20. SEAROWS, “MARTINGALE”

Searows’ songs are like lullabies; they lull you, sink you, into a state of calm. They’re so intimate they sound like they’re being hushed directly into your ear. This is true of “martingale”, which features on the Portland-based singer-songwriter’s 2024 EP flush, and explores the traits we pick up from the people we love. This being Searows, the themes of the song aren’t exactly light – they brush on resentment, hopelessness, powerlessness, paranoia and pain – but much like his hometown’s climate (grey and rainy), the track is as soothing as it is sombre. (TS)

19. ETHEL CAIN, “PUNISH” 

“Punish”, the first single from Ethel Cain’s forthcoming project Perverts, is a seven-minute-long slow burn of a track. Mournfully crooning over simple, stark piano chords, Cain tells the haunting story of a woman consumed by shame and “punished by love”. Bleak but beautiful, “Punish” is an arresting introduction to Cain’s next chapter. (SS)

18. CASH COBAIN, ICE SPICE, BAY SWAG, “FISHERR (REMIX)”

For a couple of years in primary school, I took extracurricular flute lessons. I wasn’t very good at it, but I learned enough to feel sceptical when Cash Cobain and Bay Swag say: “She blow the dick like it was a flute.” Does anyone actually want that? Would it feel good? Probably not. Woodwind similes aside, though, Cobain’s “Fisherrr” is a blend of sultry lyrics and woozy production, scoring extra points for spawning the “Reemski”. Ice Spice hopping on the much-anticipated remix takes it to the next level, with her characteristic flair for smutty self-mythologising: “She a wetty, ooh, givin’ Betty Boop.”(TW)

17. BABYFATHER FT. EVIL GIANE, “BLUEY VUITTON”

“Bluey Vuitton” is a highly potent magic mushroom strain known for offering users a transformative experience, ideal for spiritual and introspective journeys. It’s also one of 2024’s alternative rap anthems – bringing together a holy trinity of Surf Gang founder and producer Evil Giane, DJ Escrow (AKA London spoken word artist James Massiah) and the ever-evasive, ever-influential Dean Blunt under his Babyfather moniker. Fittingly, the latter pair find themselves in a reflective mood about various drug-taking women in their lives spitting and snarling over an addictively woozy, 808-heavy beat about “doing up K in Stokey“ with “Naomi” and an unnamed woman with a crippling coke addction – “She fell in love with the gak, so I ain’t been calling her back”. Clocking in at an epic 1 minute 30 seconds, prepare to hit the rewind button more than once. (DB)

16. JAMIE XX, “DAFODIL”

“It all started one summer night,” intones Kelsey Lu in the opening seconds of Jamie xx’s “Dafodil”. The producer has a way of transporting you to parties and dancefloors you’ve never been to, but feel like you have – maybe you lost the memory, dreamt of them, or heard about them second-hand. This evocative world-building is Jamie’s gift, and it was born from his profound love of British nightlife. On “Dafodil”, he enlists Lu, John Glacier and Panda Bear to create another one of these false memories: a woozy summer evening, somewhere in London, where the worries of the day drift away like smoke. The hazy, distorted vocals – of “lovely sweetness” filling the air, hearts “blossoming” and trance-inducing kisses – prove that beneath all the floor-filling hedonism and commercial success, Jamie is still a true romantic at heart. (DS)

15. YT, “PRADA OR CELINE”

“That’s my face up in Another Man,” raps rising British artist YT in “Prada or Celine”. Well, here’s your name in Dazed now, too. Since going unexpectedly viral with alt-rap banger “Arc’teryx” in 2021, the Oxford Uni graduate (Philosophy and French) has begun carving out a sound that is entirely unique. With frequent use of clap tracks and gloriously compressed auto-tuned vocals, it almost feels like an alternate future for British music — one that pursued the path of early Channel U hits by Poet and Nu Brand Flexx, as opposed to the darker grime sonics that dominated the 00s. Special mention also goes to videographer Lauzza, whose frutiger aero, Y2K-inspired direction provides the visuals to match YT’s colourful new world. (SPM)

14. HANUMANKIND, “BIG DAWGS” 

“Why does he sound so good?” asked streamer IShowSpeed in a video that helped blow breakthrough single “Big Dawgs” from Keralan rapper Hanumankind up to its now viral hit status. It’s a good question. With air-tight flows delivered with a hint of a southern drawl, the rapper could’ve been a long lost member of Three 6 Mafia. He owes this quality to his Houston upbringing but, with the help of Indian producer Kalmi, and a remix featuring A$AP Rocky, Hanumankind put Indian hip hop on the map this year. (SPM)

13. FOUSHEE, “WAR”

If you were to close your eyes while listening to “War” by Fousheé and really lean into the feeling it gives you, you’d find yourself in Jamaica in the 1970s playing dominoes on an outdoor porch with your family. The lead single of her second full-length album Pointy Heights, she sings “Bad girls don’t fuss, they’d rather be living a life of harmony / what’s watered grows and as for me / I’d rather not be at war” against brassy reggae sounds and sample ska beats. Short but sweet, it’s a huge contrast from the sounds on her last project but highlights her true artistic versatility. (HD)

12. MAGDALENA BAY, “IMAGE” 

Though they’ve been on the scene since 2016, Magdalena Bay’s “Image” feels like a breakthrough for the alternative pop duo (and couple) Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin. Floating somewhere between avant-pop and disco, “Image” explores the allure of self-reinvention. The track is accompanied by a lo-fi futurism aesthetic that is somehow painfully nostalgic. (TM)

11. FKA TWIGS, “EUSEXUA”

Co-produced alongside Koreless and Eartheater, “Eusexua” is the title track from FKA twigs’ forthcoming album, scheduled for release in January 2025. With oblique lyrics softly sung over a minimalist techno beat, in “Eusexua”, twigs deftly captures the feeling of surrendering to all-consuming euphoria. (SS)

10. BURIAL, KODE9, “PHONEGLOW” / “EYES GO BLANK” 

In many ways, it feels like we’re just catching up to the future nostalgia pioneered by the likes of Burial and Kode9 in the mid-00s. Released almost two decades after the pair first teamed up via Hyperdub in 2005, the split single “Phoneglow / Eyes Go Blank” continues to soundtrack our descent (or ascent?) into a post-future of digital alienation, high-tech sensuality, and abstracted yearning. In Burial’s nine-minute contribution, crystalline synths serve as a backdrop for romantic sentiments sampled from 90s R&B, before a ravey beat switch lays the groundwork for Kode9’s second half. Here, we’re thrown headlong into a (literal and figurative) jungle of searing basslines and mercurial beats. A perfect score for the end of the end of history. (TW)

9. SABRINA CARPENTER, “BED CHEM”

We have to honour Sabrina Carpenter, who has flittered to the upper echelons of pop stardom this year with her sixth studio album Short N’ Sweet. She’s been in the game for a while, but it was “Espresso” – a track that has been played over a billion times on Spotify – that gave her the magic dust she needed to get to the top. That single would be the obvious choice for this list, but we think “Bed Chem” edges it: a fizzy, lustful ode to the first flushes of love, it invokes a girlish euphoria when played on repeat (which you find yourself doing, almost against your will). There is, as Ethel Cain observed, some kind of “crack cocaine” lacing all of these tracks. (DS)

8. SHYGIRL FT. KINGDOM, “F@KE€ (VTSS REMIX)”

Shygirl had a busy year in 2024. But before she was being a full-time party girl on tour with Charli xcx, she dropped Club Shy, an EP named after her travelling club night. In June she released the remix version featuring many of her longtime collaborators. On “f@k€”, featuring Polish electronic artist VTSS, the pair created a hypnotic dance track that could easily be seen as a club classic in a decade. Sweaty, sexy and sultry, it channels club music at its best. More of this in 2025, please! We need more fun! (HD)

7. JIM LEGXACY, “AGGRESSIVE” 

There’s something intensely nostalgic about the flashing LED of a Blackberry phone in the video for Jim Legxacy’s “aggressive”. Leading the rollout for the South London singer-producer’s upcoming mixtape – Black British Music or BBM, another nod to the dearly-departed device – the track itself also leans heavily into Y2K and early 10s aesthetics via its melodic production and heart-on-his-sleeve vocals, build around an interpolation of Chip’s 2009 classic “Oopsy Daisy”. (TW)

6. TINASHE, “NASTY”

Tinashe is a star. She’s been in this industry as an independent artist for so long, so when her song “Nasty” blew up after being used in meme after meme (shout out to that nerdy white guy shaking his nyash to it) – I genuinely teared up. No one works harder than Tinashe, and no one crafts catchy, flirty and undeniably sexy hits quite like her. Nobody can match her freak fr. (HJ)

5. CHAPPELL ROAN, “GOOD LUCK, BABE” 

“Good Luck Babe”, from pop princess Chappell Roan, is a charged ballad of lesbian comphet (Kidz Bop even tried to straighten it out for their audiences.) Layered with 80s-inspired synths, Roan describes the bridge as a love letter to her past self, embracing the messy, tender process of coming to terms with her queerness. The track hits with a bittersweet nostalgia for anyone who's made it through to the other side. But it’s also fine if you haven’t – southern straight women have also been using it as their bridal song. (TM)

4. SOPHIE, ”MY FOREVER” 

“My Forever” started life as a 15-minute-long SoundCloud deepcut that never made it out of the drafts before SOPHIE passed away in 2021. It finally got a release this year, thanks to her brother and longtime collaborator, Benny Long. Taking the lead on a posthumous album which brought a number of SOPHIE’s unfinished tracks to life, Long condensed that hefty original edit into three minutes of shimmering, soaring emotion and managed to change the minds of diehard fans who never thought the project should have happened in the first place. As the bridge swirls and swells into the chorus and collaborator Cecile Believe breathes “I want to go back to forever, you’ll always be my forever”, the track is equally a yearning love song, an anthem for agency over one’s body, and a poignant reminder of SOPHIE’s unquantifiable influence on music and the gaping hole she left. From choking up hearing it for the first time while sweeping across a bridge in Paris at sundown to now, four months on, it hasn’t left my headphones. Given I still can’t get enough of it, it likely never will. (ED)

3. CHARLI XCX, “GIRL, SO CONFUSING FT LORDE” 

Brat had many viral moments over the last eight months, but one of the best was the surprise “Girl So Confusing” remix featuring Lorde. After two weeks of people speculating who the original sound could be about, they dropped the surprise track hashing out the tensions and insecurities in their friendship. Not to be dramatic, but Lorde’s verse wins one of the best verses of the year: raw and honest, she breaks down all the inner turmoil of their dynamic. 2024 has been filled with “working it out on the remix” memes thanks to these two. It was a true moment for those who have been longtime listeners of both, and hopefully marked the start of an ongoing collaborative partnership. For now, when I catch the person who told Lorde she walks like a bitch at ten… it’s on sight. (HD)

2. KENDRICK LAMAR, “NOT LIKE US”

I went to a quaint jazz festival in East Sussex earlier this year and witnessed a crowd full of parents drunk on bag wine singing along to the “a minor” punchline on “Not Like Us”. If that doesn’t testify to the astronomical reach of the most-streamed diss track of all time, I don’t know what does. (SPM)

1. ADDISON RAE, “DIET PEPSI” 

“Diet Pepsi” might be derivative of early Lana, with lyrics that sound at times like someone took captions from a coquette Instagram account and ran them through Chat GPT (“my lips reflect on his cross-gold chain…”), but when the song is so flawlessly executed, so unbelievably catchy, who cares? The production is just as reminiscent of Circus-era Britney or Nelly Furtado at her R&B peak, and the key change at the end is one of the most euphoric musical moments of 2024. With her follow-up single “Aquamarine” being just as good, Addison’s status as a new main pop girl looks like a done deal. (JG)