10. “Vortex” — Lizzy McAlpine
We start the countdown off strong with a nearly six-minute track of utter emotional devastation. The soft piano melancholy of this song has kept it on a constant loop recently as I sink into the gray of late fall and winter. Building up to an emotional bridge — “And I’m tired of this and the way that it feels / I’m not there anymore, this has never been real / We’re just awful together and awful apart” — the song is about wishing a real relationship could be erased and stop lingering in the narrator’s mind. To me, it feels like an inversion of McAlpine’s iconic “ceilings,” a song about an imagined, idealized relationship that has never existed. “Vortex” is the final track on “Older,” an album I absolutely adore and consider one of the best albums of the year. Of course, the title can generate a bit of confusion. I once found myself saying that, when I saw Lizzy McAlpine on tour this year, she played “all of the Older album and a few songs from her older albums.” But semantics aside, I was so lucky to be able to experience this music live.
9. “Caesar on a TV Screen” — The Last Dinner Party
The Last Dinner Party’s “Prelude to Ecstasy” was another standout album of 2024 for me. It’s brimming with female rage in a way that only the British (see also: Florence + the Machine, Paris Paloma) can seem to properly capture. I could rant and rave about a lot of tracks on this album, but “Caesar on a TV Screen” is the one I always circle back to — it’s such a power ballad, brimming with ambition that sometimes borders on unhinged, which is sometimes how any kind of ambition can feel within the female experience. At the same time, it’s mocking the fragile masculinity and desperate grabs for power that are all too obvious around the world, past and present. The song reminds me a lot of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and “The Hunger Games” franchise overall, down to the apparent Caesar Flickerman reference. I’m not sure if this was intentional at all, or if it’s just two great pieces of media that happen to draw upon similar themes regarding the Roman Empire. Either way, this song is an absolute banger that gets me totally hype.
8. “Guilty as Sin?” — Taylor Swift
If you’ve spoken to me anytime since April 19, then you know I have very mixed feelings about “The Tortured Poets Department.” As a devoted Taylor Swift fan with through-the-roof expectations, I was disappointed by a lot of this album. Still, there were a few outstanding tracks that rose to the S-tier playlist. “Guilty as Sin?” is one that really blew me away. This catchy, intoxicating blend of melancholy, yearning, and horniness laced with religious imagery was exactly what I wanted to hear from Taylor (probably somewhat influenced by my Hozier obsession that developed late last year). I don’t know what drugs are in this song, but it makes me feel like I’m slipping and falling back into the hedge maze myself, tumbling into some higher dimension. It’s so good, I can easily pretend it isn’t about Matty Healy. It can be about … literally anyone else.
7. “Starling” — Sarah Kinsley
A few months ago, I started to assemble a playlist of platonic love songs and found myself disappointed with the general scarcity of such songs in the world. I lamented this to a friend, who recommended this song by an artist I hadn’t heard of before. I listened to it, and my life was forever changed. “Baby, we will never be as young as the wild ones chasing the sun / Through the seams of the night / And he says we’re the lucky ones, yes we are / To find another in the sky, smiling in the dark / Laughing at the fucking stars … ” It’s such a gorgeous and poetic song all the way through; I’m holding myself back from just copying and pasting the entirety of the lyrics. For me, the beauty of the songwriting is amplified by the fact that it’s an explicitly platonic love story. I’ve heard so few songs that hold this kind of respect for relationships outside of the romance we’re socially taught to idealize. It makes me really, really happy to have songs like this to relate to my own best friends.
6. “Sailor Song” — Gigi Perez
Did I learn about this song and artist from TikTok like absolutely everyone else? Yes. I’m not going to lie and claim I was an OG fan. But like millions of others, I heard snippets of the song and became instantly obsessed. Various interpretations of the “love me like a sailor” metaphor are always swirling in my head. Does it refer to a long-distance relationship across oceans? A love that some view as filthy or profane, like the stereotypical sailor? A boundless, ancient ocean of love that only a sailor can navigate? I could go on listing off ideas. Also, the line about “I sleep so I can see you, and I hate to wait so long” left an indelible mark on me. Truly one of the most beautiful and passionate love songs I’ve ever heard.
5. “Wildflower and Barley” — Hozier, Allison Russell
As an adorer of sad seasonal music, I’ve always been one to romanticize fall and winter with appropriately depressing songs, while filling summer with the brighter ones. I always felt like spring was kind of the odd season out, as I didn’t know any songs that appropriately captured the vibe. That all changed with the release of Hozier’s “Unheard” EP in March. “Wildflower and Barley” is a perfect encapsulation of all the growth, light, and warmth of the springtime. Listening to this song on loop as I walked amid brilliant blooming trees and knelt down to find bugs and earthworms in the dirt, I found myself falling in love with a season I’d never properly appreciated before. It was summer by the time I got to hear the song live at a Hozier concert in Maine, but I still felt just as much hope and anticipation hearing it. I can’t wait for next spring to bring back that feeling.
4. “Good Luck, Babe!” — Chappell Roan
While I was starting to revel in the emergence of spring, I was also discovering Chappell Roan, as was most of the world. I became obsessed with “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” in March, wondering why no one had told me to listen to this incredible album earlier. So, of course, I eagerly listened to “Good Luck, Babe!” within minutes of its release. Absolute banger. No notes. I’ll scream the bridge every single time. I don’t think it’s possible to overplay this song, even though it’s become such a big radio hit. It’s also become one of my favorite gym songs, because I can slow down the treadmill as the song is slowing down at the end. I love when a song lends itself to such a specific purpose.
3. “triassic love song” — Paris Paloma
My album of the year would probably have to be Paris Paloma’s “Cacophony.” So many excellent songs exploring themes that endlessly fascinate me. This one is, without a doubt, one of my favorite concepts for a song ever, the kind of thing that makes you wonder how there aren’t already a million songs about this. It’s about the Triassic Cuddle, a famous fossil of an amphibian and a proto-mammalian lizard who died nestled together in a burrow, likely in a sudden flood. The fossil is 250 million years old and perhaps the oldest romantic thing on this earth. Of course, we can’t know how these two unrelated creatures ended up snuggled together for their untimely demise, but it’s the kind of thing that human hearts will naturally run away with. Paris Paloma sings such a beautiful story of lovers hiding away and dying together in the safety of each other’s arms, the kind of story that will move anyone immeasurably. This song has brought me to tears many times.
2. “Forever” — Noah Kahan
I know, I know: most of us were already aware of this song in 2023, when an unreleased clip was trending on TikTok. But it wasn’t released to streaming platforms until February of this year, and that’s when the song was able to ascend to my third most played song on my 2024 Wrapped. I wasn’t at all surprised to see it there. I mean, just when I thought “Stick Season” couldn’t possibly be a more perfect album, Noah Kahan really said, “Hold my beer.” I had the incredible privilege of hearing this song live in the heat of July at Fenway Park. Shouting along to “We can’t make rent, so we window-shop / On the Upper West side, oh my God” was one of the greatest moments of my year. I believe in love, both gentle and whispered love and the yelling leaping breathless kind, whenever I hear this song.
1. “Be – Acoustic” — Hozier
The moment I first heard this song, I knew it was going to be at the top of my Spotify Wrapped — and it was, with a total of 132 plays this year. Yes, it’s technically the acoustic version of a song on the album “Wasteland, Baby!” that came out in 2019, but it’s really an entirely different song that just happens to have mostly the same lyrics. The original “Be” (also an excellent track) is an upbeat song that frames love as a radical act, bringing up a number of political issues in a passionate call to action. This acoustic demo version, while carrying the same lyrical message, is almost hypnotically beautiful and calming. I am a devoted Hozier fan, and I don’t speak lightly when I say this is one of my absolute favorites of his. I could swim in this song, sleep in it, live suspended in it. Both the vocals and instrumentals are outright angelic. I will never tire of it.