Welcome to the year-end edition of Mason’s Observations. This week, we summarize 2024’s biggest hits and artists through our request data and streaming charts.
Summer featured some of the best pop music we’ve had in years, with a strong and diverse Top 10 for months. It appears that 2008-2013 was possibly the best era for Top 40 radio in this century; just look below at the majority of our throwback requests and the Mediabase report of the year’s most-played Golds. It was a time of party music, equal representation of all genres and mega stars like Rihanna, Flo Rida, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Pitbull and Taylor Swift. Today, requests rarely come in for songs charted after 2014 and call-out/retention reports don’t seem to be in favor of them either. 2018-2020 was the worst. Then 2021 brought us four Doja Cat smash hits, Olivia Rodrigo, “Levitating”, “Heat Waves”, “STAY” and “INDUSTRY BABY” which resonated well with radio listeners. How did 2024 perform? We take a look.
The 2024 Artist Summary
Sabrina Carpenter is by far the winner of this year’s Pop music, with four #1’s; “Feather”, “Espresso”, “Please Please Please” and “Taste” from her album likely capable of producing another two or three chart-toppers, “Short N Sweet“. Her “Nonsense Christmas” song and Netflix special is hot and viral right now, plus her drama with exes Barry Keoghan and Shawn Mendes. Her world tour is selling out, she has her own fragrance, and she’s been on every major talk show in America. After being a Disney superstar and releasing five albums since 2015, she finally made it to the big leagues and became a household name.
Chappell Roan signed with Atlantic Records in 2015 but was dropped in 2020… I bet they said “Good Luck Babe” to her as she walked out the door and regret it now. That was the first of her three major hits this year, with “HOT TO GO!” and “Pink Pony Club” being the other two. Both hit #1 in Liveline requests and on streaming. Somehow Top 40 radio hasn’t shown her the love she truly deserved. Her September 2023 album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” (she’s from Missouri) had two others that streamed really well and could’ve been radio hits, “Red Wine Supernova” and “Casual“. It’s clear that many program directors just didn’t “get” her or the music. Personal preference and lack of awareness of what’s really resonating with the public instead of record label hype sometimes get in the way of breakthrough artists like Chappell on Top 40 radio. She opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS” and Fletcher’s “Girl of My Dreams” tours. “Good Luck, Babe!” was her only song to reach #1 on Top 40, as it was actually her only single this year. The other two came out BEFORE that. Had Island Records promoted them and a few of her others, they probably could’ve gotten at least “HOT” to Go” #1. Instead it peaked at #9. Her 2024 Lollapalooza set attracted the largest crowd in the festival’s 33-year history. Her wild outfits, eccentric lyrics, strong opinions and diverse fanbase compare to Lady Gaga and Madonna. Many consider Chappell to be just as revolutionary. We’ll find out in 2025.
It wouldn’t be a look at the year gone by without Charli XCX and her “Brat” album, which dominated clubs, TV shows and social media all summer. From early hits like “I Love It“, “Boom Clap” and “Fancy“, Charli has maintained that sassy, it-girl energy to help score “Brat” dozens of nominations and accolades. Oddly enough with all the press and hype, her songs never really cracked the Top 20 on Spotify, nor did ANY of them other than “Apple” get above #10 in Liveline requests OR radio airplay. “360” made it to #11 on Liveline, #41 on Billboard (the highest of them all) and #7 on Top 40 radio where it VERY quickly disappeared (poor test scores?) and receives almost no airplay now. The album peaked at #3 on Billboard and many critics have called it 2024’s best album. But really, this whole project was more of a meme than anything. Cheesy, stereotypical, novelty dance songs that nobody is going to be playing in a year. The people who liked it LOVED it. Everyone else is just confused and cringing. It really wasn’t that big.
Top 40 Radio’s “Biggest” Songs of 2024
For the most part, Top 40 radio did a pretty good job at playing the biggest hits and following trends. Although it took awhile to embrace some artists and songs, and pushed way too many mediocre record-label-stiffs into the Top 20 while completely ignoring several major streaming stories, the 2024 year-end charts are a wonderful representation of what was popular everywhere and hopefully predictive of long-term hits and future golds. The Mediabase tabulation of the most-played radio songs of 2024 are not a fair display of what was audience-popular during 2024, because songs that came out in late 2023 or early this year are more likely to dominate the chart, as they had more time to get more spins. It’s cringeworthy when stations do their end-of-year Top 50 countdown using this list. The bottom 20 songs are all forgettable. The Top 10 is always old songs from the previous year. In fact, only three of the Top 10 songs were released THIS year.
Check it out:
- Tate McRae – greedy (September ’23)
- Jack Harlow – Lovin On Me (November ’23)
- Teddy Swims – Lose Control (November ’23)
- Benson Boone – Beautiful Things (February ’24)
- Doja Cat – Agora Hills (October ’23)
- Doja Cat – Paint the Town Red (August ’23)
- Sabrina Carpenter – Feather (August ’23)
- Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso (April ’24)
- Hozier – Too Sweet (April ’24)
- Taylor Swift – Cruel Summer (originally from 2019, but re-released and became the biggest song of Summer 2023)
Spotify’s Biggest Songs of 2024
Now compare that list with this one, a portrayal of the important songs that defined 2024 as a whole, and not just whatever has been out the longest in the charting period.
- Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso (Liveline’s “Song of the Summer”)
- Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
- Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy) (Country radio’s #1 song of the year)
- Post Malone, Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help
- Tommy Richman – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
- Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
- Benson Boone – Beautiful Things
- Billie Eilish – BIRDS OF A FEATHER
- Zach Bryan, Kacey Musgraves – I Remember Everything (Pop and country radio barely touched this… It was Top 10 on Spotify for SO long and even Top 20 on Liveline requests for a while too. Such a shame)
- Noah Kahan – Stick Season
Liveline’s Biggest Songs of 2024
This turned out to be one of the best years for great big hits, which brought Top 40 rating shares up nearly everywhere. We received an average of 500 listener requests every week via call, text and social media. While the vast majority are for golds and recurrents, we’re able to spot future-hits early-on which may already be doing well on Spotify, but radio isn’t playing much or at all. Correlating spins with requests is a valuable predictor. It puts us in a unique position to be a reliable hit predictor by correlating what people are streaming and what they are literally telling us they want to hear (every single night for the past five years). There have been multiple songs that we just didn’t hear, but from the audience request data knew would be big hits. Labels and program directors often tell us they use our weekly Top 20 request tabulation in their Monday music meetings. Unlike callout and retention data which are weeks old and not indicative of people’s passion for titles, these are real LIVE listeners of the stations we’re on, going out of their way to request a song.
From all the data we’ve compiled in 2024 from requests, reactions, Spotify streams, and digital sales we present our official list of this year’s biggest songs:
- Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars – Die with a Smile
- Shaboozey – A Bar Song (Tipsy)
- Sabrina Carpenter – Espresso
- Billie Eilish – BIRDS OF A FEATHER
- Chappell Roan – Good Luck, Babe!
- Hozier – Too Sweet
- Sabrina Carpenter – Taste
- Benson Boone – Beautiful Things
- Post Malone, Morgan Wallen – I Had Some Help
- Tommy Richman – MILLION DOLLAR BABY
- Sabrina Carpenter – Please Please Please
- Noah Kahan – Stick Season
- Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us
- Teddy Swims – Lose Control
- Ariana Grande – we can’t be friends
- Chappell Roan – HOT TO GO!
- Gracie Abrams – That’s So True
- SZA – Saturn
- ROSÉ, Bruno Mars – APT.
- Taylor Swift – Cruel Summer
Liveline’s Biggest Throwbacks of 2024
Perhaps my favorite part of this whole piece is our highly-anticipated and always surprising Top 50 Throwbacks of 2024. Just as we tabulate the Top 20 “new songs” every week, a count of every call, text and DM is kept for the throwbacks which make up roughly 70% of our requests. This year, songs pre-2020 are considered a throwback and the total number of these requests is approximately 6,300. It should be noted that 2013’s “Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood would’ve been #7 on this list, but we removed it as it’s more of a “seasonal/holiday” song. From January 1 through December 17, 2024, here are America’s most-requested Golds on Liveline:
What to Expect in 2025
We predict that a few major artists could make huge comebacks in the new year, including Justin Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Harry Styles and Dua Lipa. Taylor Swift will likely take a break after being over-exposed and force-fed to us for four years straight. SZA and The Weeknd both have new albums coming really soon. Tate McRae’s new album will be interesting to see if it produces a single better than performing than her last. The once-massive superstar Katy Perry may never have another hit. Chappell Roan, Gracie Abrams, Sabrina Carpenter and Benson Boone will get even bigger. Hopefully we get something to kick off in January and we aren’t waiting until February for a major-artist or important song release. The same old songs from the past summer and fall lingering in the top 10 are getting stale while waiting to be replaced by something hot and new.
It will be extremely hard to beat this year in music. Top 40 radio really followed the Spotify charts well, mainly because pop music dominated instead of rap or weird indie stuff like it has in recent years. The labels didn’t have to convince program directors to add these songs, because they were soooo obvious. Ratings went up significantly on most CHR and Hot AC stations, which can be credited to good new material and great, familiar recurrents and golds. Top 40 and Hot AC have essentially merged formatically owing to Top 40 targeting a 25-34 core rather than the weaker 18-24 demo. Many experts have been saying music is NOT radio’s superpower. Any song is available to any person quickly, free and conveniently at any time. Ten-minute stopsets, bland, generic voice tracks which have no connection to the songs or to a listener’s life and interests is the sure to way to fail in building radio fans and to turn off a whole generation from radio. Liveline was created to address the weak, mechanical wasteland created from the ashes of the budget-cutting RIFs. We believe ratings success requires interactive, entertaining LIVE programming with dozens of phoners and innovative, fun talent full of new ideas. It needs to get back to doing bits, contests, stunts, giveaways and creating the memorable moments that people will talk about tomorrow or in ten years.
Most importantly, radio needs people who are passionate, detail-oriented, creative and LOVE their job. I aspire to be all of those things and have been blessed to work with the best hosting Liveline since the pandemic started in 2020. Thanks to all our affiliates, listeners, fellow radio and music lovers, my friends, family and YOU for being here and inspiring me to “Be My Dream”! I hope 2025 is the year that everything comes together for you, and especially the innocent, talented who have lost their jobs and livelihood. Stay strong, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We’ll be back in 2025!
Follow and interact on social media @MasonKelter. Feel free to email YOUR observations, comments and questions to mason@livelineradio.com.
(@livelineradio)This story first appeared on radioinsight.com