The 10 songs that mattered the most in 2024 | Canada Voices

In 2024, Drake was decisively defeated in his song-fought feud with Kendrick Lamar, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko become only the second Canadian to win the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition, Canadian music-grants provider FACTOR alleged that a “cyberthief” stole $9.8-million in federal money from its Scotiabank account, and Celine Dion sang publicly for the first time since 2020, at the Paris Olympics.

In other words: Some Canadians won, some lost. Among the former were Joni Mitchell, Allison Russell, Serban Ghenea and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, all of whom snagged Grammy Awards.

Important homegrown music stories were told in books: Gary Topp’s He Hijacked My Brain, Ann Powers’s Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, the Tragically Hip’s This Is Our Life and Brian Cherney’s Between Composers: The Letters of Norma Beecroft and Harry Somers. Beecroft, a contemporary composer, died on Oct. 19. She was 90.

Among other music-world figures lost in 2024 were Abdul (Duke) Fakir, Alice Brock (who helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant), Antonio Meneses, Barbara Kolb, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Bob Mackowycz Sr., Cissy Houston, Dave Loggins, David Sanborn, Dickey Betts, Duane Eddy, Ella Jenkins, Eric Carmen, Françoise Hardy, Jack Jones, John Mayall, JD Souther, Juan Rodriguez , Ken Tobias, Kris Kristofferson, Liam Payne, music manager Mary Martin, Mary Weiss, Maurizio Pollini, Melanie, Mister Cee, Phil Lesh, Phil Nimmons , Quincy Jones, Ronnie King, Roy Haynes, Russell Malone, Sergio Mendes, Shel Talmy, Steve Albini, Tito Jackson, Toby Keith, Wayne Kramer and the world’s biggest Grateful Dead fan, basketball legend Bill Walton.

Two former Toronto Symphony Orchestra conductors and music directors, Seiji Ozawa and Sir Andrew Davis, also died.

My favourite albums of the year were made by Jennifer Castle, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Dawn Landes, McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, MJ Lenderman, Amyl and the Sniffers, Drakeo the Ruler, the Hard Quartet, Charli XCX, Abigail Lapell, Rachel Fuller (with narration by Christopher Plummer!), Jessica Pratt, Jon McKiel, Doug Paisley, Rosali, Kendrick Lamar, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Corb Lund, Donovan Woods, Jack White, Ombiigizi, Father John Misty, Michael Kiwanuka, Kaia Kater, Mustafa, J.R. Carroll, the Harlem Gospel Travelers, Richard Laviolette, Ruth Moody, the Cure, Kaytranada, Zachary Lucky, St. Vincent, JD Simo and Luther Dickinson, Tucker Zimmerman, Sheryl Crow, Robbie Basho and Charles (Poppy Bob) Walker.

Music-identification app Shazam surpassed 100 billion song recognitions recently. Here, I have recognized 10 songs that mattered in 2024.

Best cultural reclaiming: Beyoncé‘s Texas Hold

“The idea of what country music is has been carefully constructed to seem like it was always white,” Rhiannon Giddens told Rolling Stone in 2020. Giddens plays banjo on a catchy crossover hit that is musically hokey but twangs with a redemptive message.

Song of the summer (and fall and possibly winter too): Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy)

This twangy, bourbon-drenched blockbuster tied the all-time record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, set by Lil Nas X’s country-trap hybrid Old Town Road.

Best song you likely haven’t heard: Jennifer Castle’s Louis

“What’s that song, and can it be sung?” indie singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle asks. If you’re a music artist in 2024 and not feeling career uncertainty, you’re either too big or too hopeless to care.

Best video: the Hard Quartet’s Rio’s Song

From the new indie-rock supergroup came a great lazy-hazy song and an even better video (that uncannily recreates the city scene of the Rolling Stones’ Waiting on a Friend).

Most cathartic rock: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Frogs

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Cave said the song Frogs was a “momentary explosion of joy that is bookended by a desolate beginning and desolate end.”

Harshest diss track: Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us

The hip-hop hit that questioned Drake’s cultural identity – “not like us” – received five Grammy nominations. Drake later filed petitions in courts alleging, among other things, that Universal Music Group schemed to falsely inflate the song’s popularity on streaming services, a claim the world’s biggest record label denied.

Best rock chorus: Father John Misty’s Screamland

Though the California singer-songwriter is not an ordained minister, his epic chorus preaches hard: “Stay young, get numb, keep dreaming – screamland.” Best land-based anthemic advice since the Who’s Baba O’Riley: “Don’t cry, don’t raise your eye, it’s only teenage wasteland.”

Best cover: Willie Nelson’s Do You Realize??

While I enjoyed covers this year by Aloe Blacc (Seven Nation Army), Kathleen Edwards (Human Touch), Al Green (Everybody Hurts) and Elisapie (Quviasukkuvit/If It Makes You Happy), there’s something about a man born in 1933, wisely singing “Do you realize that everyone you know some day will die,” that puts this interpretation of the Flaming Lips classic above the rest.

Sexiest beverage song: Addison Rae’s Diet Pepsi

While Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso was Spotify’s most-streamed song of the year, it’s teenybopper stuff. Rae’s sultry, fizzy-drink fantasy, on the other hand, resonates with the inner 15-year-old in all of us.

Best collaboration: Charli XCX’s Guess, featuring Billie Eilish

The greatest song that references undergarments since Van Halen’s Everybody Wants Some!!, hands (and pants) down.