The 100 Best Songs of 2024: 25-1
- Jack Eureka
- Jan 31
- 9 min read
The best. I'd say they all speak for themselves, but I wrote a bunch of nonsense next to each. So, please read and enjoy.
(but also they all really do speak for themselves)
25.
The Cure
"Alone"
A weathered and forgotten rope down to a well of pitch black despair. For the first time in over a decade, The Cure invite you into their familiar hole.
The journey? A seven minute long morbid descent to the end of light, and maybe to it all. Death is never far from the darkest portions of The Cure's catalog, but here it sits at the fore. The shakiness in Robert Smith's delivery a continuation of the instrumentation that proceeds him: loose, barely connected chambers of sound combined. Both parties barely holding on until the end. And the end is always the same. The rope cannot extend forever.
24.
Royel Otis
"Til the Morning"
A goddamn belter of a chorus from Otis Pavlovic. A heart's call to love and the unknowables of being with another. Reading and re-reading their every word and facial tic for clues as to Where It's All Going.
All as a defense mechanism for an outcome both parties can feel the rational sides of their brains pointing at, in neon. The cracks are becoming faults, the waves tidal. That knowledge paired with that love, and the pain in looking at your (soon to be ex) lover with it.
23.
High Vis
"Mind’s a Lie"
The most aggressive body sway song you'll hear all year. The hi-hats and Ell Murphy's vocal loop are warning signals for the body's boogie beacon. Vocalist Graham Sayle comes in and supplies the mosh push, shouting the song's credo like he's trying to save a life. His working class anger the response to Murphy's call: you can dance, I can dance, but I've still got some shit to say.
The blend harkens back to the proto version of dance punk, when the punk portion of the genre smash still had vitriol. Even if the anger here has an angel on its shoulder.
22.
Tourist
"Lifted Out"
Tourist's third and final entry in the top 100. I'd say that's impressive, but I made the list and navel-gazing is unbecoming.
"Lifted Out" sounds like something pulled from the B-sides of Play in '99. Or, since Moby actually released those B-sides as Play: The B-Sides, a C-Side. Issue being, this is far too good to fall down the alphabet like that. It's more akin to Moby's greatest works. A good partner with "In This World", for instance. Both mining holy choir in vocalization, both finding something fitting these harmonies for synthesized bump. Like a prayer to the club crowd at dawn's light.
21.
Hans Zimmer
"A Time of Quiet Between the Storms"
The first Dune isn't very good. As a piece of fan service, it appears to be operating pretty well, sure. The book folks out there tell me it's a good adaptation. Thus what I'd argue is the issue with adaptation in itself: it's concentrating on its service to the source versus the new medium. Villeneuve has technical craft for days, but is curtailing too much of said craft to assumed duty in iteration one.
Enter Dune: Part Two. A honed vision. Far less precious about source and fan, far more refined in its depiction of epic space love. And all parties profit. Chalamet, Zendaya, Fraser, and even the master Zimmer. A cousin to Vangelis's many a synthesized masterworks in the '80s, it's a swooning declaration of love in the face of messianic impact. The gorgeous horns the connectivity between the leads in body and eyes, the thundering drums a reminder of their duty outside of love's spell.
20.
Four Tet
"Loved"
Another glimmering banger from the master. There's a certain romance to his overlap of chugging drum and layered guitar. For lack of a more eloquent explanation, he makes immersive music. The sorts of tracks and albums you can slip into and leave your busy brain for a bit. Grooves for cerebral snoozes, if you will. In that way, "Loved" makes you feel just as it states.
19.
Aphex Twin
"#19"
Would you look at that. Not in any way a planned outcome, but sometimes the universe just finds a way.
Aphex Twin is one of those all in or all out kind of artists. Some greet Richard D. James with confusion, others a level of adoration that inspires their own musical output. I'm in the latter camp (in emotive state only).
And while the shithousery of "Windowlicker", the acid drips of "Quoth", and the dark weirdness of "Come To Daddy" all translate to my tastes, it's the dewy-eyed James I love the most. "Avril 14th", "aisatsana [102]", and the gargantuan "#3". "#19" sits on this same continuum. A placid slice of ambient beauty. A painkiller bath of pure ecstasy. But I suppose that's only if you're a believer.
18.
Joey Valence & Brae
"LIKE A PUNK"
Who tf reads top 100 write ups? (For real these two bastards are infectious as all hell. And I simply couldn't get enough of this song or No Hands this year. In a previous time, it's the kind of album that would've sat in my car's CD player for months, maybe years, on end. Fantastic. Could lift me up at any moment.)
17.
The Last Dinner Party
"Burn Alive"
Abigail Morris struggles with commodifying her own grief for a pound or two. All while the remaning Dinner Party bang galloping drum and channel Kate Bush. The band certainly is committed to the throwback bit, but it hits on this track in the most honest way. Possibly because of the raw material, possibly due to it being the best match of schtick and mood, or possibly just by chance. Kismet.
Regardless, helluva juxtaposition and execution of vision, I'd say.
16.
Night Tapes
"Waterfall"
Night Tapes ethereal love pop strikes again. Most of their work sounds like a filtered daydream, and this is no exception. Choirs of singing angel and visions of astral plane. Slightly saccharine, slightly obvious. But working gangbusters as a mood table setter, no matter. The keys and breaking open of "Waterfall" a testament to all points (it's called "Waterfall" for Chrissakes). Because when this soars, it's above cloud and anything else.
In the best way possible, it's music for walking into the light.
15.
Mura Masa feat. Cherish
"FLY (Extended Mix)"
I prefer my Mura Masa clubside. Festival weary while in the middle of the leg. Cracking the party wide open while holding onto a single thread of melancholy.
The emotional dip here felt in breakdown. A screeching and stuttering halt from neon debauchery. As if to say, "Where do we go from here?" A fleeting state, and arguably only adds to the drops, but it's felt. Just let the man groove. Just let him fly.
14.
Cold Gawd
"All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned For A Thing I Cannot Name"
Pure adrenal comedown lullaby. A track sunk into like home's bed after a two-day bender. A 'gazey slumber imminent, the drums reverbing off the highlighted exploits replaying in the brain. Car rides of laughter and aimlessness. Love and lust's bashful stares across rooms to willing target. Responsibility nowhere to be found. The memories overlapping and competing in a brain whose battery is blinking red. Desperately needing rest and update. Unable to do so without just one more listen...
13.
Fontaines D.C.
"In the Modern World"
A sweeping rumination on numbness in the social media age. A dreamy and forlorn trip outside of its stressful confines, and back into a natural state. The strings and marching drums an earthen answer to Grian Chatten’s anxious vocals.
"Seems so hard just to be" is such a plain but hammering encapsulation of the stress so many feel. Especially the young. That inability to turn off. "I couldn't imagine being young today," you'll hear so many older folks say. Well, we're all here now. It's clearly taking a toll on us all.
12.
Mk.gee
"ROCKMAN"
Pure reverence. Pure joy. Could easily sit front row and maintain ecstasy while Mk.gee plays this thirteen times in a row at a gig.
11.
LOCKED SHUT
"Claymores Clash"
A minute of belligerent perfection.
Spotify told me I listed to this more than any other song in '24. And that's a stat that doesn't surprise. Shooters shoot.
10.
Dusky
"Proto Spoon"
Love's spell via breakbeat. One to trip the light fantastic to or blast out of the windows after leaving newfound love.
Complete with middle bridge to rest the feet and heart. Absolute banger.
9.
Charli xcx feat. The 1975, Jon Hopkins
"I might say something stupid featuring the 1975 & jon hopkins"
An exceptional remix, in a way the remix structure is supposed to work in the first place. Where Charli's original applies a bedroom popstar sheen, the remix is something completely different. Still possibly in a bedroom. But now the lights are out, and the subject in question is sobbing in the corner.
Matty Healy has an earned third rail reputation these days, but, like all raw artistic expressionists, the upside is output as such. A withered and naked performance of self consciousness. Jon Hopkins comes in and supplies his usual brand of productive beauty, but it's Healy at the nucleus, forever the boy in the corner.
8.
Babehoven
"Ella's From Somewhere Else"
“And when the event, the big change in you life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you’re seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.”
Romance, loss, the cracks showing in the bedrock of a pastoral family. Present in both Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and the song at hand. Each quite lovely, and somber.
7.
Faye Meana
"On & On"
Getting caught in a vicious circle of love and loss. On again, off again. Arguments screamed and "resolved", then screamed again. Both parties sitting on the razor's edge of love and hate. Both considering the circumstances needed to "fix" things. What to do?
Dance, apparently.
6.
Moonpools
"Never Mind"
Something struck me from the very first listen of this song: how much it reminded me of Strawberry Mansion. A lovely film that doesn't get nearly enough love.
Anyway, this feeling was so persistent on subsequent listens, I just made an edit of the two...
5.
Tommy Richman
"MILLION DOLLAR BABY"
You know it. It was everywhere. Blew up and sat in pop culture's orbit ever since. Richman's tune is in commercials now. Selling socks or detergent or whatever the hell.
But ubiquity be damned, it's still the groove of the year.
4.
Charly Bliss
"Nineteen"
The nostalgia of youth as build to adulthood, and an absolute jaw dropper final minute. Metronomic piano, driven bass thumps, and Eva Hendricks' puppy love gone-wrong-but-never-forgot give way to a sax solo that, under different circumstances, could be read as corny. Here, amongst heavy doses of nostalgia and earnest expression of heartbreak that adults tell you dissipates due to Other Fish (despite they themselves undoubtedly remembering vividly that very same feeling and carrying it to death), that sax is paramount. A punctuation to a feeling that feels gifted from God.
And then "You're just like heaven" hits. like an anvil. And, from a pop standpoint, Bliss feels awfully applicable.
3.
Storefront Church
"The High Room"
A grandiose anthem of love in the modern age. Amongst office spaces, endless fluorescents, and (of course) stairs. Many stairs.
Lukas Frank stands above it all at a mountaintop, poetry in hand, the sonorous orchestra formed below. Playing off one another beautifully, in tone and attention. Are they playing for the end of the world? Or preluding its beginning? Tough to say. But either way, "The High Room" feels important. In skill, voice, and execution, sure. But those are quantifiable. Feeling is another thing, altogether.
2.
Chanel Beads
"Police Scanner"
This came out in January, early January even, and I simply could not stop listening to it for the remainder of the year. There's little better to say in favor of a piece of media. Just never stopped thinking about it. You know how when they backload prestige films to the end of the year for an Oscar run? To sort of game the imperfect system a bit? Isn't it much more impressive for a film to come out the previous winter or spring and keep its prestige over months and months? Looking at you, Get Out.
Anyway, it's gorgeous, ambitious, and somehow even more undeniable than "MILLION DOLLAR BABY". No small feat.
1.
Casino Hearts
"In & Out of Time"
2024 felt like a year for the feels. Possibly true of any given year post social media, though. The era of heightened loneliness and the Online Self for almost anyone being self-aggrandizing. Getting so lost in one's head about the world's reflection back onto ourselves that we lose sight of reflection. Likes, engagement, content. "Nothing's real" Forest Holter delivers in her misty register, "It's not worth saving". A generation both in and out of the present, at places while their brain constantly grabs for the others from their little black mirror. Better places. Better people and friends. Better lives. Better, for lack of a better word, content. "Love surrounds while your heart's breaking". Never in history have people felt more misunderstood and less like they have a handle on the seesaw between their body and mind.
Casino Hearts capture all of it wonderfully on "In & Out of Time". Fittingly—and stunningly, at least to me—a song almost nobody talked about. Less than 200k listens. A relative crime, but sometimes life really does imitate art.