My Top 15 Most Played Songs Of 2024.
Well, It's time for my second music list of the year. However, unlike last year where I discussed my least favourite songs of the year, I instead chose to talk about my most played songs of the year. You may be asking "How is that any different than the list you made last week of your favourite hit songs of 2024?" The answer: the music doesn't have to have been released in 2024. Any music piece I found myself listening to over and over again this year is eligible, whether it's from 2024 or 24 B.C. I'm even removing my rule of having only 1 song per artist, because some people hogged my limelight, and they deserve to do so here too. Here's the list of what I'd say were my 15 most played songs of 2024.
Honorable Mention: Lean Wit Me - Juice WRLD
When I was in High School, I discovered an up-and-coming rapper through a YouTube Ad. I liked what I heard and continued to follow him through his career until he tragically passed young from an overdose. That artist was Juice WRLD, and the song that I first heard was Lucid Dreams. However, Lucid Dreams led me to the rest of his music, which I liked even more. Discovering his album Goodbye & Good Riddance, I gave it a listen, and the track that immediately stood out to me was a track early on in the album called Lean Wit Me. Despite this song being 6 years old now, Lean Wit Me is still my favourite song off the album and is now one of my favourite songs ever.
This song is so different from any other I can think of. The instrumental, despite being a bit barebones, is amazing. With the guitar loop backed by enough bass to blow someone back 6 feet from the speaker, it's a darker-sounding beat with a lot of appeal. However, what drives this song for me is Juice WRLD himself. The lyrics are bleak to an alarming extent, and hearing him talk about his drug addiction, overdosing, his own demise and a bunch more with such a level of indifference is chilling. What makes this song even more eerie is that Juice WRLD would die of an overdose a little over a year-and-a-half after this song's release. The full 7-minute studio session this song was built from could also easily crack this list, as I listened to that track dozens upon dozens of times, with it holding the same eerie sound of the studio release. It will likely forever remain one of my favourite songs of all time, considering I have to listened to it thousands of times and still haven't gotten sick of it. It's placed in the Top 100 of my Apple Music Replay every year I've had Apple Music with the exception of 2022. That is also the only reason I didn't put it on this list proper; It'd be unfair. I've loved this song a lot longer than 2024, and if I did count it, every year this would be on the list somewhere. Therefore, it captures an honorable mention. Rest in Peace to Juice WRLD, a legend in the making gone way too soon. 999 Forever.
#15: Juno - Sabrina Carpenter
#14: Good Morning - Kanye West
I honestly never understood the appeal of Kanye West. I really didn't. Yeah, he's a clever lyricist when he wants to be, and the thing I'll always give him credit for is that he brings the best out of anyone's feature verse (See: 2 Chains on Mercy.1, Fivio Foreign on Off The Grid, and PARTYNEXTDOOR on Ghost Town.) However, I think Kanye finally clicked this year for me when I took a look through his 2007 album Graduation. This album is truly outstanding and may be the best in Kanye's entire discography.
Good Morning is just one song that stuck out to me on this album. The opening track of Graduation, Kanye reflects on his time in the music industry, and his elevation through the game. He talks about people scared to push themselves, his struggles and the way he overcame them, and I truly do find it to be an absolutely inspiring song. Kanye's wordplay brings some clever bars, but I also just think that the idea of reaching your goals after persevering through hardship is a truly inspiring thing. Musically, the chorus backing this track's chorus brings so much. I love how they bring the chorus in at the perfect moment to crescendo into the chorus, and the melody they sing is beautiful. This isn't the last time we will see Yeezy on this list, as he quickly became one of my most played artists of 2024.
#13: Somewhere I Belong - Linkin Park
As I have said in the past, Linkin Park is one of my favourite bands out there. Their rap-rock sound, their lyrics that strike home with me, this band has made more of an impact on my music taste than just about any other. Therefore, it only makes sense we'd see them at least once on this list. They can be counted on to provide at least one song in my top 15 most played every year.
This year, that would be Somewhere I Belong, the first leadoff single from their second studio album Meteora. Meteora is one of my favourite albums of all time, no question. Just about every song is phenomenal, and it is routinely the album that features the most songs in my Apple Music Replay. Somewhere I Belong is one of the larger Linkin Park songs, and the name, I like to think, explains the subject matter rather well, being about looking for a place to belong. Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington were an unmatched Vocal Duo, with Shinoda's razor-sharp songwriting contrasting Bennington's battering ram of a voice. The combination creates a dynamic duo that makes any Linkin Park song a joy, this one included. I don't think we'll ever see an artist go on a run like Linkin Park did from 1999 to 2007, from Hybrid Theory, through Reanimation, Collision Course and Meteora, all the way to Minutes From Midnight. The amount of downright incredible music spanning those three albums is almost unbelievable.
#12: Say It Right - Nelly Furtado
Arguably one of Canada's all-time biggest popstars, Nelly Furtado is an artist I have a lot of appreciation for. Specifically, her work with American producer Timbaland always turned out great, with tracks like Promiscuous and Give It To Me sounding great. However, for me, their best instance of collaboration is Say It Right, the fourth single from her album Loose.
Now, Nelly Furtado herself has said she doesn't even know what this song is about, so I'm not going to analyze lyrics here. If you can't understand your song, neither can I. However, Timbaland lays down one of his best instrumentals behind this song. His signature stuttering drums, the guitar toward the end of the song, the keyboard that rises and falls behind her, and even the xylophone on the chorus, this song has one of the greatest instrumentals to a pop song I've ever heard. Timbaland was in his element with this song. As has been shown with Greedy by Tate McRae, there is still a world that wants Timbo to return. Personally, I'd welcome it. Dude went on an absolute run in the late 2000s, making someone the best music of the decade in his time at the top.
#11: I'm Sorry - VI Seconds
TRIGGER WARNING: SELF-HARM DISCUSSED BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
VI Seconds is an artist I have listened to for a long time. He had my Most Played song of 2021 with his song Healthy off his Never Knows Best EP, and he has always had songs within or near my top-10 most played in any given year. He has a way of writing music that is as real as it comes, and I think it's because he draws from his own stories when making his music. Songs like 5:30 A.M., Healthy and Fallen draw from his own real-world experiences and form them into music. However, I don't think his music has ever come to as visceral and real as his song I'm Sorry.
I'm Sorry was never put on an EP or an album VI Seconds has made, and with good reason; the song is essentially the musical version of a Suicide note. Over the 4-and-a-half-minute runtime of this song, VI Seconds apologizes to the people in his life for burdening them, letting them down, and taking his life into his own hands by choosing to go forth with a permanent end to it. The song is extremely dark, with you basically being witness to a man coping with the fact that he no longer wants to be alive. Now, VI Seconds has stated before this song comes from a piece of truth, with him being depressed and suicidal when he wrote the song, but the thing that really struck me was just how raw and real everything was. That entire song is as heavy as it comes, with each thing VI Seconds apologizes for, each set of words leaving his mouth coming with the weight of a sledgehammer blow to the ear. It is a hard song to fully digest. I truly do think it holds a lot of value though, and I found myself listening to it often. As someone who has dealt with those sorts of emotions, suicidal thoughts and the feeling of burdening those I care about, that song struck right through me. The level of accuracy he depicts in someone going through a breakdown and the thought process of ending one's life is the realest I've ever seen depicted. I wouldn't recommend listening to this unless you are in a stable state of mind, and give yourself room to process what he says, but I think that if you have struggled to understand how someone could think of doing something of that nature, you should hear this.
If you or anyone you know need help, dial 988 and talk to someone. It's never worth taking your own life. You can find peace, and pain never lasts forever. Take care of yourselves.
#10: I Deserve A Drink - Morgan Wallen
Another Year, another Morgan Wallen song cracking my list of most played songs in a year. Last year, half of One Thing At A Time would have cracked this list. This year it's only one song. However, that one song was a top ten most played song on my Apple Music and Spotify.
I Deserve A Drink focuses on Morgan's relationship with a girl and the bottle at the same time, both being rocky at best. The girl and the bottle both aren't good for him, both being temptations that he can't help but take for his own pleasure, even if they may be worse for him in the long run. It's a fairly standard and tropey country song, talking about women and whiskey and such. I just find it to be an absolute goddamn earworm. Morgan Wallen's brand of pop-country is like crack to me, I absolutely can't get enough of it. It takes all the best aspects of both genres and mixes them perfectly. His newer tracks haven't been great, but if we can get more good country out of him yet I'm all here for it. His cover of Graveyard Whistling in a live session on YouTube is also worth a listen for what it's worth.
#9: More The Victim - Linkin Park
Already their second appearance on this list, Linkin Park gets another song here with a Meteora B-Side, released last year during Meteora's 20th anniversary. Last year I was really digging the song Massive from the short list of B-Sides they released. This year, the honor belongs to More The Victim.
To me, Linkin Park's music can be divided into subcategories, and my personal favourite subcategory is the one this song, along with classics like In The End, Faint, and A Place For My Head fall into; A song primarily told through Mike Shinoda's verses, with Chester Bennington batting home the chorus with his vocals. It kind of can feel like a faucet, with Shinoda's verses building tension, just for Bennington's chorus to release it with a fever pitch. More The Victim falls perfectly into this category, with Shinoda's verses talking about a person who constantly feels the need to be the victim in every situation they're involved in, with Chester just basically saying it back with broader strokes and a much more powerful tone. As said earlier, the duo is a dynamic one-two combo that work perfectly together, and I find this song exemplifies it perfectly.
#8: Scared - Chris Patrick
The fourth and final song in the string of depressing music we've been on, Scared is a 2022 release by Rap/RNB artist Chris Patrick off of his second studio album X-Files. The song tells of a man who feels bound by what it means to be masculine and tough, with him unwilling and unable to part with the burdens of his masculinity, which results in dire consequences.
The song touches on a lot of things a lot of men could likely relate to, including the fear of a woman with ill intentions being able to destroy what you've built through a variety of methods, the fear of addiction and its ability to send you tumbling down to rock bottom, the fear or showing emotion due to not feeling weak in doing so, and the methods of coping with these problems, which can include breakdowns when you find yourself alone, and hitting the bottle harder than you'd like. It's a sad yet very real story for a lot of men. The inability for us to regularly show emotion as dictated by society is a truly difficult thing that a lot of men struggle with. Men can and will find people, and not in an insignificant number, who look at you as lesser than, or even worse can weaponize it against you to hurt you when they see fit. It paints a vivid picture of the worse feelings that masculinity can force someone to live with. It's a very deep and meaningful song that I always find some new line to focus on with every listen, and the song is 2 years old, meaning that this has been going on for some time. This is the genius I see in Chris Patrick. He is an absolute wordsmith whose intricate rhyme schemes and meaningful lyrics create songs which are both interesting sonically and important lyrically. Whatever he drops next, it will be a day one listen for me.
#7: Assumptions - Sam Gellaitry
Now that we're out of our depressing phase of the list for now, let's look at what may be my favourite jam song of the year, something I can just throw on and vibe to. Those songs are rare to me, because they have to be able to withstand a high number of repeated listens. Typically fast and fun isn't my kind of music for this reason; I prefer music that makes you feel to anything else.
However, with Assumptions by Sam Gellaitry, it managed to withstand high play counts in repetition and still be an absolute vibe. I absolutely adore this song. an upbeat EDM song, it thrives on simplicity. In this case, the simple synth line the song is built on is an earworm, and I can listen to it forever and never get tired of it. Because of this, the song doesn't have to do much else, and truthfully it doesn't. It adds in a fast-paced drum machine and a vocal track, but for the most part it just lets the synth line shine, and I think that's a good thing. This song got a lot of plays from me this year, with me repeatedly playing it both at work and during video game sessions as a form of satisfying background noise. I really do hope I can find more music like this, because it'll make life a lot more upbeat.
#6: After Dark - Mr. Kitty
After Dark and Assumptions share some similarities. Both got heavy amounts of playtime, both fit squarely in the Electronic genre, and both songs are amazing. However, their key difference lies in sound; where Assumptions is fast and upbeat, After Dark is a lot slower and more somber.
After Dark comes from a genre known as Synthwave, a subgenre of edm. Known for its older sound due to the heavy use of synthesizers; it is a very popular genre and can evoke a sense of nostalgia for some due to the more retro sound. While After Dark is technically synthwave, it is a much darker form of synthwave. Most synthwave music is lighter in sound, where is After Dark is heavy and somber sounding at times. A mixture of synths and drum machines, After Dark is as good an Electronic song as it gets. If you wanted a real Synthwave song on here, the song Breaking Waves by Mitch Murder is a good choice, but go listen to that and contrast it with After Dark; They're two very different songs. After Dark has such a great aura to it, I wish there was more music like it.
#5: Romantic Homicide - D4vd
Now, I know I'm late to this party by years. This was a charting song in 2022, and I only got around to hearing it in the year of our lord 2024. However, This was my most played song on Apple Music, and my third most played song on Spotify. I may have come around to it late, but I came around fully in the end.
Romantic Homicide, like a lot of the other music on here, works on its simplicity. It isn't a very complex mix by any means. A Drum Machine, a bass riff and a GarageBand-sounding Guitar loop are all this song has to offer instrumentally. However, D4vd brings this song home fully. The emotion that emanates from him throughout this song is felt, and as raw and angsty as the song is at first glance, that emotion makes it work. Now, D4vd's a talented artist, but his spotlight has sadly kind of petered out since this song's release, but he did record a song for the Invincible soundtrack, and his one hit is one that will be remembered for some time, so I would call this an absolute win for him. For what it's worth, Take Me To The Sun was also eligible for this spot. However, I think the sheer amount I listened to Romantic Homicide gave it the edge just barely.
#4: BYE BYE - KEZURA Feat. ProdByCrusty
If I was to look through my my Apple Music's all-time most played artist list, I think the top 3 would likely be Juice WRLD, Chris Patrick, and then KEZURA. An underground artist who bridges styles of rap, hyperpop, alternative, RNB and more, KEZURA is a dynamic artist whose sound has evolved drastically in the 5 years I've listened to him. Every year it seems like he has a song in my Top 10 Most Played on my Apple Music and Spotify. Songs like Cigarette Smoke, Ballad Of Blisters, and Magic Bag have all found places as some of my most-played songs of recent years. This year, the honor goes to BYE BYE.
A pop-rock track about cutting people out of your life, BYE BYE paints the story of a person whose friends aren't worth the hassle they bring for the friendship they give, and the only thing left to do is leave them. The song has some depressive overtones, but KEZURA's vocals are so strong on this song he makes it sound more angry than sad. It's a powerful song by a powerful vocalist and versatile artist who I'm excited to see more from.
#3: Anabelle - Shaboozey
Released: May 31, 2024
Another song that was on the Top 10 Favorite Hit Songs Of 2024 list, Anabelle is a perfect picture of a broken and toxic relationship by a man with a very dynamic singing voice. The instrumental accompaniment strikes the perfect energy for his mixture of anger and sadness to strike an almost-cathartic sense in the listener if they've ever dealt with something of that nature, and even to those who haven't. It's an outstanding piece of music by an up-and-coming superstar who we should expect to see a lot more of in the coming years.
#2: What Once Was - Hers
Now it's time for a song no one has ever heard of. A 2-person alternative band from Liverpool, England, they garner about 3 million plays a month, which isn't an insignificant number but is much smaller than the bigger names in Music, the names everyone would recognize. They manage to climb this list with What Once Was, a song that was recommended to me by my Spotify in what be its best moment yet.
What Once Was is a song that touches on losing someone you care about, and the mental state one can be in when something of that nature happens. It's accompanied by what may be the best instrumental work I've discovered all year, and it does most of the heavy lifting on this track. A guitar and bass with a drum machine backing is most of what this track consists of, but it is such a damn earworm that I can't help but listen to the track so much that it reached top 3 most played status on both my Apple Music AND Spotify, which is very difficult considering I use the two for two very different purposes. What Once Was never gets bogged down by its downright depressing subject matter because of the instrumental work on this song, and to me that's super impressive.
I had a lot of trouble debating between my 2 top spots this year. Both songs got an extraordinary number of plays from me, and What Once Was was the number 1 entry on this list up until the last day of me writing it, that's how close it was in my mind. However, the other song holds a bit more weight to me personally, and I think that matters in this case.
#1: I Wonder - Kanye West
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