If anyone tells you 2024 was anything less than an absolute win for new music, they clearly spent the year with their head stuck in a bin. While the world outside might have been doing its best impression of a dumpster fire, our headphones have been blessed with an embarrassment of riches. From bright-young-things becoming even brighter to established faves finding new gears, the last twelve months have delivered more golden moments than we can count.

That's where this list comes in. Over the next few days, we'll be celebrating the very best tracks 2024 had to offer – from chart-destroying anthems to underground gems that deserve their moment in the spotlight. So grab your party hat, pour yourself something fizzy, and join us as we count down the defining songs of 2024.

100-91 | 90-81 | 80-71 | 70-61 | 60-51 | 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1

Willow Kayne's latest track does something deliciously rebellious – it lies straight to our faces. 'I've Got This All Under Control' arrives as both a statement and its own contradiction, a perfectly produced piece of chaos that mirrors the beautiful mess of being young in 2024. The track, produced by formerly-Easyfun-now-Finn-Keane wraps its arms around the anxiety of appearing put-together while everything crumbles.

But here's where it gets interesting: beneath the track's confident strut lies a clever sleight of hand. The production gleams with almost suspicious perfection – every beat polished to a high shine, every hook engineered for maximum impact. It's control freak behaviour of the highest order, all while claiming to be anything but.

This delicious irony isn't lost on anyone paying attention. The track becomes a meta-commentary on the very pressure it describes – a perfectly curated piece about the exhaustion of perfect curation. It's like posting a carefully filtered selfie with the caption "just woke up like this" and somehow making both the image and the lie into art.

Four years away from music had obviously left Ariana Grande with a lot to get off her chest. Returning to her perfect pop star form for a brief album cycle at the very start of 2024 - 'eternal sunshine' was inevitably overshadowed when she took the lead in one of the biggest movie musicals of all time - Ariana came back with a surprising 90s house-style banger in 'yes, and?'. Elevated by her unmistakable airy vocals and a "fuck off and leave me alone" message, 'yes, and?' feels like 'no tears left to cry's more attitude-laden sister.

2024 was the year that Gracie Abrams transcended into the global pop superstar we always knew she was destined to become. The fact 'That's So True', a track released on a deluxe version of latest album 'The Secret Of Us' became THAT song for her just showcases what a trailblazing year it's been. A break-up anthem dripping in swooning songwriter-pop earnestness, it does what all brilliant heartbreak songs do. Lured in with sun-kissed exteriors yet with a gripping, devastating centre - it quite rightfully captured hearts to be screamed back at every turn. Sitting atop the UK Singles chart for five weeks, 'That's So True' is an uncompromising hot water bottle that warms against any chilly outsiders with ease.

For a year that saw Wunderhorse burst from the traps into a blazing force in modern guitar music, 'Midas' arrived as the juggernaut starting pistol that set the marker for everything to come. Revelatory and made for that live arena, chomping guitar hooks and almost nursery-rhyme-esque back and forths elevate into something made for the big stages that have become Wunderhorse's playground ever since. 'Midas' cuts through because it manages to straddle two lines - being immediate enough that you wonder why nobody has ever written this song before but also being immediate enough that it becomes a go-to from the very first listen. No frills but all the thrills, it's a primal call to arms for a Wunderhorse revolution.

'i like the way you kiss me' is the sound of pure lust in the darkest corners of the night. Swampy bass and hypnotic synths collide for maybe the most 2024 track of 2024 - one that instead of shying away from the darkness, turns the discoball and dances like it's been home all along. A thriling high-speed chase of a track, it welcomed Artemas to a new dimension of popstar. Managing to balance being unpredictable, effortlessly brilliant and an earworm impossible to get rid of - no track is bursting with menace and intent quite like it.

Nobody does a concept like FKA twigs, and 'Eusexua' is the elevated version of everything she's done so far. A real lesson in patience, the title track of her upcoming album is a slow-building masterpiece, holding out through almost three minutes of a delicate heartbeat-pumping first half before erupting into a feral techno track that feels as euphoric as its name's origin. Otherworldly as ever, 'Eusexua' is twigs' glitchiest, sexiest track yet; like Berghain broadcasting straight through your speakers.

Written beneath its namesake London landmark, 'Marble Arch' is a song about sisterly bonds and rural isolation that somehow sounds both claustrophobic and expansive. The band's orchestral background bleeds through in unexpected ways, with viola lines that wouldn't sound out of place in a chamber ensemble suddenly crashing against jagged post-punk guitars.

But it's the kitchen that makes it magic, the song emerging from between the kettle and microwave in producer Richard Russell's London studio. Listen closely and there's a lived-in quality to every note — the natural reverb of tiled walls, the subtle compression of a small space, the way instruments bleed into each other like conversations over dinner. It's anti-production as production, and it's brilliant.

This approach isn't just about aesthetics; mary in the junkyard have inadvertently created a manifesto for modern indie music: embrace the mess, cherish the imperfect, find beauty in the everyday.

It's a feeling we've all had. With more shitty news firing in day by day from around the world, finding some escape in distractions has never sounded so on-point than with 'Price On Fun'. Like a state of the nation address for a new generation, its crunching guitars and spiralling hooks lay a marker for an artist where truth and uncompromising honesty reigns supreme above all else. With each release so far Chloe Slater has continued to point to an artist that isn't just brilliant but vital for what comes next - but in 'Price On Fun', Chloe finds the perfect home for that feeling of not knowing what to do next. In doing so, Chloe Slater steps to the front of the stage as what comes next for a generation.

Where do you go once you've released the seminal 2020s post-punk spoken word album of the Greater Leeds area? Left, answered Yard Act on the sprawling follow-up 'Where's My Utopia?'. A stand-out, even with the bar as high as Yard Act manage to set it, is the excellent 'Dream Job', pushed along by a bouncy and ever-so-slightly sarcastic chorus which proclaims being a musician as 'ace', 'class', and 'dece (that means decent)', it's an instant earworm. Add in some hand claps and a jaunty instrumental and what do you have? A massive hit, that's what. If anything we'd say it's ace, or class (etc. etc. etc.).

If you sliced open 'Brat Summer' and looked inside, you'll find 'Apple' at its core. A key ingredient to what became Charli's year of pop culture dominance, if you managed to get through the summer months without doing the dance routine then we have to wonder what planet you were even on. Yet if you took that out of the conversation, 'Apple' stands on its own as a sugary sweet dose of 'Brat' that sits in many ways contrast to the rest of the album. Charming and playful with a feel-goo