The 50 Best Songs of 2024

More than 100,000 songs are uploaded to DSPs and streaming services every day. So, how do you narrow that down to just the 50 best?

Full disclosure: we’ve listened to only a small fraction of the tens of millions of songs released this year. So when we say “best songs,” we mean the ones that rose to the top of the zeitgeist; quality obviously matters, but so does cultural impact.

And while it was, frankly, an average year for albums, 2024 stood out as a remarkable year for songs that truly penetrated the culture. Many of the biggest tracks of the year had unique quirks—whether it was the sarcastic tone of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” the amorphous nature of Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” or the fact that the year’s biggest rap song featured a chant about “certified pedophiles.” And, speaking of “Not Like Us,” the standoff between the rap’s two biggest rappers was the pop culture event of the year. From the moment we heard “These n*ggas talkin’ out of they necks,” the Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar battle dominated the conversation for months. (You could make an entire Netflix documentary about May 3, 2024 alone.)

So, what does it all mean? As we approach the end of the year, let’s take a moment to reflect on what went down. Here are the 50 best songs of 2024.