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. 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.

In part one of this list, I started off with a playlist of honorable mentions. For part two, I’m including an alternate best of list from Alex Hunter, our other regular music contributor, which will hopefully provide you with a helpful alternative perspective on the year in music: 

Still not enough music for you? Read on for the rest of my Top 25 Songs of 2024:

10. “Thinking About You” – Faye Webster

One of the fun things you learn in therapy is that “rumination” is a technical term referring to the close, incessant focus on one’s problems. Sometimes they can be productive and lead people to figure out a solution, but for me (and I suspect a lot of people) they just make me more depressed and anxious, holding a microscope up to my fears and failures, keeping me up at night and discouraging me from taking any action. Faye Webster doesn’t seem to reach quite those depths on “Thinking About You,” but I can’t help but think (no pun intended) about ruminations as I listen to the six and a half minute track, in which Webster does little but repeat that she is, in fact, thinking about someone, over and over again. There are clues throughout the song that this could be both a good and a bad thing – a desire to stay awake so she can spend more time with her lover, or a fear for their shared future together – but either way, it’s constant, unceasing, featuring a smooth but churning R&B instrumental that could loop on, forever and ever, its piano and guitar harmonies turning over until eternity. We know this is impossible, but Webster knows that when you’re in this frame of mind that nothing, good or bad, feels like it will ever end. 

9. “Like I Say (I runaway)” – Nilüfer Yanya

While I love her voice and guitar playing, Nilüfer Yanya has yet to put together an album that’s held together for me as one complete, great body of work. But within those inconsistent records, there’s always at least one year-shattering stand out. On 2024’s My Method Actor, that song is “Like I Say (I runaway),” a massive-sounding track that mixes George Michael style blue-eyed soul with overdriven rock guitars to create something that feels truly new. Whereas many of my other favorite Yanya tracks feel like youthful head rushes, “Like I Say” rings with the wisdom of someone who’s been touring and releasing albums since they were 21, a meditation on how to meaningfully spend one’s time to accomplish everything they want to. It’s also an indication that Yanya still has an exquisite ear, expansive palette, and great sense of how to bring a song together. Her best work might yet still be in front of her.

8. “360” – Charli XCX

While the vast majority of my “brat summer” was spent covering planning board meetings and fretting about Joe Biden’s failing reelection campaign, even I wasn’t immune to the many charms of Charli XCX, who managed to pair her inclination for robo-rave bangers with a healthy dose of pop sensibilities to notch her first true pop break through well over 15 years into her career. No song encapsulated that trajectory more than “360,” which presents celebrity and hedonism as a kind of gonzo Renaissance painting in which Charli and friends stand apart from the crowd as the Mona Lisas and Venuses of the Instagram era, with producer A.G. Cook as the Da Vinci capturing their likeness. It’d feel conceited if it weren’t also so infectious, opening with a tessellating synth riff that runs throughout the song, providing the perfect hook for Charli to assert her confidence and influence, reshaping our sonic, visual, and linguistic lexicons in the process. 

7. “Right Back to It” – Waxahatchee feat. MJ Lenderman

Conceived in part while Katie Crutchfield was opening for Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell, there is something that feels touchingly mature about “Right Back to It,” the lead single from Waxahatchee’s 2024 release, Tigers Blood. Perhaps the most straightforward country arrangement on a Waxahatchee solo release, “Right Back to It” is all about how love endures even when the spark does not, when excitement gives way to comfort, a raging fire of passion to an everlasting flame of devotion. The song’s video, which features Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman, her musical kindred spirit, floating calmly down a bayou, reflects this sense of consistency and flow, which can be found not only in the relationship that they sing about, but also the way that Waxahatchee have become one of the more consistent indie/country hybrid artists working today.

6. “Buffalo” – Hurray for the Riff Raff

Today’s culture and economy values expediency and urgency, so much so that it can be difficult to remember that the natural world changes excruciatingly slowly. That’s the reminder imparted by Alynda Segarra on “Buffalo,” the stand out track from Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past is Still Alive. While Segarra is painfully aware of the fleeting nature of life – she ponders whether or not we’ll end up like the dodo or the woolly mammoth – she’s also at peace with the meandering pace of nature, confident that the two weeks it took her friend to capture a buffalo herd on camera is a sign that good things come to those who wait. Segarra’s catalog is broadly radical, decrying the plight of immigrants and the working class – but for at least one song this year, they took time to relish America’s natural splendor, finding peace in the wide open spaces of the West, the beauty it imparts and the patience it demands. 

5. “I’m All Fucked Up” – This Is Lorelei 

I may not have had the substance abuse issues that lead to Nate Amos to write what he calls his “delayed recovery album,” but few lines this year hit harder for this newly-minted 30-year-old than “you little sick thing, you had your fun.” No matter where you end up in life, it’s hard not to look back at some point and wonder if you wasted your time, indulging in self-destructive behavior and toxic procrastination, spending your energy on past fun while failing to invest in future stability. That’s exactly the feeling that resonates throughout “I’m All Fucked,” Amos’ motormouthed recollection of his chaotic youth set to a fidgety indie rock ripper. There are moments in this song where it feels like Amos simply hit record mid-rant as he recounted his various misadventures, ranging from syphoning fuel in Spain to chasing dogs around to getting a bad haircut, creating a mishmash of memory that may not be literally true but carries the feeling of truth, swerving into rhythmically satisfying lines like “you can hear the bass and the pedal of the drum” and “fucking nickel fucking dime” before ending with deceptively profound statements like “you’re gonna see the stars before it’s too late” and “I’m definitely too fucked up to dream.” But no matter how circuitous the route he takes is, Amos always ends up at the same place, acknowledging no matter who’s “all fucked up” – be it him or whoever he’s singing too – the fact that they stuck around is a victory in and of itself.

4. “Wristwatch” – MJ Lenderman

If the modern route to fame is creating an inescapable meme, then MJ Lenderman might be on his way to becoming the next Frank Sinatra. Type in “himbo dome” to Twitter and you’ll find way too many indie rock fans riffing on the goofiest line from an otherwise ungoofy song, in which the Wednesday guitarist and vocalist tries to salvage his dignity amidst the repeated humiliations that pop up across his 2024 album Manning Fireworks. Sure, Lenderman’s characters may be dumped, drunk, and relegated to cleaning up after other miserable men to make a living, but what if I told you that they had an Apple Watch and beachfront property in Western New York? Well, you’d probably still think they were losers, a perspective that the melancholy guitars and steel pedal of “Wristwatch” makes abundantly clear. But Lenderman also seems to suggest that others’ fixation on his loneliness is a sign that they, too, are lonely, a condition that the fancy gadgets he boasts about, and perhaps even indie Twitters’ overreliance on the same joke structure, also reveal. God help us if the Bills ever win the Super Bowl – the jokes will be unceasing.

3. “Love On the Outside” – Wishy

It should’ve been abundantly clear the second that the single for “Love On the Outside” dropped that “shoegaze” would no longer be an adequate description of Wishy’s sound anymore. No shoegaze band has ever sounded this optimistic or enthusiastic about the mere concept of love, and they’ve certainly never featured such yearning vocals, either. This is a song all about turning the “fantasy on my phone” into a reality, about having the bravery to forge something deep and real for the first time in your life. Hearing it played live mere weeks after the election, it also felt like a call to resist the urge to withdraw and to instead reach out and connect with the world around you, even when it feels most difficult. “Are you down? Are you free?” vocalist Kevin Krauter asks the object and his affection and his listener. The only appropriate answer feels like it should be “sure, why not?” 

2. “New Air” – Ben Seretan

Wilco may have released an EP this year, but the best Wilco song of 2024 was actually recorded by Ben Seretan. Of course, that pithy description sells “New Air,” the centerpiece of Seretan’s self-described “insane Italy record,” Allora, short. While Seretan’s guitar work might share some DNA with that of Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline, Wilco never had a rhythm section that went as hard as bassist Nico Hedley and drummer Dan Knishkowy, who keep this ripper intact through its mammoth eight-minute runtime, providing a solid backbeat upon which Seretan indulges in Neil Young-style noise before, like Seretan’s guitar, they threaten to collapse under the weight of the song itself. Based on the impressionistic travelogue imagery of the lyrics, the “new air” that Seretan is singing about could refer to the feeling of having arrived somewhere you’ve never been before, as well as the sheer, awesome power of realizing you’re just a little speck on the vast American landscape. Either way, it’s a titanic thing to behold.

1. “She’s Leaving You” – MJ Lenderman

I can’t pinpoint exactly when, but at some point over the last three years or so, “dudes rock” became a common refrain on social media and culture writing as a kind of self-deprecating way to describe male-focused media starring mostly males. It’s an acknowledgement that, no matter how progressive one might be, it’s still fun to watch a (fictional) cop shoot at some (fictional) robbers, a running back smash through a defensive line, or a long-haired guy rip off an epic guitar solo. 

It also implies a lack of analysis and degree of indulgence, but that’s where MJ Lenderman comes in. When he’s not shredding for Wednesday, the Asheville-based songwriter and guitarist is writing fatalistic Southern rock songs about faded football stars, pro wrestling-inspired violence, and the politics of boat ownership. But while Lenderman is talented at drilling down at specifics regarding the dark side of the “dudes rock” mindset, “She’s Leaving You,” for all intents and purposes the lead single from his 2024 smash Manning Fireworks, “Rudolph,” which also appears on Manning Fireworks, was released as a single in 2023 before the album was announced. is an effective thesis statement. Through a pained drawl, Lenderman laments the pathetic condition of not just a man without a woman, but a man rejected by a woman he once loved. Once amusing diversions, like investing in a Ferrari and obsessing over Eric Clapton, become the center of his personality, and the bright lights of Las Vegas become signposts to false salvation. But while Lenderman seems to be focusing specifically on a broken man, there’s also an undercurrent of universality to “She’s Leaving You.” The song’s blend of indie rock, classic rock, and country feels expertly designed to appeal both to the disaffected kids and the used Buick salesman who star in the song’s video, while Lenderman’s acknowledgement that “it falls apart, we all got work to do” nods to our collective capacity to screw things up. Of course, just because everyone is capable of being broken, doesn’t mean our specific version of brokenness doesn’t haunt us – there’s a reason, after all, the last two lines of the song are sung by Karly Hartzman, Lenderman’s Wednesday bandmate and ex-girlfriend. Our mistakes and regrets will always rattle around in our head in the voice of those we wronged. Sometimes all we can do is air guitar along to our favorite shredder – be it Clapton or Lenderman – until we figure out a way to move on.