The Best Songs of January 2024

2024 is here, and it’s time to start making note of the best music the year has to offer as it unfolds and pay our respects to each month’s brightest and boldest offerings. January gave us some incredible work, including emotional singles from Adrianne Lenker and Hurray for the Riff Raff, a waltzing triumph from Sierra Ferrell, a signal that the Lemon Twigs are entering a new era and a dance anthem from DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ. Narrowing this list to just 10 entries was a nearly impossible feat, but we got it done and, without further ado, here are the best songs of January 2024 and be sure to catch up on our weekly Best New Songs column here.

Adrianne Lenker: “Sadness As A Gift”

On the second single from her anticipated upcoming album, Bright Future, Adrianne Lenker is yearning; unsurprisingly, it’s breathtaking. “Sadness As A Gift” feels effortless in its clarity and emotional weight. Recorded at Double Infinity, a studio concealed in the woods, the track sonically reflects the environment of its creation. Lenker gently folds a rustic blend of piano, guitar, and violin under her wistful vocals. Raw and contemplative, Lenker’s storytelling evokes a sense of nostalgia rooted in all of us. “The seasons go so fast / Thinking that this one was gonna last / Maybe the question was too much to ask,” she sings on the track. The Big Thief singer/guitarist continues to cement herself as one of the strongest songwriters in her field. —Grace Ann Nantanawan

Bleachers: “Tiny Moves”

The third single from his upcoming self-titled Bleachers album, “Tiny Moves” is one of Jack Antonoff’s strongest solo songs yet. It’s a charming, beautiful portrait of romance, as Antonoff praises the small details of his betrothed. “The tiniest moves you make, watching the whole world shake,” he sings. “Watching my whole world change, the tiniest twist of faith.” The instrumentation puts the focus on a synthesizer and acoustic guitar tandem, which arrive like a pillow beneath Antonoff’s vocals. As the song breaks down into a finale, Antonoff lets a “sha-la-la” crescendo collide with an orchestral outro, and the result is pure sugar-sweet euphoria. Pairing this with previous singles “Modern Girl” and “Alma Mater,” and “Tiny Moves” makes it obvious that Bleachers is going to be one of Antonoff’s strongest outings yet. —Matt Mitchell

David Nance & Mowed Sound: “Mock the Hours”

The lead single from David Nance’s upcoming debut album, David Nance & Mowed Sound, “Mock the Hours” is a pedal-to-the-metal, country-infused garage rock stunner that lights a fire underneath you and never lets up. The chorus is massive, the lyrics make no sense. “Toss out the vultures, usher in the crows,” Nance sings out. “They’re feeding scraps to the winners, the crowd’s on fire and they’re screaming for water.” What a song! That’s rock ‘n’ roll, baby. The instrumentation from Nance, Kevin Donahue, James Schroeder, Derek Higgins and Sam Lipsett is absolutely magical here; the type of country tune Nance and his players will resist embracing the label of. I don’t know where Third Man Records found these guys, but I hope they hold onto them for as long as possible. “Mock the Hours” is an absolute hit that couldn’t be bothered to demand your full attention, but the track is so captivating that you won’t stop listening anyway. —MM

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ: “Anything Lost (Can Be Found Again)”

DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ’s latest single, “Anything Lost (Can Be Found Again),” is—like most of Sabrina’s work—a mirage of magic you can’t help but love immediately. The sample-based groove is relentlessly catchy and colorful, tapping into the obsessive electronic instrumentation that vaulted an album of her’s like Destiny into the echelons of dance and synth-pop not just for its inventiveness, but for its accessible brilliance. I can’t think of many pop-makers who have a better command of how to produce music that is, all at once, as captivating as it is down-to-earth. “Anything Lost (Can Be Found Again)” sounds so effortless. If Sabrina is going to continue unloading this kind of glow at an insurmountable clip, we’re in for one hell of a 2024. —MM

Hurray for the Riff Raff: “Snake Plant (The Past is Still Alive)”

Building on the momentum of lead single “Alibi,” Hurray for the Riff Raff’s upcoming album, The Past Is Still Alive, has ushered out two more songs: “Colossus of Roads” and “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive).” Both feature some of Alynda Segarra’s strongest songwriting yet, especially “Snake Plant”—which boasts one of the most stirring lines on a song all year. “I only wanted ever to be a good daughter,” Segarra sings. “Soft hands, gold rings, try to remember most everything, like feeding grapefruits to the crows. Hold my bely while I’m laughing out loud.” The album is dedicated to Segarra’s father, who passed away a month before recording began. A song like “Snake Plant,” especially, laments the parts of our memory that are gendered, while also making sense of who we are to our family even when we’ve come out as otherwise (“I was born with a baby boy’s soul,” Segarra continues later in the song). It’s powerful, necessary and full of language that is massively emotional. —MM

Katy Kirby: “Hand to Hand”

The fourth single from her sophomore album Blue Raspberry, “Hand to Hand” is another stroke of brilliance from Katy Kirby—and we wouldn’t have expected anything different at this point. I mean, there’s a reason “Party of the Century” was a buzzer-beater addition to our best songs of 2023 list last month. It’s becoming quite obvious that the Nashville/New York City singer/songwriter is at an apex right now, churning out masterful singles with ease. “Hand to Hand” is soft in nature, experimental in execution. If you listen closely in-between the verses, there are a lot of moving parts crackling atop the surface. Kirby’s vocals are as sharp as ever, and the instrumentation is stirring for how jangled and unsettled it is despite the obvious gentle, meticulous restraint. Just like “Party of the Century,” “Hand to Hand” dares to upend any preconceptions about where Kirby might go in her music. If you ask me, that’s the best formula you can have. —MM

Moor Mother ft. Mary Lattimore, Lonnie Holley & Raia Was: “GUILTY”

“GUILTY,” the first single from Moor Mother’s upcoming album The Great Bailout, is a spiritual, communal movement. The song, which features harp-playing from Mary Lattimore and singing from Lonnie Holley and Raia Was, is nearly 10 minutes in length and transforms across many binaries. Holley’s singing is especially gravitational, as he harmonizes over synthesizers and strings with a bellied beacon of grief and erasure. Moor Mother—poet Camae Ayewa—enters the track at the 3-minute mark, asking “Did you pay off the trauma?” over and over, as her voice distorts and mangles. Like her work with jazz ensemble Irreversible Entanglements, Moor Mother sings of displacement and the PTSD that comes with it. “GUILTY” is a beautiful, stirring lament of systematic violence, one that reaches deep into your soul and refuses to let go. —MM

Sierra Ferrell: “Dollar Bill Bar”

The latest single from West Virginia-born, Nashville-based country singer/songwriter Sierra Ferrell is, to say the least, mesmerizing. Her much-anticipated sophomore LP, Trail of Flowers, is now set to arrive in late March, and “Dollar Bill Bar” is, immediately, one of Ferrell’s very best and sweetest compositions yet. A more waltzing tune than preceding single “Fox Hunt,” “Dollar Bill Bar” is the type of music that is big and bold yet still remains faithful to the stripped-down vignettes of old ragtime. Seth Taylor’s dual acoustic and electric guitar arrangement flickers brightly, as Ferrell sings gently and Kristen Rogers and Nikki Lane provide a lush blanket of backing vocals. Ferrell’s old soul talents shine here, as always, but the charm of “Dollar Bill Bar” is miraculous and tender. —MM

The Lemon Twigs: “My Golden Years”

Not even a year ago, Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario—the Lemon Twigs—unveiled their best record yet, Everything Harmony. Cut to this week, and they’re already onto their next vision. “My Golden Years” every well might be the greatest single they’ve ever put out, as it is a miraculous display of sun-soaked, power-pop jamming that conjures attitudes of pre-Rubber Soul Beatles magic and impressive, meticulously layered vocals spurred by the Beach Boys, Monkees and the Byrds. Michael takes the lead on “My Golden Years,” scaling back his usual enigmatic, over-the-top co-frontman persona for a refined, confident display of rock stardom. There’s about 60 years of influence poking through this track (and it helps that the D’Addarios recorded it on era-specific equipment), but the result is something wholly modern and wholly Lemon Twigs. You can point at different landmarks in the pop music canon, but each direction taken will lead back to Brian and Michael. How lucky all of us are that the first contender for Song of the Year was released on January 2nd. —MM

Waxahatchee ft. MJ Lenderman: “Right Back to It”

I swear MJ Lenderman never sleeps. This time, he brings his talents alongside the shimmering country charm of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield. “Right Back to It” is the first single of Crutchfield’s sixth album as Waxahatchee, Tigers Blood, and continues to build on her Alabamian roots. Known for her heavy-handed approach to writing emotional songs, “Right Back to It” delivers another unromantic look at love, with Crutchfield singing, “I’m blunter than a bullseye / Begging for peace of mind.” The mellow track flows like a couple having a candid conversation about how to depend on each other once again, despite all their doubts. Yet even with the struggles of a longtime relationship, the duet reminds us that things can always return to how they were, when Lenderman sings, “I’ve been yours for so long / We come right back to it.” —Olivia Abercrombie

Listen to a playlist of these 10 songs below.