Twostepcub's Biggest Hits of 2024: Part 8 - #30 to #21...

  

Hey everyone, I'm rolling through my (late) countdown of the biggest songs on my personal weekly music chart, and it's time for round number eight. You can catch up with the rest of the series so far by clicking here. And it's off to the races... 

#30 - Is It Over Now? - Taylor Swift

         from the album 1989 (Taylor's Version) (2023)

         2scchart peak: #2 (two weeks)

         Weeks on the chart (in 2024): 21 (was on for four weeks in 2023)

         Points: 1866

Other music acts have re-recorded their prior material, but none had the success as well been treated like a social movement than Taylor Swift. And these "new" sets included unreleased music done written those sessions, including this biting break-up bop that had me at "I feel like jumping off a really tall somethings to see if you come running".

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#29 - Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift

         from the album Lover (2019)

         2scchart peak (in 2024): #10 (one week) (was #3 for three weeks in 2023)

         Weeks on the chart (in 2024): 28 (was on the chart for 22 weeks in 2023)

         Points: 1882

Taylor didn't only turn heads with re-releases, but with her fans driving this, her best song off her misaligned pre-pandemic Lover album, to become a #1 hit four years after its release, thanks to their response to her Eras tour. (This also straddled years, being the final of the seven songs from last year's countdown where it was #24.)

#28 - Texas Hold 'Em - Beyonce

         from the album Cowboy Carter (2024)

         2scchart peak: #1 (seven weeks)

         Weeks on the chart: 15

         Points: 1896

The other unstoppable force, Beyonce, released her second themed album with the country-tinged Cowboy Carter, preceded by this flawless exercise in the genre. The simplicity of the track and the stunning melody Bey delivered didn't get it's proper credit on Nashville's machine-controlled radio, but the album at least introduced us to Shaboozey, who we'll see later on.

#27 - We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) - Ariana Grande

          from the album Eternal Sunshine (2024)

          2scchart peak: #1 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart: 22

          Points: 1908

We may have ended 2024 celebrating Ariana's expert turn as Galinda in the movie version of Wicked, but she started out the year as the "homewrecker celebre" for shacking up with that film's co-star (and then very married) Ethan Slater. This "Dancing On My Own" knockoff was way more charming than it had a right to be. You gotta hand it to Grande, she can act her way through a song.

#26 - Neon Pill - Cage The Elephant

         from the album Neon Pill (2024)

         2scchart peak: #3 (four weeks)

         Weeks on the chart: 25

         Points: 1931

As I mentionned on their other entry on here "Rainbow", the Kentucky garage band softened their sound and their trippy rock connected with rock radio and keeping their momentum up six albums in, a rare feat these days for non-nostalgic groups.

#25 - I Had Some Help - Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen

         from the album F-1 Trillion (2024)

         2scchart peak: #13 (two weeks)

         Weeks on the chart (in 2024): 28 (still charting)

         Points: 1935

Yeah, Ricky I gots some 'splainin' to do.

Well, I do have to say as much as I believe this election to be the "Morgan Wallen" election, where a large chunk of motivated people made their choice more to stick it to someone else than help themselves (much like the people streaming but not buying his albums), he surprisingly stayed clear of the MAGA nonsense, and I was shocked he didn't show at the inauguration (well, maybe I shouldn't count it out when it hasn't ended yet). It was only natural when the seemingly-forced country album on Malone, who had been slipping ever so slightly in the numbers, employs Morgan along with every other country A-lister (and even appeared on Beyonce's album). At least he gave an effort, and this uptempo track doesn't sound off from any other product of the genre in the last ten years, though it's hard to tell which one is singing when without the video for all the auto-tune going on. But it's tenacity on the charts placed it here. So be it.

#24 - End Of Beginning - DJO

         from the album Decide (2022)

         2scchart peak: #4 (two weeks)

         Weeks on the chart: 28

         Points:1964

Well under totally sus circumstances the TikTok app, which was banned by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, both with nothing better to do (and gaslighting the truth that it was instigated by Republicans initially upset over kids procuring no-show tickets for their Fuhrer's rallies), ended up being reinstated (with no legal basis, mind) with North Korea-level ballwashing of the felon in the White House. I predict they are already tweaking the algorithms the app is known for to make it the minivideo version of $hitter. 

ANYHOO...

One thing that TikTok has been very good at was somehow elevating lost music from years past, sometimes by unknowns, sometimes by establish acts, and this one in the middle. Actor Joe Keery's side project from his stint on the Stranger Things TV series is under the moniker DJO, and delightfully this dreamy ballad about being "back in Chicago" (which I can relate to).

#23 - Stargazing - Myles Smith

         from the EP A Minute... (2024)

         2scchart peak (in 2024): #3 (three weeks) (still climbing in 2025)

         Weeks on the chart (in 2024): 25 (still charting)

         Points: 1982

Well this was leftfield for me, when Myles, a black singer-songwriter from England, used the Vance Joy/Ed Sheeran/Passenger/David Gray playbook and got mainstream radio love (deservedly) that evades a lot of "adult-pop" newbies. He does sort of sound like Chris Martin, though. Not an insult.

#22 - Please Please Please - Sabrina Carpenter

         from the album Short n' Sweet (2024)

         2scchart peak: #2 (one week)

         Weeks on the chart: 24

         Points: 1987

Sabrina knew better than anyone how to ride the publicity bronco, as she put her boyfriend (ex? who knows!), Barry Keoghan right off his Saltburn success, in the highly entertaining music video for this electro-country fusion that sounds like Dolly on an ayahuasca bender singing over Limahl's "Never Ending Story" for a tribute album to Fleetwood Mac's Mirage period.

#21 - Water - Tyla

          from the album Tyla (2024)

          2scchart peak: #2 (two weeks)

          Weeks on the chart (in 2024): 23 (was on the chart for seven weeks in 2023)

          Points: 2000

 

 Amapiano music, the South African amalgam of house music, jazz, and soul, got its breakout in the States with this sexy siren from the country that is so blatantly direct in its intentions that it, well, washes over you.

I'll be back next with a church invasion, lesbian symmetry, an expensive child, and mononymed newbie says, well, this is Texas.