Melissa Kacar

Tough" // Lana Del Rey & Quavo Lana Del Rey and Quavo teamed up for "Tough", a dreamy Americana summer anthem released right before the Fourth of July. It reminds me of something that could have been included on one of my all-time favorite albums by Lana,  Lust For Life , which is a sound I love to hear her channeling again. I also love the resilient message of the lyrics and the varied influences they draw from in this song. Their voices unexpectedly blend so well together and they truly make a great pair on this song. It's one of my favorite songs of the entire year so far, I love it so much and hope that we get more new music from Lana soon! "Juna" // Clairo I absolutely love every single song on Clairo 's latest release,  Charm , it flows together so beautifully into such a calming and transcending listening experience. "Juna" is definitely a highlight for me, it is such a sweet and simple jazzy song that feels like it could have been...

To celebrate the end of this incredible year of music, I compiled a list of my top 30 favorite songs that were the soundtrack of my 2024. I only included one song per artist, otherwise this list would have ended up being twice as long - plus it probably would be made up of half Billie Eilish and half Charli xcx songs! It was the year of the  BRAT for sure, their music really defined the year for me. The rest of this list is made up of more of my long-time favorite artists who released so much incredible music this year, as well as many new artists that I discovered in 2024 and fell in love with.  Honestly, 2024 has been one of the best years for music in a very long time. I initially tried to narrow this list down to the best 24 songs of 2024, but this year was just  too  good for new releases! It feels like there was a period of time from around March through July that was stacked with back-to-back new music every single week from all of the best artists out right...