THE YEAR IN MUSIC, 2024: Songs of the Year

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS

“Real or Magic”

Shortly after her fiancé Joe Haener’s untimely death, Shannon and the Clams’ Shannon Shaw received a visitation from him. “I think it was him saying goodbye to me,” she told me, in our May interview on spin.com, describing Joe as “completely bathed in light.” But was it real or magic? That’s the question the band allows us to explore together in one of the most beautiful and bittersweet songs ever recorded, off of their 2024 album The Moon Is in the Wrong Place. Shannon’s performance is one of the best of the year.

Liza Lentini

WAXAHATCHEE (FEATURING MJ LENDERMAN)

“Right Back To It”

“Play a song about fucking!” an annoying friend yelled at a band between every song at a gig one night. The band of grizzled veterans was purely instrumental — no vocals whatsoever — but I guess they complied, because each tune lit a low, dark fuse that eventually had punters wanton and clawing at each other. But times change, raw desire is dangerous and dangerous is irresponsible and irresponsible is unethical and unethical is abusive and so on and so forth, hence we now have 30- and 20-somethings like Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman singing like 70-somethings, all tender, wistful and nostalgic, with due respect for people who just want to sway a little. And they do it so well. It really is the love song of a generation that has been fixed.

MT

RAPSODY

“3:AM” featuring Erykah Badu

On her 2024 masterpiece Please Don’t Cry, Rapsody paints perhaps the most comprehensive picture of Marlanna Evans, her given name, showing her fears, insecurities and past. On the exquisite “3:AM”, featuring Erykah Badu, Rapsody reflects on a failed romantic relationship over the soothing sounds of soulful R&B. Badu offers the hook, which complements the song’s neo-soul vibe. The duo took “3:AM” to The Tonight Show, where their deep musical connection was right on time.

KE

EMINEM

“Houdini”

The lead single from The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) is eerily reminiscent of 2002’s “Without Me” from The Eminem Show, and leans hard into the nostalgia factor. Eminem plays into it with lyrics like, “My shit may not be age-appropriate/But I will hit an eight-year-old in the face with a participation trophy.” The song is a reminder that he’s still got it, and obliterates the notion that rap is only a young man’s game.

KE

BILLY JOEL

“Turn the Lights Back On”

Remember Billy Joel’s 2007 single, “All My Life”? That’s okay, we don’t either. Maybe that’s why it took him 17 years—and much coaxing by producer, songwriter and superfan Freddy Wexler—to release the stunningly beautiful “Turn the Lights Back On.” Joel returns to classic form in this nostalgic tune about rediscovering the long-lost passion you thought was gone for good. It’s simple yet elegant, with his signature piano style and a subtle strings accompaniment reminiscent of his classic 1977 album The Stranger.

READ THE REST OF THE YEAR IN MUSIC!

2024: an overview

Don’t call it a comeback (but it is)

Musicians of the year

Thing of the year

Please go home (we’ve had enough of these people)

Albums of the year

Breakout artists of the year

The year of the CD

The Fyre Award: crappiest festival of the year

10 albums you should have heard but didn’t

The year in EDM

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