Fun fact: The true Year in ReView for homegrown music is located at yonder “Boston news” tab, as we consider everything that we hype to be its own artistic success. But human minds jones for a library’s worth of numbered lists around this time of year, and who are we to deny a little extra love for the songs that filled our 2024 with pop sleaze, existentialism, and bad bitch link ups? Balancing an “even score” of R&B, pop and electronica, rock, and hip-hop (you’ll get that joke in roughly five seconds), we proudly present our 12 favorite homegrown tracks of 2024.
Bus Crush, ‘Even Score’
Yes, we technically hyped Bus Crush’s song “Good To Me” earlier this year, but “Even Score” is the most powerful rush on the Boston band’s debut LP Sports & Leisure. Powered by an urgent chorus and flush of lust — “Renaissance face I’m desperate to touch,” vocalist Olivia Sisay observes — “Even Score” drops the listener amidst an amorous tug-of-war. Their tension is our entertainment, to the point where the song’s four-minute, 47-second runtime feels like its own indie movie — one that’s satisfying for whoever’s tuned in, and a lot less so for the two lovers constantly eyeing each other through their bedroom walls.
Cakeswagg with MARQUISE!, ‘Bad Bitch Link Up’
Did you know that time can stand still at any “Bad Bitch Link Up” hosted by Cakeswagg? It’s true, because when the Roxbury rapper is hosting the party, everyone’s watch never strays from “shot o’clock.” The May single from Cakeswagg’s record Michelin Star is a toast to the simple joy of getting tipsy with your girlfriends, although fellow Boston rapper MARQUISE! — f.k.a. OG Swaggerdick — is a welcome addition to her girl gang for the track. There are two varieties of long nights: The working late kind (awful) and the drinking late kind (awesome, albeit potentially awful the following morning). When Cakeswagg boasts “it’s gonna be a long night at the bad bitch link up,” you already know which category she means, and you’re happy to accept any hangover on the horizon. Cheers to that.
Lady Pills, ‘BN2B’
It’s a neat trick, taking one of life’s greatest frustrations and packaging it as springy art-rock, and Lady Pills does it with ease on “BN2B.” The Boston project of Ella Boissonnault skips through a caustic assessment of sexism on the the lead single from her forthcoming LP Renowned in the Roaring Twenties. “BN2B” — short for “be nice to boys” — asks why it’s so hard to grin and bear the burden of “Put[ting] in the work / And I double my time / But I’m still fighting for the slice that’s mine.” Ope, there’s your answer, as Boissonnault skewers double standards like the zinger “BN2B” is.
Leo The Kind, ‘I Can Take U’
Sometimes you just need to knock back a fizzy rush of pop bliss like a flute of champagne. “I Can Take U” — one half of Leo The Kind’s double single This Music Sh*t Is Hard — offers a lightheaded sense of reprieve, drifting skywards to the pace of the Boston artist’s glittering synths. “You wanna go far? I can take you / You wanna see stars? I can take you” he croons on the chorus, levitating towards a dreamlike state. Consider it your Uber to oblivion.
Misuser and BR*, ‘Rust’
If the world has to end — and that could be day any now, frankly — let it collapse to industrial drone of “Rust” by Misuser and BR*. A darkwave “doomsday duet,” this May collaboration between the Boston artist formerly known as ksrmr and Quarters of Change member Ben Roter could easily slot into Boy Harsher’s 2022 masterpiece The Runner. The electronica fueling “Rust” tenses with anxiety and eventually uncoils into ribbons of synthesizer, finding slivers of catharsis among a landscape lousy with decay. While the rest of the world gradually corrodes, “Rust” feels like a futureproof token of humanity’s shared existential dread in 2024, courtesy of AI, elections, and the blue screen you’re looking at right now.
Megan From Work, ‘Girl Suit’
Uniforms suck and Megan From Work know it. The Manchester soft punk project, led by genderqueer musician Megan Simon, released this August single as the warm-up for the debut album Girl Suit. The title track is a rallying cry against the facades we’re asked — told, rather — to wear, chipping away at a long-outdated rulebook for dressing according to gender. As Simon dreams of tattoos that to personalize their body, they assert assurance in their own definition of self, style, and beauty, grinding their society-issued “girl suit” under a deceivingly powerful wallop of electric guitar. It’s a important song within the context of Simon’s experience as a person living outside of the gender binary, and the final line of the chorus — “I’m not the same as I was / And I hope the same for you” — clinches the song’s significance; that is, everyone benefits when we toss aside the notion of how people are “supposed to” look and dress.
Notebook P with StashtheWave, ‘the season’
We don’t make the rules: Cuffing season has officially shifted from winter to summer, per Notebook P’s slinky track with producer StashtheWave. The artists’ June single is a condensation-coated bid to lock in a love interest while fending off the dudes suddenly emerging from the woodwork for the summer. “What you gon’ do when / All of those dudes try / Talking to you, huh?” Notebook P asks preemptively on the chorus. “the season” sets out to squash the Randolph rapper’s competition, and it succeeds — both a serenade and a reminder of who’s leading the state’s R&B scene.
Opera, ‘Forget‘
Of all the rock tunes on this list, “Forget” is simultaneously the most low-key and the most arresting. The midtempo post-punk of Opera’s October single finds grace amidst an otherwise ominous palette, synths crystallizing on the chorus. “You shoot in the air but forget one thing / The wind will take it all away, all away,” intones new band member and vocalist Liudmila Garmashova, opening the song with a cryptic warning. As if determined to defy its title, “Forget” isn’t an earworm in the traditional sense, but burrows into your psyche nonetheless, like the one thing the aforementioned wind can’t swirl away. PS: Have Opera landed that gig opening for Molchat Doma yet?
PINKLIDS, ‘Junky Garden’
You reap what you sow, and PINKLIDS planted one hell of a debut single. Shoots of untamed rock sprouted in September, when the Wareham band introduced themselves via the dizzying whiplash of “JUNKY GARDEN.” Paired with a music video about the perils of a drug-addled walk in the rain, PINKLIDS’ first project delights in the tumult of mashing genres, splicing surf, psychedelia, punk, and garage into a raging Frankenstein’s monster of rock. If “JUNKY GARDEN” is only the first sapling of PINKLIDS as a musical project, whatever takes root next is going to provide a bounty of chaos.
Debo Ray, ‘Money’
In this expensive-as-hell life, you’re either chasing green or counting it, and Debo Ray wants to switch to the latter team. Luxury is far but not out of reach in “Money,” the Boston artist’s saucy July single. We labeled the song a “prayer for prosperity” when the accompanying music video dropped in October, unfurling the full grandeur of Ray’s vision for her future self. Bolstered by an Afrobeat groove, her R&B fantasy says what we’re all thinking: namely, “Gucci and Prada, Dior and Chanel.” Oh, and toss in that “date with Denzel,” too.
VELVET DREAMING, ‘Spiraling’
Whether intentionally or not, no one set the stage for “Brat summer” like VELVET DREAMING. Before Charli XCX was “bumpin’ that” alongside musings about baby bumps, Boston alt-pop artist Kade Thibodeau was hosting their own “maximalist rave,” as we first called their May EP Spiraling. The project is a tangle of greased-up electro-pop, with the throbbing title track at its core. “Spiraling” revives the kind of bangers we’ve craved since the days of Britney Spears’ Blackout and Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster: Pop fraught with darkness and drama, scraped off the filthiest dance floors and injected right into your veins. Consume at your own risk.
WHYTRI and Chandler, ‘LIGHTS DOWN SHAWTY!‘
Songs featuring viral artists typically have the shelf life of an avocado, but this collaboration between Massachusetts emcee WHYTRI and West Virginia TikTok rapper Chandler could outlast a box of Twinkies. Between WHYTRI’s husky bars and Chandler’s rickety flow, we originally described the collaboration as an “exercise in contrast” when it dropped last month, and it’s that element of surprise that keeps us crawling back to this weirdly wonderful club thumper. “LIGHTS DOWN SHAWTY!” is as slick as it is striking, demonstrating what’s possible when you dare to experiment — and WHYTRI always does.