The Best Country Music Songs of 2024

Avery Anna - Vanilla

Since breaking into the scene a few years back, Avery Anna has become known for her soul-baring, straight-out-of-a-journal songwriting style.

Yet, on ‘vanilla’, Anna takes the intricacy, vulnerability and emotional resonance of her songwriting to a whole new level, warning her sister of the ways in which the titular phrase can be thrown at women in order to try and pressure them into doing things they don’t want to.

Anna nimbly weaves her advice into a cautionary tale, subtly lacing a sense of quiet hope into this poignant offering. ‘vanilla’ is raw, powerful country storytelling at its finest.

- Maxim Mower

Dasha - Didn't I?

If ‘Austin’ was Dasha’s introduction to the country world, then ‘Didn’t I?’ was her glorious arrival.

Where the prior served as a love scorned dance anthem that will forever live in our subconscious after its viral journey on social media, its follow-up found the California native seemingly more true to form as she questions an ongoing relationship that she just can’t call it quits on backed by an infectious southern-singed, banjo-centric sound that we simply can’t get enough of.

Since we first heard it at one of her many CMA Fest appearances this past June, there was no denying that ‘Didn’t I?’ was going to be a bop, as well as a compelling addition to the burgeoning entertainer’s growing repertoire.

- Lydia Farthing

Eric Church - Darkest Hour

The Chief’s first release in three years is a stirring and beautiful tribute to his home state of North Carolina, and an enlightening indication of the direction he’s heading in.

Church and producer Jay Joyce created a soulful number that swells with emotion and stadium-sized theatrics, all with the intimacy and warmth of the richest of studio recordings.

A poignant number that glistens with hope and determination, 'Darkest Hour' finds Church steadfast and direct, offering a kind hand to anyone in need of help. It’s this earnestness that triumphs over all.

- Ross Jones

49 Winchester - Yearnin' For You

The first single taken from of their long-awaited 2024 record, Leavin’ This Holler, ‘Yearnin’ For You’ reminds us why 49 Winchester are one of the best country groups in the game.

It's a foot-stomping anthem for those out on the road, in the clubs and in venues around the world now watching the band do what they do best. The song embraces the darkest moments of being a touring musician – the lonely nights spent away from family – while at the same time solidifying the reasons why they have such a relentless dedication to their work: because it’s their life's passion.

Bold and forthright, ‘Yearnin’ For You’ is a much-needed affirmation for those losing hope in doing what they want to do in life.

- RJ

Lainey Wilson - Hang Tight Honey

The frantic reality of being a country music superstar may be a coveted one, but life as a professional musician is not without its pitfalls.

On this rollicking, retro track, Lainey Wilson recounts the hundreds of days spent on the road chasing her dream whilst missing her lover and fantasizing about running straight home to him. Of course, the sting of being away from home is all the sweeter when the crowds are singing your songs back to you and your pockets are full of money, as Wilson notes in the song.

'Hang Tight Honey' encapsulates everything we’ve come to know and love about the Louisiana hitmaker: high energy, relentlessly cheerful and a delivery bulging with rambunctious sincerity.

- Holly Smith

Wyatt Flores - Running Out of Time

Marking the second consecutive year that our favorite Tulsa titan has made it into Holler’s Songs of the Year list, ‘Running Out Of Time’ takes the cake for Wyatt Flores’ most compelling release of 2024.

Included on his Half Life EP, which was released in April, the red dirt, carpe diem cry finds the young singer-songwriter contemplating death and explaining that we must seize our limited time on earth while we can. It’s equal parts questioning a legacy and resolving to make the most of it as long as the hands of time permit.

- LF

Angel White - OUTLAW

With the sauntering plucks of muffled steel, ‘OUTLAW’ comes to life, bringing singer-songwriter Angel White into full view along with it.

The song boldly introduces the young star with its intricate composition and brazen words. From the beginning, the darkly tinged country opus is staggering, a cinematic triumph textured with a Wild West swagger and bolstered by the artist’s breezy croon.

Ultimately, White’s 2024 single and opening track from his debut EP, GHOST OF THE WEST: VOL. 1, was one of the most unsung tracks of the year, so we’re here to give it the praise it deserves.

- Alli Patton

Zach Bryan - Pink Skies

It’s been a year of highs and lows for Oklahoma’s favourite son. Sell-out stadium shows and chart hitting album releases conflicting with very public break-ups have led to Bryan being in the public eye more than ever in his short career.

‘Pink Skies’ may just be the biggest positive to take away from his entire year. A tender and affectionate reflection on grief that is reminiscent of Tyler Childers’ ‘I Will Follow You To Virgie’ in its communication to those who have passed.

Whoever the song may be about, it’s a kindly and warmhearted one that we can all find empathy in.

- RJ

Hogslop String Band & Sierra Ferrell - Oldsmobile

Hogslop String Band and Sierra Ferrell’s July collaboration, ‘Oldsmobile’, flew relatively under the radar in comparison to Ferrell’s sonic slam dunks over this past year. However, the endearing tune is more than worthy of shout as we bring 2024 to a close.

A sweeping bluegrass number, the song is understated but enchanting as the string ensemble and Ferrell sing of an aging romance, its trials and its triumphs.

Together, the group and the reigning Americana Artist of the Year breathe new life into that old-time sound, wringing out every ounce of pluck and power and making a song that’s oh so easy to fall in love with.

- AP

Tigirlily Gold - I Tried A Ring On

One of the very first songs released in 2024, ‘I Tried A Ring On’ was also one of the most enduring.

Released January 5th by country music’s favorite sister duo and the reigning ACM New Duo or Group of the Year, Tigirlily Gold, the single showed a different, more serious side to the ‘Shoot Tequila,’ good time girls as they chronicle the sobering aftermath of a relationship’s end that everyone thought would see the pair of lovers saying “I do.”

Notching their highest-charting song at country radio so far in their young careers – currently broken into the Top 30 as of run time – it’s one of those songs that hurts so good as you scream it alone in your car, whether you resonate with the lyrics, are in a loving relationship or are as single as can be.

- LF

Beyoncé & Miley Cyrus - II Most Wanted

With the police swarming behind them, Thelma emotionally offers, “Let’s not get caught. Let’s keep going.” In tender disbelief, Louise tearfully responds, “Are you sure?” confirming their fateful decision together. Grabbing each other’s hands, Louise pushes the gas of their infamous convertible, propelling them towards the edge of the cliff. The ending of the 1991 film Thelma & Louise remains a powerful testament of unyielding loyalty as much today as when it first premiered over 30 years ago.

It’s impossible not to think of iconic duos like Thelma and Louise when listening to ‘II Most Wanted,’ a timeless track that captures the same essence of fierce commitment in relationships.

The tarnished and worn production allows the focus to be on the integral weaving of two of the most recognizable vocalists in music today. The sound created is strikingly unexpected as the gravely layers of Cyrus’ lower register effortlessly complement the honey-coated vibrato of Beyoncé's, almost executing as one unified voice.

It’s a track that doesn’t just serve as one of the many standouts on Cowboy Carter but ranks as one of the best collaborations of both Beyoncé and Cyrus’ respective careers thus far.

- Soda Canter

Michael Marcagi - Scared To Start

Despite being released in January, ‘Scared to Start’ feels tailor-made for the autumnal blues, with folk prodigy Michael Marcagi’s evocative, reverb-laden vocals combining with a twinkling piano riff to produce an aching, yearning battle-cry.

The atmospheric ambience makes it feel as though the Ohio native is screaming out into the abyss as he challenges the listener, “Don't you wait to try it / Are you scared to find it?”

A viral phenomenon that sits at over 500 million streams at the time of writing, ‘Scared to Start’ saw Marcagi crowned folk music’s heir apparent to Noah Kahan and The Lumineers.

- MM

Zach Top - I Never Lie

Our Album of the Year winner appears again with one of the biggest and most impactful songs of the year.

As we mentioned in that list, ‘I Never Lie’ “observes country's complex understanding of human emotions and succinctly channels them into a narrative that's sympathetic, acutely clever and downright cool in equal measure”.

A tongue-in-cheek ballad that encompasses the way we all behave and feel when seeing an old flame, ‘I Never Lie’ is country music’s defence mechanism, with the softest of tender hearts hidden within its folds.

- RJ

Willow Avalon - Tequila Or Whiskey

We featured Willow Avalon in our 10 Artists You Need to Know feature back in May after her 7-track debut, Stranger, had become a regularly soothing presence on the Holler stereo during those long winter months at the start of the year and she's barely been off it since.

The Georgia-born, New York-based singer followed with a string of practically perfect classic country singles as she paved the way for her full-length debut, Southern Belle Raisin’ Hell, to come in January 2025. Among them was her own playful take on all those whiskey drinkin', tequila slammin' country break-up songs we know and love as she added a little insouciant NYC cool to her mountaintop country with her instantly recognisable vibrato.

- Jof Owen

Ernest - Would If I Could

Between battling algorithms and gripping to financial bottom lines, the music business can often feel entirely removed from the artistic development process. This is why ‘Would If I Could’ is such a marvelous reminder of not just the craft of songwriting, but the cosmic journey that a song can take to reach its eventual artist.

‘Would If I Could’ was co-written decades ago by songwriting superheroes Dean Dillon and Skip Ewing, but wasn't picked up by an artist until 2023 when it was resurfaced for Apple Music’s Lost & Found project. It was first cut by country supernova Lainey Wilson before being added as a duet for Ernest’s acclaimed third studio album Nashville,Tennessee. Seeing the song's potential, Ernest recorded it again as a solo effort and shipped it to country radio in October 2024.

Nearly 30 years later, the song has finally found its rightful home. Ernest’s vulnerable vocal performance represents what makes him such an important artist in the genre today. He’s both an innovator looking towards the future, while also remaining a revered student of country music’s historic past. Mixing an array of old-school session players with a few current dynamos, he created a tender and uncrowded arrangement that allowed him the space to fully invest in the story.

He makes every breath and syllable count for tear-inducing results, and it’s pure country music magic at its finest.

- SC

Dylan Marlowe - Mid Twenties Crisis

Although it ended up as the title track to Dylan Marlowe’s debut album, the country-rocker admitted this was the last song he penned for the project.

‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’ finds Marlowe eschewing the blazing electric guitars, raucous drum patterns and HARDY-esque vocals of ‘Heaven’s Sake’ and ‘Hungover in a Deer Stand’, in favour of a beautifully intimate, honest ode to his existential woes across a noodling, somber electric guitar.

It was the Dylan Scott-assisted ‘Boys Back Home’ that announced Marlowe to country listeners, but it’s songs like ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’ that have ensured he'll stick around.

- MM

Kacey Musgraves - The Architect

An instant classic of the Texas singer’s discography, and easily the finest effort on her 2024 album, Deeper Well, 'The Architect' was something of a homecoming for Musgraves’ long-term fans.

The song reunites the Grammy-winning entertainer with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, cowriters of her breakout song 'Merry Go Round,' and echoes its existentialism and pondering of life’s big questions. The gentle, acoustic number variously marvels and frets at sweet, divine creations as simple as an apple, and how much control we really have over our paths, be they random or fate. Is there an architect?

Questioning the existence of a creator might sound like sacrilege in country music, but Musgraves is true to form in her refusal to be bound by the rules.

- HS

Waxahatchee & MJ Lenderman - Right Back To It

Waxahatchee’s ‘Right Back To It’ was the biggest number from her spring release, Tigers Blood, and for good reason, too. Despite its simplicity and maybe even because of it, the song is a masterpiece, with its mesmerizing acoustics, trilling banjo flourishes and warm harmonies.

Alt-country singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman marries his inviting croon to frontwoman Katie Crutchfield’s expressive lilt, making the intimate tune even more so.

Together, with sincere words that sing of comfort and ease, the pair paint an honest portrait of love through the years.

- AP

Noah Kahan - Forever

The funny thing about ‘Forever’ is that it feels like we’ve been living with this Noah Kahan song for well over a year now.

First teased in October of 2023, the Vermont native dangled the rose-tinted track over our heads for nearly six months before finally allowing us to stream it nonstop in February of this year. Included as one of the few new or reimagined offerings on the deluxe edition of his career-defining Stick Season record, it’s an absolute masterclass in all of the best parts of Kahan’s music to date, ebbing and flowing as he switches between a gorgeous falsetto and his honey-dipped chest voice.

Almost sickly sweet, but in no way lacking in conviction, ‘Forever’ is one of the most beautiful and utterly lovely songs of 2024 in all of its simple and highly effective glory… and the slow burn to its release didn’t hurt either.

- LF

Shaboozey - A Bar Song (Tipsy)

One of Beyoncé's COWBOY CARTER alumni, Shaboozey was undoubtedly the breakout star from the collab heavy project as ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ drove the resurgence of country music in the pop mainstream.

Released in April, he paid homage to one of the most famous samples of the last two decades (J-Kwon’s 'Tipsy’) as he weaved the original sample into a barn door rattling country classic that spent the remainder of the year smashing records everywhere it went as it took country music to the upper reaches of all-genre charts all over the world.

When the party anthem secured its 17th week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, it became the longest reigning solo No. 1 in the history of the mainstream chart, and now Shaboozey finds himself close to being inducted into the Billions Club on Spotify as he closes in on one billion streams on the platform.

After missing out on the Single of the Year award at the CMA Awards, 'A Bar Song (Tipsy)' will begin 2024 with nominations for four Grammy awards – Song of the Year, Best Country Song, Best Country Solo Performance, as well as Best Remixed Recording for the recent David Guetta version – while Shaboozey is in the running for Best New Artist at the 67th annual ceremony in February.

- JO

Post Malone & Morgan Wallen - I Had Some Help

It’s difficult to accurately assess ‘I Had Some Help’ without factoring in the context within which it arrived.

The first single that introduced fans to Post Malone’s F-1Trillion era, this was a seismic collaboration that saw mainstream music’s premier hitmaker join forces with country's biggest star, Morgan Wallen, for a blockbuster duet.

With expectations sky-high following the stop-start rollout of teasers ahead of its release, there was a period when it seemed ‘I Had Some Help’ might fold under the weight of expectation. Of course, when you have a writing team that includes the likes of Ashley Gorley, ERNEST and Charlie Handsome, and a vocal duo as formidable as Malone and Wallen, it's virtually impossible not to produce a smash hit, though.

Thanks to its lush, pop-leaning production, energising, earworm melody and lustrous star-power, ‘I Had Some Help’ shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and, unsurprisingly, remained there for six weeks.

- MM

Megan Moroney - Am I Okay?

2024 was dominated by female artists with fiercely developed brand identities fully aligned with their irresistible musical offerings. Listeners around the world connected with the sex positive quirk of Sabrina Carpenter, the diva theatrics of Chappell Roan, the whimsical carnival roots of Sierra Ferrell and the emo cowgirl sparkle of Megan Moroney.

Since her 2022 platinum breakthrough ‘Tennessee Orange,’ Moroney has demonstrated her penchant for crafting earworms that have the brutal honesty of conversations with your closest friend with a modern country twist. The title track from her sophomore album, Am I Okay?, further flexes this skill to gloriously cathartic results. The stream of conscious lyric matched with the gritty grace of her vocals imbues the unexpected dread of finally finding secure happiness with another after a long series of duds.

The charm of ‘Am I Okay?’ is that it captures the insecurities of love in such a universally relatable way. When she sings, “I think I’m really happy / I think I want to stay / Oh my God, am I okay?” we can all feel seen and loudly sigh with relief, “Same, girl. Same.”

- SC

Hannah Juanita & Riley Downing - Granny's Cutlass Supreme

The best songs are the ones you don’t expect, the ones that shouldn’t work and come out of nowhere stuffed with the kind of wackiness that AI wouldn’t even know how to dream of making.

If ever there was an antidote to algorithm-driven music, it’s Hannah Juanita’s tale of a quirky older woman shocking the neighbours as she drinks a martini in her bikini whilst washing her car and blasting Tammy Wynette. Like a perfectly mixed drink on a hot summer’s day, Juanita’s syrupy trill and Riley Downing’s deep, raspy drawl swill into a potent blend against that cool, bluesy, rocky backbeat.

Who says that buffing up your classic car in front of the neighbors is just for the boys?

- HS

Noeline Hofmann - Purple Gas

‘Purple Gas’ began to perk ears earlier this year when its creator, Canadian singer-songwriter Noeline Hofmann, was featured on Zach Bryan’s Belting Bronco series.

The appearance earned Hofmann and her harrowing prairie ballad viral acclaim and, eventually, a guest spot on Bryan’s summer release, The Great American Bar Scene, on which the two perform a staggering duet of ‘Purple Gas’.

However, no rendition trumps the Western siren’s original song about the complexities of her rural upbringing on the Southern Alberta plains. The acoustic opus is a striking number in which Hofmann’s already seasoned vocals and honed songcraft unfurl.

- AP

Ella Langley & Riley Green - You Look Like You Love Me

Whether it was Dolly & Porter, Conway & Loretta or George & Tammy, there was a time, back in the '60s and '70s – and even on into the early '80s – when the airwaves of country radio were buzzing with duets between the biggest solo stars of the day.

You could have been forgiven for thinking you'd time traveled when Ella Langley and Riley Green's slow burning, old timey classic country duet ‘you look like you love me’ came on the radio in 2024. Complete with spoken verses and a big dollop of countrypolitan romantic tension, the song surpassed even the most optimistic of expectations and took us all back to a golden age of the country duo.

Usually, a song belongs to a year, but sometimes a year belongs to a song and 2024 undoubtedly belonged to 'you look like you love me.'

After touring together on Green's Aint My Last Rodeo Tour, the pair treated fans to the first-ever live performance of the song at their final show on June 1st. Since then, it's taken them to late night US talk shows, the finale of The Voice's season 26, London's Hyde Park and a show stealing performance at the CMA Awards in November where the song won the award for Musical Event of the Year.

The RIAA Platinum-certified single recently made it all the way to No. 1 at country radio, making Langley the first female artist to top the Billboard Country Airplay Chart in 2024.

Beyond all that, no one will ever be able to say "excuse me" in a normal way again.

- JO