BEST OF 2024

03. AXEL BROOKS “SYMPATHY”

On only her second ever single, Chicago’s Axel Brooks delivers one for the ages. “Sympathy” is a new-age torch song, a tortured temptation in the heat of peak summer, the best Lana del Rey she never wrote. In our interview with Axel, she described the love interest at the center of “Sympathy” as a “horrible man, he's the devil, but I can't resist”, and that mix of sex and danger shines through on the production as moody piano flows into breakbeat-adjacent drums and a fiery guitar on the bridge.

But Axel’s lyrics really take the song to it’s highest heights, namely when she has a brief moment of clarity on the bridge, singing “Most likely he’s just like any other guy I’ve met/With an okay smile, but that Hollywood kind of kiss”) and on the tongue twister hook of “Hot skin, sun kissed, sipping blissfully” that somehow captures the entire feeling of the song in just a few words. As a follow-up to her also excellent debut single “When The Siren Calls”, and standing on it’s own, “Sympathy” is a calling card for one of the brightest new voices in independent pop.

04. KUNT PILLS “ARTIST”

Many in the music scene have come across the type of person Kunt Pills describes on “Artist” - a dreamer, a self-obsessed creative type who brushes off their own shortcomings in service of the artistic process. This behavior can become an art form in itself, something the Dayton artist observes with the lyric “Paint a picture, make it obvious/I think you’re not a novice, I think we’ve got an artist”, and yet she can’t help but surrender to their charms. By the time the bridge hits, she’s offering to be their “only muse” - maybe a recognition that you can’t create something new without a little self-destruction.

The song kicks off an outstanding statement of a debut album, forged by Kunt Pills’ experience of self-discovery through making music on the Internet over the past few years. “Artist” is the most distilled - and one of the catchiest - expressions of those themes.

06. ANNONXL “LET’s BE CLEAR”

annonXL sounds like the future. The Philadelphia artist makes music that surely lives within the worlds of R&B and pop, but also pushes the edges of those familiar forms, either with vocal delivery or unexpected phrasing. “Let’s Be Clear” seems like a fairly ordinary track for the first 30 seconds or so, before taking a left turn with the lyric “I won’t apologize for my sins/To humans”. The novel turns of phrase don’t stop there - my personal favorite being “Like, when was a time when I never rose from the ashes?/I’ll sing to the masses”.

The song never really returns to the opening motif. It constantly evolves, with each new verse bringing a new, exciting melody or lyrical moment. As annonXL coos toward the end of the track: “I been this bitch since birth, just new iterations forming” - with each evolution, the artist’s personality still shines through.

07. PHONEWIFEY & ERSATZ “YOU HAVE A NEW MEMORY”

“You Have a New Memory” is an odd case. Seemingly harmless when I encountered it over a year ago, it’s since burrowed into the deeper parts of my brain. Maybe the Gilmore Girls sample that kicks the song off was an activation phrase. But more likely, London’s Phonewifey has tapped into a universal feeling. On the surface, the track is about the dissonance of an IRL relationship being over, but the memories still living on digitally.

I can’t help but read a little deeper. We’ve documented our lives in images to an unprecedented degree, but how many of those memories still exist in our minds? Are we training ourselves to forget our subjective experiences because we know there are arrangements of pixels in the iCloud? Maybe that’s a bit too cerebral. In any case, the lyric “Five years of life going over my head” still kind of hits me in the gut, and subjective reactions like that can’t be captured digitally.

08. CASSIUS CRUZ “BURNOUT”

Around the time they dropped “Burnout” last summer, New York’s Cassius Cruz posted online that they were finished making music after (at least) eight years of playing with Latin pop and hip-hop influences to create a unique body of work. “Burnout” seems to be the explanation why. Lyrically, Cassius jumps between the hilarious (“I don’t give a fuck what no one think/Not the government or a sloppy twink”) and the heartbreaking (“I’m a disappointment to my mom/People stare when I put my hair on”) over upbeat drums that then melt into a meandering, wistful synth line as they sing “Now you’ve burnt out”.

If "Burnout” is the last we hear from Cassius Cruz, it’s a sad reminder of how much great art we miss out on when artists aren’t able to juggle the creative process with the harsh demands of modern life, but it’s also a fitting send-off to a singular artist in the independent queer pop scene.

09. PIXEL GRIP “STAMINA”

“Stamina”, the only release last year from Chicago electronic trio Pixel Grip, is so relentless it’s almost intimidating. The lyrics are few and to the point, with a commanding performance from vocalist Rita Lukea, who starts in a cool, detached mode at the beginning of the song before quickly escalating to growls and screams that match the intensity of the production. If you see me on the dance floor bleeding through my sneakers, it’s only because I don’t want to disappoint Pixel Grip by leaving before the party’s over.

BTW - there’s also a club edit for those who want a bit of a dancier version, but I’m partial to the raw energy on the original.

10. NYSSA “GOOD KINDA BAD”

There are a few moments on Nyssa’s stellar album Shake Me Where I’m Foolish where the Toronto rock artist indulges in her wilder, deeper impulses (most explicitly on “Werewolf” and the epic closer “My Gemini”). Pretty much anything from the album could have made the cut here, but the dynamic and cinematic “Good Kinda Bad” is my favorite to represent the themes in question.

The track opens with an evocative metaphor - throwing a rock to shatter a seaside, glass mansion - fitting for a song about giving into desire. Nyssa sells it with a moody and quivering vocal performance that later explodes into a animalistic shout, and by the time she starts chanting “Come to the dark side” in the outro, we’re already there.

11. DOCX “ONE TWO 3 FOUR”

Docx is easily one of the most prolific artists we follow, which can make it even harder for any one individual track to stand out. But “ONE TWO 3 FOUR” is one of the most unique, strangest things the Denver-based artist has released. Over a constant, simple drum beat instead of layers of electronics, Docx describes a zonked out summer day at the beach - full of drugs, swimming with dolphins (on drugs) and a friend of a friend who starts kicking random cars (while on drugs).

12. AAAYYYAAA “IT’S ALL GOOD”

A standout track from AAAYYYAAA’s debut album Silly Clown, “It’s All Good” is effortlessly cool, with minimal lyrics and “jock jam meets dark room” production. The builds and transitions are timed perfectly, a polish that reflects the Chicago artist’s classical training and years of releasing music as Forget Basement. The moment halfway through where the track powers down and back up again is a personal favorite - the chance to take a breath before the party starts back up.

13. Dualitè “PRE-OP”

Dualitè is up next. The New Orleans rapper has been releasing music for years, but hit new peaks in 2024 with a trio of excellent singles led by “Pre-op”. She packs a feature film’s worth of imagery and side characters into less than two minutes (The diamond on her toes chipping a man’s tooth? The transphobic girl with the DL boyfriend?) while bragging about the money and men she pulls in.

The only hesitation about her rise to power comes on the best lyric of the song: “I hope I don't get too pretty to where I am unclockable/How else would he know it cost a band to take me to Papadeaux?”

14. AVEREAUX “STOP CALLING MY PHONE”

Who needs “Telephone, Pt. 2”? Chicago’s Avereaux is ready with a spiritual sequel, another banger about ignoring your phone in the club. It might sound obvious, but it’s really not easy to write a pop song this effective. The choice to return to the chorus again after the experimental breakdown is a wise one - Avereaux knows we want to hear it again!

15. 222BREE “DJ”

A worthy entry in the “I wrote this song about you” genre, “DJ” is an instant classic - a gay girl hip-hop anthem from Columbus’ 222Bree with the lyric “Put this on replay” which might as well be a prophecy. The song is all hooks - verse, pre-chorus, chorus and even the spoken word moment on the bridge are all equally catchy.

Plus, I have a weak spot for any lyrical wordplay about Stevie Wonder being blind. Bonus points for that!

16. AMIRA JAZEERA “STILL THINKIN’ BOUT ME”

Amira Jazeera was on a hot streak this year - starting with the excellent “Hypnotizing” and building momentum with “Still Thinkin’ Bout Me” - a dance track built on stuttering vocal samples, delicate keys, and a killer melody. But it’s Jazeera’s vocal performance that pulls the song together as she switches between a rich lower register and a fluttering falsetto. To state the obvious - we’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

17. JANE DEERE “WIDOWER”

Louisville’s Jane Deere delivers Southern Gothic, chamber trap excellence on “Widower”, which tells the story of a woman who would rather cast herself into the sea than die by her husband’s hand. The song almost functions as a two-parter, with the beat kicking in halfway though and exploding into brilliant, expansive production. Even when the tempo picks up, we never lose the poetry - “I just wanna be fish dinner/Because I don’t wanna fucking feel you” is especially evocative.

18. QUINTON BARNES “GO WITH ME”

“Go With Me” is both brutal and beautiful, or “turned on and pissed off at the same time” as Toronto’s Quinton Barnes puts it in the first verse. The lyrical delivery never slows down, with the rapid-fire pacing matching the frenetic production. As always, Barnes is able to find time to build in multiple hooks without slowing down until the outro.

19. CHILLONA FEAT. DIVINECOWGURL & CUNTY MEME “GUAPA PT. II - REMIX”

2023’s “Guapa” was already an excellent Chillona song, but the remix finds her enlisting Divinecowgurl and Cunty MeMe for all-star Chicago lineup. The result is an effortless combo of three very different ouevres on one extremely hard track with lyrics in both Spanish and English, all with insanely fun vocal production.

20. RHETT RHAPSODY “JERSEY”

Self-described by Rhett Rhapsody as “a Jersey Club song about wearing a jersey in New Jersey”, this is the kind of high-concept camp tightrope that the Indiana artist often walks with ease. “Jersey” is no exception, a homoerotic fantasy set around a boys night out on the Jersey shore that is overflowing with incredible details, like a discreet pit sniff during a fist-pump, the repeated declaration of “It’s T-shirt time”.

21. ZACH BENSON “WATER”

“Water” feels fragile and intimate, like a fraught moment between two maybe lovers. Virginia’s Zach Benson mixes straightforward, observational lyrics with memorable poetry (“I watch your lips curl and shiver like fish on the shore”) over a mid-2000s coffeehouse-indie guitar line on an unexpected but welcome contrast to the more upbeat songs on his album music for you and your friends.

22. ANNONXL “FEEL LIKE A GURL”

“feel like a gurl” is pure sugar rush, opening with the sound of a giggle and blooming into a gender-bending fantasia. Over bubbly production, annonXL lays out a world where girlhood is a state of mind. Just like on “Let’s Be Clear” (entry #06), annonXL makes unconventional lyrics (“I love my left hip right hip like a girl when I/Switch on to the dancе floor") fit in a satisfying way.

23. JAYE NAIMA “NAIMA LEWINSKY”

San Diego based Jaye Naima has been putting out bangers for years - it’s no secret that she can rap, but “Naima Lewinsky” shows off her sense of humor as well. The track is consistently funny (“On my pussy on my mama,I never let a broke man hit for free” hits every time) over a pounding club beat.

24. FOOD HOUSE “KUTNA HORA”

“kutna hora” is vintage food house, a hyperpop jaunt through various furry conventions, frotting encounters, fantasies about killing the police, and so much more. The standout from their second album two house is a victory lap, with the title shouting out the Czech town they performed in for their European debut.

25. AURA “KHITS!”

On one of her strongest and most abstact songs so far, New York’s Aura delivers an expressionist club anthem with lyrics that feel like bits and pieces of the conversion our it-girl is overhearing as she passes through the party - “Wanna touch her/Wanna love her” and “Whoa, who’s she?”