It happens to me almost every year – I fret that I’ve only been listening to the same five artists on repeat, and that I won’t be able to put together another Top Songs or Albums of the Year list. And then, like clockwork, I end up with too many songs and albums that I want to write about, falling back in love with releases that I had forgotten from earlier in the year. Usually that overflow is represented in the honorable mentions list that I put together before my albums rankings but, for whatever reason, 2024 was a year of singles for me, and that’s led to me also creating a list of honorable mentions for my song rankings. Rather than type all 54(!) entries, I’ve embedded a Spotify playlist for you instead, perfect for any two hour and 56 minute(!!) block of time you need to kill: 

My preoccupation with individual tracks year also means that this year’s list has grown from 20 to 25, a perhaps insignificant change that nonetheless allowed me to sneak in a few extra tracks I really wanted to highlight. I think that the list I came up with is a pretty balanced list of modern day superstars, time-tested icons, and smaller artists just beginning to build a reputation for themself, but, ultimately, that judgement is up to you, the reader and listener. That’s not to say it isn’t without my biases but, taking that in mind, I think you’ll ultimately enjoy The Postrider’s Top 25 Songs of 2024.

25. “It Gets Easier” – Tanukichan feat. Wisp

Even shoegaze’s most passionate defenders would probably concede that it’s not the most dynamic genre out there. It tends to put a premium on texture over rhythm and melody, and the result is a sound that’s meant to wash over you more than truly engage. On the lead single from their Circles EP, Tanukichan combats this sameness by kicking the track off with a propulsive drumbeat and bassline, holding back on the trademark guitar distortion until nearly 40 seconds into the song, which is introduced by a rollicking drum fill. The addition of guest vocals from Wisp also adds to the sense of extra dimension, and while the lyrics aren’t exactly Dylan-esque, the repetition of “you know” provides it with an actual hook, one the two vocalists are able to ride on a fuzzed-out rocket ship and into the stratosphere. 

24. “Keeper of the Shepherd” – Hannah Frances

Like any good millennial, I’m a fan of the wave of female singer-songwriters who grabbed hold of the indie scene and, for the time being, have yet to let go. But I also can’t help but be bored by the way many of them prioritize lyrics over instrumentation. Hannah Frances represents the next natural evolution in this (admittedly broad) species, pairing her grief-filled lyrics with rich, knotty instrumentals that feel as earthy and existential as her 2024 release Keeper of the Shepherd’s dirt, mud, and moss-filled album cover. Nowhere is this better exemplified than the album’s title track, in which a pattering drumbeat and chunky guitars that sound like they could have been lifted from a Johnny Cash live recording set the stage for Frances’ rumination on her father’s death. Frances has alluded to “religious trauma” in promotional materials for Keeper of the Shepherd, and it’s difficult not to hear this song as a kind of pained prayer, a plea to preserve the self so that Frances can finally discover something that loves her back.

23. “MILLION DOLLAR BABY” – Tommy Richman

You’ve probably forgotten about it already, but Justin Timberlake released a not very good album earlier this year, one that left me (and I assume him) wondering exactly where his career should go next. Well, Tommy Richman both gave him an answer and beat him to the punch. Backed by a slinky beat inspired by former JT collaborators The Neptunes, the Virginia-based Richman repackages the President of Pop’s falsetto and smooth demeanor for the TikTok generation, boasting about his home state being on the come up and unapologetically declaring that he wants conquer the pop world. His assurances to both the woman he’s trying to woo and the listener (who he’s also trying to woo) that he “never repped a set” feels charmingly conniving in the vein of “Señorita” and “SexyBack,” a faux “aw shucks” maneuver to be deployed before he slips the club with someone else’s girl. Who knows if Richman will ever be more than a viral flash in the pan (his followup album, Coyote, was tepidly received critically and commercially), but for 155 glorious seconds, he genuinely sounded like the future of pop.

22. “American Caveman” – Liquid Mike

Back when Wednesday was starting to get big, I wrote hopefully that the emergence of a massive indie band from Asheville, North Carolina would break the overwhelming influence of big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia on the genre and inspire more regional scenes. Well, it’s hard to get much more regional than Marquette, Michigan, the Upper Peninsula home of pop punk/indie rock hybrid Liquid Mike. Perhaps influenced by their remoteness, the band uses overdriven guitars of “American Caveman” to ponder their cosmic insignificance, noting no matter how much the climate shifts around them, they manage to stay the same, so much so that future generations won’t even care who they are or what they did. But the presence of an anachronistic harmonica – an instrument from America’s past that doesn’t usually crop up in a song like this – suggests that some things will never go away. It’s worth noting, after all, the lead singer Mike Maple doesn’t seem worried about oblivion – instead, he’s confident that he and his friends are “headed straight for infinity.” 

21. “Get Numb to It!” – Friko 

The great irony of our current era of confessional singer-songwriters and politically charged post-punk bands is that, despite tackling emotional topics, they tend to be musically restrained and formulaic. Enter Friko, the senior members of Chicago’s youth-centric Hallogallo scene, who take the opposite tact – barely containing their feelings while singing about how much they want to erase them. Lyrically, this track is bleak – “it doesn’t get better, it just gets twice as bad” hits harder in January 2025 then it did when the album was dropped a year ago – but instrumentally, the group can’t hide their exuberance, swelling like a Dye It Blonde-era Smith Westerns track before crashing into into a muted, lo-fi version of the song’s pre-chorus. Most versions of that outro would feel stark and bleak – but the laughs and applause of the band’s friends in the background instead serves as a warming reminder of why people make music in the first place.

20. “Dog Days” – Dehd 

Drawing from the lo-fi surf rock of late 2000s/early 2010s indie hitmakers like Wavves, Best Coast, and Dum Dum Girls, Dehd have always felt a bit like they’re nostalgic for nostalgia, wistful for the Obama-era romanticization of the past before it was eclipsed by the modern day fretting for the future. “Dog Days” is the perfect, hyperactive retreat to that kind of fantasy, a mishmash of SoCal greaser imagery punctuated by twitchy yelps, ad libs and howls that add a feral restlessness to a song that’s otherwise about going out and having fun. Having released their first album in 2016, Dehd is too old to give over to the release completely – they admit themselves that the endless summer days and nights they sing about are “fleeting, uneven” – but they also yearn for a time when they felt more open to “hoping and believing.” So do I.

19. “Water Underground” – Real Estate

Despite our shared homestate, I’d never really been able to fully get into Real Estate’s particularly dreamy version of jangle pop. But “Water Underground,” the lead single from the 2024 album Daniel, hooked me in with its unusually (for this particular band) groovy baseline, and the more I listened to it, the more I was impressed by the way Martin Courtney and his bandmates had clearly worked on their vocal arrangements, introducing harmonies, call and response, and falsetto that recalls power pop groups like The La’s and fellow New Jerseyeans Fountains of Wayne. Lyrically, there’s not a ton going on here – Courtney has said in interviews that the song is about the subconscious process of writing a song – but its verses (“I come from a town not to far from here”/”There is a sound”/“Never figured out how to make it clear”) explore some kind of suburban contradiction, the sense that a cloistered-off town mere miles away from New York City could still feel like home, yet still be missing something essential.

18. “Wish I Was” – Kim Deal

It’s still difficult  for me to comprehend that Kim Deal, the iconic bassist/vocalist/guitarist of Pixies and The Breeders fame, is basically the same age as my parents, which means that most of the first generation of alternative/indie rock is also getting up there in years. If “Wish I Was,” the best track from her debut solo album Nobody Loves You More is any indication, then she’s having a tough time wrestling with it too. A lightly chugging, psych and surf-influenced ballad, “Wish I Was” finds Deal admiring the youth and vigor of her subject, even if it makes her realize how much closer to the end she is. Is she singing to the generations of indie rockers she’s been inspiring since the 80s? The young (even younger than me) fans that were in the crowd at the Breeders show I went to in 2023? Olivia Rodrigo, who The Breeders opened for that same year? Who knows – all we know is that, even if Kim claims that “coming down is rough,” the journey to get there has been beautiful to listen to. 

17. “Mother Nature” – MGMT

For seemingly their entire post-2008 career, MGMT has tried to outrun the legacy of “Kids,” their smash psych-synth hit that launched them into the public eye. On “Mother Nature,” they realize they don’t really have to separate themselves from it anymore – time and age have already done it for them. No longer able to sing from the perspective of a wide-eyed child or a dreamer with their whole lives in front of them, “Mother Nature” finds MGMT in the role of world-weary adults, trying to make their career ambitions support the responsibilities of feeding their children and staying financially solvent. Trading in their synths for acoustic guitars, the instrumentation of “Mother Nature” seems like it’s trying to strike a similar balance – reaching for MGMT’s goal of out-of-body transcendence while staying aware of the physical realities that will always keep it on the ground. 

16. “Bodyguard” – Beyoncé

Unattainability is a key part of Beyoncé’s appeal – even when she’s singing about dancing at a club or a bar, the superheroic sonics and the fact that she’s married to Jay-Z make it very clear that, whatever club or bar she’s dancing in, we probably aren’t invited. But the lipstick stains and whiskey breath of “Bodyguard” place Queen Bey in an inconceivably tangible realm, while her sly vocals make you feel like you’re do-si-doing with her in a Houston dive. While not every experiment on Cowboy Carter works, “Bodyguard” stands out as a particularly sublime mix of funk, rock, and country, a potent dancefloor blend for an era where genre boundaries continue to blur. 

15. “Loud Bark” – Mannequin Pussy

Mannequin Pussy have often felt like the living personification of the soft-loud-loud song structure, turning out tender indie love songs and throat-cutting punk rippers in equal measure, oftentimes as back to back tracks. “Loud Bark” feels like an attempt to synthesize those two sides of the band, with lead singer Marisa Dabice exploring her conflicting feelings of vulnerability and aloofness, of love and hate. Those contradictions, of course, are reflected in the music, with a quiet, clean verse building to a vicious chorus where Dabice assures us that she does in fact walk it likes she talks it, not afraid to lash out at those who try to control her even if she still wants the comfort and satisfaction of love, from both a partner and her fans. It’s an inspired balancing act that actually gets more interesting when everything comes crashing down. 

14. “Clams Casino” – Cassandra Jenkins

Much ink was spilled in 2024 and the early weeks of 2025 about America’s so-called “loneliness epidemic,” and Cassandra Jenkins’ Neil Young-indebted “Clams Casino” feels like a dispatch from that crisis. Contending with her loneliness touring following the death of David Berman and her grandmother’s fading independence, Jenkins tries to find a silver lining anywhere she can – the ocean, a hotel bar, an old suit, an unfamiliar seafood dish. At the end of her journey and following a scratchy guitar solo, she’s only sure of two things – she’ll always be looking for something better and, whatever it is she does end up doing, she doesn’t want to do it alone anymore.

13. “Triple Seven” – Wishy

While most of indie rock’s 90s nostalgia tends to manifest itself via straightforward grunge tributes or idiosyncratic nu metal revisionism, a few artists, like Soccer Mommy and DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ, have tapped into the era’s softer, more aspirational side. The Sundays-inspired “Triple Seven,” from Indianapolis’ Wishy, draws from a similar vein, warping their putatively shoegaze sound into a heavenly melody. In a cold, melancholy world, “Triple Seven” stands out as a refreshingly warm invitation. “Can you feel it? Did you get my note?” Nina Pitchkites sings, welcoming the listener into a warm embrace, promising them a sense of sugary golden hour comfort that feels too good to be believed. 

12. “Starburster” – Fontaines D.C. 

Leave it to the Irish to pick up the English’s slack. Bristol’s Idles must’ve felt like they were really onto something when they started collaborating with Nigel Goodrich, Kenny Beats, and LCD Soundsystem to introduce another dimension to the otherwise one-note European post-punk scene that’s flourished over the past seven years or so. But Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. have perfected this dance/rap/post-punk fusion on 2024’s “Starburster,” an improbable successful track that avoids the pitfalls certain musicians tend to fall into when they experiment with hip-hop. It helps that lead singer Grian Chatten isn’t rapping so much as he’s rambling, running through the thoughts that raced through his mind during a panic attack in a London tube station. Drugs, alcohol, the SAG strike, the Chinese calendar, the Easter Rising, and JD Salinger all make an appearance in Chatten’s jumbled thoughts, creating an intoxicating series of word associations that may not be coherent but sure are exciting. The gasps that follow each line of the chorus might be meant to reflect Chatten’s desperate mental state, but it also sounds like something new struggling to be born.

11. “tv off” – Kendrick Lamar feat. Lefty Gunplay

I suspect for most people (like, say, Pitchfork) “Not Like Us” will stand as their favorite Kendrick Lamar song of 2024, a year that saw a generation-defining rapper rediscover his voice and vigor after a few uneven releases. But I’m partial to “tv off,” Kenny’s other collaboration with DJ Mustard that functions as something of a victory lap after his unequivocal win over Drake in the pair’s 2024 beef. If “Not Like Us” was Lamar proving he still had a killer instinct within him, “tv off” is him wresting control back from a hip-hop scene gone astray, doing so by abandoning the pretensions of To Pimp a Butterfly and Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers for a more visceral, vicious approach. The much memed “MUSTTTAAARRRDDD” call to action feels like a battle cry – Lamar concedes that “somebody gotta do it” to set things straight, and who better to do it than him.