Luke Nuttall (Editor / Writer)
5. Bears In Trees – I Wanna Feel Calm
With its squiggly synths and sun-beats of guitar, there’s enough melodic sugar alone to place this here from the word ‘go’. After all, this is pretty deep in Bears In Trees’ wheelhouse, a charmingly overwritten emo-pop hit about being lost among the noise from inside your own head AND out. But what makes I Wanna Feel Calm stand out as it does is its purposefulness. You can couch your neuroses in tactful imagery as much as you want, but smashing through that to proclaim a notion as blunt as “But I try and I try / Day on day on day on day” is where the resonance really comes from. It helps that it’s also one of the most melodically satisfying refrains that anyone put to wax this year, making for another within the clutch of near-perfect pop songs that should see Bears In Trees soar uninhibited.
4. Pale Waves – Kiss Me Again
From one band’s pop triumph to another, though coming from Pale Waves, it means a little more when consider the…less-than-optimal state they began in. Clearly it wasn’t a lost cause though, even at the start, as revisiting the clarion indie-pop of their earliest days wrought Kiss Me Again, the glossy, sapphic ode to a love barreling forth that Heather Baron-Gracie was always destined to make. The simple pop-rock composition only adds to the effect, doused in gloss and delay until the chorus lets it all soar. It’s the strength of the landing that makes this one as opposed to any sort of technical impressiveness, but there are still layers there to appreciate. Widescreen emotionality can still get you far, as can the impression that this is the song that Pale Waves have been waiting to make for almost a decade.
3. Home Counties – Uptight
This is the sleeper hit of the year. Here, we have what was the first taste of Home Counties’ renovation into tighter dance-punk, in a song about a sour-faced protagonist unable to grin and bear a shitty night out any longer. For a song born from deep inside contemporary post-punk’s gentrified womb, it should be insufferable, but it really is. Home Counties’ self-awareness and sardonic know-how does a lot of heavy lifting, but what seals it is the rhythm of it all, founded in an unshakable bassline that edges dance-punk that much further to full-on pop, while also never hiding the instabilities that magnetise this to a fault. This is the kind of song that could make Home Counties, with enough to link them to the post-punk soup while critically elevating them above most of it. That elevation is high, too, by the way.
2. Cherym – Taking Up Sports
It’s got the chorus of the year, absolutely. No hook has burrowed in and nested more firmly in 2024 than Taking Up Sports’, the gay, Irish version of many a teen-comedy geek’s unrequited pining for the jock that’ll never notice them. The fact something this sticky came off Cherym’s debut album is a feat in itself, not to mention the updates and fluffing-up of pop-punk tropes that make them unfailingly charming. Charm for days, this one has. It’s the antidote for anyone who’s lost faith in pop-punk after years of backwash declaring itself the victor, made manifest through an indie-rock humbleness and an ear for a flawless melody that most bands would commit unspeakable acts for. For a song this simple and gooey and unashamedly so on all fronts, it’s pretty incredible.
1. Joey Valence & Brae – THE BADDEST
When you’re in the right mood, it’s not even a contest. If you’re not in the right mood, this’ll take you there instantly. That’s the power of THE BADDEST, an opus of flagrant, floor-filling, communal power that features the lyric “You ain’t fancy, son / Squilliam.” A SpongeBob reference in an alt-rap rager is something that only Joey Valence & Brae could get away with, seeing as it’s what their entire brand is built on and they’ve managed to excel at it pretty resoundingly up to now. THE BADDEST, however, might be on another level. The brashness and arrogance isn’t just part of the point; it is the point. It’s the kind of celebration that your average self-esteem anthem or swelling air-grabber wants to engender, but doesn’t have the soul to do as properly as this. It’d also be wrong to leave out the Ayesha Erotica remix, which isn’t quite as good overall, but retools the central line of “I’m the baddest bitch in this club” into the gender-neutral affirmation that is always ought to be. It’s only right that everyone should be involved in the sound of the most fun anyone’s ever had.
Georgia Jackson (Deputy Editor / Writer)
5. Sabrina Carpenter – Taste
There’s a valid case for any one of Short ‘n Sweet’s singles to be on this list; song of the summer Espresso oozed charisma while Please Please Please’s quirky structure showed a tragic leading lady side we hadn’t seen of Sabrina Carpenter before. But Taste’s pop-rock sound has a triumphant, anthemic quality that feels like a victory lap around the singer’s dastardly ex and the girlfriend he ran back to.
4. Rachael Chinouriri – Never Need Me
Before this year, Rachel Chinouriri’s sound tended towards the midtempo, inviting the listener to sit next to her while she calmly laid out all her feelings. On Never Need Me though, she dragged them by the hand as she left an ex in the dust. Her bluesy-sounding vocal carries the rushing pop anthemia of the track so well, world-weariness, wisdom and confidence shining through lyrically—even if it’s the first time you’re hearing the track, you’re standing up and cheering for Chinouriri like you would a best friend.
3. Billie Eilish – CHIHIRO
BIRDS OF A FEATHER was the huge hit from Billie Eilish’s HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, but CHIHIRO was the much more interesting single choice from the record. Hypnotic and groovy, Eilish traverses from her trademark hushed vocal into a beautifully controlled falsetto to gorgeous effect, the track feeling intimate and introspective until its glorious synth apex. This is the singer at her most creative, and certainly her album’s standout.
2. Pale Waves – Glasgow
Sometimes the best songs are the ones that hit you instantly, sugar-rush style. Pale Waves’ Glasgow is the perfect example, and the crown jewel of new record Smitten. Heather Baron-Gracie’s vocals soar while still keeping a vulnerable softness as she details the devastation of leaving an ex for the bigger picture, the catchy as all hell main riff giving the track a loveable optimism nobody can deny.
1. Halsey – Lonely Is The Muse
Halsey has always been at her best when she’s pulled from the world of rock music, The Great Impersonator providing plenty of opportunities to do so. Lonely Is The Muse aptly pays tribute to Evanescence’s Amy Lee, a brooding unpicking of people pleasing that builds to a storming, explosive end like the real Halsey is banging on the door to get out. It’s a stunning example of a pop artist thriving by staying outside of the box, and a one-song case for why Halsey deserves more flowers.
