Pop’s leading ladies — Beyoncé and Taylor Swift — seemed poised to run the world yet again in summer 2024.
With Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” World Tour having broken the Internet — and many a fan’s bank account — last summer, the stage was set for the two divas to rule again this season after Bey released “Cowboy Carter” in March and Tay dropped “The Tortured Poets Department” in April.
But after both superstars topped the charts earlier this year — Beyoncé with “Texas Hold ‘Em” and Swift with “Fortnight” — it was a season of change, as we count down the 10 hottest songs of summer 2024.
10. Post Malone & Morgan Wallen, “I Had Some Help”
“They say ‘teamwork makes the dream work,’” sings the power pair behind this twangy, chart-topping duet. The first single from Post Malone’s move from “Rockstar” to country star on his sixth studio album, “F-1 Trillion” — which just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — is all easy-on-the ears summer breeziness.
9. Tinashe, “Nasty”
Beyoncé may have gone country in 2024, but Tinashe stepped into her stilettos with the kind of R&B-pop bop that we’re used to from Queen B. Flipping the script on Janet Jackson’s 1986 classic of the same name, she’s the one who wants you to “match my freak.”
8. Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish, “Guess”
This British singer turned it from a Barbie summer in 2023 to a Brat summer in 2024 with her sixth studio album, “Brat.” And she gets a girl-power boost from “Barbie” princess Eilish on this electro-house banger from the LP’s deluxe edition, “Brat and It’s the Same But There’s Three More Songs So It’s Not.”
7. Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”
Ten years after first starring in “Girl Meets World,” the former Disney Channel darling finally graduated to bona fide pop stardom — with a little help from opening for Swift on her Eras Tour. In fact, it’s ace Swift producer Jack Antonoff who turned “Please Please Please” — the second single from Carpenter’s new album “Short n’ Sweet” — into yacht-rock bliss.
6. Chappell Roan, “Good Luck, Babe!”
In a diva season where the likes of Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa and Eilish — as well as the aforementioned Bey and Tay — were coming in hot from spring releases, Roan emerged as pop’s unlikely “It Girl” this summer, thanks to the sleeper success of slow-burning single “Hot to Go!” and this even sweeter synth-pop delight.
5. Bruno Mars & Lady Gaga, “Die With a Smile”
Big ballads aren’t typically the stuff of summer, but you take this kind of superstar statement — featuring the dynamic duo that we didn’t know we needed — any season that you can get it. Starting out as a guitar-strumming “Shallow” ditty — quickly making you forget all about Bradley Cooper — it becomes a balls-to-the-wall wailer, with great singers doing the damn thing on a great song.
4. Billie Eilish, “Birds of a Feather”
After coming on hard with “Lunch” — the first single off her third studio album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” — Eilish killed us softly with “Birds of a Feather,” a flight of fancy that glides through the airiest of grooves. And never seems to touch the ground.
3. Sabrina Carpenter, “Espresso”
Setting off Carpenter’s summer to remember in spring, “Espresso” was the triple shot that gave her career a much-needed jolt. A frothy, creamy confection that goes down more like a Mocha Frappuccino — sprinkled with pure sunshine — it finds the 25-year-old songbird cooing the immortal words “I’m working late, ’cause I’m a singer” with a wink and a sexy shimmy.
2. Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)”
First, Beyoncé broke new ground as an African-American artist, topping both the pop and country charts with “Texas Hold ‘Em” in 2024. Then Shaboozey — one of the black country artists showcased on Bey’s “Cowboy Carter” opus — repeated the same feat, taking it to the floor with his own hand-clapping hoedown. Having just notched its seventh week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, it’s now the longest-running chart-topper of 2024, never failing to get our giddy up.
1. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”
What started as a Drake diss track — Lamar’s fifth in rap’s biggest beef of 2024 — became something else, something bigger, after all the dust from their dustup settled (in K-Dot’s favor). Hitting No. 1 in May and then again in July, “Not Like Us” became a hip-hop anthem for the ages — a rousing rallying call that was even played during last week’s Democratic National Convention. Whereas Lamar told us to be “Humble” on his only other chart-topper as a solo artist, this is the fiercest of flexes.
