Let’s start with the standard history lesson for those of you just joining us: In 2018 I completed a quest to list my top five (or so) songs for every year from 1967 to the present. I’ve since added 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Have I really been doing this for six years? Good lord, no wonder it’s so hard to think of column ideas.

I’ve spent the last couple years oscillating back and forth between little-known acts (in 2022 I included the Nova Twins, Broken Peach and Sophie Lloyd) and famous artits (2023 had Miley Cyrus, Metallica, Dolly Parton and the Rolling Stones). This year I’m splitting the difference. A couple of these aren’t my style but denying their greatness is disingenuous.

I don’t like pop country but 2024 was the Year of Pop Country. Not only were country artists all over the charts, but artists like Post Malone who chase whichever genre is most popular at the moment pivoted to it. I also wasn’t feeling many of the breakout artists of the year. Popular opinion isn’t the boss of me. Kendrick Lamar didn’t go country. Who knows… maybe he’s got that in him, too.

Also, I’m right. These songs were the best songs, barring some unknown indie musician breaking out in a few years and the world discovering their genius 2024 Soundcloud EP with 38 downloads.

---

Beyoncé — “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM”

Cowboy Carter is an absolute triumph of an album, from front to back. Pretty much any song could represent it on a best-of list. But I have a strict rule that each artist can only appear once, so for Beyoncé’s entry, I’m going with the first single. The first time I heard it, I had one of those moments where everything else faded away, when you not just consciously but subconsciously recognize that you’re hearing something special.

Despite the fact that nobody asked, here’s my take on Beyoncé: She’s got a Michael Jackson/Prince thing going with Taylor Swift and she’s Prince. Both all-time prodigal talents, both enormously famous, but Swift’s Michael with more mainstream fame and Beyoncé is Prince with the bigger focus on experimentation, artistry and performance.

Troll me if you must but don’t DDOS this site.

---

Kendrick Lamar — “Not Like Us”

“Not Like Us” is so good it ruined Drake’s life and united the Bloods and Crips in L.A. It’s why you should never, ever make a Pulitzer-Prize-winning lyricist angry at you. And, if it wasn’t obvious already, it formally solidifies Kendrick Lamar as the best West Coast rapper since the ’90s.

Here’s what kills me, though: Like I said before, each artist can only appear once. Obviously “Not Like Us” is one of the best songs of the year, but Kendrick also released an album that’s basically a love letter to old-school West Coast hip-hop, which is one of my all-time favorite musical eras. He’s too good. So please know that this entry is mostly for the song in the title but also represents his entire body of work for the year.

---

BABYMETAL and Electric Callboy — “RATATATA”

I list these in chronological order by album (or standalone single) release date, so I don’t have to actually rank them. But I can confidently say that this is the best song of the year. Yes, I’m serious. Yes, even after everything I said about the first two. As far as I’m concerned, it’s pretty much perfect: Cacophonous but catchy, loud but smooth, and just overall extremely joyful. Way better than the first time Japan and Germany collaborated.

Babymetal didn’t release an album this year but it collaborated with just about everyone and every single song it was on is wonderful. There was “METALI ! ! !” with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, “Leave It All Behind” with F.Hero, “Eternal flames” with Japanese guitar legend Tak Matsumoto and, just a few weeks ago, “Bekhauf” with Bloodywood. Who would have known when Stephen Colbert introduced it to a mainstream American audience in 2016 that the group would end up one of the biggest metal bands in the world.

---

Bad Omens and Poppy — “V.A.N.”

We’ve come to confirmation of the theme of this year’s best songs: A few artists either performed or collaborated on more than one of my favorite songs, sometimes a whole bunch of them. Beyoncé had a whole album of brilliance, Kendrick had multiple diss track singles and a whole album, and, like Babymetal, Poppy collaborated on multiple really excellent singles, including the Grammy-nominated “Suffocate.” Not bad for someone who got her start as surreal YouTube performance art and an aspiring bubblegum pop performer.

This year’s list (spoiler alert) has three metal songs out of five. I enjoy metal of course, so I’m bound to hear more of it. But I usually try to keep it in check, and honestly a lot of modern metal is good but too derivative for the “best new music” conversation. But in 2024, the world’s mid-tier metal bands—the ones that are huge within the metal community but haven’t broken out to a more widespread audience—started forming into one big supergroup. Taking a cue from hip-hop, they’re performing on each other’s singles to share a fan base and absorb each other’s influences. It’s amazing.

---

Bloodywood — “Nu Delhi”

 

I’ve mentioned it a few times in this column, but Bloodywood started out as a joke band, doing Bollywood covers of metal songs. Guitarist Karan Katiyar and singer Jayant Bhadula were a corporate lawyer and talent manager, respectively. By 2022, they’d released their debut album, which was really a protest of controversial issues in India and around the world. Quite the rise!

That rise is, of course, helped by the fact that they’re incredibly talented, and how well they blend metal with Indian influences. If this was just a normal American metal song, it would be extremely good, but the layers make it so much better.

---

Honorable Mentions:

Khruangbin — “May Ninth”
Future, Metro Boomin and The Weeknd — “We Still Don’t Trust You”
KITTIE — “Eyes Wide Open”
The Offspring — “Make It All Right”
Body Count and Joe Bad — “Psychopath”

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.