2024's Biggest Songs of the Summer, Ranked

Hozier, photographed by Edward Cooke

By definition, every year has a song that is the most popular song of the summer, but what is truly at the core of the cultural title song of the summer is what best captures the zeitgeist, the feeling of being alive in that particular summer.

For a few years, the concept of the song of the summer seemed to be a dying art. Pop music was venturing slightly darker every year and the effervescence associated with a season-defining track was less reflected on the charts. American society became more individualized with music being heard through earbuds far more often than boomboxes, an effect well under way before but certainly exacerbated by COVID-19. And while musing about the death of the monoculture has become a cliché, that cliché exists for a reason.

But 2024 brought the American popular music consumer one of the deepest rosters of summer songs in a generation. Music that captured the summer spirit and moment of the particular summer, with breakouts by what appears to be the next generation of pop stars taking over. Here are the top 10, as gauged through a broad American perspective.

10. “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart” by Taylor Swift: This is arguably the first year in the last several that Swift did not pose a serious threat for having the song of the summer, as her album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” was released a little too far before the summer, with songs a little too dark and with sales a little too meager (by the extraordinarily high standards of her recent success). The closest she came was the album’s second single, an upbeat July release that contrasts with most of the LP. Swift may have taken a step back from her 2023, literally Time’s Person of the Year levels of fame, but even a relative lull from her merits consideration.

9. “Too Sweet” by Hozier: The rare guitar-driven song to become a massive hit in the 2020s, “Too Sweet” is probably more accurately the song of the spring, based on its March release and its April chart peaks, but the muscular blues-soul-alternative tune bled into the summer in what would become his biggest hit ever.

It is a bit darker than fits the standards of the format – Hozier sounds every bit of his mid-30s age, contrasting with the more teen-focused fare usually associated with pop. But while “Too Sweet” lacks summer beach vibes, it does illustrate the feeling of walking in the house after a Saturday night out.

8. “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish: The two-time Academy Award-winner has a few contenders here: her new album’s first single “Lunch” and her Charli XCX collaboration “Guess” bookend the one I ultimately chose.

But the more conventional “Birds of a Feather” ultimately became a huge hit with a wide audience, and even if it isn’t inherent to a particular time of year, its omnipresence makes it unavoidable. Some of her songs have been big hits in the moment and then somewhat disappeared, but “Birds,” armed with some of the strongest vocals she has ever performed, is a simple love song with staying potential.

7. “360” by Charli XCX: The hyperpop-inspired single has become the album’s biggest hit and her biggest song since “Boom Clap” a decade ago. An even bigger song in Europe, whose rave culture is evoked in living color in “360,” Charli XCX has brought an aggressive synthesizer to the stew of summer 2024 music that most probably would not have predicted.

6. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey: In a bit of an upset despite its March release, Beyoncé's “Cowboy Carter” didn’t really compete for the honors this year, but one of the album’s collaborators did.

Shaboozey, certainly helped by the BeyHive boost, is a Nigerian-American country singer, who incorporates the spirit (no pun intended) and lyrics of J-Kwon’s 2004 hit “Tipsy” to great effect on his breakthrough single. While many hybrids of country and hip-hop can sound either disingenuous or, more nefariously, like they are being categorized as hybrids as a matter of marketing more than authentic categorization, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is effective because it recognizes that plenty of people like classic, sorrowful country and also fun rap songs about partying, and in doing so, it can cater to both audiences.

5. “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen: The first and most successful of the rapper’s 2024 turn to country music, “I Had Some Help” is, purely by the metrics, the song of the summer in the sense that it is the most popular song of the summer, having held the No. 1 spot in the United States longer than any other song this summer (or this year, for that matter).

In terms of broader cultural impact, there are more important songs, but the undeniable hooks, soaring chorus and decision to duet with arguably the biggest current country music star made Post's country foray far more successful than most of us could have ever guessed.

4. “Million Dollar Baby” by Tommy Richman: No artist came more out of nowhere to achieve massive chart success in 2024 than Virginia-born artist Tommy Richman, a skinny white kid who looks like he is desperately trying to prove to everybody that he can grow facial hair (with mixed results so far), who produced arguably the coolest hip-hop beat of the year. A TikTok sensation prior to becoming an unavoidable chart monster, “Million Dollar Baby” is a true underdog story both in terms of its origin and its literal lyrical content, but the electrofunk jam hints at the most unique hip-hop artist to emerge from Virginia since Pharrell.

3. “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan: If the southwest Missouri pop singer had more a following entering 2024 than Tommy Richman, it’s only because her debut album was released with several months left in 2023. But 2024 was when Roan became a sleeper breakout star with the synth ballad “Good Luck, Babe!” bringing more attention to her than ever before. While her campy aesthetic is a defining quality of her performances, it’s her sincerity as a lyricist and a performer that has made her rise so enjoyable. “Good Luck, Babe!” conveys the heartbreak of so many popular songs of the past but from a distinctly LGBTQ+ perspective.

2. “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter: It isn’t particularly logical that a song that shares a title with a hot beverage would sound like summer, but this is a sugar high of a pop song. Carpenter’s natural charisma drips all over this single, a disco-pop tune that sounds distinctly retro but with enough of a winking playfulness that one doesn’t feel silly for surrendering one’s self to its charms. There is, of course, an intellectual case for dismissing lyrics like “I know I Mountain Dew it for ya” or “That’s that me, espresso,” but the visceral truth is that “Espresso” is an absolute bop.

1. “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar: Forget about being the biggest hit – the biggest story in popular culture in the summer of 2024 was the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. And while popular consensus was that Kendrick had come out ahead thanks to the sheer force of diss tracks like “Euphoria” and “Meet the Grahams,” he took a major victory lap by beating Drake in the one area where the latter usually succeeds best: on the charts.

It is impossible to discuss “Not Like Us” without the historical context of the rap beef, and repeating the lyrical insults toward Drake became its own pastime in 2024, but on a purely sonic level, the song becomes an instant classic with its opening riff. Tracks this vicious aren’t supposed to also be danceable, but the bassline made it so in public venues, while its prominent brass section makes “Not Like Us” covers by marching bands an inevitable feature of the coming college football season. Perhaps it could have succeeded at a different point in time, but the way it has become a sports and politics staple already ensures that anybody who was alive and breathing in the summer of 2024 will have some sort of association with “Not Like Us.”