Top 50 of 2024 / #20-16: Look to the West, A Country Queen and Birds

We are finally here…everything before has led to this…the top 20. Once we start the top 20 it is only a short time before we hit #1. Up until now, the order of songs on the top 50 really hasn’t been important. There was not much difference between #34 and #22. However, for the past year I have been carefully curating the top 20. Taking songs out and putting new ones in…bumping songs up and down…lots of music listening and scrutinising. But now we are here, so let’s get into the music.

20. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo: Defying Gravity

This book, turned musical, turned movie has always had an interesting premise…what if the Wicked Witch of the West was misunderstood and a freedom fighter? Long before Marvel and other brands begun humanising their villain characters, Wicked was setting the scene. The musical’s soundtrack is iconic and both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo do a fantastic job vocally and are magic…pun intended…on screen. This version of Defying Gravity has a bit more of a pop sensibility, but it still has the original’s emotional core and epic scale.

19. Usher: Good Good

In most years this Usher come back track would be top 10 material, but it speaks to the strength of 2024 that it lands at 19. I love Usher for his charisma, sexy beats, excellent vocal range and his smooth delivery. All of these talents are on show in this track about a lone affair that has ended, but the two still care about each other. It is a more mature song from Usher, but it still has that late 90s / early 2000s sexiness that is so inciting with an Usher track. An excellent comeback for a gifted artist who fell out of the R&B / pop discussion for a few years. Now he is back and ready to take your girl.

18. Billie Eilish: Birds of a Feather

In her young age, Billie has hit every music milestone you can think of. Oscars…Grammys…number 1 tracks…and making the Cigar Jukebox Top 50. After What Was I Made For took the world by storm and stole all of our hearts, she followed it up with a new record and another hit in Birds of a Feather. This is a great mix of her edgy pop early in her career and her more vocal led music around the release of Barbie. There are solid pop beats with some slight twists matched with her soaring vocals. Eilish elevates the classic pop song about love to a sonic experience complete with complex vocals and mesmerising hooks.

17. Dolly Parton: Southern Accents

This Tom Petty cover by Dolly Parton celebrates Petty’s career and life. Dolly slows it down a tic with more country slide guitars and her incredibly emotionally grounded and soul crushing vocal. Dolly’s vocal on this track is some of her best work in the last few years and the rising bridge both destroys you emotionally and lifts your soul. Dolly does not lose any of Petty’s original storytelling and pride from the original. This is an excellent cover that both highlights the brilliance of the original and highlights the brilliance of Dolly Parton.

16. Rapsody ft. Erykah Badu: 3:AM

This is Rapsody’s second time on the top 50 of 2024. I have to admit, every time I listen to this track it moves up a few numbers. If I keep listening to it, I might even make it #1. More jazz poetry than hip hop, Rapsody describes love in such an exciting and sensual way, you are forced to listen. At times the music cuts out and it is just Rapsody exposed to the world laying out her truth about love and identity. Erykah Badu is an excellent addition with some sexual, smooth and powerful vocal hooks. I love this track and I may listen to it 1038 times before I finish the top 50.