“How to be demure and demonic in one song!” 2024’s Essential Tracks
DNA’s Music Editor, Marc Andrews, picks his top ten must-hear tunes from this year’s wide range of releases, including an ode to a trans son by their famous mother, a Swedish take on ballroom culture, and the lost track that could have rescued Dua Lipa’s last album!
10. Always Forever – Romy
The solo debut of the voice of XX, Romy’s Mid Air was my top album back in 2023. Romy’s gushy 2024 single, interpolating Donna Lewis’ 1996 hit, is a valentine bursting with love and, even better, live!
9. Drifting – Omar Apollo
Although Omar backed out of an interview with me for DNA at the last minute, I can forgive him for being flakey when his stellar album tracks like this drift along sooooo dreamily!
8. Good Luck, Babe! – Chappell Roan
How can you be demure and demonic in one song? Ask Chappell after penning this with non-binary songwriting genius Justin Tranter. Chappell’s cold Coffee is her other good tune, babe!
7. Godspeed – The Blessed Madonna
With no chorus, no real lyrics and no star guest (underground hero DJ E-Clyps doesn’t really qualify!) this is one divine artist able to transform any living room into a sweaty, messy club.
6. Maria – Dua Lipa
Yup, the singles from Dua’s Radical Optimism album had a stiff whiff of created-by-committee, but this gem should’ve been a single and would’ve undone all her naysayers in the press.
5. Dirty Cash (Money Talks) – PAWSA
A pulsating remake of the 1989 house classic managing to surpass the cool original. Even the lurid lyrics (“take me and abuse me”) take on a new resonance here. 2024’s best banger!
4. Edge Of Saturday Night – The Blessed Madonna feat. Kylie Minogue
My other beloved The Blessed Madonna tune was this unexpected collab with “our” Kyles. The standout on KM’s Tension II album, let’s hope she cooks up more sordid, sexed-up beats to skinny dip to.
3. Für Elise – Jon Batiste
We all recognise this somewhat timeworn Beethoven standard, but never quite like this, played like a sultry blues tune and with a whole new lease of Black love by an übervisionary.
2. Life – Jamie XX feat. Robyn
2024’s most euphoric track samples a lost ’70s disco stomper, casting Swedish heroine Robyn as a celebrant of queer ballroom culture with a suitably melancholy Scandi twist. That’s Life!
1. Young Lion – Sade
The best Sade song ever? Certainly, the most haunting and personal – with bonus poignant video – as Sade pleads for forgiveness (“I should’ve known”) from her trans son. Goosebumps!
