Fourthords' ten most-played songs of 2024
Twas a really weird year for me and my music. Let’s dive in.
10. “Shut Up and Dance”
- Walk the Moon, Talking Is Hard (2014)
I’ve been building a playlist of songs that I enjoy listening to with the volume at eleven. I drive a lot, and since beginning that playlist, it often gets cranked with the windows down in nice weather. This is one of those songs.
9. “Bad Romance”
- Hildegard von Blingin' (2022)
In 2023, Angelbiscuit DMed a TTRPG based in the Wizarding World, with players as professorial candidates upon the founding of Hogwarts. For this, she sourced a good amount of bardcore songs with which to flavor the two-day game, several of which were by Hildegard von Blingin’ (presumably named for the twelfth-century German Benedictine abbess, polymath, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, medical writer, and physician, Hildegard of Bingen). I noted the songs, then, but it took until 2024 to buy & overplay them. This one rose to #9, but I think I like “Paint It Black” better.
7. “Welcome to the Internet”
- Bo Burnham, Inside (The Songs) (2021)
I’ve been a fan of Bo Burnham since he released “My Whole Family…” on YouTube in December 2006. He’s insanely talented and clever, and I’ve never been disappointed by his output. That’s why I’m surprised I missed his COVID-quarantine special (Inside); it’s terrific, but it’s this song that really struck a chord with me, as somebody who grew up alongside the internet. It also doesn’t hurt than it’s a magic spell that gets your toes tapping, too.
5. “Bad Guy”
- Billie Eilish, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)
I enjoy a lot of travel, design, infrastructure, and city-design videos/channels on YouTube: Tom Scott, Not Just Bikes, The Tim Traveller, Road Guy Rob, and more. Last year, before my YouTube account was summarily deleted because Mars was in Jovian retrograde, I came across “Why Australia’s Crosswalk Buttons are the Best (ft. Billie Eilish)”, which is where I learned that singer–songwriter Billie Eilish actually sampled Sydney’s PB/5 Pedestrian Button (a terrific invention in its own right) for this song. It fascinated me, and I can remember several times where I played this song just to tell that story.
4. “Cowboy’s Sweetheart”
- The McLain Family Band, Celebrate Life (2017)
Angelbiscuit, Kriegal, and I were attending the Tennessee Fall Homecoming one year, and we thought Ruth (with Ramona Jones and her family) wasn’t due on the main stage for a little bit still. So, when my ears—tuned for just such a thing—faintly heard “Cowboy’s Sweetheart” pealing over the festival, I booked it across that field so as not to miss my mother-in-law singing my favorite song of hers; that’s the day I learned that it’s originally by Patsy Montana (1934) and that other people sometimes sing it, too. I daren’t ask, but I like to think that when my in-laws returned to the recording booth for this fiftieth-anniversary album, Ruth (fourth from left) included this song specifically for me.
3. “Cool Kids”
- Echosmith, Talking Dreams (2013)
Early in 2024, I remembered Britney Spears. Not my favorite musician, but the combination of nonetheless-good-music with turn-of-the-century nostalgia, I spent some time browsing her catalog and buying a few choice songs to add to my library. However, what I also did was teach the algorithms the wrong thing, and I was inundated with similar musics for a good third of the year. This song was one that came up, and by enjoying it more than the others, boy did Siri teach me a lesson. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the song, but I wouldn’t call it my third-favorite song of the year. Oh well.
2. “Royals”
- Lorde, The Love Club EP (2012)
Possibly another victim of Spearsifying my music recommendations, I already vaguely knew of this one as the song parodied by “Foil” from 2014’s Mandatory Fun by “Weird Al”. It’s just a good song that I think got Baby One More Timed a bit too often, but I never skipped it. A weird #2, but here we are.
1. “Gravedigger”
- Dave Matthews, Some Devil (2003)
Even if Scottish wasn’t the world’s biggest DMB fan, I’d hope I’d’ve found “Gravedigger” on my own, anyway. It almost fits in with my similar enjoyment for other turn-of-the-century depression-rock (“Outside”, “Crawling”, “Save Tonight”), and it’s almost a storytelling song, and it’s in my singing range, and the imagery is just so imaginatively appealing to me… I prefer this version over the acoustic version that ends the album, but I don’t ever skip either.
Honorable mentions
“Bo Burnham's Country Song” (2020) by Bo Burnham
“Knowing What I Know Now” (Wish, 2023) by Ariana DeBose, Angelique Cabral, Niko Vargas, Harvey Guillén, Jennifer Kumiyama, Jon Rudnitsky, Della Saba, & Ramy Youssef
thumbnail image:
“Speaking of obsolete technology” by theilr (CC-BY-SA-2.0)
