The 31 Best Songs of 2024 (So Far)

The Cure, “A Fragile Thing”I could wait until next month and write about Songs of a Lost World, The Cure’s first new album in 16 years. But the assignment this month is songs, and I follow the assignment—especially when the album’s second advance single is as good as this. The lush and churning arrangement underscores the agony of lyrics that begin “Every time you kiss me, I could cry.” Robert Smith has said that this album will be the band’s “most intense, saddest, most dramatic and most emotional” ever. Who could ask for anything more?

Sade Adu, “Young Lion”Sade Adu’s first new music in six years, and the first ever released under her own name (rather than as Sade, the band) is a lovely, loving, and moving tribute to her son Izaak, a trans man. It’s part of Transa, a massive new project from the Red Hot organization supporting and celebrating trans people with over 100 artists contributing to 46 songs. Over a sparse track that’s more intimate and less funky than the signature Sade groove, Adu’s inimitable voice is as resonant and glorious as ever.

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Mk.gee, “ROCKMAN”After several mixtapes and EPs, indie rock phenom Michael Gordon released his debut album earlier this year—but he’s deep into a career that’s also seen him writing and producing for artists including Omar Apollo and Fred Again and found Eric Clapton comparing his guitar playing to the early Prince. He even recently revealed that he’s been in the studio with Justin Bieber. This standalone single has a breezy Sting-meets-Hall-&-Oates sheen, but Mk.Gee’s harmonies and percolating riff steer “Rockman” out of the retro lane.

Joy Oladokun, “Letter From a Blackbird”From the lines that open her new album, Observations from a Crowded Room—”Sometimes I think if I got lost and drowned out in the river/No one in this town would cry/They’d just breathe sighs of relief”—and the processed electronic vocals, it’s clear that Joy Oladokun is stretching her range. Where her last album, 2023’s Proof of Life, featured a roll call of guests like Noah Kahan and Chris Stapleton, Oladokun wrote, produced, and played almost all of the new record herself, and digs deeply into the pain and paradox faced by a Black, queer artist in Nashville. But she avoids self-pity or despair, retaining a lightness of sound and spirit.

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Ringo Starr, “Time On My Hands”I can’t blame you if you’re not excited by the announcement of a new Ringo Starr album; he himself had said a few years back that he was done making full-length albums and would stick to EPs. But Look Up, coming in January, is a return to country music from a lifelong country fan—the genre was a perfect fit for his sad-sack delivery on Beatles tracks like “What Goes On” and “Don’t Pass Me By,” and in 1970 he released the affectionate Nashville tribute Beaucoups of Blues. The new record is produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett and features such young hotshot instrumentalists as Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, and the melancholy first single spotlights the fleet, expressive work of pedal steel legend Paul Franklin.

Maggie Rogers, “In The Living Room”Maggie Rogers says this song is “about the beauty and pain of memory,” an extension of her Don’t Forget Me album that came out in the spring. But if the territory is familiar, the sound—leaning into ‘90s alt-rock a la Alanis Morrissette and Natalie Imbruglia—is not. Sometimes Rogers can be a little more impressive than she is compelling, even a little sleepy, and but between the music’s kick and some extra snarl in her voice, “In the Living Room” delivers the goods.

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Father John Misty, “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All”Josh Tillman had been playing this song off and on for about five years before finally releasing it as a bonus track on his Greatish Hits collection; it’s probably safe to assume that the line about the “himbo Ken doll” is a more recent addition. Clocking in at eight and a half minutes, “I Guess Time” belongs to a subgenre that includes Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” and Leonard Cohen’s “The Future”—torrents of words from a crabby old guy, warning of apocalypse while reminding us that the whole thing is a cosmic joke. With a title borrowed from a 1937 history of mathematics, references to Allen Ginsberg and Allen Watts, and a talking snake, all over a disco-lite beat with a jazzy, Steely Dan–ish gloss (complete with sax solo and conga-drum solo), the whole thing is absurdly excessive, and I love every ridiculous second.

Sabrina Carpenter, “Juno”The surprise of the month is definitely Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet album. For those of us who kinda sorta knew her as a one-time Disney star and as the other woman in Olivia Rodrigo’s masterpiece “Driver’s License,” the range, humor, and sophistication of these 12 songs are revelations. Simultaneously evoking ’60s and ’80s pop and taking its title from the 2007 teen-pregnancy comedy, “Juno” is built like a tank, stuffed with hooks and one-liners (“God bless your dad’s genetics,” “I showed my friends and we high-fived / Sorry if you feel objectified”) and somehow makes getting knocked up into an irresistibly flirty metaphor.

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Muni Long, “Ruined Me”After starting her career as a singer, Priscilla Renea settled in as an A-list songwriter, responsible for hits from Rihanna, Ariana Grande, H.E.R., and even Carrie Underwood. When she returned to performing, now under the name Muni Long, she broke through with the 2021 hit “Hrs & Hrs,” which brought in Usher for a smash remix and won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance. Last year’s “Made for Me” (with Mariah Carey amping up the remix this time) was an R&B number one, and now Long is back with this spare, dramatic heartbreak ballad, delivered with both power and restraint. “Ruined Me” tees up her new album, Revenge, offering classic soul with a modern edge.

Jack White, “Bless Yourself”One day in July, an unlabeled vinyl album was quietly slipped into the bags of all purchases made at Third Man Records stores in Nashville, Detroit, and London. It turned out to be Jack White’s sixth solo album, and online instructions to “Rip it!” and share soon followed. The album got a more proper release a few weeks later, and rather than a toss-off, it was an unexpected triumph. White’s past few records have had their moments, but they’ve also suffered from trying a bit too hard; No Name places him firmly back in the scorching, sparse garage-blues territory he staked out with the White Stripes. On “Bless Yourself,” he rages like a street-corner preacher—“God on command, God on demand / If God’s too busy, I’ll bless myself”—over a grinding, minimal riff that digs in like equal parts scuzz metal and old-school hip-hop DJ, tenaciously squeezing out every ounce of groove like a dog clamped on to a bone.

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Post Malone, “Killed a Man”It’s impressive that Post Malone pulled off the F-1 Trillion album as successfully as he did. Not only does he slot in effectively on duets with a roster of country artists ranging from Hank Williams Jr. to bluegrass phenom Billy Strings, but he also doesn’t get lost amid all the hoopla. The all-star lineup is what will get all the attention and likely all the radio play, but don’t sleep on the nine Posty solo tracks added for the album’s “Long Bed” edition. In some ways, he sounds looser and stronger on these more traditional songs, like he’s playing with house money. The introspection of the clever psychodrama “Killed a Man” points the way toward a more long-term presence in the genre without needing to recruit a fleet of superstars as a megawatt cosign.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, “Field of Vision”No, I can’t explain this gang of Australian freakazoids. Usually considered to be adjacent to the jam-band world, King Gizzard puts out albums like other people change their sheets; the group released five LPs in 2017 and then did it again in 2022. And its sound is constantly shifting lanes, from prog to metal, jazz fusion to synth-pop, with lyrics often relating to a fictional world that fans know as the “Gizzverse.” Flight b741, its 26th and latest album (unless there’s a new one later this afternoon), is an exploration of ’70s rock—lots of Stones riffs, Band-style Americana, and this track, a deliriously stupid glam-rock stomp recalling the glory days of T.Rex, Slade, and “Rebel Rebel.”

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Raye, “Genesis”She’s a sensation in her native England—after writing for the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Ellie Goulding, she recently broke the record for the most Brit Award nominations and won Album of the Year for her debut, My 21st Century Blues—but Raye hasn’t fully hit in the States, despite a showstopping SNL performance in April. This three-part single/EP/suite is gloriously bonkers; a spoken-word intro leads into a soulful R&B section, climaxing in a full-on jazz bit, with horns and a scat break. But “Genesis” also looks hard at anxiety and insecurity (“If you’re thirsty like me / Mix some pity with some self-hate”) before landing on the refrain “Let there be light.”

Charli XCX, “360”A decade or so ago, Charli XCX exploded out of the gate with her contributions to Icona Pop’s “I Love It,” Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” and her own “Boom Clap.” Since then, she’s leaned into more experimental dance pop, head-faking whether she wanted to be bigger or cooler or both or neither. The Brat album delivers on all of the above, and while I’m nowhere near cool enough to parse the French-disco-hyper-glitch subgenres here, it all slaps, careening from self-doubt to ridiculous boasts. The opener, “360,” lays it all out there, as Charli bounces across a spare, singsongy beat with hip-hop-style delivery, landing on “If you love it, if you hate it / I don’t fucking care what you think.”

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Wilco, “Annihilation”Just in time for its annual Solid Sound Festival—and for the new season of The Bear, on which it was practically the house band for the first two seasons—America’s favorite dad-rock group has returned with Hot Sun Cool Shroud, a six-song EP of holdovers from last year’s Cousins album, which Jeff Tweedy says has “all the pieces of summer.” This propulsive rocker recalls Wilco’s finest: an irresistible chugging rhythm with a super-weird, dissonant, intentionally fumbling guitar solo. Thank you, Chef.

Mavis Staples, “Worthy”Next month, the American institution known as Mavis Staples turns 85 years old. “Worthy,” which she says was inspired by her work with Prince in the ’80s and ’90s (he wrote for and produced two of her albums), is plenty funkdafied regardless of her age. The song, full of percolating bass and punchy horns, was produced by Mark Ronson protégée MNDR (Amanda Warner), and Staples still brings it full force. She says the song is “so sassy and fire,” and who the hell are we to argue?

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Clairo, “Sexy to Someone”The first single from her upcoming album, Charm (as in, third time’s the …), “Sexy to Someone” expands Clairo’s bedroom pop with a more soulful and breezy feel. Inspired, she says, by pop polymath Harry Nilsson and jazz singer Blossom Dearie and produced live to tape by Leon Michaels (who’s worked with R&B throwback all-stars the Dap Kings), the horn-and-piano-driven track juices the lyrics about loving the idea of being in love: “Sexy to somebody, it would help me out / Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house.”

Shelby Lynne, “Over and Over”Twenty-five years after I Am Shelby Lynne won her the Best New Artist award at the Grammys (which she wasn’t; it was her sixth album), this remarkable and distinctive singer returns to Nashville for a new album produced by Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town, scheduled for a July release. “Over and Over” is a strange and haunting song, a meditation on a lost love (“It burns, it rages / It tears the pages”) over a tense electronic beat and rising and falling background vocals interwoven with almost funereal horns. It’s held together by the pleading catch in Lynne’s voice, which still recalls Dusty Springfield after all these years.

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Olivia Rodrigo, “Obsessed”She only recently turned 21, but Olivia Rodrigo keeps making all the right moves. Her terrific second album, Guts, leaned more into her singer-songwriter side, but for the deluxe edition, retitled Guts (Spilled), she added five new songs that steered back into the pop-punk lane. Cowritten by St. Vincent, “Obsessed” is a snarling rave-up about stalking her boyfriend’s ex, and it’s just the right mix of funny, desperate, and cathartic—a territory Rodrigo is making her own.

Iron & Wine (feat. Fiona Apple), “All in Good Time”Look, at this point I will take whatever Fiona Apple I can get. She wasn’t part of the writing on this gently swaying track, but she sounds fantastic, alternating verses and lines with Sam Beam (who records as Iron & Wine). A spare but intricate arrangement of strings and other acoustic instruments backs the pair up as they sing with humor and bite, and Apple’s voice—as Beam puts it—“sounds like both a sacrifice and a weapon at the same time.”