparator for understanding the year’s songwriting conversation. Its nomination at the 2024 Grammy ceremony recognized a song from the previous eligibility period, not a 2024 recording. Structurally unusual and willing to move through sharply contrasting sections, it demonstrates how ambitious songwriting can resist the standard single format.
It should not be counted as one of the core 2024 releases, but listeners drawn to “Sadness as a Gift” or the more atmospheric selections here may find it an essential companion.
Sabrina Carpenter — “Please Please Please”
“Please Please Please” is the more obvious alternative to “Espresso” if the priority is songwriting recognition rather than pure pop efficiency. Carpenter’s performance combines affection, exasperation, and comic timing, while the arrangement gives the song enough space to let its narrative premise develop.
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Its nomination for the 2025 Grammy Song of the Year placed Carpenter firmly inside the year’s major songwriting conversation. Heard beside “Espresso,” it shows that her 2024 impact was not based on one viral hook alone.
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars — “Die With a Smile”
“Die With a Smile” offers broad adult-pop appeal without treating polish as a substitute for feeling. Gaga and Mars perform it as a genuine vocal collaboration, with the drama coming from their shared phrasing and the song’s old-fashioned commitment to melody.
The track’s 2025 Grammy Song of the Year nomination reflects its ability to connect with listeners who prefer a classic duet, a large chorus, and an arrangement that foregrounds the singers rather than a production gimmick.
Beyoncé — “Riiverdance”
“Riiverdance” is a useful companion to “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” for listeners interested in the breadth of Cowboy Carter. TIME highlighted the track as an example of Beyoncé blending country, house, and R&B, an especially revealing combination because the song does not treat those styles as separate boxes.
Where “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” is the immediate crossover invitation, “Riiverdance” is the more adventurous demonstration of how far that project’s genre conversation can stretch.
Zach Bryan — “Pink Skies”
“Pink Skies” turns diaristic writing about family and a funeral into a song with a rootsy arrangement and a chorus large enough for a stadium. Its strength is the contrast between small, recognizable details and a refrain that expands those details into shared grief.
Pitchfork’s year-end discussion emphasized that combination of intimate observation and arena-scale feeling. Bryan’s song belongs here because it shows how contemporary country can be conversational in the verse and enormous in the chorus without losing its emotional specificity.
Mello Buckzz — “Move”
“Move” is an example of regional dance-rap innovation. Its sound brings together Chicago drill and New Orleans bounce, creating a track that is both rhythmically forceful and physically immediate.
The record is valuable in a year-end survey because it points away from the idea that rap innovation must come from a single national mainstream. Regional scenes continue to reshape rhythm, delivery, and movement on their own terms.
Cindy Lee — “Dracula”
“Dracula” is built around an icy mood, psychedelic synths, and an unusually sustained atmosphere. Its one-chord construction is not a limitation; it is the mechanism that lets the song remain suspended in its own strange emotional weather.
For listeners who value texture and world-building over conventional payoff, this is one of the most rewarding selections in the wider 2024 critical conversation. It demonstrates that a song can be memorable through atmosphere alone when the atmosphere is this carefully maintained.
Mustafa — “Name of God”
“Name of God” is a somber, bittersweet Toronto song that remains warm and almost buoyant despite its grim subject matter. Mustafa’s writing favors emotional understatement, allowing the tension between the arrangement and the subject to do the work.
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TIME’s selection is a reminder that sadness does not have to produce a slow or sonically austere record. “Name of God” carries difficult material with a generous musical surface.
Mach-Hommy — “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON (Reparation #1)”
Mach-Hommy’s track is the list’s most overtly language-driven rap selection. Its writing is dense, playful, and cosmopolitan, rewarding listeners who enjoy the sound of words as much as the immediate force of a chorus.
It is also a useful counterpoint to the mass reach of “Not Like Us.” Both songs demonstrate rap’s capacity for precision and personality, but Mach-Hommy works through compression, reference, and verbal texture rather than a giant public hook.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Start here: a five-song 2024 playlist
If you want the shortest route through the year’s major sounds, begin with these five tracks:
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstall- Kendrick Lamar — “Not Like Us”: cultural impact, West Coast rap, and immediate hook-writing.
- Shaboozey — “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”: country-pop crossover and communal singalong energy.
- Billie Eilish — “BIRDS OF A FEATHER”: polished romantic pop with emotional restraint.
- Chappell Roan — “Good Luck, Babe!”: theatrical new-pop songwriting at full scale.
- Adrianne Lenker — “Sadness as a Gift”: intimate folk writing and lasting emotional detail.
After those five, move to “TEXAS HOLD ’EM” and “Espresso” for more chart-facing pop, “360” for club-oriented production, “Right Back to It” and “Pink Skies” for roots music, then “Favourite,” “Dracula,” “Name of God,” and “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON (Reparation #1)” for the year’s more exploratory critical favorites.
A note about Grammy-year confusion
Music awards frequently make year-end lists harder to interpret. The 2024 Grammy ceremony honored recordings released between August 31, 2022, and August 30, 2023. Its Song of the Year winner, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?,” therefore was not a 2024 release.
For songs released during 2024, the 2025 Grammy nominations are the more relevant awards evidence. They help explain the recognition surrounding tracks such as “Not Like Us,” “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” “Good Luck, Babe!,” “TEXAS HOLD ’EM,” “Please Please Please,” and “Die With a Smile,” but nominations still represent only one measure of quality. A chart record, a critic’s selection, and a listener’s personal favorite can all be valid for different reasons.
Final verdict
2024’s strongest songs did not come from one genre or one definition of success. Kendrick Lamar and Shaboozey supplied the year’s clearest cultural and commercial poles; Eilish, Roan, Carpenter, and Charli xcx represented a particularly vivid pop renewal; Beyoncé and Waxahatchee expanded the country and roots conversation; and Lenker, Fontaines D.C., Cindy Lee, Mustafa, and Mach-Hommy showed why critical listening extends beyond the biggest singles.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteIf one song must represent the year, choose “Not Like Us.” If you want the song that best captures a boundary-crossing mainstream, choose “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” If you want the strongest reminder that a year’s best music is larger than its biggest hits, choose “Sadness as a Gift.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Lana Del Rey’s “A&W” a 2024 song?
No. “A&W” was released in 2023. It is included only as a useful comparison because it was nominated at the 2024 Grammy ceremony, which honored the previous eligibility period. The 2024-release selections begin with songs such as “Not Like Us,” “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” and “BIRDS OF A FEATHER.”
How were the best songs of 2024 chosen?
There is no single authoritative ranking. This selection weighs critical acclaim, songwriting, cultural impact, innovation, listenability, and audience reach, drawing on year-end coverage from Pitchfork, The Guardian, TIME, and the Associated Press, along with relevant Grammy and Billboard evidence.
The Bottom Line
Start with Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Billie Eilish’s “BIRDS OF A FEATHER,” Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!,” and Adrianne Lenker’s “Sadness as a Gift.” Together, they capture 2024’s reach, genre-crossing energy, pop revival, and quieter songwriting excellence.
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