With nearly half of 2024 behind us, it’s looking unlikely that anyone will top Taylor Swift’s record sales, that anyone will write a diss-track grimmer than “Meet the Grahams” or that anyone will cancel an arena tour more unhappily than Jennifer Lopez just did hers. What we will get over the next six-and-a-half months are more great songs (and more terrible ones) that go on to define the year. Yet mid-June presents an opportunity to take stock of what’s already come.
Here, in alphabetical order by artist’s name, are the 24 best songs of 2024 so far.
- Beyoncé, “II Hands II Heaven”: Months after “ Cowboy Carter’s “ release, this sprawling yet intricate electro-country fantasia still feels like it’s revealing itself.
- Laci Kaye Booth, “Cigarettes”: A song about thwarted ambition that should broaden this country songwriter’s professional horizons.
- Camila Cabello feat. Playboi Carti, “I Luv It”: Never underestimate the motivating force of a few years without a hit.
- Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso”: “Me espresso” may end up the year’s best pop neologism — but let’s not overlook the linguistic invention in “Walked in and dream-came-true’d it for you.”
- Diiv, “Brown Paper Bag”: Savor the bad vibes of a world in decline.
- Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather”: The shimmering guitar? The shoulder-rocking beat? The breathy vocal runs? Let Billie bop.
- Ernest feat. Lukas Nelson, “Why Dallas”: Pitch-perfect western swing from one of Nashville’s modern pros.
- Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar, “Like That”: Look what they made him do.
- GloRilla with Megan Thee Stallion, “Wanna Be”: Look what he made them do.
- Ariana Grande, “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)”: Think of the similarities to Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” as a feature, not a bug: Fourteen years after that Swedish singer gifted lonely clubgoers with the ultimate sad banger, Grande jacks Robyn’s groove for a song about the blissful agony of remembering.
- Norah Jones, “Running”: Scuzzy in a good way.
- Tori Kelly, “High Water”: This self-affirming pop-soul anthem would’ve owned “TRL.”
- Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”: The kill shot from Lamar’s beef with Drake has reached the point where you’re sure to hear it half a dozen times — including from the organist — over the course of a game at Dodger Stadium.
- Dua Lipa, “These Walls”: Whether or not we can officially declare “ Radical Optimism “ a flop, Lipa must be discouraged by the fact that her latest LP sits 30 slots behind Fleetwood Mac’s half-century-old “Rumours” right now on the Billboard 200. And yet! Here’s a luscious soft-rock jam that Christine McVie herself might’ve admired.
- Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help”: “Dukes of Hazzard” reboot in 3, 2, 1…
- Mk.gee, “Are You Looking Up”: Imagine John Mayer’s “ Sob Rock “ as a DIY SoundCloud experiment.
- Kacey Musgraves, “Deeper Well”: Walk on the mild side.
- Charlie Puth, “Hero”: It’s true, you know — he really should be a bigger artist.
- Tommy Richman, “Million Dollar Baby”: Your post-peak Justin Timberlake could never (and indeed with his latest did not).
- Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!”: “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night/ With your head in your hands, you’re nothing more than his wife.”
- Sasha Alex Sloan, “Tiny’s Song (demo)”: Careful — this hushed guitar-and-voice ballad is about a missing pet, and it will destroy you.
- Taylor Swift, “But Daddy I Love Him”: Grandly theatrical, righteously aggrieved and witheringly funny, the high point of “ The Tortured Poets Department “ is a Taylor all-timer.
- Tems, “Love Me JeJe”: All the sweat and pleasure of summer in a song.
- Xavi, “La Diabla”: Música Mexicana meets Midwestern emo; big feelings — and TikTok virality — ensue.
