Songs show up everywhere these days: appended to sports highlights and TikToks, piped into political rallies and Paneras, interpolated during sermons. This ubiquity often trivializes music, but it also draws attention to all the elements that make great songs stand out.
I’m not just thinking about earworm melodies, sick beats, and killer hooks, though those are generally pluses. The songs that break through the noise of all the contexts in which we now play music also illustrate the value of swag, timbre, attitude, mystery.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]These 10 tracks, spanning rap, country, folk, and R&B, boast all those qualities and more. Few are hits, but all will grab you by the collar and push you to focus, lean forward, and hit repeat.
Programming note: these songs were selected with our list of the 10 Best Albums of 2024 in mind, so to showcase a greater range of music, no artists appear on both.
10. “Riiverdance,” Beyoncé
Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s album-length foray into country, gets undermined by its burning desire to show and prove the Texas singer has claim to the genre. But occasionally, as on “Riiverdance,” the music shrugs off that desperate air of justification and just grooves. Bridging the hoedown and the ballroom, Beyoncé alternates between angelic croons and fierce commands over a thumping bassline and a springy acoustic guitar. It’s country, it’s house, it’s rhythm and blues—it’s Beyoncé.
9. “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON (Reparation #1),” Mach-Hommy
Masked Haitian American rapper Mach-Hommy makes cosmopolitan hip-hop that rewards close listening. “SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON” takes its name from a French children’s ditty about a medieval bridge, but Mach’s not auditioning for 5, Rue Sésame. He tears into producer Conductor William’s twinkly beat, dispensing boasts, threats, and taunts that resist quick interpretation and mock overthinking. He’s one of the few rappers who can say something as wacky as, “My emporium consortium been sliding with accordions all around the village,” and trust you to independently sort through what that means, if it means anything at all. It’s a delightful feeling.
8. “Type Sh-t,” Future & Metro Boomin ft. Travis Scott & Playboi Carti
In the 2010s, Atlanta became a hotbed for building hits out of words and phrases that could be melodically or percussively stretched into infinite shapes. Future, one of the architects of that writing and vocal style, returns to it on “Type Sh-t.” But instead of foregrounding the titular phrase, Future, Travis Scott, and Playboi Carti lackadaisically fold it into their swaggering verses: sometimes it’s punctuation; other times it sets up puns and punchlines. Metro Boomin’s clanging trap beat guides their flows, shifting from icy and spartan to lush and dreamy and back. Understatement can be just as entrancing as its opposite.
7. “Leaving Toronto,” Mustafa & Daniel Caesar
Canadian folk singer Mustafa once carried the Pan American torch for Toronto, but on this somber and bittersweet track, he pledges to leave his hometown behind. There’s no refuge there from killers and the ghosts they keep creating. Death crowds Mustafa’s thoughts: He’s haunted by losses and itching to retaliate. Despite this grim tension, the song is upbeat and warm. Mustafa’s and R&B singer Daniel Caesar’s campfire melodies waft gently over the flickering drums and acoustic guitar, drifting toward new horizons.
6. “Dreamstate,” Kelly Lee Owns
Dancefloor euphoria has a name and a destination on “Dreamstate,” a trance track that surges and ripples like a wave pool. Welsh producer and singer Kelly Lee Owens, backed by co-producers George Daniel and Oli Bayston, gently nudges listeners toward transcendence. The layered beat builds like a dream, swirling burbling synth melodies, breathy intonations, and pulsing rhythms into synchrony. All the while, Owens blurs hypnosis and seduction, speaking in bursts of two or fewer syllables that beckon the body and mind to loosen. By the time the beat formally drops, just over four minutes into the song’s 5:30 runtime, it already feels like you’re airborne.
5. “By Hook or By Crook,” Jessica Pratt
The idiom “by hook or by crook” typically describes moments of desperation and urgency, but California singer Jessica Pratt sounds completely relaxed on this unbothered cut. Her wispy vocals drift through the song’s minimal bossa nova arrangement like fog through a forest. And her gossamer guitar strums are as faint as whispers, keeping time alongside echoey taps and supple upright bass. Pratt’s lyrics are characteristically evasive, more impression than narrative. But her oblique references to eroding surfaces and changing seasons, and the nonchalance of the production, suggest it is time that operates by hook or by crook. Pratt basks in that inevitability.
4. “After Hours,” Kehlani
Built on the same pounding riddim sampled in Nina Sky’s 2004 dance classic “Move Ya Body,” frisky club cut “After Hours” is made for spaces where bodies congregate but don’t necessarily touch. Bars, dancefloors, pools, and house parties all come to mind as Kehlani straddles the thin line between flirtation and seduction. The singer plays the part of a smitten admirer whose best bet for not going home alone is convincing their crush to spend a little more time in their presence. Kehlani’s vocals soar, sway, bubble, and quiver as they make their move. The song is nervous and gentle fun, dilating a simple suggestion—“Why don’t you stay?”—into a body-moving drama.
3. “Not Like Us,” Kendrick Lamar
Until the surprise release of his sixth studio album in late November, Kendrick Lamar seemed poised to dominate the year in rap without releasing a full project. Off the strength of multiple songs dissing his longtime rival Drake, the California rapper and future Super Bowl performer managed to galvanize his home state, his genre, and American culture. “Not Like Us” is key to that triumph. The song is a scorched-earth tirade against Drake and his fiefdom, which Kendrick casts as predatory and morally corrupt. Disses are by definition disrespectful, but Kendrick doesn’t just insult his rival; he outperforms him. Springing off of DJ Mustard’s bouncy SoCal blend of snaps, rubbery bass, and looped strings, Kendrick puts on a clinic. His voice is reedy, firm, mocking, cartoonish, and agitated as he rattles off barbs. Even at his pettiest, he remains a master craftsman.
2. “Nasty,” Tinashe
“Nasty” is a clean song about dirty needs. Tinashe doesn’t define the word as she searches for a partner in grime, but her purred vocals, flirty lyrics, and yearning melodies make clear that she has a very specific scenario in mind. The track lit up TikTok earlier this year, but it sounds best on a good speaker system. Ricky Reed and Zack Sekoff’s breezy, minimal beat amplifies Tinashe’s cravings, playing up the feral desire oozing from her singing. Sometimes plotting a fantasy feels as naughty as enacting it.
1. “TGIF,” Glorilla
For Glorilla, being single is a supernatural experience. When the Memphis rapper isn’t in a relationship, she’s not just free from headaches and responsibilities; she’s powered up, unstoppable, glowing. She spends “TGIF” toasting to this enhanced state over seismic bass kicks and a cinematic horn loop that brings to mind Godzilla ascending from the Pacific. Her bullish delivery elevates her mundane boasts—feeling good, looking “fine as hell,” sporting a fresh mani-pedi—into titanic flexes. This ode to Friday clubbing isn’t self-empowering: It’s a display of power.
